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Beautiful Garden Half Bathroom Renovation

This post is sponsored by Photowall. The Blue Lily wallpaper was gifted in exchange for this post. As always, I only work with companies that I have previously used as a product. We used and loved Photowall wallpaper in Lilly’s preschool Montessori bedroom.

After a year of staring at the walls in my home, I started to get the itch to completely re-do every space. I’ve already done all the decluttering and cleaning projects and now I’m wanting more color and pattern! This past year, gardening as a hobby, brought me the most joy. I wanted to bring more plants and flowers inside. Especially to get rid of the grey winter blues, I needed to bring my garden inside! Que the birds chirping, sun shining and butterflies flittering around. That’s what my new bathroom is!

Photowall Wallpaper is Beautiful

As I mentioned I used Photowall for our daughter’s room and LOVED the product. (You can get 25% off your order of anything on the site until the end of May with code DIYMAMA25). Previously, we wallpapered one wall, ceiling to floor and it was gloriously easy. This time around, we had many obstacles. ‘It’ll be a super easy glow up’ I said. ‘It’s such a small room, what could go wrong?’ We learned a few things about how walls are never even but it’s nothing a little crown molding won’t fix.

Because it is a small half bath (like really small), I wanted wallpaper on top with a board and batten on the bottom. This is a great way to save money on wallpaper. We easily ordered the wallpaper on Photowall.com by putting the dimensions we needed (measure the wall’s height and width and add 6 inches both ways for error). Despite Photowall being in Sweden (across the globe from the US), the wallpaper was on my doorstep a few days after I put the order in!

There were 12 steps to this bathroom renovation of adding wallpaper and board and batten. I want to remind you that this was not the first time I’ve assisted in helping put up wallpaper or board and batten BUT it’s the first time I did 95% of the project on my own.

The 12 Steps to Our Bathroom Renovation

  1. Remove everything from the walls- this includes a toilet paper holder, towel ring, mirror, and any art or shelving you may have hung in the bathroom. I left up the light fixture until I needed to wallpaper that section.
  2. Determine where you want your board and batten- We have an 8 ft ceiling in this room and I knew I wanted more white board and batten than wallpaper. The room is small and I didn’t want it to feel smaller with the pattern of the wallpaper. Once I found the height of the board and batten I drew a horizontal line around the room.
  3. Draw a vertical line the width of your first wallpaper panel- determine which corner you want to start at and draw a line to the ceiling the width of your panel. I knew I didn’t want a noticeable line where the end of the wallpaper meets up with the beginning of the wallpaper. I wanted that to be on the smallest part of the room which was over the doorframe. I started wallpapering with panel 5 in order to have panel 1 start over the door.
  4. Paint on wallpaper paste- you’ll want to fill in the area within your vertical line plus a couple inches past the line. It’s better to have too much paste than too little. If you miss a spot it could cause a bubble, whereas you can push out excess paste if there’s too much.
  5. Add wallpaper panels- line up the panel with the one to its left and continue around the room.
  6. Remove trim- I removed all trim around the door and the baseboards. Because we were adding board and batten I knew I wouldn’t need the baseboards.
  7. Trim excess wallpaper- use a wallpaper ledge (or any long ledge) to help guide a box knife to cut along the initial horizontal line. This will be where the top horizontal piece of the board and batten will be.
  8. Paint, cut, and add baseboards- this was the hardest part for me. Figuring out how the angles needed to be cut for the baseboard trim was confusing. We have an angled wall and I needed lots of help figuring this out.
  9. Paint, cut, and add vertical board and batten- using liquid nails and a nail gun I added the vertical pieces of board and batten.
  10. Paint the board and batten- once all of the board and batten are up you can paint the walls for the board and batten look.
  11. Caulk and fill nail holes- here is another place I learned a valuable lesson. Be sure to use paintable caulk when sealing your seams. I just used some random white caulk we had on hand that apparently repels paint. I had to go back over all the seams with paintable caulk before painting again. I also filled all the nail holes with wood putty. Touch up the nail holes once the wood putty is dry.
  12. Add decor- here’s the fun part! Add back all the decor you took down and admire your newly renovated bathroom!
Bathroom renovation with wallpaper and board and batten

I made a video tutorial of how I put up the wallpaper as well as the board and batten. There are tons of great detailed videos on how to add your Photowall wallpaper if you need more tips. Below is the video I put together of the steps I took to renovate our bathroom.

I’m really proud of how well the bathroom turned out. When I first told my family I wanted to re-do the bathroom (after we already painted and changed out the vanity) they were not looking forward to it. My daughter didn’t like any of the wallpapers I’d chosen and my husband was worried that he’d end up doing the project. Thankfully in the end, everyone was happy and now I can go in my garden bathroom anytime I need the feeling of spring!

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7 Sneaky Ways to Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables

Today we’re discussing 7 sneaky ways to get your kids to eat vegetables (and if you should even be sneaky about it!)

Both of my girls (6 and 2) are fairly picky. One week they’ll love a certain food and two weeks later they’ll turn their nose at it. The rule at our dinner table is they musn’t make faces or noises at new foods and the must take one bite. If they don’t like it they can make something else for themselves for dinner. Obviously, this doesn’t work the same for our 2 year old but we often will just give her a little more of something on her plate that she did like.

I’ll go against the grain here and say hiding vegetables in food can make picking eating worse. Your kids may distrust what you’re putting in front of them. The key to that is to make sure you’re still having them try new foods WHILE sneaking in other veggies.

I’ve rounded up 7 of my favorite sneaky ways to get your kids to eat vegetables that have worked for us throughout the years.

1. Who doesn’t love muffins?

These Hulk Muffins are a huge hit with both of my girls (and even my husband who has a hard time eating breakfast). They’re also gluten free but they are GREEN. The fact that any food is green disgusts my daughter so once she tried these, and liked them, we were both shocked.

2. Swap the Fries

If you’re having a meal with fries on the side, swap them out for sweet potato fries or cauliflower tots. These are two of our favorites for sweet potato and cauliflower tots and sweet potato fries. It’s pretty amazing how my kids will eat almost anything if it LOOKS like something unhealthy and they have something to dip it in. Toddlers especially are notorious for eating anything in dip form!

Hidden vegetables in kid food

3. Hidden Veggies in the Sauce

This is a great way to get rid of veggies that are about to go bad. You can put nearly anything in a red sauce and it’ll taste amazing. You can even use pureed veggies in meat sauce served over zoodles or Barilla Veggie noodles. We’ve been doing ‘Meatless Mondays’ and this is a great way to pack in tons of veggies. Veggie sauce over a veggie! It’s a great way to start the week.

4. Sneak it in Everywhere

There are some shocking ways that you can hide pureed veggies into food that even I was surprised tasted good. You can put butternut squash in mac n cheese, pumpkin in oatmeal, and sweet potato in pancakes! I’m seeing a trend with adding veggies into pasta and breakfast foods!

5. Spinach goes in everything

Ok, I have to admit. This one took me a while to get used to it. Start kids young on this one so they don’t notice the color change because it doesn’t really change the flavor. You can add it to eggs, quesadillas, smoothies, and pasta dishes without it changing the taste of the meal.

Hillshire and Tyson make for great salad toppings for kids to love

6. Cauliflower crust

Around here, we do Friday Family Pizza Night each Friday. Try making your own pizzas on pizza night. The more kids are involved in what they eat, the better they eat. We’ve tried a few different cauliflower crusts and although there is NO replacement for original pizza crust, this one is really tasty.

7. Add it to your meat

Mince veggies and add them to your meatloaf or turkey meatballs. Our girls really love meat. Pretty much any meat is going to be a success. When we saw that they always finished their meat, I decided to try adding veggies to their meatballs. They can tell the difference between veggie meatballs from IKEA and my meatballs with added veggies. They won’t eat the veggie meatballs but they love mine.

Kids will always be resistant to new foods. We gave both girls all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and fish when they were little and at a certain age they just became wary. So, I wised up and just tricked them. That’s a lie. We tell them what’s in it, after they try it and say they like it.

What are some of your favorite ways to get your kids to eat vegetables and encourage your children to eat healthier?

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A Super(hero) Back to School

This post has been sponsored by Marvel. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Superhero Back-to-School- Our daughter starts kindergarten in three weeks. I am a pool of tears already and can’t imagine what I’ll be like as she walks up the steps of the bus. One thing that keeps my nerves calm is knowing how confident she will be in school. SHE is my superhero.

Super(hero) back to school
Super(hero) back to school
Super(hero) back to school

Check out all the amazing Marvel Back-to-School products at Dollar General!

As a Mom, there is so much to worry about with your kids. Thankfully, my daughter’s ability to excel in school and buying school supplies are not of worry to me. As a kid, I remember going to pick out new school supplies with my Mom and coming home to lay it all out to show my Dad. Brand new boxes of crayons and colorful folders sprawled across the family room floor.

I was so excited to take our daughter back-to-school shopping at Dollar General and get everything we needed. It was so easy to find everything we needed from our supply list with the school supplies in one aisle. Of course, our daughter went straight for the Marvel superheroes! She’s never seen the movies but loves the comics and story lines of these men and women who save the world! Plus, Dollar General has an app for great coupons.

Girls Love Superheros, Too

In her eyes, she doesn’t want to be a doctor or lawyer when she grows up; she wants to be a superhero! We teach a lot of lessons from the Marvel superheroes she looks up to, like “always get back up” (Spider-Man) and “girls are strong” (Captain Marvel and Black Widow). When we saw how many different superhero products there were for such a great price at Dollar General, we kind of got it all.

Some of our favorite Marvel products at Dollar General:

-Spider-Man and Thor Lego sets
-Spider-Man T-shirt and mask
-Marvel coloring books, jumbo sticker books and travel stamp book
-Marvel backpack and lunch box

The Lego sets are her favorite so far, but she really loved being able to take the activity books on our road trip to Grandma’s house. She was even inspired to get her Dad a Spider-Man shirt for his birthday because she wanted to have a matching shirt with him. I love that the Marvel universe brings all of us together as a family.

WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD- Small parts will be generated. Not for children under 3 years.

If you enjoyed Superhero Back-to-School, here are my tips for a smooth back to school!

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Ginger Rogers Lemon Gin Cocktail


Ginger Rogers Lemon Gin Cocktail is the perfect summer drink. The weather is warming up and for us that means lots of great fresh fruit and veggies at our Farmer’s Market. I secretly find recipes with these tasty foods so I’ll have an excuse to go have a stroll around the market on Saturday morning. One of my favorite summer drinks is the Ginger Rogers. It’s cold and refreshing, perfect for any summer parties or lounging poolside.

Ginger Rogers Lemon Cocktail

Ingredients

  • gin – I recommend a good basic gin for this. No need to get fancy.
  • fresh lemon juice
  • ginger syrup – see instructions below* only takes minutes to make and will last in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. The extra syrup is delicious in ice tea, lemonade or drizzled over fresh fruit!
  • ginger ale
  • fresh mint leaves

Step #1: Place the mint leaves and ginger syrup to your glass and using a muddler (or even the back of a spoon) gently press on the mint leaves to release their fragrance and oils… don’t mash!

Step #2: Pour in the lemon juice and gin and stir to combine and then add the ginger ale and stir once or twice to combine….

*Ginger Syrup

1/4 pound ginger, peeled and thinly sliced (about 3/4 cup)
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

First, bring ginger, sugar, and water to a simmer in a small heavy saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved, then gently simmer, uncovered, 30 minutes. Strain through a sieve and reserve ginger for another use (see cooks’ note, below), then cool to room temperature.

I’m beyond ready for our weather to turn warm and to hit the farmers market to get my lemons! If you are a fan of ginger lemonade, you are going to love this light cocktail with ginger ale, ginger syrup, lemon, and mint! Check out some more tips on throwing a great summer BBQ at my friend Misty’s page.

Did you know, this cocktail was named after the 1930s actress Ginger Rogers. How cool would it be to have a drink named after you? What would yours include?

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Strawberry Lemonade with Fresh Picked Strawberries

It’s strawberry picking season in the midwest and each year we head out and pick until we can’t carry anymore. There is a cute farm (Spencer Farms) near us where you can pick strawberries and blueberries in the summer and dig up mums in the fall. We love going there to support them and their fruit is the best around!

Strawberry Lemonade

We use the strawberries for lots of different recipes. Sophia’s favorite is to put them on her pancakes and my favorite is to make a strawberry rhubarb pie. This year we tried a new recipe we got from Sprouts Cooking School– Strawberry Lemonade. It was a really fun recipe to do with Sophia (5) because she’s always asking for ‘pink lemolade’ at restaurants and was surprised at how real strawberry lemonade tastes!

Strawberry Lemonade

Ingredients

• 1 ¼ cups freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups water
• 1 16 oz package strawberries, diced

Instructions

Add lemon juice and sugar in a pitcher and stir until sugar dissolves. Add water and strawberries and stir to combine.

strawberry lemonade with fresh picked strawberries

Kid Friendly

Sophia was able to do this entire process by using a wavy chopper and a lemon squeezer. She’s been on a baking kick ever since she took her Baking with Barbie class at Sprouts several months ago. They made fresh squeezed lemonade and she couldn’t get enough of it’s tart taste. Ever since she’s been excited to bake new recipes and even picked out a cook book with her gift card money at the book store. In a few weeks she’ll get to do a full week of baking with Sprouts at their Once Upon a Time summer camp!

If you’re looking for another recipe with fresh berries, last year I made an amazing Mulberry Cheesecake for Father’s Day!

strawberry picking

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