Mombo Nursing Pillow {Review}

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Comfort and Harmony for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

 

I was recently sent the Mombo nursing pillow by Comfort and Harmony. I'm a big fan of nursing pillows--for the support while breastfeeding, as a place to safely and comfortably lay a new baby, and as a support pillow for the not-so-confident sitter. I love this pillow!

 

 

Mombo has a unique shape and a two-sided design called Firm2Soft™. One side is more firm and I found it supported Reese perfectly while nursing her. I loved how it held her higher than other nursing pillows I've used--causing less strain to my shoulders and back. The other side is really soft--Reese loved petting it! Another cool feature that I would have loved when Reese was teeny tiny is that it comes with a vibration feature--it would have been been perfect for soothing her to sleep!

 

 

As you can see, the slipcover I was sent with the pillow is adorable. It actually matches Reese's swing, which I thought was great! There are other options though--the mombo nursing pillow has a huge selection of other adorable slipcovers. The cover fits so well on the pillow--no tugging at seams. I feel like even my three year old could have some fun with this thing without worrying about him damaging it. And the pillow will definitly keep its shape even with lots of use.

 

 

If you're expecting a new baby, or looking for a good shower gift idea, I highly recommend this pillow. I am so glad to have it now, and would have loved to have had it since Reese was born. Mombo products are available at Toys R Us, so stop by to check out their great selection of infant nursing pillows. You can also keep up with their products through Comfort & Harmony on Facebook and Comfort & Harmony on Twitter.

 

 

The BEST Coffee Cake

 

I made my FAVORITE COFFEE CAKE for the moms group I’m a part of last week. And after eating it, loving it, and hearing from everyone else how much they loved it, I thought maybe I should remind you all about it. After all, it has been a year and a half since I first shared it and, in blog world, that’s like a lifetime. I would have taken a prettier picture for you, but got too distracted by the deliciousness to do so.

 

The recipe calls for 1 1/3 cups buttermilk/sour milk. I had everything mixed and ready to go when I realized I had less than 1/4 cup milk in the fridge. And since I timed making the coffee cake to the last minute possible for it to bake enough before leaving, there was no time to run to the store. So I subbed 1 1/2 cups sour cream instead, and the results were just as good.

 

I highly recommend you make yourself this coffee cake. And invite some friends over to share so you aren’t tempted to eat the whole thing yourself.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Red Buffet & Bar Stools {Homemade Chalk Paint}

 

As we’ve been working away at our downstairs makeover I’ve loved doing a few furniture painting projects because I was able to actually label something as finished.

 

 

I’ve always loved this antique buffet. It was bought by my aunt and uncle thirty some years ago, then passed along to my parents and it was in our home when I was growing up. Before moving across the country seven years ago, my parents passed it along to me. The stain hasn’t been my favorite, but I never really felt like committing to a color.

 

 

Since we’ll be installing laminate wood flooring soon, I finally had the motivation to paint—I felt like keeping the buffet as is would just be too much similar toned wood. I absolutely love the way it turned out and am so glad I made the change!

 

 

I made some homemade chalk paint using THIS recipe and Glidden flat paint in Candy Apple and finished it off with furniture wax paste. I really do love the results of chalk paint, and liked the process in that I could be sloppy and it didn’t matter and didn’t need to pre sand or strip the finish on the buffet. My paint did get really thick as I worked with it, though, so I just kept adding a little bit more paint and a little bit of warm water as I went along. My hardware came from Home Depot. The beauty of this technique is that the buffet looks like it has been painted this way for years and years. You wouldn’t think it just got refinished a few weeks ago.

 

 

While I had the paint mixed, I figured it would be fun to re-do my barstools as well. In the picture above you can see what the paint looks like in the three stages of use—the top stool is just painted, the middle is after giving a light sanding to even things out and distress a bit, and the bottom stool is post waxing. It really was amazing how beautifully the wax brought out the color.

 

 

Here you can see the contrast mid-waxing.

 

 

A look at the barstools in action. They make me smile.

 

 

One last look at the beautiful roses Nolan gave me for our anniversary, with my cheery buffet in the background. I’ll be using the same chalk paint technique on the buffet in our entryway, as well as on an old door I’ll be hanging above the buffet. I can’t wait to tackle that project!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Parties I like to link up with:
Thrifty Decor Chic Creating with the Stars, Made with Love, The Sunday Showcase Party, Weekend Wrap Up, Real Momma, Real Style, Make it, Wear It, Show and Tell Saturday, Weekend Bloggy Reading, Whatever Goes Wednesday, Take a Look Tuesday

Kitchen Reveal! {Painted Tiles & Decorative Signs}

Can you believe it? I’m finally showing you my finished kitchen! [Granted, we do still need to install the flooring, but hey, for now it’s close enough.] And I am so pleased with it!

My before wasn’t bad—we did have nice counters and cabinets. But now, I feel like we have something beautiful. It has certainly been a lot of work. Read about our counters HERE and the cupboards HERE. The walls are painted Versatile Gray by Sherwin Williams in their Cashmere paint. I love the color—during the day it’s a really pretty gray color and then it transitions to a bit more of a beige tone at night. I love the way the white of the cabinets pops off of it, and our red couches look BEAUTIFUL against it. I went with the Cashmere paint because it has primer in it, so the paint looks the same whether it’s going on the plane white walls or covering our previously painted tan walls. And just one coat with minor touch ups did the trick.

My barstools are now painted red, and I’ll share that with you later this week.

One of my favorite transformations in this space was our tile backsplash. They began green and now they’re a beautiful, bright white.

They weren’t a high-gloss ceramic tile to begin with, so I was confident a simple makeover wouldn’t be a problem. I simply scuffed them up with sandpaper, primed with Kilz oil based primer, did three coats of SW Pro Classic in Pure White, and the sealed with a few coats of polycrylic. We also caulked between the tile and counter to give it a clean finish. I LOVE the contrast of our paint and tiles. So far they’ve held up really well with being wiped down to clean up, and I’m confident they’ll continue to last. From the research I did for painting tiles, if you have a high gloss ceramic tile, you should probably use a tile/cement primer first.

I also loved decorating the space above my cabinets. I had some great pieces to work with from before—old tins, cookbooks and utensils my MIL had given me, but I needed a few new signs to finish off the look.

I thought a chalkboard would be great for this side of the cabinets.

I used a sign I’d made before from a cupboard door, removed the vinyl word that was on there, and painted the center with chalkboard paint. I love the verse that’s there for now, but will also enjoy being able to switch up what it says throughout the year.

On the opposite side I made two new signs. The Fresh Produce sign was inspired by THIS one, and is made from a wooden seat from my old kitchen chairs. I painted it with chalkboard paint, distressed it with sandpaper, and then painted the red lettering on. The price is written with chalk.

The other sign is also made from an old cupboard door and was inspired by THIS sign. If you make one too, just don't be like me and spell premises wrong ;)

The beverage box in the center came from my in-laws, and I have another one just like it that I can’t wait to find the perfect way to incorporate it into my house.

One last detail that I want to share with you is this fun caddy I got for holding pens, scissors and paper. (I got it from THIS seller on Amazon, but they are out of my item. A cute comparable would be THIS one, it’s just a little more than I spent.) I love that it’s decorative, fits with the style of the rest of my house, and big enough to be completely functional.

I’m loving my new kitchen and can’t wait until we get the new flooring installed. But that’ll have to come after we’ve finished painting. We’re through with the dining room and part way through the living room. I’ll be back to show you my finished painted buffet and stools soon. For now I’m searching and searching for the perfect rug and curtains.

Thanks for stopping by!

Parties I like to link up with:
Thrifty Decor Chic Creating with the Stars, Made with Love, The Sunday Showcase Party, Weekend Wrap Up, Real Momma, Real Style, Make it, Wear It, Show and Tell Saturday, Weekend Bloggy Reading, Whatever Goes Wednesday, Take a Look Tuesday

Life Lately

Um, so I didn’t mean to go almost an entire month between posts! So I thought maybe I should pop in here to say hi, see how all of you are doing, and share a little bit of what I’ve been up to. Last time you heard from me I shared how I painted my cabinets. I keep meaning to share a full kitchen reveal with you because I did paint the walls and decorated above the cabinets (with a few new signs that I LOVE)… but that would require some finished product pictures. And that would require a clean kitchen. Oops! Did I just admit that my kitchen has not been completely clean in almost a month?

 

 

This past weekend we continued painting and finished the walls in the dining room. Here’s a little dose of reality—when we’re in project mode, my house is a DISASTER. I am absolutely LOVING our new wall color though! I’m feeling pretty motivated to get cleaned things up because my mom will be here in two days. So you can realistically expect some reveal pictures soon.

 

 

I painted our buffet. You can see what it looked like before in THIS post. This picture doesn’t show the true color. I used a DIY chalk paint recipe and then waxed it loved that process!

 

 

In fact, I loved it so much I then painted our barstools too. I just need to finish sanding them and waxing them (what I’ll be doing after I hit publish on this post), and they’ll be done as well. I’ll share all the details with you soon. I’m going to paint our entry way buffet black using the same technique. Wow, I bought that buffet over two years ago and am just now getting around to painting it…

 

 

And when I’m not working on a project, and clearly not blogging, I’m having a lot of fun with my babies. This little girl is just too much fun to want to put down most of the time.

 

 

And we’ve done some carousel riding as well.

 

 

I’ve also done some pondering and praying that lead to some writing on my devotional blog, Satisfied with Adequate. My recent posts are about feeling heavy hearted, finding contentment, delighting in creation, and how easily we condemn ourselves.

 

And one of my biggest distractions? Reading. I LOVE the Kindle ap on my iPad. I can’t even begin to guess how many books I have read this year already. And most of them have been free. I love a well written book, especially when it’s a beautiful story. Most of what I read is Christian fiction. I follow Christian Ebooks Today and Inspired Reads for links to the latest free or greatly discounted books. I’ve gotten pretty good at judging books by their covers/descriptions, so I only download about 25% of what is offered, and then only half of those probably capture my heart. But still, that’s not bad for a free book!

 

So how have you been? What’s been going on in your life?

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Hand Painted Cabinets

A little over a week ago I shared with you how I resurfaced my countertops, and today we’re going to talk about how we repainted the kitchen cabinets.

That before and mid-way makes me happy. I’ve since painted the walls in the kitchen and decorated above the cabinets. Want a sneak peak at the final product?

I just need to do a little more cleaning (again) and I can take the final pictures to show you!

I am loving my white cabinets! I’ve heard from a lot of people that they’ve wanted to paint theirs, but they were worried it was too much work. We painted ours entirely by hand, and I’ll be honest here—it is A LOT of work. I’m very happy with the results though. If you look closely you can see a few brush strokes or a spot or two where we didn’t sand between layers as well as we should have, but 95% of the surfaces are really, really smooth. And from more than two feet away, you don't see any of the imperfections.

The products we used are a Sander/Deglosser from Home Depot, Kilz Oil Based Primer from Walmart, and ProClassic Alkyd Interior Enamel from Sherwin Williams. The color I chose for the cupboards is Pure White. It’s a bright white. I chose it because I wanted to be able to use the same paint on the cupboards as on the baseboards when we redo the floors. And the doors and the trim around them in my house are bright white, and there are two doors in the kitchen. I didn’t want there to be a big difference between the cabinets and doors. Once we were done painting but the walls were still the dingy original white, I started second guessing myself. I was worried it was too white. But then I got the new wall color up and I now LOVE it.

A tip for you when choosing white—see if they can put a smear of the actual paint in that color on some paper for you. The color swatch looked a little blueish to me in the store, and the lady working at Sherwin Williams explained that sometimes it can take on a slightly different color because of the paper it’s painted on. The actual color was as the name describes—pure white.

After reading several tutorials for painting cabinets, we settled on a method that seemed like it would work well for us, and I am pleased with how it went. My favorite thing about our method is that we didn’t have to do any sanding before priming and painting.

1. Remove All Doors and Drawers

Pretty self-explanatory, right? We didn’t mark which doors came from where and I wish I had with the few doors that were the same size as each other. Luckily, we have baby locks on the lower ones, so it was just a matter of matching which ones lined up correctly when we put doors back on.

2. Clean/Prep Surfaces

We began with first cleaning our surfaces to make sure there weren’t any leftovers on the cabinets. Then, we didn’t do any sanding! We used a liquid sandpaper product, soaked an old t-shirt with it and wiped everything down twice. This product was great. Our doors are just veneered with a very high gloss finish. To sand enough for the primer to grip the doors and boxes would have taken SO MUCH WORK.

3. Prime & Sand

I started with all our cabinet bases/boxes/frames and gave them a somewhat light coat of primer. The lady at Sherwin Williams recommended using an oil based primer, so that’s what I went with. I used the spray form when we refinished Reese’s dresser but rolled/brushed it on this time. After letting it dry completely, sand it to make sure you have a smooth surface to paint on. This is key! If you don’t get your primer coat smoothed out you’re going to have to do so much more sanding after the first coat of painting.

4. Paint & Sand

I went through and used a brush on all places that a roller would have a tough time reaching to begin with. Use a NICE brush—like a Purdy. The nicer the brush, the nicer the results. Then I went over the larger surfaces with a small foam roller. Don’t skimp on these either. I used a nicer roller on the lower bases than on the uppers, and there was a visible (to me) and feel difference. Once the paint is dry, go through and give it a light sanding with a  fine sandpaper. Feel what you’re sanding. Sand and then run your fingers over it. If it feels super smooth, you’re set. If you feel some grit, sand some more. Repeat. I did 3 coats of paint before I was happy with the finish.

Nolan set up 2x4s across sawhorses in the garage and we painted all the doors out there. We started with all the lower doors and then when they were completely finished did the uppers. We primed the back, primed the front, sanded. Painted 1 coat on the back. Painted, sanded, painted, sanded, painted on the fronts. I used the same method as before—going around the detail work with a brush and then all the flat surfaces with the roller. Drawers used the same steps.

And then all the doors were hung and drawers back in place. Hardware was bought from Home Depot and then installed. And then I fell in love with my kitchen. I can’t wait to see how it looks with the new flooring, but that will come after we’re done painting way.too.much wall space. The beauty of painting before you replace flooring is that you don’t care if you drip or make a mess.

The hardware makes me so happy. And I’m so pleased with the quality of the paint/finish. Because it’s an enamel, you don’t have to use a top coat. When I bought this kind of paint for Reese’s dresser it was described as drying first, and then over the next two weeks curing into a really hard finish. It’s easy to wipe down and cleans up so nicely without wearing out. Reese’s dresser stands up to Jace scraping his footstool against it on a very regular basis.

It’s a lot of work. It’s exhausting. But it’s so worth it. We did everything while the kids were napping or in bed at night, except for one Saturday when Jace spent the night with his cousins. It is a good project for doing it in sections—obviously we couldn’t just work at it straight through to completion. I’m happy with the finish, but it isn’t the same as having it professionally sprayed, or probably even spraying it yourself if you have a good enough sprayer. But I am looking it with the most critical eye (just ask my husband!). If you’re worried about the grain of your wood, or have a more flexible budget to work with, my suggestion would be to paint the bases yourself and hire someone to paint the doors.

Check out how we painted the tile backsplash and the full kitchen reveal HERE.

Thanks for stopping by!

Parties I like to link up with:
Thrifty Decor Chic Creating with the Stars, Made with Love, The Sunday Showcase Party, Weekend Wrap Up, Real Momma, Real Style, Make it, Wear It, Show and Tell Saturday, Weekend Bloggy Reading, Whatever Goes Wednesday, Take a Look Tuesday

Another Big Bow Headband

***Before I get to telling you all about how my love of big bows on babies keeps growing, hope on over to Designs by Sessa where I guest posted as a part of her Front Porch series… sharing a bit of what’s been on my heart lately and what I’m learning about being content.***

 

 

I’m just slightly obsessed with big bows on my baby. I really would have thought I’d be a huge flower mommy, but these bows have captured my heart. It started with the soft and comfy big bow headbands. And then I saw THIS headband on Etsy and knew it was exactly what I wanted to make to go with Reese’s Easter dress. And I am in love… mostly with the baby, but definitely with the big bow on her head too.

 

 

I followed THIS tutorial from eighteen25 for making the bow, just made it bigger. I think my first piece (the one that’s the actual bow) was 10x2” and then I just cut the other pieces proportionately. Glued it together and it was done! I bought the elastic lace for the headband HERE. I love how easy it was to make and need to make more colors since this baby has a bit of a big head and has outgrown her other accessories.

 

 

Oh how I love to look at this baby.

 

 

And just for kicks, one of my favorite pictures from Easter. It’s like she’s saying, “What? I wasn’t supposed to dig into my Easter basket yet?”

 

Thanks for stopping by! I just need to take a few more pictures and I’ll be back to share my painted tile backsplash, cupboards and new wall color in the kitchen!

 

Parties I like to link up with:

 

Made with Love, The Sunday Showcase Party, Weekend Wrap Up, Real Momma, Real Style, Make it, Wear It, Show and Tell Saturday, Weekend Bloggy Reading, Whatever Goes Wednesday, Take a Look Tuesday