Today is the start of a new MPMK series highlighting doable ways to simplify your life. It was born from my desire to share the many basic, yet inspired, tidbits I find around the web. I truly believe it's the little things that make life great and I'm excited to start talking with you about exactly that on a regular basis. I hope you enjoy this inaugural collection! A lovely little tutorial on Kokedama, a Japanese practice of creating hanging gardens that was originally an … [Read more...]
Good Coffee
Happy memorial day weekend! How are you spending your day off? The family and I are working outside on the yard as much as possible. Now that summer is officially here, I wanted to quickly pop in and share my new favorite summer drink - iced coffee via the Keurig. I know the newest version of the Keurig has an iced coffee setting but mine doesn't and, honestly, even if it did I probably couldn't be bothered to think far enough ahead to buy the special iced coffee k-cups. Instead I go … [Read more...]
Check those Christmas Thank You Notes Off Your To-Do List
Taking a break from the blog's birthday celebration today to share these simple DIY photo thank you notes. I've seen fill-in-the-blank cards like these all over the web. While they certainly looked like they'd cut our note writing time in half, they also seemed a bit impersonal. Not that I think any of our friends and family are expecting a full length letter from my tots - maybe just more than three or four words. My solution was to add a photo of the kids playing with each … [Read more...]
DIY Reusable To-Do List
Today I'm sharing with you the full post of an organizational DIY I did over at U-Create a while back. Hopefully it'll get you moving in the right (orderly) direction. You'll only need five minutes and three simple items: a stack of colorful sticky notes, a marker, and a shadow box. I got my shadow box from Ikea (it measures 19.5" square) but, as I'm sure you all know, they can be found at any local craft store. Start by labeling your top row of sticky notes. I used the headings: … [Read more...]
DIY: Postcard Thank You Notes
Today's my last post on S's first birthday bash. You might remember I mentioned doing a short photo shoot while we were at the park that day. I saw this photo on pinterest and loved the idea of using the extra large balloons and a basket from home to mimic a hot air balloon. Of course, it ended up being pretty close to nap time when we finally got around to taking the pics so I didn't have much setup time. I'm also far from a professional photographer. Nevertheless, I … [Read more...]
Everything You Need to Know to Start Composting
Now that our trash diet is well underway, I wanted to share with you what I've learned about composting. This is the part of the program I was most excited about because I figured it would be an easy way to immediately start reducing our waste. But before I get ahead of myself, let me give you a quick primer on how exactly it works. See below for a visual step-by step guide: No really - that's it! I have no idea why it took me so long to jump on the composting … [Read more...]
How to Get Great Pictures of the Kids
With the abundance of digital cameras out there these days, it's easier than ever to capture all of your kiddo's special moments - or at least it should be. Sadly, no matter how great your camera is, it doesn't change the fact that taking pictures of kids (especially young kids) is hard. They never want to sit still, don't like to smile on demand, and you can forget about asking them to "act natural". But don't worry, all hope is not lost as today I'm sharing two great tools every parent … [Read more...]
Sand Castles in San Diego
There's something I didn't tell you guys last week... we took the boy and went on vacay to sunny San Diego (S got to hang out with the grandparents at home). Did you notice I was phoning it in a bit? I actually worked really hard to get all of the week's posts done ahead of time but there were still a few things that fell through the cracks like making the Look Book photos open in a separate page. Oh well, the sun and fun were definitely worth it! I literally took over 500 pictures … [Read more...]
7 Tips for Birthday Party Success
I know what you're thinking - another train party? I admit, C's 2nd birthday was centered on a very unoriginal theme, complete with one very large Thomas balloon. What can I say? A train party he wanted so a train party he got. It's as simple as that. And even had I wanted to give C one of those gorgeous, picture perfect parties floating around the web - frankly, I just don't have the required skills. But stick with me and have a look at some of the details that went into C's … [Read more...]