xoxo Claire

“Cute’s good. But cute only lasts for so long, and then it’s, ‘Who are you as a person?’ Don’t look at the bankbook or the title. Look at the heart. Look at the soul.” – Michelle Obama

Those words were spoken about finding a partner and yet, as I’m constantly thinking about how to raise my daughter into the strong, smart, independent woman I know she can be, I hope that message is something she’ll one day believe about herself. No matter what she has or what she chooses to do, I hope she’ll love herself for what is already in her heart. I know I sure do.

At the same time, she is pretty darn cute and that never hurts either. ;)

Happy Valentine’s Day!

P.S. Remember my Valentine’s post last year? Unbeknownst to all of you, we had just found out I was expecting! I was pretty much bursting with love…and still am. :)

Claire’s Nursery

Claire celebrated her 3 month birthday on Friday so it seems about time that I finally share some photos of her nursery! I love love love this room. It’s the first time I really got to start a room from scratch and I had a ton of fun doing it. We painted the room grey the year before Claire was born and I promised Pete when we did it that I would not make him repaint if we had a baby. I knew he was worried that if we had a girl it would be right back to pink! But I had at least a tentative color scheme for a girl or a boy.

Once we found out we were having a girl, I started honing in on the design. I never had a theme in mind, just colors. With grey on the walls I knew I wanted to bring in pink, white, and one more accent color. I just wasn’t sure what that accent color was going to be or what shades. Stay pale and serene? Or more bright and bold? After lots of pinterest-ing, I settled on something sort of in between and teal as my other color. Pretty and girly while still being fun. At least I think so!

Seriously, I love everything about her room and can’t pick favorites.

Claire already has lots of toys and books! The dolls and cradle off on the left were all actually mine though.

I love everything about that little side table right now but I’d be lying if I said it usually looked like that. Usually it’s covered in books, my cell phone (for tracking sleep and eating patterns), and my water. But this was much prettier to photograph! How cute is the little pacifier charm my Aunt gave Claire? Love it. And her ruffly curtains. Hopefully she’ll like pink as she gets older since I thought these would be very pretty even in a bigger girl’s room.

Anthropologie knobs for a little extra sparkle and fun texture on the ottoman.

I was really excited to find these prints on Etsy. Such cute, fun characters.

But, of course, my very favorite part of the room is the beautiful little girl who sleeps there. :)

Sources

Crib: DaVinci Jenny Lind – it was out of stock everywhere when I looked and (strangely, enough) Overtstock.com actually got it back in stock first!

Dresser: Ikea Hemnes – I wanted to buy an old one and paint it but luckily realized my limitations.

Dresser Knobs: Anthroplogie – though it looks like the exact ones are no longer available.

Curtains: Land of Nod – but no longer available

Rug: Urban Outfitters

Glider: Room & Board – little bit of a splurge but we figure we’ll use this in another room later!

Ottoman: CB2

Bookshelf: IKEA Expedit

Prints (above dresser): trafalgarssquare on Etsy

“Be Real” artwork: Target

Wall graphics: Blik Iron Vines

DIY Ornaments – 2012

For this year’s holiday ornament I decided to re-create an old favorite of mine. It’s the little snowman labeled “c.” below that I first posted about here.

I think my Grandma made the original. As a note to self, I probably should not try to re-create things my Grandma made. She’s pretty much a nicer Martha Stewart with a few more children, less time spent in prison, and no bazillion dollar company to pass down to us (bummer on that last one.) But point being, everything she makes is perfect.

With the baby taking up much of my time this year I knew I’d need something I could get done easily – and could easily start and stop as she needed me – because I wanted a whole bunch of them.

You should be able to buy the mini clothespins at your local craft store but they were sold out at mine so I found them on Amazon. I decided to make the scarf out of yarn to add some dimension which I thought was fun.

The other bonus to the snowmen (as compared to the previous years’ ornaments) is that I could mail them since I wasn’t sure I’d see everyone in time. With the exception of actually going to the post office (one of my least favorite chores), I love mailing things. Just one more chance for fun wrapping! I went for untraditional colors based on these pretty pink bubble mailers and free holiday printables.

Yay! Crafting makes me happy and even though it was a little trickier to plan and execute this year I’m glad I was able to keep the tradition alive.

{In case you missed the previous years’ ornaments: 2010 and 2011}

It’s a GIRL!

We’re so excited. I’ve been telling Pete all day how crazy it is. I would have felt and said the exact same things if it was a boy. We are already so in love with this little person. My heart is full and my mind is amazed at everything that science can do – from the division of cells that created this whole new life to the ultrasound technology that allowed us to see her today. So incredible. And I am so grateful.

Farmers’ Market Flowers

I’m so excited that the Oak Park Farmers’ Market opened for the season today. Not a whole lot in the way of fruits and veggies here in Illinois/Wisconsin just yet (with the exception of asparagus – everyone had that!) but there were lots of fresh cut flowers, plants, and herbs. I’m hoping to do a better job of farmers’ market shopping this year (my menu/list making tendencies make it hard for me to just buy what looks good and then figure out what to do with it) but, in the meantime, I’ll be enjoying all my new flowers.

I hope everyone’s having a lovely weekend!

You are what you wear?

So, I don’t normally wear perfume because the wrong ones (and this is most of them) give me headaches. However, I had some Ulta rewards points about to expire so I figured that was as good excuse as any to try a new one. After walking through the aisles and getting overwhelmed, I settled on Vera Wang’s Preppy Princess. I promise it was not because of the name or the bottle.

I was wondering how to describe the scent (which I do really like!) and this is what I learned: Vera Wang Preppy Princess is a luscious, fruity scent that blends succulent red berries and honeysuckle with sensual woods. It’s a style that takes you to a place where downtown meets uptown: at once classic, fashionable, and always ready to impress. It’s your life, rule the world!

I think I might take those last two sentences and make them my new motto. =)

Pretty Colored Doilies

I decided to experiment last weekend with some pastel colored doilies a la Martha Stewart and I’m totally in love. These are all small 4-inch doilies that I plan on using as gift tags. However, I have another project in mind so I purchased these and you may be seeing more soon!

Does anyone have a favorite color? I thought mine might be the purple since the pink looked more red when they first came out. However, now I can’t decide between any of them!

30 Before 30: Item Number 3

I get to cross another item off of my 30 Before 30 list! Item number 3 – Enter at least one photo “contest.”

Last week’s PW Photography Assignment was Flowers. I love flowers. I take a lot of pictures of flowers. Seemed like a good place to start. Truthfully though, I had a little bit of an internal debate about whether this one should count or whether I should keep it on the list to force myself to do another one. It almost seemed too easy and, more importantly, I know the photos submitted aren’t exactly perfect. When I wrote this on my list it was more because I’d really love to have one GREAT image this year that I’d be happy to submit somewhere. However, I concluded that winning wasn’t actually the point and at this stage the small act of just putting myself out there (and realizing terrible things don’t happen) is really where I need to be. So I did it and I’m counting it!

(As a sidenote, even though the images were submitted through Flickr, I’m not going to cross that one off of my list yet because I didn’t upload with any kind of plan in mind for what I’m doing. So I’ll get to that one later.)

Ah, summer

It’s been a busy summer but one that’s involved dinner parties and sangria, so no complaints from me.

Love

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, here are my new pink sunglasses which I love very much.