The cookie baking blizzard came and went this year already (and weirdly, left no snow). All the butter! All the cream! All the chocolate! All the nuts and dried fruit! Okay, so the last one isn’t so exciting, but there was a lot of fruit and nuts in this house for a while. Panforte, anyone?

I don’t think I made any new recipes this year, which is odd.  No wait, I made one new recipe, but I can’t tell you because there are some of you out there getting it! Oh and the linzer cookies were new to me, but not terribly exciting. I’m getting ahead of myself. Here are the deets:

caramels: three kinds, all by martha, gingerbread, chocolate, and plain with sea salt on top

sugar plums: Honestly, I make these mostly because of the name. How could you pass up sugar plums at Christmas? These are spice filled, honey sweetened, date and almond laden-ed bits of christmas past. And they are vegan to boot.

hazelnut thumbprints: My daughter and I like these the best. This year I put a bit of ganache in the middle instead of the usual jam. Surprisingly, the jam is better, but no one has complained about the chocolate.

english toffee: I make this every christmas, but this year I got all fancy and cut it in squares instead of breaking it in pieces. You have to cut it when it’s not too hot and not too cool. And hey, it worked! Also, I ate all the ones that broke.

alfajores: These were a new addition to the cookie roster last year and I’ve been thinking about them since! Creamy, caramelicious dulce de leche sandwiched between two light, flaky cookies with a crunch of sugar on top. Bomb! And hey, I wrote up a recipe for you on Dana’s blog for her Sweets and Treats Christmas Countdown.

Oh and those linzers up there at the top of the page: wow, linzer cookies are kind of a pain in the butt. They just look so damn christmasy I had to make them. I used Karen DeMasco’s recipe from The Craft of Baking (a killer book by the way). It was chock full of orange peel and nutmeg and hazelnuts. The texture was perfect, but I wasn’t keen on the taste. It was almost too grown up and boring. Maybe a boozy filling would have made it grown up in a good way.

Gingerbread men too: well you have to make gingerbread men (look more instagraminess).

Merry Christmas everyone! We’re off to Grannyma’s. I’ll see you back here on Monday!

I’m finding instagram quite addictive. And awesome. You can find me by searching for elsiemarley. Be warned though, 80% of pictures are probably going to be food. Are you on it? Leave your username in the comments so I can find you!

Every year I make christmas cards for everyone and I usually enjoy it. Last year it was one more annoying thing to do and just went out and bought them. Then I bought some more on sale after Christmas to stash away in the box for this Christmas–knowing my future self wouldn’t have her shit together come December. But haha, past self, I gots it together this year! How did I do it? I had my kids make them for me.

My husband resized the christmas coloring pages I drew, my kids colored them (above are some of my favorites) and I sent them out. Done! Well, no I actually have a few more to get in the mail, but almost done!

This is what was once a closet. The closet never worked all that well for clothes storage (name me one kid who puts their clothes on hangers).  Luckily it was deep enough that we could make a workable art studio in the space. The deal was that my son would get the loft bed and my daughter would get her own desk.  Obviously they share this space, but my daughter is the prolific artist in the family.

My brother built the desk and shelves with leftovers from the cloud bed and whatever wood he scrounged up in our basement.  The top shelf is for coloring books and work books. The other two shelves are my older kids’ special shelves. All the pretty rocks, weird bits of plastic, pieces of string, cards from grandma, and whatever else ends up in their pockets goes here.

The art supply wall idea came from Pinterest (it’s originally from HGTV, but I can’t seem to find the link).  I called up a sheet metal shop in town and asked if they could cut a piece of metal to size for me. “No problem!” they said.  They were the nicest guys–made sure there were no sharp edges, drilled holes so I could hang it easily, chatted me up about the weather, and charged me 20 bucks. I glued 2 super strong magnets to the back of each tin (though some could use 3, I think) and filled them up with pencils, markers, glue, tape, and all that other good stuff. This art studio is one of the best parts of the room–it gets used every single day.

Here is an overview of the room. You can really see how small it is from this angle.  It looks so clean and uncluttered, but wait, what is all that stuff under those beds:

There is a bunch of hidden storage in this room and it works out really well. Under the crib (on the left in the photo) is a box of linens for all the beds, a cradle full of babies, and a puzzle box. The ottoman with hairpin legs (thank you, craiglist!) is also a toy box. Under my daughter’s bed is the giant box of dress up stuff (which was a curbside find) and a wooden box for their pajamas. Not bad, right?

It’s taken us 9 months (really?!) to finish this room. Whew! All of that  for a few before & after shots:

This room was a nursery, then two toddlers’ bedroom and now three happy sibling share it! So here is a little bonus before & after with a before-the-before photo  in there:

Thanks for coming along with me as we made this room. Here are all the posts about this little room in one place:

• nursery tour on ohdeedoh
• before post
• during
• still during
• still still during
• after post 1
• after post 2 (that’s this one silly)

We live in a small (1000 square feet) house that has two very small bedrooms and there are 5 of us. When we had our third baby I was sure my husband and I would have to share our bedroom with him for a very long time.  Then I came across this bedroom on Ohdeedoh one day. The room is small and not only does it fit three kids comfortably, there is room for a desk and a dresser and toys. I thought if they can do it, we could too. Only we had to do it for a 6 year old girl, a 4 year old boy, and the 2 year old boy.

The first thing we did, or rather the first thing I asked my brother to do, was build a loft bed. The room is 10×10, so there was no way we were going to fit two beds and a crib in there. I hate bunk beds–changing the sheets on bunk beds is the worst, but they can look pretty awful too.  We designed this cloud loft bed (for the 4 year old) so it would almost disappear into the background. The clouds act as a guard rail and I painted them the same white as the walls, but I couldn’t resist one stripey cloud (inspired by this coat rack).

Underneath the clouds is my daughter’s bed–the iron number by ikea that everyone loves. We strung christmas lights to the bottom of the loft bed so she has a light. Also because we had to put the cloud bed right in the window. The way the room is set up there was no other place for the loft to go.  I was worried about it, but it turned out just fine–the window and the shade still work and it barely even blocks any light.

The baby’s bed is across from the clouds. Above the crib is a map of our neighborhood that I painted. It still needs street names and the railroad track and the bike path painted in, but it’s a work in progress–mostly because  I can’t do while the baby is sleeping! I picked up the the masks at our local art supply shop and they work for dress up and decoration (a twofer). There are wooden boxes under the crib for storage (that I talked about here) and the hamper was a lucky thrift store find.

On the neighboring wall is the dresser/changing table and the storage/display shelves. We keep diapers in the wooden box up on the shelf and the red cross thing is actually a nightlight!  The dresser caused a bit of problems when I was redoing the room. I really thought it would look good gray, but it ended up looking like a big gray blob in this all white room. So I had to paint it white again (and again and again–it takes lots of coats to cover up dark gray).

But even though it’s boring white on the outside, the inside is super awesome! I fell in love with the idea of painting the inside of drawers when I saw it on pinterest. It took four cans of spray paint: safety orange, farm equipment yellow, lagoon blue, and fluorescent pink (all rustoleum brand). After spraying a few coats of color, I finished them all with a coat of clear shellac. The dresser is the only clothes storage we have for the kids, so they each get their own color drawer and they all share the undie/sock drawer on top.  What happened to the closet, you ask? Stay tune for tomorrow and I’ll show you!

three kids in a room: part two