My new and improved craft room!

I have been working on relocating my office/craft room to the basement (the unfinished side!) since this summer.  It is about 90% finished!  We are planning on using the room I used to use for my craft room as a dedicated guest room.  Not that we have many guests, but we will be ready for them if they show up! 

We started with a very unfinished space.  John and I built this wall, covered one wall with bookcases and divided the space with curtains.

 Another shot of the wall. (exciting, yes, I know!)

 Here is the space today!  I LOVE it!  The table was my grandmother's dining room table and the chair is one of the chairs that goes with it.  The other chairs are being used in other rooms of the house.  I got the bookcases at IKEA.  J helped me put them together and honestly, he did a better job assembling them than I did.

 I got the two side chairs also at IKEA and tricked them out a la Dixie Delights.  Love them!!  The dresser I had, just switched out the pulls.  I found the mirror at HomeGoods.  The other accessories I had on hand.  

 I'm really please with how the chairs turned out!

 John and I got the turtle box in Jamaica on our honeymoon.  We watched the artist carve it and then he added our initials on the bottom.  I'm glad to have it out where I will look at it everyday.  (yes, if you are looking for me, you can find me in here!)

 I also found out about this light bulb cover from Amanda at Dixie Delights.  Perfect way to cover a bare bulb.  The other lighting is from IKEA.  I'm so happy I didn't need to call an electrician in.  I was able to rig everything to work :)  Oh, we also had the ceiling painted.  Best money we spent!  It really makes such a difference.

 I still need to get hooks for the peg board, but it was there and I figured I could put it to good use.  My dad is going to help me figure out how to make some doors to access the space under the stairs.  And I want to get a cart on wheels to go in front of them to be used as a cutting/wrapping table.

 I hope you enjoyed the tour of my little space!

Wall color - Benjamin Moore Edgecomb Grey
Rug from Rugs USA

Harvest Moon/Super Moon Dinner

I've been meaning to post this for awhile.  Finally getting around to it :)

Two weeks ago I realized it was the last of the Super moons and also the Harvest moon.  I have been trying to be more deliberate in celebrating the everyday things, so this was a great excuse for a fun evening with the boys while the Hubs was traveling!

I keep these silver frames in my office and try to use them for quotes/menus.  And this past spring we built a fire pit in our back yard that we have really been enjoying.  The boys had been wanting to roast hot dogs over the fire and the this was the perfect evening to do so.

I set up my buffet table right next to the fire pit.  I made harvest punch (orange juice, pineapple juice and seltzer- no vodka in this one!!) and served the chili in mason jars with shredded cheddar.  Need to find a better way to serve the carrot sticks!  They kept falling over!!

J worked diligently to get our fire going.  It took awhile, but then we were good to go.

We probably could have waited a bit to start cooking, but everyone was hungry :)

The boys both thought chili dogs were the way to go, but I had mine separately.

You can't have a cookout without S'mores!  We roasted marshmallows and had quite the s'mores bar.

Honey and chocolate grahams, cookies n cream Hershey's, york peppermint patties, and regular Hershey's and then marshmallows.  YUM!  I think my favorite combo was the chocolate grahams with York!  Mmmmmmm.

The entire evening didn't really take all that long to prep for at all and the boys thought it was the BEST!  Reason to keep trying to continue to make ordinary days celebrations!!

Annual Turtling Fun

Every year we try to have at least one day of turtling. We get ourselves some chicken drumsticks, tie them on long pieces of string, and into the water they go!


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Man these guys look prehistoric!





J was braver than in years past! He picked this big snapper right up!

Biking to 'Sconset

The boys and I had a great bike ride to 'Sconset the other day! Round trip is about 15 miles, which for my husband is nothing, but for us was a long ride :)
We planned to make a stop at the 'Sconset Market for ice cream (otherwise known as the Mark-up)


Yum!






After we enjoyed our ice cream, we walked around a bit.



I just love this sundial on the side of one of the houses!


And also love this rose covered cottage!




The boys enjoyed climbing a tree and have a drink. Nantucket Nectars half and half is their favorite :)



This is where we had our wedding reception. Wow! It will be 15 years in September! Time flies when you're having fun.


A bunch of Hubby's friends were so excited when they saw that the reception was at a casino. Too bad for them it's a tennis club...



We are having a great time on Nantucket! More to come....

xoxo

Gabi

Bags

We are in our transition period of summer when the days are quite lazy and we are getting ready to leave for Nantucket. C and John did play a game of bags (what people up here call corn hole) the other evening. The game was a school auction acquisition back in 2010 and originally came with the standard red and blue bags. One night earlier this spring the bags were left out in the rain and got ruined. I ordered a set of replacement bags, but made covers for them so they matched the boards :)













We don't plan on leaving these out in the rain anytime soon! And yes, I wanted to make these even before the old ones got wet!
Hoping to go hit some golf balls at the driving range and maybe hit the beach today. Hope you have a great day!

SUP Summer fun!

Our summer is off to a great start!  Finally!  The boys finished school last Tuesday, but most of last week was rainy and cold.  This week we are enjoying some great summer weather

The boys grabbed a friend and we headed down the street to our local beach.  I am beach ready!  (Beach towel monogrammed by Cece Dupraz and spiker from HKLdesigns)

 We (meaning J) put the SUP (Stand up paddle board) on top of the car and the boys had a great time using it! Hours of fun was had!

I am really loving my new camera and am still figuring all the features out, but the zoom is amazing!

Here's to many more hours of SUP fun :)

Father's Day Fun at Fenway!

We celebrated Father's Day this year by going to the Red Sox game!  It was a perfect day for a game. 79 degrees, but with a nice breeze.  Perfect!

 I hadn't remembered this giant flag from previous games...

 Then I noticed all the feet at the bottom.  :)

 Wally, the Green Monster was there!

 And so was his father!!

The game today was dedicated to the PMC (Pan Mass Challenge) Bike ride. This will be John's 5th year riding 192 miles to raise money for the Dana Farber Cancer Research.  Here is the Red Sox PMC team with the founder of the ride.  And the mascots of course!

  These bikers are cancer survivors and will be riding or volunteering for the ride this year.

 And now I know what was behind the giant flag!  They revealed the PMC logo now on the wall.

 Since this was PMC day, we were all given new RedSox hats with the PMC logo on them. (and all three of these boys are actually Yankees fans.  Shhh, don't tell!)

 After the game all father's and children were allowed to go run the bases!  We almost bailed because of the lines, but stuck it out.  So glad we did!  The lines ended up moving quickly, and what a great experience!

 Touching first base!

It was a great day with a great dad :)