OK, so I know they’ve been a thing for kind of a while now, but I’m totally obsessed with embroidery hoop art. I think it has something to do with my current love of simple geometric shapes (probably brought on by this ever-so slowly developing project of mine) and my eternal love of simple DIY projects. It doesn’t really matter though. What matters is that I’m straight up smitten.

My love was taken to a whole new level when I caught sight of this amazing baby nursery on Young House Love last week. Dacia from Lemon Drop Life created this space for her little guy Roarke. I literally squealed when I saw it and immediately sent a link to my sister, who is setting up a space theme in my six-year old nephew’s new room. I just can’t with the awesome solar system wall and the ridiculously creative use of embroidery hoops. SO. STINKING. CUTE!

Lemon Drop Life via Young House Love

I really like the combination of the circles and the lines, which immediately made me start thinking about the striped wall in my girls’ room. Right now they just have a round seashell mirror between their beds and canvases they painted above their beds. But I’m thinking some embroidery hoop art (whether bought or made) would be perfect to group above each of their beds.

So of course that led me down the Pinterest rabbit hole to explore…

Like most busy ladies with an overflowing to-do list, I’m all about little life hacks that make things quicker and easier. If you can help me with my abysmal time management skills, we can totally be BFFs. Good luck with that though, because I’m pretty sure this t-shirt was made specifically for me.

That said, I was more than a little intrigued when I saw a few posts floating around Pinterest referring to a magical DIY manicure with glue trick. They promised me I could paint a little white glue around my nails and then peel it off to keep my cuticles all neat and tidy and paint free. Most of the pins I saw originated from a post teaching you how to create a marble effect on your nails. But then I saw The (always-awesome) Paper Mama try it out in the exact way I wanted to (here) and I knew I needed to try this business for myself.

So I did.

If you read this blog with any frequency, you know that my little one has developed a love of markers recently. Only it’s not as much a love of markers as it is a love of covering everything she sees with markers.

I’ve posted pictures of her body art and alluded to how much she likes to see her work on the walls (come to think of it, her love of picking locks and tagging walls should probably make me a little nervous). But until last week, all of this had been done with washable makers. And, while they’re not exactly as washable as they’d love to have you think, they’re a million times easier to remove than permanent marker.

How do I know this? Well, because after I took away the washable markers (because she was writing on things other than paper with them), Miss Ellie snuck into her sister’s room, grabbed some markers and made a lovely mural on the wall in the hallway while I was otherwise occupied by the Dance Nazi. Samantha was performing a new routine and I was scolded harshly any time either of my eyeballs dared to wander. Ellie took full advantage.

After a few minutes went by and I realized Ellie was suspiciously quiet, I had myself some perfect material for a blog post. I guess I should thank her for that at least.

Alright, alright. I know I’m more than a little late to the game with this. I meant to post a teacher gift DIY weeks ago, but life happened to get in the way. I didn’t figure out our gift idea until this week (thank you Pinterest and Camp Slop) and we didn’t get to making it until yesterday.

So, yeah. I’m late. A lot of kids have been on summer vacation for weeks now. But take this idea and put it in your pocket (or, you know, your Pinterest gift ideas board) until next year. And it doesn’t just have to be an idea for teachers! You can adapt this for going away gifts or retirement presents, or just about anything really.

Last week I wrote a post for Simply Designing about a fun summer paint party with my little ladies. I basically put the girls in (old) bathing suits, threw down a sheet, put out a bunch of paint supplies and let them go crazy. I made sure to stress that it was a “party” so that they wouldn’t think this little fun fest was going to turn into an every day thing. And let me tell you, they had a blast.