I know, I know. I am kinda phoning it in this week with the lack of DIY posts, but with good reason. Today is day six of being sick. I finally started to get my voice back yesterday after three days of zero voice. If you are our insta-friends, you know all about it. Speaking of….

Yesssss! We are hosting our first #instasale ! I am so excited. I love the idea of flash sales and pop up shops! We have a bunch of rad finds, and we are going to hook you up!

How to Instashop!

For those who have never instashopped before, let me clue you in. On May 15th at 7pm EST on our instagram feed (@makingahouseahome) we will post an image, just like the ones you see below + a price + product info on our instagram feed only.

The first person who leaves their paypal email address + shipping zip, is the new owner! Pretty fun, huh? Here is a sneak peek at some other goodies we will have!

Love these guys! Will be hard to see them go!

One more peek before you run off to have an amazing weekend.

This brass crab has a secret hiding spot!

Eeeep! I can barely contain myself! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram (makingahouseahome) for all the details, and cute pics of Atlas of course!

I think I am pretty easy when it comes to shopping. I have a few things I want every year, and Joey always seems to find a way to get the goods on special occasions + he is super amazing about surprises! This is my first Mother’s Day and I am so excited! I really don’t care about the gifts, but the hubs insisted, so I got to thinking what do I want for Mother’s Day!?

I love these stackable number rings from Lulu Frost. I also love the idea of getting Atlas’ birthdate, and mixing the metals! He was born 1/23, so I was thinking the “1″ could be silver, and the “2″ and “3″ could be gold.

I could live in a kimono this Summer, can’t you? I am waiting for the one on the right to not be sold out anymore, but I could also happily live in the one on the left. Both from Shop Planet Blue.

I will take all three please. Thank you. These remained and redesigned museum quality gems are from Swissted Shop and make me so happy in the nerdiest ways possible.

How much would you spend on a crib? A mattress? I thought around $100 was the going price for a crib and another $100 for a good mattress. And like everything else we have given our baby, a lot of thought went into the whole sleep issue. I am scared. to. death. of SIDS and doing something which may lead to autism. We have a family member who quite possibly became autistic from having their crib next to lead paid. It’s a reality (1 in 80 kids, 1 in 55 boys!) that’s scary with an unknown source, and guess what a real one of those sources may be? The mattress. Yep. So, lets talk about this.

We bought the organic clothes, organic food to supplement, and now the organic mattress. We decided on a 90% organic 10% non-organic life for our baby, but we knew the mattress had to hands down be as pure as possible.

We checked out Intellibed, and found out their position on a baby mattress was aligned with ours. No off gassing (like our mattress had, which was weird), totally non-toxic, organic, and crazy unique. Seriously, this mattress feels insane and I am very jealous of Atlas. It is very heavy and very sturdy, and the baby loves it. Best of all, I trust him on it.

Right now we are on a routine where he sleeps next to us, and most likely will for another four months, but during the day he naps in his room. We also put him in his crib and let him play while we work on projects or clean. The Intellibed Mini came with an organic zip cotton cover, which we let him hang out on. Needless to say, we love it and totally recommend it. I may even climb into his crib and test it out myself because the feeling is so unique and awesome. But here is the deal, it’s a $400 mattress. Well $399. Why would you buy a mattress that costs that much, when you can snag one for less than $100? Remember that talk I wanted to have with you? It involves very scary stuff.

Most mattresses for cribs are toxic. America doesn’t really have any rules for this kind of stuff, so your baby can be breathing in pretty rancid stuff for long periods of time. If you want to get more info, there are some great facts on the Intellibed site. I am far from a scientist or doctor, but I suspect that’s not so healthy for babies. There is also this Columbia University did a study that will blow your mind. They actually found a chemical in the bellybuttons of babies found in mattresses that lead to children having developmental issues.  I figure this isn’t so much a luxury item, but more of a life quality item. Intellibed should be the standard.

I figure it was worth sharing some scary info (even though I hate to think about this stuff, I am sure you do too), as I am always up for knowing what my options are and then making the best decision I know how. The crib wound up being about $400, but we got it as a gift, and the mattress another $400. So the $200 budget looks more like an $800 budget, but it’s worth the peace of mind knowing that your mini me is on a firm surface that’s totally safe. So we are officially adding this as can’t-live-without-item #7  (1-6 here) for us.

Convinced you can’t live without this mini mattress for your little one (or yourself for that matter)? We have a 10% off code for our readers good on ANY  Intellibed! Use MakingaHouseaHome at check out.

We were compensated for this post, but believe in this product 100% and have been truthful in expressing our thoughts. 

We are giddy getting ready for spring and summer. Nothing better than having some friends over for a BBQ, or some fine dining outdoors. Now with a bebe, we have been searching for a good outdoor solution being he isn’t quite ready to sit up in the patio furniture, and is too young to just “set free” in our ungated backyard. These sweet ombre towels from target may be the solution. I am also swooning the beach umbrella to protect Atlas from the sun, and love that it’s big enough for Joey and I to pop under and hang out with him too. I had to throw in some cute sandals, because, well – they are cute and look good with the towel.

I love this hammock so much. It’s fun, and I like that it’s not made of rope, which I remember slipping through as a child. We don’t really have two trees perfectly places side by side we can hang it from (which I prefer), but I am not opposed to a hammock holder for the deck. I can already envision blueberry lemonade + me + the million books I need to read with lil’ Atlas next to me playing in the sunshine. Yes, I do believe I am ready for Summer. These string lights are also a nice upgrade from those basic round ones we have been using for a while. I loved the beach as a kid, and I have to admit New York beaches have nothin’ on South Florida beaches, but it’s nice to have a backyard to spend time in and have the creature comforts of home close. Nothing wrong with reading a book on a beach towel next to your grass.

The color story above is what we are going with this year and match the plasticware from this post pretty spot on. We found all these gems at Target, which means they were all very reasonably priced and easy to get your hands on.

Do you have any backyard must-haves for Summer?

Disclosure: Compensation was provided by Target via Glam Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Target.

We are parents. It’s a very cool and very weird thing to accept. One day you are shopping for heels, the next you are buying tiny little onsies. There isn’t much of a transition. Everything and nothing chances all at once. You are the same person. Maybe with a bit more patience. Perhaps you have the ability to function on 1/2 the sleep, but your core is the same. I had all these rules before Atlas was born, and the parents smirked, and the non-parents nodded their heads like I had the master plan all worked out. Things like “nothing made in China” to “85% of his clothes and toys not made in China”. And another rule was to not go crazy with baby stuff. It will clutter the house, and he’s not really going to use all of it anyway, right? It’s true – planning is fruitless.

For example, we bought this months and months ago because it “matches” our house.

I was heartbroken when we came home from the hospital to realize I wasn’t comfortable placing our brand new baby in this too-tall-to-look-into-from-bed. We wound up using this $70 option religiously for the first four weeks.

We got it with the intent of using it downstairs and for travel, but wound up using it every day, multiple times a day. You can find it here, or almost anywhere that sells baby stuff really. It’s so worth it. The good news is, at about 6.5 weeks Atlas started using the Restoration Hardware Moses Basket and loving it AND we get to keep using the little one for travel because it folds up so great. Sigh-of-relief!

And believe it or not we have another thing for him to sleep in. It’s funny how we rationalized the purchase too. My dad asked if we had a swing, and we said we didn’t and started doing research. Joey found this insane swing-substitute because he thought, what if Atlas doesn’t like a single motion. Joey wanted the swing to have multiple options. This is how we wound up with this crazy looking thing.

It’s been amazing for back relief. Atlas is already over 13 lbs and growing strong! Both of us have been breaking our backs daily to rock him and walk around with him and this “swing” has cut that time a lot. We LOVE LOVE LOVE holding our baby,  but when or backs begin to hurt, it’s no good for anyone. This ran about $240 big ones, which I wasn’t excited about, however it’s proven to be very useful and will last until he is at least a year old. I also love ow it doesn’t take up too much space and comes in un-offensive color options. We sprung for the extra $40 to have the plush option in this neutral tone. The cheapest one we could find is here, but we got ours on diapers.com with a coupon, saving a few extra bucks.

I was pretty dead set on not having all these “junky” or “crazy-colorful-mismatched” things for bebe, but when this sleeping vessel situation happened, I learned right quick I would have to exercise flexibility and all my previous planning may in-fact have been fruitless.

We registered for this backpack style carrier that workes for infants and baby’s alike and was $150 and super cute. I figured we would use it around the house, and at the zoo, mall, BBQ’s, whatever. Well, it’s been almost 8 weeks and we have only put it on once, and used it for real zero times.

Once again, the cheaper $50 option won out and is being used daily. Go figure. Enter this guy.

Joey said “Why would we spend $50 on a piece of fabric?!”. So we didn’t. The over the shoulder sling didn’t work for me and the $150 backback style seemed too severe for house use with it’s million clips. One day I just went ahead and bought it and I love it! It’s another back saver for sure.  Joey on the other hand has not had luck with it and is still using the sling here and there.

My sister got me a super cute diaper bag I saw online and when it arrived I was confuse how anyone could use it as a diaper bag. The opening was so small, and it was so flimsy. It had gotten rave reviews, but I wasn’t going to just see if it worked out, so I swapped it for one I have seen in person.

I discovered Orla Kiely ages ago while in London and have been in love with her simple and durable pieces since. This bag is heaven sent. I don’t think this one is currently available, but I am sure a different pattern is. Under the bag has a large zip where I store the diapers and changing mat. Inside has a bunch of pockets and a bungie we keep keys on. It fits over the shoulder or cross body really well. I am so happy I wound up with this one.

Atlas loves tummy time, which I hear is strange. He coo’s like a madman if he is belly down on your belly or on a blanket on the floor, or on the bed (supervised of course!). I didn’t want one of those huge playmats because they are so ugly, and I figure he’s face down – he sees the floor or our face when we are next to him.

So, one day he spit up all over his blankets, and I started to grow tired of dragging out little toys and propping them up for them to just go unnoticed by Atlas, than I told Joey we should look into a playmat, and just make sure to not keep it on the ground. We went to Buy Buy Baby and this guy was $75. What?! It’s the only decent looking one and it’s twice the price of all the others! On principle, I told Joey I didn’t want it. The next day I found it for $63, and decided to give it a try because I figured the baby should have some designated areas of his own. Shame on me, we should have gotten this soon. It’s pretty great and well made. We removed the mirror from the floor portion and he kicks the dangling birds and laughs. He’s a bit too young to interact with it fully, but so far, very good. We use it for tummy time and we put him on his back. We haven’t used the pillow it came with yet, but I imagine that prop up with help him engage even better.

So there is over a thousand words on things that are working for us so far. We are still testing out diapers, soaps, car seats, stroller, etc and will let you know how we feel about them.

Do you have any products you can’t live without for your newborn? We would absolutely love to hear! Leave a comment below and share with us and everyone! 

Like shopping?  Check out more “Let’s Shop” posts!

I am collecting pretty Spring dresses as inspiration to lose this baby weight I gained. 15 lbs down…..and a lot more to go! Thank goodness it’s warming up. It’s been fun shopping for a little man, and surprising how quickly he grows out of stuff! I found some super cute stuff for him this Spring and can’t wait to coordinate. Oh yea, I’m that mom.

1. 2. 3. 4.

Clothes. I miss clothes. I went through my entire pregnancy refusing to buy maternity clothes because, let’s face it, nothing is going to hide the huge bump – and who really wants to bother to disguise it? Pregnancy isn’t slimming, and the clothing isn’t attractive, and it swells your feet up (and your fingers, and other things…) leaving you with little desire to shop for “normal stuff”.

My feet were so swollen when we left the hospital, I couldn’t wear shoes! After about a week, some stuff started to shift back to where it should go (or it’s correct size), and since my feet were the first to behave, they were the first to be rewarded. I got a pair of Poetic License Dainty Doll shoes at PBJ-Shop.com (which are on sale right now!) and am dreaming up cute winter outfits to wear with them.

‘Ya know how sometimes you buy something cute, but the quality leaves a lot to be desired? These are surprisingly well made. Joey actually pointed it out, and I have to agree. They are super (duper) cute shoes, but also well made. Score! Such a treat for spring. I am thinking these will kill it with a pair of jeans just as much as a cute flirty dress.