“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love!”
~ Hamilton Wright Mabie
-
- Wanna learn more about advertising on Fancy House Road?
- Click here for more info.
-

Recent Posts
Reel Life
Fancy House Road Chatter
Grab A Badge
Author Archives: keighley
Around 6 o’clock this evening, I decided to snuggle with my heating pad for a few minutes. It’s been a long week and bedtime, the time for which I usually save my heating pad therapy, just seemed too far away. So with thoughts of how my hypothyroid and freezing house justified my crawling into bed, I turned the heating pad on high and took a break.
Well, not five minutes later, Michael decided that he was cold and wanted to “share” the heating pad for a bit. In order for both of us to use the heating pad we had to get some serious cuddling on. We had 18 inches to work with so Michael literally held me to him so I wouldn’t be pulled off the heating pad by my own body weight. Despite the most awkward position ever, we both started to fall asleep… the power of the pad. In my heating pad induced stupor, I completely forgot about Michaels tendency to spasm while sleeping. So imagine how wonderful I felt when out of nowhere my body was being simultaneously bucked, squeezed, punched, thrown and pulled. My body went into such a fight or flight mode that my heating pad session was officially called off at 6:15 pm.
In more relevant blog news, today I took a short break from work to get my glitter on.
Materials: Mod Podge, Loose Glitter, Glassine Candy Bags, Glittered Scrapbook Paper, Heart Hole Punch.
Instructions: Apply a thin layer of Mod Podge to the bottom 1/4 of your candy bag with a brush or via a dipping process. Immediately sprinkle loose glitter on the Mod Podged area. Shake to remove unnecessary glitter and let dry. Using the heart hole punch, punch the glittered scrapbook paper until you have enough heart to help seal the candy bags. Finally, stuff with small candies, fold the top of the bags over and seal with the heart cutouts.
Once materials are all collected this process is very quick! Definitely an easy and fun activity to do with the kids… however goggles may be required.
Have you heard of Houzz? For a couple years now the FHR girls have used Houzz for design inspiration, home tips, and product recommendations. If any of those things sound appealing to you, then you do not want to miss out on this incredible site! Well, recently we were contacted by a friend at Houzz and told about their IDEABOOKs.
Lets just say by the time our meeting came to an end, we all had our IDEABOOK pins added to our browser toolbars! As we begin our IDEABOOKs journey on Houzz, we thought we better invite you readers to start your own. If you’re interested, here is what you need to know about houzz.com and starting your own IDEABOOK- click here, here, here and here. I’m so excited about this I couldn’t help but share 4 links!
Also, check out our profile. We are just getting started so look forward to more IDEABOOKs soon.
Special thanks to houzz!
Today I stumbled upon an article titled Cleaning House while casually clicking around on Elle Decor. Intrigued by the title (the word clean always gets my attention. I wonder if it’s a product of having OCD parents? Nah.) I clicked on the article. I soon discovered that Cleaning House was formatted and written just for me. If I had a design guide for 2012, these five points would be it!
• Ronda Carman suggests that books as props have a short shelf life! Always remember that ‘An object added for effect instead of affection will always look like an affectation.’ -Rose Tarlow
• Antiques dealer Richard Shapiro lobbies for collecting furnishing and accessories from different time periods. He expresses himself quite boldly when he states the, “monotony of one midcentury room after another, all with predictable, gratuitous, gimmicky accessories.”
• Mary McDonald declares it’s time to retire brightly lacquered Hollywood Regency furniture. She begs, “I think we all have seen enough garage-sale junk sprayed in high-gloss Skittles colors to last through the next century.”
• Designer Mario Buatta singles out “dysfunctional decoration!” He abhors how design today is done for styling and has nothing to do with living.
• Finally Sheila Bridges hopes the DIY craze has run its course. She states that she’s seen enough “earthy, handmade concoctions. Just because it can be reclaimed doesn’t mean it should be.”
Personally I think these designers are spot-on with there 2012 design suggestions. Just don’t come knocking at my door because my own decor frightful. We’re working on it!
In conclusion, sometimes I regretfully ponder how we’ve enjoyed the beautiful furnishings and craftsmanship of older generations. I have a beautiful hutch in my front room that was made in the 1800′s. Despite the few bangs and bruises, it is a gorgeous piece that has and will survive for generations to come. Then I think of our generation…
I apologize now to my future posterity that get to look forward to an overwhelming number of spray painted tables, DIY pillows, bedazzled lampshades and repurposed fluff.
|images|
With two of the FHR girls just having had babies, now is the perfect time to share my favorite products for keeping clean. For my final guest post, here is the roundup of my favorite products to keep those smiling little faces clean and those precious little fannies fresh throughout the new year!
#1 MVP: bumGenius Flip All-in-One Diapering System
This was the very first thing I started researching after I learned I was pregnant. I left the doctor’s office with a swag bag full of formula samples, diaper and wipe samples and some parent-focused magazines. I was thumbing through the pages of one of them when I came upon a bumGenius advertisement. I had never seen anything like it! The thought of old school cloth diapers didn’t appeal to me too much but neither did the thought of mounds and mounds of diaper waste on its way to the landfill. When I learned there was something like this that made cloth diapering much more convenient, I was intrigued. After pouring over pages and pages of online reviews, we decided to stock the nursery with these babies. My daughter was quite small when she was born—she wore premie clothes until she was almost three months—so we had to wait to try them out but when we did, we were thrilled. We had used disposable diapers until she was big enough for the bumGenius and we had leaks, diaper rash, and that unmistakable diaper pail smell wasn’t something I was thrilled about. Once we began using the bumGenius, leaks were far less frequent and diaper rash almost never happens anymore. I haven’t found them to be much less convenient than disposables and of course, the savings doesn’t hurt! We also invested in some doublers and the diaper sprayer—both must-haves, in my opinion, if you’re going to go the cloth diapering route.
#2 RLR Laundry Treatment
This is the product I didn’t know I needed until I KNEW I needed it. I read in most of the forums I consulted during my diaper research about products used to “strip” the cloth diapers. I was sure exactly what it meant but I gathered it was the remedy when the diaper situation got a little funky. I didn’t really need it at the time but decided I’d go ahead and order a few. I was glad I did because eventually, things did get funky. It’s kind of an inevitable situation when you opt for cloth diapering. This stuff does a great job neutralizing odors and brightening everything up. We add one of these to the diaper laundry about every two months (unless we need it sooner) and almost a year later, we’re still running on the original set of diapers.
#3 Honorable Mention: Boudreaux’s Butt Paste
I have tried MANY diaper ointments and honestly this is the only one I need. This stuff clears up diaper rash at lightning speed. Enough said!












