"I Just Need Some Space"

Happy Halloween and Happy Friday!  I am sure you are familiar with Meaghan Trainor's catchy song of the summer "All About That Bass."  But have you seen the parody "I Just Need Some Space" by mama blogger Deva Dalporto?  I have watched most of her videos, but this one is my favorite.  The video is clean enough for your kids to watch with you... again and again.  I love it when the backup singers say "Not the closet.  Not the closet."  My sister used to call me from her closet when her boys were toddlers.  Also, my girls constantly climb the staircase from the outside of the spindles.  Do yours?  Hilarious! 

The patio is coming along!  David built a sectional for us!  I looked all around and showed him options, and he decided he would rather build it himself.  It was a labor of love, but it turned out great.  The cool thing is that the legs are recycled from our daughter's first playhouse.  We ordered the cushions from Target online. 

He got really creative and crafted it so that one of the sections will lay out into a bed.  He might hang a mosquito net and sleep out there sometimes.  I told him I would bring him coffee in the morning.  Now that he has all of the woodworking tools and skills, I see a lot of other projects in his future :) 

Next, I need to paint and distress the sectional and coffee table.  Also, I found this really cool wreath at an antique store.  Won't it look great with a mirror mounted inside? 

Must look for bar stools...

The Magic of Stitch Witchery!  Have you ever heard of this stuff?  It has probably been around for years, but I didn't know about it until recently. Like every other little girl in America, my daughters are going to be Elsa and Anna for Halloween.  When I mentioned to a friend that I needed to hem the Anna dress, she suggested that I just use stitch witchery.  I didn't even have to go to the fabric store, because I found it at Wal-Mart.

It's so simple.  Put the iron on the wool setting.  Put the strip in between the fabric then lay a damp washcloth on top.  Hold the iron on the hem for 10 seconds then flip over and repeat the same on the other side.  I was concerned that the polyester fabric might melt under the iron, but it didn't!  Thirty minutes later I was done, and there is plenty leftover to stick in the drawer for next time :)

The patio under our deck was a damp, shady area and prone to mildew.  We never used it, except to store our daughter's old playground after we bought her a new one.  We wanted to make better use of the space and decided to transform it into an outdoor living area.  We hired Hilltop Home Repair to install an aluminum under decking and were very pleased with the results.  Here's the ceiling before:

This is the ceiling during installation:

 

Extra flashing was added on the upper deck level to prevent any leaks.  The ceiling is complete and new ceiling fans were installed.

 

We should stay nice and dry on the patio now.  Next, David is building a sectional couch for the area.  It is a work in progress...

Here's an EASY craft idea for your children: make a dream catcher!  We cut the middle out of a paper plate and my daughter colored the edges.  She chose various ribbons from my gift wrapping supplies and glued them to the back of the plate.  The feathers are from a boa we had in the playroom (if you have one, you could probably just pick some feathers up off the floor!).  Voila!  Easy dream catcher.  Would be a fun activity for a playdate :)