Julie Anita's Profile

Mommy Montessori, I love love love this room and I'm excited to read your article! I'm a former Reggio Emilia teacher and I love the whole Reggio/Montessori style and aesthetic. Possibly going to set up a playroom similar to this if my husband relents on giving up his mostly-ignored office. I have twin girls as well, but mine are just six months old :)

Just pulled mine out of the oven! My meringue browned pretty well before I even got a chance to take the parchment paper off, so I didn't put it back in for another 5-10 min (and my oven cooks things hot & fast, so I put it in for a bit less than the recommended time anyways). Hoping the cookie cooked enough underneath! I sprayed my parchment paper before putting it over the meringue, but I missed a few spots and the meringue stuck in those places-- I just hit my butter knife with cooking spray and gently eased the meringue off the parchment paper, and it looks fine :)

As a landlord, I have to say that if you want a nicer place, you'll either have to a) offer to pay more, or b) move. Not to sound harsh, but at least in my case, my husband and I are living off our one rental unit alone while I'm home with little babies and he's in school full-time, and we can't afford vanity upgrades so our tenants can have a more stylish living space than us! Necessities aside, of course-- if something is broken, unsafe, and/or in any way not up to code, well, that's just one of the downsides of being a landlord/owning property, but newly polished floors just aren't a priority.

TwoWheeler-- anti-bee hysteria? Seriously, now? I just don't want to be stung. It's plenty easy to accidentally happen upon a bee who perceives you as a threat; I don't know many people who go around poking bees with sticks! I don't think that sort of concern even requires a counterargument. And yes, plenty of people have allergy issues which can be life-threatening; they deserve to be even more concerned than I.

Gorgeous. I think I just need Martha's creative team to come live in my house for a week and do things like this to it. Although I do worry about the potential for children to not see the difference between "walls" and "walls that are designated for writing with chalk" if there's no clear delineation, i.e., no separate color for the "writing allowed" section. But if you don't have kids, I guess it's fine :)

Hoo boy... this is what everyone's been all excited for? Yuck.

Am I the only one planning to put this in my twin girls' bedroom? :)

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm especially liking the candlesticks idea-- we have a tall ikea bookshelf that we could put them on and my husband could easily reach but babies could not. Plus, the candlesticks would look nice without hats on top :)

Bought some at perpetual kid! And thanks for the heads-up... not only did I get some awesome cookie cutters, but I found a few new websites to window-shop (and probably actual-shop because, well, it's me) for quirky fun kitchen thingies!