This is my tardis. It looks like an ordinary desk in a corner, but really it's much larger on the inside and is the headquarters of Posh*Little (you are here), Top Mommy Blogs, Top Baby Blogs, Greenley Design, and all my other web design/editor/admin adventures. It's also a secret diaper changing station; cleverly hidden by those lovely bins.

I'm sharing it today because I am tickled pink, well Nantucket Blue by Miller Paint to be exact, over how my latest project turned out. My desk sits in the middle of two rooms. I needed to find a way to bridge the gap between the blue living room and white dining room where one kind of bled into the other and not evenly on either side of the room. Viola... stripes! Now "my office" is more defined and it's balanced out the rooms.

Lately I've been dreading coming to my desk and so this was the perfect, creative-pick me-up for it. And it was pretty easy too. If only I had a margarita maker or mini wine cellar hidden under my desk.. that would complete my creative corner :-)

Tips for painting striped walls:

• Start by painting your lighter base coat (I used Ralph Lauren Dover Cliffs; a grayer white compared to the yellowish white our walls have). I wanted a white stripe at the top of the wall, along the ceiling where it's harder to get a clean line. A little off white along the ceiling is barely noticeable compared to blue so I didn't have to do any ceiling touch ups.
• Measure starting from the floor up. I marked every 24 inches (the top stripe was about 18 inches but you can't really tell there's a difference). Using a level and a pencil mark lines to use to lay your tape over. I used the green Frog tape to create my tape lines. It worked well.
• After you've laid your tape lines, paint over the tape with the base color to seal it. That way, any bleeding will be the base color! This is an important step to getting crisp lines.
• Once your base coat and tape coat are dry apply the second color (in my case it was Nantucket Blue by Miller Paint; matte finish; 2 coats).
• Once it's completely dry, remove the tape. If all went correctly, you shouldn't have to do a lot of touch ups. If you do, try using a little paint brush (steal one from the kids art sets) to fine tune your lines.

Here is a great nap time project... a decorative fridge* chalkboard. I got this done in under two hours (my 2 year olds typical nap) and actually made 3 so I have a couple extra for gifts or other rooms. This included creating the free printable template as well so it should be a much quicker project for you.

I am using a Repositionable Chalk Roll. It's contact paper that can turn anything into a chalkboard. Today it's my fridge. The one pictured below is from Board Dudes that I grabbed at Office Depot. It was right next to some really cute pre-cut circle chalkboards but I wanted something a little more creative than circles.

I originally wanted this by my desk but opted for a fridge makeover instead. Unfortunately, I don't have a before picture but in a nut shell our fridge had become a message center, bread & cereal stand, photo album, coupon holder and more. We stored 4 loafs of bread and 6 boxes of cereal on top of the fridge and the front was covered with magnets, photos and what-have-you's. It was a complete mess and eyesore . So I stripped it clean, found homes for everything and decided to add back just one decorative and useful item... a chalkboard.

My two year old now climbs out of the crib. She opens the door with a crash and yells, "Baby wake up" as loud as she can. Kind of like a proud TA DA! I bet her hands are up in the air with jazz hands. She then goes room by room yelling "BABY WAKE UP" making sure everyone else is awake and ready to tell her good job. At 5:30 am.

She used to be such a good sleeper but now that she can escape, that means she just doesn't want to sleep. My first 3 never did this. They stayed in bed. So maybe they would sneak in bed with us but at least they went back to sleep. Not Hadley. Baby awake. Baby escape.

I had other plans today for blogging (hurray: getting back at it) but I'm too tired and now I have to deconstruct the nursery. If you're a parent who's toddler climbed out of the crib to early (for you.. not them) comment away. For now I'm planning on putting a mattress on the floor for her since turning the crib around and constructing mega-crib didn't fool her. Unfortunately, our real problem is her leaving her room. Oh #4! You're stifling my We Can Do It All attitude I've been sporting lately.

{photo: Hadley making friends at Old Navy; click to vote @ Top Mommy Blogs & support a tired mommy}

I'm a huge fan of Bravo's Real Housewives franchise. A proud and loyal fan... waiting for them to start casting for The Real Housewives Of Portland! It's my favorite show(s) to pull up on the DVR to distracting me while on the elliptical (a.k.a. eliptacizing). I never would of thought I'd be spending a good couple hours, past midnight, trying to track down an item I spotted. It wasn't a pair of Fendi shoes or a Chanel bag. It was the math/addition prints from Heather Debrow's playroom.

Math wall art. Swoon! I've got an orange playroom too with a huge empty wall. This is perfect. After hours of searching for this, I finally stumbled upon the original prints (no longer available from Pottery Barn Kids) and a DIY from Melaine at MySweetSavannah.Blogspot.Com.

(Like the Boys Only In This Area pillow? That was an easy find... although not local. Find that here.)

While "Of The Month" clubs have been around for eons and are a great gift, they can often be somewhat generic. Last Christmas I found a super hip girls clothing club for my 7 year old daughter called Fab Kids that has been wonderful and anything but generic. It's personalized for her tastes and even has celebrity mom Christina Applegate on board as a creative partner!

I first learned about Fab Kids through Living Social. I purchased a deal for 2 outfit credits for $40 total. It was basically a buy one get one free deal. The "outfits" are usually 3 pieces total, one piece being an accessory and they are put together for your daughter after she answers a style quiz (which my daughter really liked doing and re-did several times). The good thing about testing out Fab Kids through the Living Social deal was that I could get my two outfits right away. The bad thing was that I think they were clearing out their stock and the choices were very limited. While we ended up picking outfits that wouldn't of been our first choices, everything was beyond adorable and even cuter in real life. Great quality, vibrant colors and all around very nice clothes.

We've kept on with Fab Kids for a few more months now and I have to say that we've enjoyed it. Lots of new stock so plenty to choose from plus now they even offer entire wardrobes. My daughter loves to pick her outfit each month and even more excited when the box shows up at the door. It was a fantastic Christmas present for her. Much more interactive and exciting than opening up two outfits under the tree and the website makes it easy for her to find her unique style.

It's always a treat to find new designers that want to help add a little frill and lace to my daughters wardrobe. It's an even sweeter treat when the clothes are adorable and affordable like these fancy duds from newly launched Butterflies & Moonbeams. Keep reading to find out how to enter to win....

Butterflies & Moonbeams, recently featured on Totsy & Zulily and will be back at Totsy next week, offers a beautiful line of girls boutique dresses, accessories, outwear, shoes and swimwear. All with texture, frills and oozing with charm. I think this gorgeous coat dress (pictured above; similar Pink Sunday Coat Dress pictured very top, left) is one of my faves. It's not a dress coat (well OK it is) it's a coat dress! Perfect here in the NW where it's hard to determine if it's coat weather or not.

Sponsored message:

While I am sad to say, that my much loved Petunia Pickle Bottom iPhone cover was forced into retirement, I have been tickled pink with my new cover from BellaVita. With my über destructive 1 year old on the loose, I've been trying out non-plastic cases for both my iPad and my iPhone. So far, soft cases are a much better match since I am often handing off my devices to keep the kids busy.

This little iphone wristlet, the Vita Bacca (for iPhone 4/4s), has been great. It's small enough to not be obtrusive, holds a few credit cards and some cash, can snap shut plus has a wrist strap to make it easy to carry with your hands full. It's become my diaper bag wallet as well which is very convenient to not always be running back inside to grab my wallet. I already have it because I always have my phone on me. The wrist strap is also removable so you can take it off or clip your keys to it to be extra organized. Oh yeah, and it's really cute!

Giftable - The BellaVita wristlet comes in a beautiful ribbon tied box so it's gift ready. 

While the Posh*Little blog is undergoing a few changes and upgrades, I thought it would be a perfect time to try out my new blogging platform with a before and after post featuring my house's latest changes and upgrades. Nothing major but home decor & DIY is much more exciting than hearing about software updates, right? So today it's my stairway lighting upgrade and my quest to rid the house of builder basics.

When we bought our house, 6 years ago or so, I was 7 months pregnant and we had 2 weeks to be out house. With 2 kids, 2 dogs and a baby on the way, an apartment or hotel wasn't an option. It was do or die house hunting and we had no time to be picky about fixtures and finishings. So when a house right next door to one of my favorite childhood homes popped up, one my dad had built, it was fate. The house had been flipped and was in great condition with a fair amount of updates; albeit very generic and obviously straight from home depot. We haven't been able to justify a lot of changes since everything was new.

Flash forward 6 years and now everything is not so new and covered in go-gurt. I don't feel so bad making a few changes. As a matter of fact, I'm starting to feel bad not making changes and finally making it my own. Especially things that I could easily do myself. If you've never changed a light fixture before, watch this video and you'll see how easy and doable it really is. I got two done during nap time, all by myself.

While I am not a fan of real mustaches, I am obsessed everything mustache shaped and mustache accessories. So this year I've made all my kids fun little mustache Valentines cards w/removable mustaches so the kids can have a colorful/hip card plus have a little dress up time with the mustache.

I didn't realize how ambitious of a project it would be but they turned out adorable so it was worth the effort. Designing and perfecting them for print took most of the time so luckily for you, that part is already done and it's just a matter of printing, cutting and assembling.

This DIY card consists of 3 items. The main card, the mustache cutout & then the candy. Candy is of course optional but I accidentally ordered a 300 bag of dum-dums (I must have been shopping under the influence) so everything is adorned with a dum-dum these days.

My posh little one has outgrown her infant cart seat (we always called them bucket seats) but I couldn't help but ooh and ahh over these adorable car seat covers from BabbaCo.

I was sale site hopping this morning on a mission to find a new rug and found these cuties on Zulily. The good news is that being on Zulily, it means they are on sale. The bad news is, this also means that they won't last long and the sale is only on for 3 days. Right now they are $24.99-$29.99 on sale, down from $50-$65. Score!

A blanket or nursing cover can always double as a temporary cover but if your one of those parents who like keep baby covered as much as possible, something like this would work great. Everyone will stare at your cover instead of your baby.

If you've been here before you may have caught my Funbites post about food cutters for kids and know that I'm all for making things appealing for the kids, no matter how silly. My kitchen cutters collection has just grown a little more and this latest addition was mostly aimed at my 4th grade son who's school lunch consists of a juice pouch, granola bar and a bag of chips. Sans sandwich.

I've been using another sandwich cutter for my daughter which cuts out the crust and cuts the sandwich into 4 pieces, just how she likes it. We had to shake that up a bit for Alex and found him a mustache sandwich cutter from Fred & Friends (I heart all things Fred).

This cutter works great with a basic loaf of bread. If you have a wider, more rectangle shaped piece it will work but there will be more waste. There is a little waste, even here, but I've seen my kids eat sandwiches with the crust on them and there is much more uneaten sandwich than this.

I hate piles. They scare me. Unorganized Piles can kill you if they grow to high {or just really stress you out when you're trying to find something}. I think piling is hereditary. My parents were tidy people but were major piler's. Dad mostly. He had special places for all his piles. For him they were organized. They had a home. I feel the need to pile but fight it with all my might.

So like my father, I give my piles a home. Unlike my father, they are tidy, cute, organized, out of the way and not piled on the kitchen counter. One tip I often tell my kids is that it's much easier to put something away if it has a home. If it doesn't have a home, get rid of it. If it needs a home, make one. For papers, that can often be a staging area. Or a pre-filing area. This is where piles start. We set things aside to deal with, read, file or do later. To avoid this, I've created a pre-file/anti-pile sorting station to organize the paper piles. And no, I'm not talking about a designated spot on the kitchen counter.

My husband thought this was a ridiculous idea. He said, "why don't you just file it or deal with it." He couldn't argue with my answer. "Because we don't." Bills and school stuff I have a method for (I'll post my school stuff solution next) but there are receipts, coupons, magazines, insurance papers, and other things that need to be dealt with or filed but don't always happen right away. For example I have to move my car to get to the filing cabinet. So file cabinet things often become a pile. Same with tax stuff for the year, magazines I want to look at later, the fridge gets cluttered with coupons I want to use or photos I plan to frame.. it's never ending. 

I've been so busy with my posh little ones' lately that this is first post in months! A million apologies to my readers for the lack of updates and I am so hopeful that the myriad of ideas in my head will spill over here. Having a fourth child has been such a crazy change for me. She {#4, Hadley} is much more work than my other kids and she can't stand when I am at my computer. She bites. Bloody murder tantrums and biting. I'll admit it... I've got a biter. But that's a whole separate post right!?!?

Let's talk lunches and apples. My kids love apples but won't eat apples in their lunch if they're brown. At home, we make an apple an even like corn on the cob and put those corn holders on them. They'll eat the whole apple, un-sliced, peel and all. Which is funny because they won't eat corn on the cob and won't eat an apple w/out the corn holders. Crazy, but works. But that won't fly at school so I've tackled this a few ways:

A) Trying to score bagged, pre-sliced apples. I've found 3 ways to find bagged, sliced apples. On occasion my local super market will have them. When they don't, Costco does. But the Costco bags are usually too big for my little ones. Our 3rd option (and best) is McDonald's. This sounds so bad but when the kids get a happy meal, I snag the apple slice bags and throw them in the fridge to save for school.

B) Slice/bag apples & pray they eat them. Nah, method A (all 3 versions) work much better than this. For the last 5 or so years I've been sending my kids off to school with lunch and or snack... the apples have come back uneaten. Even if I remove the skin... no dice.

If your like me and love canvas wall art, you'll love this giveaway and twist on traditional canvas prints from Woodsnap. Woodsnap prints your photo on ready to hang wood!

Keep reading to learn more about Woodsnap and entry details...

Uh, oh... You've Been Boo'd! Here's a fun Halloween tradition {updated Oct 2012} that you can begin with your neighbors, co-workers, friends or use if you just got boo'd and need to keep the boo-train moving.

If you've never heard of Booing your neighbors before, here's how it works: 

If you are starting the booing then you make a goodie plate for two neighbors (co-workers, friends, etc; neighbors are easiest). This goodie plate will usually have cookies and/or candies but it really can be whatever you want. You wrap up your goodie plate (you'll want it covered just in case your neighbor doesn't check their front door right away) with cute little Boo poem and leave it on your neighbors door step. Ring the door bell and sneak away so they don't see you. The poem tells them they've been booed and instructs them on how to boo someone else. You're supposed to re-boo w/in two days. It's like a chain letter but with candy!

Missed it? Go back to part 1 of the Chevron Nursery Theme roundup.

The amazing nursery above is from designer Katy from Caden Lane for her 3rd child. I particularly love the pennant from her new iKat collection. See more of this lucky little lady's nursery on the Caden Lane Blog.

Don't want to paint? You don't have to! Chevron Nursery Wall Decal by Lulukuku @ Etsy.Com. $32.50

Getting back to blogging! Boy, it's been a crazy summer. With all four kids home and my youngest biting my mouse arm whenever I would spend any time at the computer, I was forced into a little blogging break.

While it was nice to detach a little, I am getting the bug again and am starting off this time around with my latest obsession... chevrons! I have yet to decorate Hadley's nursery and my 2 older girls are begging for a redo on their brown and pink room. I haven't decided yet but one of their rooms will definitely have some crazy stripe action going on.

With accessories and bedding, adding some chevron splashes will be easy. Not so easy will of course be the chevron painted walls. Lowes has an amazingly helpful video with instructions on how to create the look above. The pink, yellow and blue combo is a bit much for me. I am planning on white with just one other color as the accent strip.

Decorating a nursery with mid-century modern taste but trying to stay on some sort of budget? I am. If I love it... I may splurge but thanks to hours and hours on Google, I know there are always modern and affordable alternatives to any item. For example this modern nursery rocker that doesn't break the bank. The Vinnie White Cradle Chair. Constructed from polypropylene, ash wood, chromed steel and available at OverStock.Com for the not so scary price of $166.99 $93.10 (even better) or $129.99 here. 

We have yet to decorate Hadley's nursery. Since it's half guest bedroom right now, I am in a holding pattern on the brainstorming phase. Anything I add, since it will likely not be used for another nursery for us, *gasping at the thought of having 5 kids* my goal is to make sure everything is re-usable once she's outgrown the nursery. So you won't find any gliders here. Gliders, I think, scream nursery so I need a good, old-fashioned rocker with a hip 

Splurge for the real thing! The original 1948 Eames® Molded Plastic Rocker - RAR (rocking armchair r-wire base) was brought back to life in 1994 and is available in 10 colors for $479 @ DWR.Com

Do you have a little one that is anxious or nervous? I do. Big time. My oldest worries all the time. He's a sensitive little guy and my husband and I have really been struggling with how to help him. It's so fantastic to be able to find a children's book that tackles an issue like this. Kids worry too!

Don't Feed The WorryBug by Andi Green is the fifth installment of The Worry Woo Monster series & winner of the Creative Child Book Of The Year award. In this beautifully illustrated book, Wince worries about all the things he needs to do or didn't do. With each new worry, Wince feeds the pesky worry bug that keeps growing and growing.

Wince is more than a story book character though. He is also a loveable and adorable plush toy. The simple act of hugging him can be a great coping mechanism for your little one. When we can see Alex starting to tense up, I'll grab Wince and the book. We will sit down to have a quick calm down session. I'll tell Alex to give Wince lots of hugs or tension releasing squeezes. It's a wonderful story dealing with real emotions and such a helpful tool for kids trying to manage their stress. $36 @ the WorryWoo Store.