The Fun Part of Pregnancy!

Juggling pregnancy, a challenging group of students, and trying to enjoy some semblance of a life on the weekends (in between migraines... boo migraines) has left this poor blog ignored and neglected. At least when I look back on this period of time I'll have Instagram and my pregnancy journal to reflect on.

And don't let this statement come across as ungrateful because I will suffer with a migraine every day if it leads to delivering a healthy baby- but pregnancy is hard. There are times when I wish I could just hug my mama tight and thank her over and over because she went through this with two babies on board. Holy moly. I am so thankful and overjoyed and blessed and humbled and tickled to death to be carrying a baby that Josh and I created who God is knitting together in my belly as we speak.

All of those same adjectives also describe our excitement over finding out this little squishy one is a boy. :)

 I think this image sums it up pretty well:

Despite the less-than-glamorous side of pregnancy, I'm so very thrilled to get to the fun part of pregnancy (in my opinion at least): PLANNING A NURSERY!!!!!

Anyone who follows me on Pinterest knows I have had a board with nursery ideas for a while in anticipation of starting a family; not really caring how God planned to bring that about, just knowing that He would. :) Now that our goose is slightly over halfway cooked in there, we are fully aware the holidays are going to have the rest of this pregnancy flying by! As such the Atkins household is in full nesting mode preparing for our sweet boy to join our family.

I thought I would take some time to put a little mood board of sorts together so you guys can see my inspiration and ideas and maybe even offer some of your own! I got a sample of paint this weekend at our local Ace Hardware and was lucky enough to hit the nail on the head- I was looking for a gray that was muddy and had brown/beige undertones rather than blue:

Paint color: Tabby Cat Gray from Valspar.
Curtains: Ikea
Rug: Rugs-Direct
Crib & Dresser: Babyletto Hudson in Brown- Target.com
Velvet Baby Doe Blanket: Berkshire Blanket (previously Babies R Us)
Recliner: Best Chairs TRYP
Throw Pillow: Target.com
Mushroom Nightlight: Amazon.com
Tree Bookshelf: Pinterest (original source unknown)
Twig Initial Inspiration: Hello Little House
Wooden Arrows Wall Art: Cherished Bliss
Deer Silhouette: All Thyme Favorite
Katie Daisy Prints: The Wheatfield Etsy Shop

Hopefully this inspiration will come together to create a fun room for our little guy to grow up in!

Update- See the actual nursery reveal here!

Until next time,
-A

Summah To Do

Summer vacation is finally here!!!! 

Along with a little extra sleep, taking my time eating lunch, spending quality time with people I care about, and actually going to the bathroom whenever I want, I always get excited over the prospect of new projects around the house!

On deck for summah time we have (along with some photos for inspiration)-

*FINALLY painting the kitchen cabinets! I'm so ready for this y'all.

source

*Doing a switcharoo with the office/spare/bonus room. I need more sewing/crafting space and the current office will become a lovely man cave/dog room. We have a dark blue/teal-ish paint to use that I would love to use and incorporate Josh's love for all things Clemson with some bold orange accents, and I'm seeing it paired with some bold reds and neutral textures for my craft/office space. {yeesh, backslashing much here?!}

office space. source

man cave. source

*Painting the bonus room, man cave, & spare bedroom

office space in bonus room. source

man cave. source

spare bedroom. source

*Painting our deck using Behr's new line of deck over paint (follow the link for a great review!)

Behr deck over paint. source

*Possibly building some furniture for our living room & kitchen

ana white coffee table. source

ana white farmhouse table. source

 So that's the plan. You know what they say about plans... but it will be fun to see how everything plays out!

What are you up to this summer?

-A

Life Lately

I've had a bunch of little things I have wanted to post about lately, but the motivation to do a bunch of separate posts is nonexistent so I'm just going to cram them all into one and give you lots of pictures to sum up life lately. :)


Here we go!

First up are two little thrifting makeovers: a little $2 mail box and $4 bread box.

 A good scrub, a few coats of white spray paint, and some tlc and this box has helped cut the mail clutter and finish off our little "command center".

Before- hook missing

Before

I used a tiny screwdriver to remove the hardware on the box.

I would have preferred wood filler to even out the missing hook, but this is what we had.

Let it dry, lightly sanded it- all better!

A few coats of spray white paint & primer in one.

After!

Love our command center!

A good scrub, some white spray paint, and two new swanky knobs and the bread box was brought back to life! We love this thing and it is now one of my favorite things about our kitchen.

before

plain jane knobs

Hello gorgeous!

Knobs came from Lowe's

 On May 11th of this year I got to help host a baby shower for a friend I have had since Preschool! She and her hubs welcomed a sweet baby boy to this world on 05/24 and I loved being able to help get them ready!

Outside. Before the rain. :(

Sweet little favors my twinsie made!

My gift- a diaper wreath!

About the diaper wreath- it was so easy! A little time consuming, but will be my go to gift for baby showers now. :) The diapers are tied with balloon ribbon around a duct taped pool noodle (we couldn't find a wreath form large enough and the noodle was only $1!) and I got the idea to make a little pea pod out of the washcloths from Pinterest. Everything is tied on except for the blue ribbon that came with a sticky tag and I did have to glue gun the "G" in place.

floating tea lights, lime slices, baby's breath, clear vases and blue mason jars were easy and beautiful decor!

I had to take the opportunity to snag a picture with mah man. We don't take enough together!

Y'ALL! My twinsie and brother in law made this beautiful cake! It looked and tasted incredible!

 We have lots more babies in our deck garden now!!! Can't wait to try out zucchini lasagna and eggplant parmesan and pickling cucumbers- and don't even get me started on the tomato sandwiches!

Baby zuchinni

Our better boys are growing like weeds!

Teeny baby green pepper

Lots of baby cherry tomatoes!

All cucumber vines on deck! :P

sweet williams flowers on the left, basil in the middle, stevia on the right. love my herb box!

Finally, I can't wait to spend a few summer days being lazy with these two-

Such a hard life being spoiled rotten

Until next time,
-A

Reminders, Day Brighteners

Organized My Chaos

I don't know why, but I always like to start my stories off with the word "So." I think it's my attempt at convincing the poor soul I've wrangled into conversation that the story is life changing and epic. 

So, (you see what I did there?) one day over Christmas break I told Josh I was tired of how our house was so disorganized. Namely, our bathroom storage and closet storage. When I moved in I used our linen closet, bathroom closet, and bathroom cabinets as various 'shove stuff that doesn't have anywhere to go' spots. You know things are disorganized when the Advil is hanging out next to the Lysol toilet cleaner. Just keepin' it real, folks.

Anyway- this a little bit of what we were working with:

linen closet at the end of the hallway.

bottom half of master bathroom closet

top half of master bathroom closet

medicine & cleaning supplies. for shame. master bathroom cabinets.

master bathroom cabinets

I'd had enough of this mess. And when you've had enough of anything, there's only one place to go: Dollar Tree. I knew they carried lots of baskets and such because they are where I run when I need organization stuff for my classroom. Kids demolish anything, cheap or expensive, so I love having what I need for a very replaceable price.

When I got to Dollar Tree the Heavens opened and angels sang: They had brought in shelves upon shelves of buckets and baskets and bins (oh my!) to replace all of the Christmas decor. So naturally I wiped the drool from my chin and filled up my cart.

the picture I sent my husband. he knew better than to question my madness.

 Once I got home I started with the linen closet (the smallest/easiest) in the hallway. I took everything out and laid it on my bed. I sorted through all the items making piles to put back, donate, and trash. When all my schtuff was grouped I grabbed a few of the bins and further categorized the 'put back' things into handtowels/washcloths for the spare bathroom, extra home decor, and misc items. I then arranged the baskets and bins, found I had the room in the bottom to stash some cleaning appliances (woot!), and then stepped back to admire my work.

before. blech

after. gorjuss. and the vacuum fits!

I was so excited with those results I carried on (my wayward, sonnn) and used the same process on the master bathroom closet:

before. guh-rosss

after. do you hear angels? i hear angels.

Aaaaand the master bathroom cabinets:

before. dane-juh-russ medicine/cleaning chemicals mess

(lady products are behind the left door)after. medicine is in the closet now. huzzah!

before. random stuffs.

after. soaps in the basket. hardware, paint, etc on the right

I was on such an organizational high after all of this that I pushed forward (my back was killing me with all the bending and squatting and carrying back and forth. I cared not!) and cleaned out/organized the spare bathroom cabinet and the cabinet under the kitchen sink. I forgot to take pictures of those, but they had very similar yucky befores/beautiful afters. :)

Finally, I took care of one last problem. I was oh. so. tired. of wet towels ending up on our bed, in the floor, and hanging over the shower curtain. Both Josh and I will use a bath towel a few times before tossing it in the laundry (you're clean when you dry off from a shower, so why only use it once?) so I thought and thought until I came across this pin and was inspired:

source

We've had a towel bar in our bathroom since we moved in and the only purpose it has served is to hold a decorative towel. I decided it was fired.

Cute, but not working for us.

It did not want to go quietly. I had to google how to remove a towel bar that doesn't have outside screws. This webpage helped me a lot. Josh had to bring home his allen wrenches and I had to use the teeniest, tiniest one! I unscrewed the itty bitty set screw-

Which left me with this-

So then I popped that off with a flat head screwdriver (my PINK one! holla!)-

Which left me with this-

owner before us used a variety of screws. very frankensteinish.

So then I unscrewed the Frankenstein screws and had this-

Which I covered with spackle and then smoothed and painted-

After doing that process with both sides, painting, and allowing time to dry, I mounted two coat hooks I got at Target for a couple bucks.

Then I finished them off by adding the adorable little round frames (Hobby Lobby 50% off). To do the letters of our names I sprayed some cardstock with chalkboard spray paint and free handed the 'a' and 'j' with a sharpened piece of chalk.

Now we have a designated spot for our towels and they are easy to grab from the shower and can hang there and dry after being used. Functional and so pretty! Love!

Organizing those spaces of your home that get so easily cluttered really help keep stress levels down and allow you to put more time and energy into things that matter a lot more!

Until next time,
-A