Still Rockin' the Room

The kids' room is nowhere near complete, but we're still working.  The lower walls are "hilled." The bookshelves are painted and anchored to the wall.

I have trees started, but not finished, so they look like messy green blobs on the wall and ceiling.  The bookshelves need leaf stencils and tree trunk details on the bottom.  I've also painted Shorty's side table to look more tree stump-like (no pictures yet). 

BUT...Dragon Mountain is pretty well done.  I still think he needs mist around the mountain.  

No, I did not paint the dragon. He is an incredibly well done peel and stick by a company called Wall Monkeys, that I found on Amazon. It was so easy to put this guy up by myself! Nick and I love him soooooo much - we can't wait for Shorty to see him!!

And of course, painting would not be complete without helper cats.  The two older cats came in, checked it out and left (they've been through many, many room repaints and renovations). The kittens (well, they're both a year old now) had to inspect everything, play with every little piece of tape, inspect the paint and brush up against newly painted walls! Sid (the all black one) has blue paint on her tail, on the tops AND bottoms of her feet, on both side. I just shake my head!

Rockin' the Room!

With the new baby on the way, and living in a VERY small space, we've had to get creative with storage and where we plan to stick this kiddo at night.  We live in a two bedroom duplex and unfortunately the 2nd bedroom is tiny and has a terrible slant, due to the fact that the duplex is a saltbox.  When Nick and Shorty moved in, the room was my craft room and had a futon for anyone spending the night. I turned part of that room into her space, since she was only going to be with us on the weekends. 

With the limited space, we realized that the baby will have to share this room with Shorty. This prompted my husband and I to really rethink how we want to do this. Finally a plan was hatched: a quarter of my crafting stuff moved to our bedroom and the rest to the basement. The futon was traded for a twin bed, taking up MUCH less space. And now, the room has been completely emptied, as we prep for new paint, a woodland design, dragons and woodland critters and a whole lot of creative fun!

I'm going with a light blue for the walls, as a base and the green for the very bottom, to create a grass effect.  I will be adding acrylics to create clouds, trees and all that fun stuff. 

I found a really cool peel and stick dragon wall decal on Amazon that will be incorporated on Shorty's side. The baby will have cute little critters: 

Dragons and baby woodland critters - that's how we roll in the Nielsen house!

It's Official...We're Insane!

And by we, I mean me and my husband.  We used to say no more big dogs. They're messy, always in the way, expensive and just big pains in the butt.  Then we lost Sadie in April and Plato in August. And their loss has been palpable.

For a month, Nick and Shorty have been vocalizing their want of another big dog.  I finally gave in. We went to see dogs at a local shelter, but none of them clicked, much to our dismay.  So doing what I do best, I jumped on the internet and started searching all the humane societies in Maine and then hit upon a lab rescue who is having an event this Saturday.  I put in the application for pre-approval, they called our vet and our references this morning.

Now we just have to wait for notification from them.  If it comes before Saturday, I'll find myself checking out black and chocolate labs that morning!

We really are insane! I'm just over 4 months pregnant and we're looking at getting a freakin' lab!

UPDATE: We've been pre-approved!! Buuuuuut, where we have such a busy day Saturday, we're going to hold off until next weekend to check out dogs.  Hopefully, this guy will still be available!

Meanwhile, Back in the Workshop...

I am happy to say that I was finally able to get back into the workshop this past weekend. Now that I'm in the second trimester of my pregnancy, I actually have the energy and the stomach to get back to work (morning sickness was a real b*tch!). 

 

I managed to sand and shape about a dozen animals and trees, which are now ready for painting.  Then I cut out almost two dozen other animals.  There are slim pickings over in the Faery Tree Creations shop right now, but my goal is to restock the shop within the next few weeks.  Working full time during the day, then trying to fit in time to cut, sand, shape and paint for my toy business AND spend time with family (all on top of being pregnant) is not an easy thing! Thank goodness I have such a supportive husband, who doesn't mind me spreading all my painting stuff across the coffee table in the living room to work while we watch TV together. 

I had my faithful, orange eyed companion with me the whole time I was in the workshop. Oráiste has no fear of the scroll saw, nor the hand sander or Dremel. As a matter of fact, she liked the Dremel...when it wasn't running. The sanding bit apparently tasted good! 

 

Please excuse the workshop floor, it's rather gross with all the dirt, crud and sawdust. Ory didn't care, she was happy to sit in sawdust and play hockey with the little scraps of wood that hit the floor.  Some days, I think she's part dog.  She was picking up scrap wood and chewing on it - weirdo!

While messing around with some larger scrap wood (that Miss Ory hadn't chewed on), I cut out this gigantic tree and base. It's much larger than any of the other trees that I cut out, since I free handed this one and didn't use my normal pattern (with the base, it probably measures almost a foot high).  I think I'll paint it up for our autumn nature table...that I have yet to set, because our cats thoroughly enjoy playing with it. I have this image of waxed leaves that have been collected from outside, mini pumpkins from our garden and some of my wooden animals...but Sid (our little black bully of a beast cat) likes to throw the wooden animals to the floor for our Yorkie to play with and Ory just likes to sleep on the table. Our other two cats ignore it.  

As the painting gets completed and the new product goes up on Etsy, I'll keep posting about my progress.

Enjoy your autumn days!

Be Still My Beating Heart

Yesterday, I heard my baby's heart beat for the first time.  

We had seen the little heart flutter at our first ultrasound, but that was 2 months ago. And despite experiencing nausea, exhaustion, shortness of breath, dizzy spells, hunger, sudden and frequent urges to pee, sleeplessness, round ligament pain and pregnancy brain, I was starting to feel disconnected - like I wasn't really pregnant.  I'm only 15 weeks, so it's really too soon for me to discern movement. 

Yesterday's appointment reassured me though.  My little man is growing and he has a good, strong heartbeat!

Autumn's Splendor

This is my favorite time of year - when the woolies and the hoodies and the scarves come back out...when the humidity has left, the trees are ablaze with color and the smell of wood smoke mingles with that crisp scent that can only be identified as autumn. 

On Sunday, we did our annual trip to get our pumpkins and apples and then we went on an adventure to Ricker Hill Farm in Turner, ME.  And boy was it an adventure! Google Maps took us on a very circuitous route, taking us almost a half hour out of our way, riding twisty turny country roads.  But it was beautiful! The trees were in full color in the Sabattus, Turner and Leeds area. Autumn in Maine...gotta love it!

The winding drive was well worth it when we finally arrived. There was cider, pumpkins, colorful mums, apple cider donuts and hot popcorn.  There was a BBQ food truck, bouncy houses, a corn maze, a petting zoo with cows and goats.  There were things to climb on, play with and just have fun. Shorty was in her element (so was Nick)!

I was happy for indoor bathrooms, but dismayed, when standing in their tasting room, at the realization that I cannot partake in Ricker Hill’s delicious hard cider for many, many more months to come.  Ah, the joys of pregnancy (she said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling).

None of us wanted to leave, but it started to drizzle. We did vow that we would return! This might just become another family tradition.