By the Calendar.

Can we pause time so I can at least fill out my calendar for July?!?

This has been like this for almost 5 months now.

A reminder of how fast time has gone by.

If only time would go by as slow as my procrastination calendar.

It would be so wonderful.

How is it that my baby is now less than a month away from turning one?!

Sunday she turned 11 months.

I went to my friend's wedding on Saturday and she looked so big compared to my old roomie's baby.

When did she get so big?!

She is the youngest in our group of friends we have here in NH- seeing her next to a 6 week old put it into a new perspective of how she's really not a baby anymore.

So as time continues to fly by, I continue to keep busy.

I'm getting things together for the big first birthday.

My little photography business has been much busier than I ever expected!

And I recently started selling Scentsy too!

And of course, I'm always busy capturing pictures of my sweet girl too!

And precious moments with her friends

So as badly as I want time to stand still.

As badly as I wish time really did line up with my calendar.

It doesn't. 

Booo.

So I continue to find the balance of being busy and enjoying each moment because it goes way too fast. 

That's Pin-tastic: Livingroom Storage

Linking with ILYMTC for

{formerly known as Project Pinterest}

I've been wanting a storage area in the living room for a bunch of Adalyn's toys.

Thankfully her bedroom right now is big enough that most of her toys are in her room and we spend a lot of time in there, but we do  spend time in the living room and it's nice to have toys down there too.

But it's not so nice when you have to see all of them.

So here's my project for the week:

I found this DIY dresser to storage unit for the living room and I knew I had to give it a try.

It took a little while for me to find the perfect dresser {and by "a little while" I mean I'm so impatient and when I get something in my head I need to do it n.o.w. so I didn't search high and low for the perfect dresser, but it took a couple days}.
 I found one that would work perfectly on craigslist for $15.

Originally I was planning on using a dresser I already had, but after further inspection it wasn't real wood, it had runners for the drawers and no bottom area for me to put the baskets on.
 Could I have made it work? 
Of course. 
But it would have been a lot of extra work and to be honest, I was lucky enough if I finished this project. 
To be really really honest, I'm lucky enough if I can even get the laundry washed, folded and put away...within a week of doing it. But that's beside the point...

So I found this perfect dresser. 
It was real wood. 
It was a simple style. 
I liked that it had "legs" to give it a not quite dresser feel. 
It was pretty old. 
And dirty. 
And smelled. 
But it was $15. 
And it was just was I needed.

So I put on the official painting attire

Gathered up the key ingredients for a makeover

Gave it a quick cleaning, took out the drawers and the hardware and primed it. 

Impatiently waited for that to dry and sprayed on my first coat.

Followed by an extremely sore/numb finger and wrist. 

Impatiently waited for coat number 2.

Impatiently waited to bring it into the house. 

Smudged a few spots. 

Retouched the smudged spots. 

Impatiently waited some more. 

Went out to buy baskets to kill some time while they dried and obviously it was needed to complete the look anyways, so it was a win-win. 

Found the perfect baskets. 

Retouched a few more spots.

Impatiently waited and may or may not have brought it into the house with a few not 100% dry spots. 

Mr. B sawed off the the middle wood piece so the baskets could lie flat. 

This was something I could've done, but why would I go through all of that when my wrist is now limp and I have a wonderful, talented husband to help me out??
 Oh yeah and that fact that I'm almost positive it would've taken me hours to saw through the glue and little nails.
 Possibly days. 

Now, this project isn't 100% complete. 
But complete enough that if I don't blog about it now, I never will. 

I still need to buy hardware, I bought some but Mr. B wasn't a fan. So for now it is what it is. And knowing how I am with projects I will be surprised if I manage to get new hardware on there before Christmas.
 Or ever. 

Seriously.

I also didn't get to finish decorating like I wanted {like I have "pinned"}, but for now it's what I have and it will do. 

I love how it turned out. 
It's just what I wanted. 
I really wanted a place to decorate that Adalyn couldn't reach and also to have a place to put a bunch of the little toys and this allows for both! 
The baskets make for easy clean ups too! 

And if you're wondering if that's a Scentsy warmer in the center....why yes it is! 

Thanks for asking!

I am now a consultant! I became one because I love their products and when my house smells delicious and I wanted others to know about it too. 

If you're interested, check out my website or leave a comment.

Anyways back to the project. 
Here it is in a nutshell:

I'm excited to have a faux mantel.
It's the little things in life...

Guess What??

I got to photograph the cutest boy making the cutest pregnancy announcement.

 We tried to get him to hold the sign like a few pictures that had been posted on Pinterest.

But...

A. An 18 month old is going to what they want to do. End of discussion. 

B. There should be warnings on Pinterest that say "Poses in real life are much more difficult to achieve than they appear".

So it was onto Plan B. I brought some chalk and thought he would like to draw with it.

Photographer: 1

Baby: .5

Then I just add the text through ipiccy.

{better than picnik, similar to picmonkey. I prefer making collages with ipiccy though}

After many chalkboard failures with Adalyn, I've learned that it's easiest to use a blank chalkboard and just add text later.

You don't have to worry about your handwriting or it smudging

and

you have a much higher percentage of getting a good pose. 

Trust me. 

Here are some other fun ones from the shoot: 

She also wanted to have a little guessing game after her announcement on facebook so there's this cute one, too:

Again, the perk to adding text later!

Congrats to the O. Family!! 

Other pictures can be seen at 

Captured.photography

on facebook!