DIY CARDBOARD SHELF

I think I outdid myself this time. I made a cardboard shelf. I am upgrading the LO's play area and I needed a shelf to store her new toys.  The LO has started to crawl and explore her surroundings and I am not comfortable with a shelf where she could hit her head.

MAKING THE CLOSET WORK FOR YOU

How do you organize your closet? Do you take out everything, sort through your items and then put everything back only to redo everything in a week or two? For me, organizing is like doing a math word problem.  You define your problem, identify what is given and look for the solution. 

Take for instance my husbands closet.  His current "system" wasn't really working anymore.  Here is a picture of his closet.  I would not say his closet is disorganized but some things do not belong where they should be. 

B&W CONTRAST PICTURES

When my baby girl was born, I went crazy looking for ways to stimulate her (yes, the teacher in me just had to!).  Upon research, I came across black and white contrast pictures.  As newborns, babies do not have the visual acuity to see the things around them.  What stimulates them are high contrast colors, like black and white. (I have a free printable at the bottom of the page!)

ORGANIZING WINTER ACCESSORIES

About 2 weeks ago, I got a hanging shoe organizer from Target for $5 on sale.  I figured, "I'll buy it and I'll find a place for it".  And I did! It has been a very very brutal winter here in NY so our scarves, hats, gloves and earmuffs had to be easily accessible.  I re-purposed the shoe organizer to an accessory organizer --

BABY MONTESSORI PLAY AREA

All done! Loren now has her own play area! She is now 5 months old and I can no longer keep her on the sofa or let alone the bed.  She's at the stage of rolling over and going in circles.  I wanted a Montessori based play area for Loren and though her current play area is not as Montessori as I want it to be, I am very happy with the results. 

DIY FRAME FOR IKEA NYTTJA

This is a very easy DIY and so inexpensive.  One wall in our bedroom is painted dark chocolate brown but I had a hard time finding an art that would go above the bed. 

This is a before picture (what was I thinking?):

I searched Pinterest for an ideal art to go on a dark wall and in one of my searches, I came upon an Ikea RIBBA white frame with a black and white photo.  It was very simple and I knew it would complement our brown wall.  However, the cost of the RIBBA frame was $20 and I needed 2 of them, so that will be $40 and I could get a finished frame for that cost.  I stumbled upon the NYTJJA frame which was only $8 but it didn't have a mat but I figured I could make one.

I bought a poster board for $2 and made my own mat.  I then used our engagement photos to go into the frames.   The total cost for the whole project was around $22 including the pictures.

This is how the brown wall looks now.  It is not the best picture with the sun reflecting back but overall, it came out the way I wanted it to be.  Much much better actually.  The frames pop on the wall and the best thing about the frames is that its about me and my husband.