The Best of The Land of Nod

When I online shop, I'm a big proponent of checking out the "best seller" section of the website. I like knowing what others find to be tried and true products. I also love when you can sort products by customer ratings. Of course, nothing beats a personal recommendation, but I'm happy to have the readily available opinion of world wide web users.

The bad news is that the algorithm used to rank "best seller" products is often a sham. Why? Because there's rarely consideration as to the number of reviews. For example, Product A has one 5 star review and product B has twenty reviews that average to 4.8 stars. Most websites will rank Product A higher on the best seller list than Product B strictly based on the average number of stars. That's kind of bogus, right? I'd rather buy something that 20 people raved about than something 1 person thought was perfect. Unfortunately, some of my favorite baby product vendors are guilty of this poorly configured ranking system. With this in mind, I give you today's post - my very own "best seller" list for The Land of Nod. My hope is to tackle a bunch of online stores over the next few weeks and find us the TRUE best products from each site.

The Land of Nod reviews are based on a 1 to 5 star system, with 5 stars being the highest. My best seller list will include only those products who've received an average rating of 4.5 stars or higher from at least 50 reviews. And, in case you were wondering, I'm not an affiliate of The Land of Nod and I get absolutely no kick back for today's post. Let's get on with it.

The Straight-Up Crib

Number of Reviews: 67

Average Rating: 5 stars

This crib is made of maple wood and comes in natural (above), espresso and white. For the past 6 years, people have been absolutely raving about it with review titles that include "WE LOVE THIS CRIB" and "Thrilled with everything related to this purchase!"

Beat Our Chest Toy Chest

Number of Reviews: 113

Average Rating: 4.9

It comes in white and chocolate, it has those nice side handles and the lid is designed to hold its position at any height/angle so it never slams down on tiny fingers. 

We're Not Asking For Directions Rug

Number of Reviews: 80

Average Rating: 4.7

This is a hand-tufted 100% wool rug with a cotton backing. Can't you just see your little guy (or girl) racing cars along those tufted raceways?

A Teepee to Call Your Own

Number of Reviews: 77

Average Rating: 4.8

This adorable indoor teepee comes in four patterns: floral (above), gray and white dot, black stripe and orange stripe. The floral pattern was just added to the mix. Reviewers said that setting it up was "a breeze" and that all the kiddos think it's completely awesome. 

Jenny Lind Bed

Number of Reviews: 185

Average Rating: 4.9

This beautiful twin bed might be the best rated product on the list. It's also ridiculously adorable if ever a bed were adorable. It comes in all sorts of colors (raspberry as seen above, yellow, azure, black and white) and all sorts of sizes (twin, full and queen). AND you can purchase a trundle for sleepovers.

Hangin' Around Lamp

Number of Reviews: 74

Average Rating: 4.8

This simple, classic lamp will work in every nursery because it comes in 11 colors. 11. The diffuser creates a mellow, cozy vibe that many (many) reviewers call "perfect".

Shelf Silverstein

Number of Reviews: 76

Average Rating: 5

It's a 4" shelf and comes in 2 sizes (5 pegs as shown above or 3 pegs). People love both sizes and everything think it's sturdy and good lookin' and very functional.

So, there you have it, a list of truly great products from The Land of Nod. I see the Hangin' Around lamp in my daughter's bedroom's future...

The Garland is Done, Man

It's all done. And I think it's puuurty.

So, before I give you the details, let me first apologize for the pitiful photos. They were taken with my phone on a rainy day (there was minimal natural light...and I hate taking flash photos).

Here's how part two of the garland project went down (click here for part one). First, I decided how long I wanted the garland to be. This was dictated by the number of hearts that I had made (16) and how far apart they would be on the twine (6-8 inches). I pulled the twine to the right length according to my estimation (this wasn't a precise process), but before I made my cut I decided that a single strand of twine wasn't going to work. The twine, as is, didn't seem substantial enough to do the job. My plan became to braid three strands together. With this in mind, I cut three pieces of twine substantially longer than I had calculated because I wasn't sure how much length I would lose in the braiding process.

I knotted the three strands together and used a binder clip to attach the knotted end to a chair. I intended to stand up, pull each strand taut and braid. It didn't really work because the strands were crazy long. I ended up winding each strand in circle and securing it with it's own binder clip, making each strand shorter and easier to work with. When the base of my braid hit the binder clip I would unwind some of the twine and re-clip. Am I boring you yet? Just know that this part was unexpectedly difficult and took a while.

Here's the end of my knotted twin clipped to a spindle on a chair.

Here is the finished braid.
It's a pretty lose, which was intentional.
You could certainly make a tighter, more defined braid.

Once the twine was successfully braided, I began to attach each heart. I used red thread and sewed by hand.

Above shows the twine attached to a pink heart. I chose a back side of each heart and sewed the twine on that side rather than on top (where the heart indents). I experimented with sewing it on top and I didn't like seeing the thread on the front. But, I'm a total amateur at this sewing bit so a more seasoned pro may choose otherwise because they can stitch more neatly than I.

That's what it looks like from the front - you can't see how the twine attaches. I didn't use a ruler to make sure each heart was exactly the same distance apart, I just kind of eye balled it. The imperfections add to the charm.

After about an hour of work, bringing the total project length to three hours, it was ready to be hung. Truth be told, I hung it up for your benefit and took it down shortly after taking the photos, so don't be freaked out by the fact that it looks like my daughter could reach out, grab the twine and seriously injure herself or her teddy bear. My current digs are temporary, hence the extremely sparse decor. I will give you an update post when this beautiful creation finds a permanent home in my soon-to-be permanent home.

Thanks to the low quality photographer photograph, you can't see the color gradation between the hearts, but it does exist. There are four colors in total - pale pink, coral, bright pink, red.

And that's that. 

Any crafting projects planned for your near future? I'm in the middle of a quilt - that's right a quilt. It's my first and I'd love a few insider tips if you have any. Have a great weekend.

A Quick Morning Vomit

Before I get to today's post, a quick update from last week's DIY heart garland post: I finished it yesterday and it came out pretty great! Woohoo! But, I haven't had a chance to hang it up and photograph the finished product, so you'll have to wait for Friday's post.

It is officially the year of the baby. About fifty percent of my friends are pregnant. 5-0. Word. It's been so fun to hear announcement after announcement. I'm losing my voice from the constant screams of joy.

With all this exciting news comes reminder after reminder that the first trimester is hard. And, by hard I mean filled with food aversions, nausea, seriously sore boobs, exhaustion and some upchucking. I have some lucky friends who have experienced minimal symptoms, but the majority have suffered to some extent and one unlucky pal suffered the entire nine months.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had moderate morning sickness. I woke up every morning feeling nauseous. Sometimes, if I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night...which was another symptom because I'm not someone who gets up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night...I would start to feel nauseous right then, at 3 am. In addition to the daily morning nausea, I also had random reactions to certain meals. It wasn't any one kind of food and it didn't happen every day, but once in a while I would be sitting down for lunch or dinner and need to call it quits before I began. One time, My husband and I were at a nice restaurant in our neck of Brooklyn and two bites into my entree and felt suddenly and fiercely sick to my stomach. My husband kindly asked the waiter to pack up his meal (not mine) and get us a check.

OH YUM. Talde is the restaurant that we left in a hurry.
I was grateful to dine there several times after the incident (when I was no longer pregnant) and before we moved.
(image source)

Thankfully, the nausea only lasted a bit beyond my first trimester and, thankfully, I never actually vomited. Though, I'm not sure what's worse - nausea that doesn't quit or puking that gives way to a settled stomach. Sounds like a "grass is always greener" comparison.

I wonder if my morning sickness will be worse the second time around. Are there statistics on this stuff? If so, can someone share? The thing about your second pregnancy is that you know what to expect, you know what you're signing up for. It seems ridiculous, but I almost forgot that nausea and vomit are included in the package. Thankfully, all these pregnant friends have reminded me. Now I just need a quick course on how to deal with nausea and vomiting while tending to a singing, climbing, diaper-filling toddler.

How was your morning sickness? Was it better or worse your second time around? Any remedies for combatting the nausea?

 

Watching Lindsay

A quick shout out to Bostonians and all those who ran the Boston Marathon yesterday. What amazing athletes. What an amazing event. What an amazing city. Boston was most definitely united as one and stronger than ever.

At the moment, I'm sitting on my couch (that same Ikea couch that I referenced in a post back in January) and watching episode seven of Lindsay. If you don't know what Lindsay is congratulations for having much higher standards in television watching than I. Lindsay is a documentary series (read: reality TV) on Oprah's OWN Network about Lindsay Lohan. And it's a warmed-over, gooey, grimy mess (read: riveting).

This is Oprah and Lindsay before the series was filmed. I don't think they're so chummy anymore.
(image source)

I can't stop watching. I'm consumed by Lindsay's inability to wake up before noon, inability to go more than ten minutes without a cigarette and inability for self awareness. Complete inability for self awareness. It's an incredible show, but, arguably, a huge waste of my time. The episodes are an HOUR. A whole hour. 

I have much more productive things I could be doing for that hour. Things like the laundry, which is becoming it's own warmed-over, gooey, grimy mess. But, I let myself indulge because it keeps me level. Doing something totally unproductive and selfish makes me feel like my own person. Whether it's a jog or reading a magazine or painting my nails or watching Lindsay, it's so nice to do something just for me. I don't always get a full hour (or a full minute) but it's amazing when I do.

Of course, changing my role from mother of one to mother of two will make these daily personal moments harder to achieve. Will I be able to waste an hour on Lindsay when I have two children? My guess is no, not at first. My personal moments completely vanished when I first became a mother. But over time, as life settled into its new routine, they gradually returned. I suspect a similar fate for baby number two, which means it's a temporary and manageable loss. Especially with DVR.

How much personal time do you get as a mother of two? How long did it disappear when you first became a mother (mother of two, three...four)? How pumped were you when you realized it returned?

DIY Felt Heart Garland

As promised in this year's Blogiversary (aka blogging anniversary), I'm crafting again. Wait! Before you immediately click out of this post because my last crafting attempt was so painfully weak that you can't stomach the thought of suffering through a similar embarrassment, please give me another chance and keep reading. Everyone deserves a second chance. Novice crafters included.

A while back, I was inspired by an image of felt hearts that I came across on Pinterest. I'd love to share this image with you, but I believe it's against blogging rules (here is the link if you're interested). My idea was to make the felt hearts and string them together in a garland or, if you're British, bunting. I wanted to tweak the hearts a bit...well...I'll just show you because months after finding this inspiration, I actually did it.

There she is, my first felt heart. Not too bad. But, let's back up.

I got all my supplies at Joann Fabric because there's a store really close to where I live. These supplies are super basic and you can get that at any craft store or Amazon.com or even Target. The supplies include 8 sheets of 9" x 12" felt, polyester fill (that gauzy material inside stuffed animals) and a roll of twine. For the felt, I chose four colors (pale pink, coral, bright pink, red) and got two sheets of each color. I own a sewing machine (this one) and white thread.

My first step was to cut all the felt in half and then half again.

Above is my pile of felt and to
the right is a sheet of the pale
pink cut into four pieces.

Next, I made a heart template because I wanted my hearts to be roughly the same size. I didn't have any cardboard laying around, so I used a Carter's mailer. It was card stock, not quite as thick as cardboard, but worked just fine.

Starting from left to right (above): I used the piece of felt to cut a rectangle in the mailer, then I cut a heart (free hand) out of the rectangle. 

Next came the task of using my heart template to cut all the quartered, rectangular pieces of felt into hearts. It took a while to cut all 32 hearts (8 sheets, each cut into 4 rectangles). I got lazy halfway through and cut two hearts at a time. I now know that I could have been even lazier because having a perfectly shaped heart from the start isn't necessary (more on this later).

The plan was to pair off the hearts, sew the twosomes together and somehow stuff them with fill in the process. But I was a bit stumped when it came to the stuffing part - I didn't know how. My first thought was to layer the felt with fill, pin the whole thing together and then sew. Within seconds, that idea fell to the wayside because it seemed too difficult and too time-consuming.

Above is the layered heart and fill. Not a great plan. My next idea was to begin sewing the two felt hearts together, leave a small gap before finishing, stuff the heart while it was still on the sewing machine, then finish out the sewing. Below is a photo of this method...I admit that it's not a masterful idea, but I'm neither a masterful craftsperson nor a masterful seamstress...so it was fine by me. And, most importantly, it worked.

I would just push the fill into the small whole at the bottom until the heart was full and then finish sewing.

Above is an action shot for ya. Don't worry the sewing machine was off...I think. There were definitely bumps along the way. I'm still not great with my sewing machine (see below), but overall they came out pretty well.

I chose a zig-zaggy stitch setting on my sewing machine (#3 if you have the same machine) for a little flare. Also, after I completed each heart, I trimmed the outer edge to even out the shape - hence why it didn't matter whether the heart was perfectly shaped from the get go.

Above is my final batch - all 16. The low-tech photo taken by my iPhone doesn't show the range of color (at all), but in person it's a true spectrum of pale pink to fire engine red. The first 8 hearts took me a little over an hour to make and the second 8 hearts took me about half that time. In total, it was a two hour project. 

My next step is to use the twine and string them into a garland. If you've been relatively more impressed by today's crafting show - thank you and stay tuned for a post next week on the finished product. If you are, again, saddened by my attempt, you have my full permission not to read the follow-up post. My apologies.

What crafting projects have you embarked on lately? Ever followed through on a DIY project inspired by Pinterest? Oh, and what DIY/Crafting blogs do you read (and love)?