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Playtime With Our Brother

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Since my kitchen is now in order, I decided it was finally time for Nate’s playroom! I could not wait to get my hands on the Brother P-Touch D210 label maker and show Nate how much fun organizing can be. I think he may have gotten a little too excited…as you can see by my face (LOL). Anyone who has a kid knows how challenging it can be to keep their toys, art supplies and other knick knacks organized. There’s nothing worse than when you go to play with something and you don’t have all the pieces or the color you need to finish a project is missing. We took his markers, paint brushes, and modeling clay, put them in old kitchen canisters that we were no longer using, and labeled them with “Draw,” “Paint,” “Create.” We then made labels for each one of his toy bins. This was the most helpful because he always forgets where each bin is when it’s time to put away his toys. As I previously mentioned, Nate’s just learning how to read, so it’s good that when we tell him to put his things away, he can now look at the associated words and familiarize himself when doing so. To give him a little motivation to start saving money, we labeled his purple crayon bank “Ice Cream Fund.” That boy loves his ice cream (LOL). It was really fun creating the labels with him. We used the P-touch TZe Red on White and Black on White tapes and added cute symbols that coordinated with our labels (there’s so much to choose from – 14 fonts, 97 frames and more than 600 symbols!). I love teaching my boy any chance I get. He loved helping press the buttons, choosing his symbols & emojis and then of course getting to press the big green button when it was time to cut the label. I can see it already – this Brother P-touch is going to get a lot of use once he’s in school and starting to get homework and art projects! Unfortunately, or fortunately, now he’s obsessed and literally wants me to help him label everything in his playroom. (LOL). To purchase your own P-touch PT-D210 label maker, visit Office Depot.

Family Home Reviews Style

Comfy With Lacoste

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Does everyone get that home-makeoever, DIY itch once it’s spring? My wife and I always do! We got this amazing new Lacoste Home Cotton Washed Solid Vapor Gray Bedding Collection and it just didn’t seem right to put such nice bedding in a room we really weren’t happy with. I’m still a full time electrician, but things got a little slow at work and I recently had some time off, so…my wife put me to work (LOL). We wanted to update our room but didn’t want to have to buy all new furniture – so, we figured we would try and spruce up what we have! We did that by painting our room all white to brighten it up, but left one wall black to give it a little contrast. I’m a little shocked we actually did an accent wall because we have always hated accent walls, but we really like how it came out. We like that the white walls gives us somewhat of a blank canvas, which lets you throw in almost any decor or color pop. We added a new floating shelf, some gold decorative objects, new dresser hardware handles, new frames, and of course some plants – we just love that pop of green with the new walls. When it comes to bedding we aren’t really the bold type. We like nice, clean quality sheets, usually in a muted color. We went with the Lacoste Home Cotton Washed Solid Vapor Gray Bedding Collection. We didn’t want the bedroom to look too bland, so we added in the Lacoste Home Printed Herringbone Sheets. I know it’s small but I actually really like seeing their crocodile logo on the pieces (it’s classic and just reinforces the confidence that you’re cuddled with a quality brand), AND of course my son thought the little crocodile was “so cute”. It was hard to get me and Nate out of bed once we got in it. The quality of the bedding made us feel like we were in a luxury hotel and we got all giddy and played around like we normally do when on vacation. We all loved the simplicity of the Lacoste Legend Supima Cotton Bath Towel as well. We love the bright, fresh beach glass color, with of course, the little crocodile detail. Whenever Nate takes a bath we wrap him up like he’s still a little baby and throw him on our bed to snuggle until mommy dresses him. He’s getting to be such a big boy, but I think he still loves how we treat him like he’s a little boy straight out of the tubby. He looked so cute wrapped in his new towel. Looking back at my previous bedding choices and some of the wild patterns and colors we were into is crazy. As I get older, my taste gets more neutral and it’s less about boldness and more about comfort and quality. We love our new room…especially with our new Lacoste Bedding!

Home Style

Planters or Wall Decor?

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4.5 years ago my wife and I bought out first house. It was bit of a visual fixer upper. The bones of the house were pretty good, but design-wise we knew we were going to have to upgrade almost everything. We were fine with this though! We knew we weren’t going to find a house with the design and style we exactly wanted. So we thought why spend more money on a house that’s decent (but we don’t love), when we would just end up renovating it anyway. So, we went with somewhat of a fixer upper. This year we decided to reno our kitchen. We knocked down a wall between our kitchen and living room and put an island with a quartz counter top. With this new layout it gave the first floor more of that open concept feel. We put new quartz counter tops and white shaker style cabinets in as well. We added matte black hardware, a matte black sink faucet, and a nice big matte black sink. We don’t get a lot of natural sunlight on the first floor so we really wanted to brighten up the space with a lot of white! For some decor, we wanted to add some plants in our kitchen to add a little green and bring in some life. Unfortunately, we have killed every plant we have ever had! Even the new palms we just bought…we’re already on the second plant! We’re really trying hard this time around to keep these little beauties alive! After our recent trip to AZ we decided to get some greens & cacti and hang them in these amazing Umbra planters. They are literally wall art! I love their clean, geometric white shape, with the touch of gold, and how they add another dimension to our kitchen. These might be one of our best home purchases! What are some of your favorite interior design brands? I’m always on the hunt for another cool, unique piece!