The Past Week

Sorry I have been a little MIA the past week. The week started off with the best intentions. I was finally getting over my ridiculous cold. Our youngest was all set to start his new school for the FIRST TIME. Heck, everyone was supposed to go to school after being home all winter break! And me? I was going to have several childless hours, which I still can't even imagine. 

Then Sunday night came. Call it the stomach bug, but our big guy's belly blew up like a balloon. 

I'm talking like a big, fat pregnant balloon. 

So off to the ER we went, for tests and IVs. 

(he's fine now)

He just looks so SAD here, right?! Breaks my heart. Meanwhile, at home our youngest got sick as well.

Needless to say, there was no school to be had the next day. 

Tuesday came with follow up appointments, and admitting our little Boo into the hospital for his (planned) surgery. 

It was a no-fun-horrible-two-day-long stay that left everyone ready to go home. 

The Children's hospital we stayed at was wonderful, and our little man left with oodles of brand new toys. 

We spent our time playing around....

....and getting some much needed rest.

By the time it was finally his turn to go in, he was so annoyed with everyone and everything for not being able to eat in almost 24hrs, he had little to say besides, "Bad Mommy" and "Bad Daddy" :)

His surgery only took 1/2 an hour, so luckily we didn't have to wait too long waiting for this thing to go off:

We came home to a sick little girl (she was the last one to get it!) Wednesday evening, and it was sometime on Thursday that I gave up on even entertaining the idea of writing a post :)

But I am happy to report, that we are all finally doing well (today was the first I was actually motivated to do something, ha!). I spent the last of my weekend working on a few custom projects for some clients:

Don't you just love my view?! All new "family portraits" drawn by our girl....hey, at least she made sure to draw me thin ;)

So that's where I've been....how was your weekend? 

xo,

Rachel

you can follow along on instagram @Nestling_Designs

"Resolutions" :: My plans for 2013

I'm not really sure if I would call them resolutions, but I certainly have plenty of plans and thoughts on what I would like to accomplish this next year....especially when it comes to this little happy place of mine and our crazy, out of control house. {as in how in the world did we come to own so much stuff??}. I have broken down my plans into some smaller goals. 

 I want to try to live more simply, but with more beauty. I want to make sure the items I am purchasing are things that I truly find beautiful and that hold a purpose.  Sometimes I get so caught up in all the things I want to change in a certain space of ours, I lose sight of how sometimes, change can come in just the smallest of forms...like adding a small basket to house towels. 

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We have now been in our new home for a little under a year. We have unpacked everything, arranged {and rearranged!} things, and we now desperately need to organize things. My plan is to tackle at least one area a week, working towards it a little bit each day. I'd love to show some of the before and afters on here, because I don't know about you, but I can never get enough of a good organization system :)

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Some organizational projects are going to take longer because of the size of them, like my new work area. Right before Christmas, I started to move all of my stuff into a section of our living room from our garage. Our house is currently an explosion of craft and party supplies, while I try to find room for everything in its new home. Right now I am currently dreaming of spaces like these:

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 Since I want to focus more on adding smaller touches to our home, that means cutting out some of the bigger projects. My hope is to focus on one larger project at a time. (instead of starting a bunch of projects at once)

This first major one that I want to tackle is the boy's room, which is in an insane amount of need for love. It's a hot mess....when we moved in here, I got rid of a lot of the things from their previous room because they just weren't interested in it anymore, so now their room is just bare, bare, bare. {and plenty ugly}. Totally inspired by these spaces:

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There is also a little section off of our master bathroom that is a vanity area, that I would just love to fix up a little. I'm thinking beautiful girly things like these:

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Also, our powder room downstairs {the one that all our guests see} is crying out for some help. 

Wouldn't something like this be beautiful??

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Also, I want to be more bold in my design choices for our home. I am a girl who loves grays and whites with lots of textures, and our house is in need of some FUN.

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 I love pattern, but surprisingly don't use a whole lot in our house. 

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And of course, there are a couple of past projects that I would like to revisit and "tweak" a bit. 

I am just dying to fix the skirt of the bottom of our banquette with a little detail, maybe like this one:

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I also, want to switch up the art in our Family Room. Although I love the gallery wall, once we got it up on the wall, I just knew it was wrong for the space. It just seems too busy for a room already full of pattern and activity. I am thinking a larger, abstract piece that really ties together all the colors in the space. 

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This one has to do with my blog and my Etsy store front. I kind of just started both on a whim last year, and haven't dedicated nearly the amount of time I would like to to either of them. I am so excited to nail down a look this year, and to expand on the parties and other items I have in my store. On top of party printables, I am really looking forward to offering printed versions of many of the items I have in the shop. I have already started dreaming about the branding. 

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Wow, it really looks like I have my work cut out for me :)

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I am so excited to see where this year takes me!!

xo,

Rachel

Twenty twelve in Review

 

Wowzers, I can't believe this little blog of mine has almost been around for a year!!

Time has absolutely flown by for me {to both my amazement and frustration!}, and the fact that just the other day I placed my Valentine's party back up on Etsy blew.my.mind. It was the first party I showcased on here, and it was really fun being able to look back and see the progress that I have made as a blogger and designer. There is still sooooo much that I want to do as a blogger, designer, and person, I can't wait to get started in 2013!!

 

Since so many of you weren't around when it all began, I thought it would be really fun to look back at my favorite projects over the last year. Looking back was especially rewarding since lately I feel that everywhere I look there is just another project that needs to be done. It was nice to remind myself just how busy of gal I really was :)

 

I started this space of mine the last day of January, so there's really not much to report that month, so let's jump right into February!

 

February

 

We kicked started the year with our Robot Valentine's Day party that included a special DIY wreath and actual robot made from boxes!

 

 

March

 

We celebrated the first of many parties in our new home! This Care Bear Party was one of my favorites.

 

 

April

 

We celebrated Easter by creating these peter cotton {candy} tails printables to use up some of the leftover cotton candy I had from the Care Bear party.

 

 

I put together our Easter tablescape just minutes before dinner, and absolutely loved it! The candy grass nests with plastic eggs were my favorite detail.

 

 

May

 

 May brought our big guy's 6th birthday bash, a monster truck party.

 

 

 

 

June

 

One of the first projects that we really tackled in the new house was our dining banquette that we made ourselves. This area was too small to fit our regular table, so we created this smaller, casual space using a table I found at a thrift shop. The chairs were the start of a long lasting love affair of color dipping :)

 

 

 

July

 

I finally organized our pantry! I created my own chalkboard labels using chalkboard spray paint and contact paper and used a ton of storage found at the dollar store.

 

 

 

 

I also threw a Jungle themed baby shower:

 

 

 

August

 

August brought some organization our way, just in time to send the kids back to school (yay!!). I started with our kitchen command center since it sees the most of our traffic.

 

 

September

 

I  started to make some headway on our family room. One of the first projects (and one of my all time faves!) was our fabric covered pinboards

 

 

 

I also worked on a major problem we had: our shoe storage problem.

 

 

October

 

I had a blast helping the kids decorate our Haunted play house with items that we bought at the dollar store. It was one of my favorite Halloween memories!

 

 

 

November

 

We finally, finally finished our Family Room! It all started with the vision of having built in desks for the kids, and I can honestly say that they use them all the time!

 

 

 

December

 

We kicked started this month with Braden's Construction Truck Party. ...

 

 

....and ended it with a bunch of  Homemade Christmas gifts to give to our friends and neighbors.

 

 

 

Whew! What a year, right?? Thanks to all of you who come here every day to hear me ramble about all the projects I get into around here - it means the world to me!

 

I can't wait to get this year started! I already have quite the list planned :)

 

 

What was your favorite project of 2012??

 

 

xo,

Rachel