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Twitter Party Fun, Fun, Fun!!

15 Sep By 7 Comments

I love. Love. Love. Halloween.

Love it.

Did I say I love it?

So believe me when I say how incredible excited I am that all the Halloween products, parties, and fun is going on everywhere from now till October 31st. I wanted to take some time and introduce you to some fantastic sites out there to help you find the PERFECT outfit for you or your little one. One of my favorites is:

Chasing Fireflies has MATCHING family costumes, like mother and daughter sets like this one:

The founders of Chasing Fireflies Say:

We created chasing fireflies to yes, celebrate childhood but also to celebrate parenthood. Do you remember the first time you ever rode a bike? Swam across the pool? Chased fireflies? It’s even more special the second time around when you share your child’s firsts.

We’ve taken great care in selecting magical children’s products that, we hope, will charm, surprise and delight. We love each and every one and sincerely hope you will, too.

PARTY! PARTY! PARTY!

In celebration of Halloween and all the amazing costumes, Chasing Fireflies is hosting a TWITTER PARTY next to showcase all the costumes and give you a chance to beef up your Halloween and win prizes. In addition to winning, there will be some fun Halloween chat…They want to know what your kids are going to be this year, your favorite past costume, and more!

Chasing Fireflies Halloween 2011 Twitter Party*


Date: Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Time: 9:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. ET
Location: Visit TweetChat.com and enter event #wishcraft

  • Follow @ChasenFireflies
  • Hashtag #wishcraft
  • Prizes: YES! Gift cards for 6 winners
  • For more detailed information, go here!

 

What are your kids going to be for Halloween this year?

 

~Trisha

——–

*advertorial

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Grand Finale! My Nursery Reveal!

15 Jul By 58 Comments

Chase Baby Blueprint Nursery Challenge

First of all, if you missed my first three posts, make sure you catch up! This adventure has been a blast taking care of getting the old purple playroom into something that is more suitable for a newborn baby boy. I would first like to thank Chase for creating a campaign that allowed us three bloggers to take $2000 and budget it into the baby room.

Now on with the show!

Here is the room PRIOR to the makeover. It was Charlotte’s play room and was done in purple and hand painted murals (that I did) and of course, an abundance of toys…

BEFORE PICTURES

 

I have left you with many, many questions. From chair rail to murals, which route did I go? I think showing is better than telling.

So TADA!!!!!!!!!!

My Baby Boy Beach Nursery

 AFTER PICTURES

 


Is that a makeover or WHAT!~

Now let me break it down for you.

I changed the nursery first by finding the crib. Once I had a crib to center the room around, I found custom made beach bedding which set the colors and tone of where I wanted to go, which prompted a painting match. Next, I found the surfboard fan, which I was afraid would change the entire feel of the room, but has actually been a very welcome piece that keeps the room cool and brings in a wooden element.

From there it was about incorporating some elements that would bring the room more personalization. I had this vision in my head of huge pictures the baby would see when he woke up (of family) and took some pictures and had them framed in large black and whites in the wainscoting-eseque frames. Then I added open shadow box shelves and started shopping and collecting seashells and other trinkets from the local area. It was very important to me to have some artisan work from our own coastline artists, so I used the “Pensacola Pelican”, which is an icon around here, some glass pieces from the beach shops, and even a beach car that I got right at a gas station.

Now the palm tree picture on the dresser is actually from Mexico. That was all finger painting if you can believe it!

I also picked up items that you cant see very well like a seashell nightlight and pewter covers for the light switches that are engraved with beach life.

Originally I had picked up that rug randomly trying to break up some of the beige in the room and once I got it in I was unsure….I decided to keep it and feel the room out and once the mural was on the wall, I just really loved the way it all came together. Last but not least, I added a baby hamper and a small storage and sitting bench where I could put toys, stuffed animals, or right now before he can reach it, baby supplies and shoes.

Chase

Let me re-remind you:

Project Nursery:

  • Objective: Create Nursery using my Slate card with Blueprint staying on Budget
  • Budget: $2000 from Chase to accomplish the task
  • Goal: To balance it all out, get my needs (and a few wants) and use my Chase Slate card with Blueprint to keep this shopping experience painless and stress free
  • Prize: $500 and up!

Now of course Chase Slate with Blueprint has been there through it all, from the first purchase to the last, I have been able to keep control on where the majority of my money has been spent and how quickly I am paying it down.

Don’t forget that this was a nursery challenge, so its a competition (Vote for me!) and making sure I stay on task was of the utmost importance. The last thing I needed to distract me from the end goal of this room was worrying about money. Slate allowed me an easy way to pay for my purchases while Blueprint allowed me an easily accessible and easy ability to set up payment plans that fit right into that budget.

Controlling interest charges are always a big deal for anyone utilizing credit cards and knowing that I have the ability to pay exactly within my own budget based on the payment plan I choose, from Full Pay, Split Pay, or Finish It will keep any parent (or anybody) with a fantastic hold on their own personal budgets.

Again, thanks to Chase and thanks to everyone that has followed this challenge and enjoyed watching my purple playroom go to Baby boy Nursery.

Now all I need is a baby.

~Trisha

*disclosure: This post is a part of the Chase Blueprint Baby Challenge where I am in competition against 3 other bloggers showcased on Parents.com for a nursery makeover.  This is a compensated and sponsored post. To learn more about Chase, please go here. To read more about the other bloggers, go here.

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Not too boy, but oh so baby…

6 Jul By 10 Comments

(this is post #3 in the Chase Baby Blueprint Nursery Makeover Challenge)

The time is almost here for the big reveal! It seems as soon as I get one thing done, I have 10 more that need to be completed. You would think the awesomeness of having a nursery challenge would really make me just love to shop, but in reality its like when you are on a shopping spree and you cant bear to spend any money.

Sometimes I walk into stores and just walk and walk and stare and go home empty handed.

Now a few things I knew I wanted were personal touches. While I don’t have anything more than an ultrasound picture of this little one, I did want to make sure he is surrounded by family when he wakes up, so it was important for me to develop some photos of the family to display around the room. I searched through 100′s of our photos (Ok, make that 1000′s) to find some shots that were taken on the beach and had them done into 11 x 14 black and whites. Then a friend and I searched high and low for while frames and found a nearly perfect design at the craft store. No surprise there, right?

But I really love we found the paneled white wood around the frames; take a look!

I also spent a good 4 hours and 10 stores trying to find shadow box frames to sit nick nacks in. Of course Charlotte came along and added her own items for now, but I can assure you the painted shells wont be staying….

I did, however, let her add her own addition she picked up this weekend over in Florida while visiting her grandparents… Although, I’m not 100% positive why they painted a “Surfs Up” on something that says Mobile on it…we don’t have surf here!

And last, but not least, I really wanted to show off this adorable Shark robe that I have added to the wall….practical, useful, and total decor right now.

Now through it all I have been able to keep my balances straight and my budget in line with my Slate with Blueprint card, but I bet you are wondering from the last post did I do the mural? Did I add a stripe or some chair rail to the room?

I can tell you I spent every penny of the $2000 Chase gave me to budget for the nursery..and then maybe a few more. But the truth is, I completely love it. The entire idea that I had in my head, fell together, piece by piece, until it was exactly how I had envisioned it. And if you have ever been a pregnant mama, you can imagine how stressful making something come to life is.

One thing I never had to worry about failing me was logging into Blueprint and keeping track of my purchases. Because I was on a budget, every dollar counted, because it was one more dollar I could add to the decor or an upgrade of something that was just perfect.

Baby Phoenyx deserves the best, right?

I found that my Slate card was so easy to use and with Blueprint there to keep me steady and let me know exactly what I was spending, where, in what category, and budgeting the payment to my needs, I feel like from beginning to end the nursery went off without a hitch!

See you on the next post with all the pictures and touches that I did and I sincerely hope you love my “not too boy, but oh so baby” nursery choices.

~Trisha

*disclosure: This post is a part of the Chase Blueprint Baby Challenge where I am in competition against 3 other bloggers showcased on Parents.com for a nursery makeover.  This is a compensated and sponsored post. To learn more about Chase, please go here. To read more about the other bloggers, go here. To read my first post in this challenge, visit Chase Blueprint Baby Challenge: Homage to my Gulf Coast Roots.  To read my second post, please go to Nursery Makeover.

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Sneaky Peek of my Nursery…

5 Jul By 23 Comments

Big reveal coming soon!! In the mean time, catch up on my other nursery posts here:

Can you imagine what the room looks like….?

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Nursery Makeover….a soft place for the baby to sleep

30 Jun By 17 Comments

You would think that doing a nursery would be fun, exciting even. But wow! It has been hard to have one theme in your head to have ten more show up.

I had originally planned a beach theme, a beach theme that included soft sands, and soft walls, and white furniture, and I am still going that way. But I keep finding adorable items that end up more on the “tiki” or “surf theme” and while they both include water, they totally clash.

Lets start with the crib.

We finally got that crib up. Happily, the crib was the easiest thing I had to do! Even though I went with a white crib which can traditionally be thought of for a girl, I love how the lines on it are all straight across which give it more of a masculine feel. My daughters crib was all fancy and curvy, and also white, but they are so different that it still works for me and this theme.

This crib is in Vanilla and you can see that I have laid in my starfish bedding and organic cotton sheets. My only disappointment was that as much as I liked the crib, and liked the bedding, they dont seem to go together. You cant see the lovely ruffles on the bottom of the bedding set, but they seem to make a great hiding place for the cats!

Also, my daughter Charlotte has started to get into the game and surprised me with a few additions of her own on the walls, including this seahorse I found taped in the room today.

I do believe I will frame it for his room from his big sister.

Now with the walls, going from that dark purple mural to blue was quite a treat. It made my daughter cringe a bit since this was her playroom, but ultimately I do believe I achieved a beautiful wall color that is pleasant to the eye, not too soft, but also dark enough to feel like the ocean.

My thoughts from here were to put wainscoting on the walls and really give it a finished look, but would you know after buying $200 in wainscoting and chair rail, driving it home w/ the hatch up on my truck, and dragging it up the stairs, and I thought it was far too stark next to the white furniture.

So of course down the stairs, back to the truck, back to the store.

And back to square one. My new thoughts now are to perhaps get a mural. I just emailed them today to find out how long it would take to ship, but I do believe it might really finish the room behind the crib.

Right now I am considering this “Florida Skies” mural, which I believe may compliment the color and theme of the room and also give the baby something soft to look at when he wakes up:

If for some reason that would take a few months and I cant get it in time (can you believe the baby will be here in 12 weeks? EEK!), my back up plan is paint a stripe around the room to separate the top and bottom, so thats also still a possibility.

I have looked at a ton of “wave” rub ons and even sayings like this one I found, but overall making a commitment has been so hard!

One commitment I have made that I do love however is my glider. I didn’t get that with Charlotte, so I wanted to make sure I had a place to rock the baby for the middle of the night feedings.  I absolutely fell in love with this Glider in this soft cream and matching ottoman, where I can rock or kick my feet up. It just feels so lush and when I sit on it I can almost imagine looking out over the Ocean.

Come to think of it, that reminds me, I totally have to find some ocean sounds to play!

From this point forward, what I have to do is decide between a mural or stripes, or even leaving those blue walls the way they are. I have to get in some of my left over furniture like Charlotte’s old nursery dresser and start fixing up some shelves. I also need to clean out the excess toys from the closet and figure out some real storage.

In short…I have to do everything still!

Through it all, the Chase Slate card has been keeping my purchases straight and I can track them on Blueprint anytime I need to which gives me peace of mind and the ability to control my budget each month. Of course having the Chase card with Blueprint makes it easy with all those upcoming purchases as well. I can easily find out what categories my money is being spent in, set up payment plans to make it easy to pay my debt down or off, and its one less thing on my mind with all these nursery designs and plans.

Signing in has been so easy. Finding out my balance, knowing what the upcoming bill will be based on how I want to pay, and using all the budgeting tools has made this project extremely low key as far as stress is concerned for me.

Don’t forget, this is a challenge! The Blueprint Baby Challenge! The Blueprint Baby Challenge is where three bloggers, including myself, are competing to redesign a room in our house into a nursery to win up to $3000 with our amazing designs. Chase has given us $2000 in order to complete this makeover task as well. So not only do I have to make this nursery perfect for my little one, goodness knows he will be the last, but I have to edge those other mommies beautiful designs out to win.

The Pressure! The Pressure!

I cant wait to share the finished product…when it’s finished that is!

~Trisha

*disclosure: This post is a part of the Chase Blueprint Baby Challenge where I am in competition against 3 other bloggers showcased on Parents.com for a nursery makeover.  This is a compensated and sponsored post. To learn more about Chase, please go here. To read more about the other bloggers, go here. To read my first post in this challenge, visit Chase Blueprint Baby Challenge: Homage to my Gulf Coast Roots.

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MomDot in Parents Magazine!

26 Jun By 20 Comments

This month (July) in Parents Magazine, you can see Charlotte and I (and two other bloggers) on page 16. We are competing in the Blueprint Baby Nursery Challenge.

My first post for the nursery challenge is here, but please come back over the next few weeks to watch it all unfold! My nursery is all done and I am itching to share the final shots…ack! I really love it to be honest.

I am trying to be patient and share on schedule, but its soooo hard.

This is my first national magazine publish with my blog name, so that was also a very cool thing to share with Baby Phoenyx when he gets older. Of course…its not Charlotte’s.

 

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Nursery Makeover Challenge: Homage to My Gulf Coast Roots

23 Jun By 29 Comments

Chase Blueprint Baby Challenge

The Baby

When I first found out I was pregnant, the panic set in. I had fully intended on being a mother of 1. A mother of one had two parents against one child. It’s completely brilliant! A mother of 1 older child had her own bath time, freedom to shop alone, and enough money to (probably) get her off to college. The swirl of insanity swept into my brain and it took a few months to gather my wits and realize that I had done this once.

And survived.

Not only that, but having a baby is actually fun. Aside from the midnight, 3 am, and 6am feedings, gas buildup, and endless diapers, I was going to get a chance to go shopping for baby stuff, develop a brand new nursery, and get a second chance to raise a child that might possibly eat broccoli without gagging. Ooh, and I got that added benefit of using the basket underneath the stroller for a purse.

Total parenting plus there.

Having a 6.5 year old does present its challenges and even more so when its a girl. I had far gotten rid of any thing under the category of “baby”, including the crib, all the toys, and clothing. Just as Murphys Law would have it, I actually had just sold my daughters crib in a farewell moment during a yard sell just this past summer.

I keep imagining it in all its glory at someone else’s house.

C’est La Vie.

As luck would have it, I was selected to participate in a nursery makeover, or for me, a nursery re-do in its entirety, and along with two other bloggers, had a challenge to stay in budget while using my Slate card with Blueprint and create a baby room I was proud of.

Pregnancy got better! I mean, what woman over the age of 6 doesn’t like shopping, am I right?

The Goal

Project Nursery:

Objective: Create Nursery using my Slate card with Blueprint staying on Budget

Budget: $2000 from Chase (for me, that means really watching my pennies! remember, I need EVERYTHING for my new baby!)

Goal: To balance it all out, get my needs (and a few wants) and use my Chase Slate card with Blueprint to keep this shopping experience painless and stress free

Prize: $500 and up!

Although I was getting a chance to work with Chase as a blogger, it most definitely wasn’t my first experience as a consumer. We proudly finance our home mortgage and carry another credit card with Chase, so I was anxious to check out what made the Slate card with Blueprint a good resource to help organize my finances. Blueprint is a way I can pick how I want my purchases paid off and is already on my card – for free!

Honestly, when you are planning for baby that’s really what it comes down to. Budget. What must you get, what do you want, and how do you balance those two differences and keep it reasonable. Lucky for me, Chase Slate and Blueprint has made it incredibly easy.

Here, I’ll show you!

Once you have your Slate card, you can login to your Chase account and go to Blueprint. From there, you can choose to full pay, split, finish paying and even track where your money is going.

(the * icon is mine to show you more!)

For example, in our household when it comes down to larger items, like bedding, I definitely need an extra month or two to cover those.

Here you can see I set up one of my larger purchases thus far, a paddle fan, into two payments. It automatically lets me know my payment and my estimated end date so I can see my progress:

Once I realized how easy this was and how little I needed even math skills to accomplish, I mentioned it to a neighbor. Her exact response was “We LOVE blueprint!” Being able to plan out exactly where my money is, under what categories I am making my purchases and how they are being paid off, has been a huge time savor and stress reducer to this pregnant mom. And the benefit of full pay is that you don’t have to pay interest on your purchases, even when you carry a balance.

The Nursery

Once I found out that I was having a boy, my mind started to go to work. In a world of pink princess and tiaras, I wasn’t 100% sure how to translate over to cars, trucks, and trains. In fact I wasn’t entirely sure if that kind of nursery was actually “me” and since Jr over here wouldn’t get an opinion for a few more years, I had to make sure it was something we both could live with. After some careful thinking, I decided to play homage to my Gulf Coast roots and create a beach nursery for my son. I started with a surfboard ceiling fan from Lowes and got a soft grey-blue paint – Stormy Cove – for the walls. No, it may not be overly traditional, or even often thought of often when it comes to baby rooms, but I really wanted the challenge of finding something unique and different for our house and this room. On a more traditional note, I chose a soft glider from Hayneedle that’ll be perfect for nursing the baby. And some fabulous custom bedding – one of a kind and handmade right from Etsy.

Here is a sneak peek:

That’s about it for now. I look forward to sharing my story back into babyhood with everyone and hope along the way it inspires you on your own pregnancy journey.

~Trisha

*disclosure: This post is a part of the Chase Blueprint Baby Challenge where I am in competition against 3 other bloggers showcased on Parents.com for a nursery makeover. This is a compensated and sponsored post. To learn more about Chase, please go here. To read more about the other bloggers, go here.

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101 Days to Baby…which room should be the nursery?

11 May By 11 Comments

I think when you are trying to figure out what theme to do a nursery in, part of that really depends on what colors you ultimately go with and what room you start to even design in. For us, we first had to evaluate the space in our home.

What room would be his?

We live in a two story home, with all the bedrooms upstairs, and luckily have 4 bedrooms and a small family of 3, so we didn’t need to worry about selling or doubling up. As all “first borns”, my family just likes to spread out and do its own thing on occasion so we were careful when purchasing to have some space. We currently use a master room, Charlotte has her own room, we have a play room, and we also have a guest room.

Which is a joke cause we have had “guests” like 4 times in 3 years.

The obvious choice would be to take down the guest room and make that the nursery, but its the smallest room in the house and has the absolute worst circulation. Personally I don’t like sleeping in there, so I didn’t want to put a new born in there either.

That meant it came down to

A) The Playroom

or

B) Charlotte’s room

Charlotte’s room is the room right off the master and considering the playroom is actually larger (my husband would disagree that her room is larger, but I do not believe it is, her furniture is just more organized than the insanity of the playroom), one thought would be to remove her from her room and put the baby closest to our room. The downside to that is she has that fabulous $1000 mural on her wall, customized with her name, and is  fit for a wall in her bedroom.

So the playroom it is.

Now the playroom itself had been muraled, but hand muraled by Chris and I, and we were all very sad to make that decision as well.

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None more sad than Charlotte herself whom believes she was losing what she deemed as hers. I suppose we all have to make sacrifices and this is a good start for her. Not to mention she can forever hold it over her brothers head that she gave up a room for him, so we are actually helping her out in some sort of sibling rivalry fashion. I also dont imagine most homes have the luxury of playrooms on top of bedrooms, so she can consider herself very lucky thus far.

The main logistical problem at that point now was……where the heck do all the TOYS from that room go.

Right now…they have all been dragged into the upstairs living room…..and are in utter complete and disorganized chaos. I am trying to decide if I should try to coordinate some of this into Charlotte’s room, get rid of it, take down the “guest” room as the playroom, or convert this secondary living space TO a play space.

Right now the baby does have a room.

The toys do not have a room.

Its a start….right??!?

 

~Trisha

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