Uncategorized – At Home With Mubina

HOME –Five easy ways to update your home for the spring/summer

The past few months we’ve all have been cooped up in our homes. As summer approaches, we can’t wait to refresh our home! One of my favourite things to do as a new season approaches is to redecorate the house. Here are my favourite inexpensive ways to give your home a fresh makeover.

1. Fresh Paint

There’s something about fresh paint that makes a space feel like a clean and fresh start. Don’t get me wrong; you don’t have to paint with bold or even different colours. Every other year, we try to re-paint same colour of our walls. Automatically, the space looks clean.

2. Swap your blinds to curtains

Something about curtains makes the space look classy and big. The trick is having neutral colour curtains. This way the space will look bigger and calmer.

3. Update pillows and throws

Transfer your couch with colourful throw pillows. Choose different patterns and prints. I always vibe with neutral colours, so when I am picking pillows for summer, I pick colours from a cooler palate.

4. Fresh flowers

I love fresh flowers!!! Yes, it might be costly getting fresh flowers bi-weekly but they give a very welcoming feeling and are definitely mood changer. I love Tulips! Totally a reminder of spring after a loooooong winter. The best part is they last longer than most of flowers and they come in soo many colours to match your home aesthetics.

5. Style your coffee table with fresh accents

This might be by far best part of decorating for a season, especially in the spring with the pastel colours. But seriously, this is the easiest way to add newer or last years spring accent details. This helps to make them look new and ready for new the season.

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TURNING A SMALL SPACE INTO FARIS’S PLAY AREA

Today, I am sharing Faris’ play area. It was really hard for us to find a space in our home to make a dedicated space just for him. We don’t have spare room that we could turn that room into playroom. However, we do have this small rectangular space upstairs that was originally going to be a small home office space. It’s a great area for built-in cabinets and a desk but we decided to convert it into Faris’ play area.

It actually worked out perfectly! I mean I wish I had a spare room for a bigger area and a where I could add built-in cabinets for his toys. But this is a great alternative for now.

Most of the items in his play area are from Amazon or HomeSense. These cute frames really suit his personality as he loves to play with his trucks. I love his TABLE with the added storage. Since this space does not have a storage area, this helps me put all his art work, puzzles and colours. Great way to hide anything I don’t want to display.

I love his EASEL! It’s double sided with a whiteboard and chalkboards . It’s perfect for his height and it’s adjustable as he grows. If you know me, you know I love to buy things that are not only cute but also functional. I love the bottom storage area to place all his paints. Love his cute rug – from H&M. I wanted to have a small rug, so it won’t take over the space but would bring out warmth to the space instead.

Here you go!! Hope you enjoyed my mini play area makeover. Let me know in comments what do you think!

Mubina

DYI – POP of Hearts

I love Valentine’s Day!! I don’t really decorate my house for this day but why not sprinkle some hearts as cute décor? Hehe ..You can set these hearts pretty much anywhere.

Materials

Felt fabric sheets (you can pick your desired colours)
Sharpie
Cotton thread
Sewing needle
Scissors
Heart shape stencil (optional)

Steps:

Draw a heart. You can draw a free-hand heart or you can use a heart-shaped stencil.
Repeat the Step 1 twice.
Cut them out.
Thread the needle (be careful!).
Align both heart together and put the needle in from top of the heart. Make sure you leave half an inch space from the shape of the heart and where the threading is going in (see pictures for reference).
Repeat Step 5 until you’re about a third of the way complete.
Cut your excess fabric into small pieces. You use this to stuff the heart.
Continue Step 5 until you’re almost done and fill the heart with more small scraps and close it with threading.
To close the threading, the stitching should go under the thread and over (see pictures for reference).
All done!

If you happen to make this DIY please share your photos with me over on my social accounts as I would LOVE to see them!!!

XOXO

Mubina

WFH with the toddler: My tips

It’s already hard enough to do anything while your toddler is on the loose. Adding your full time job in the mix makes things even more challenging. I went back to work from maternity leave a couple months ago and I have learned a few things along the way that made me productive but allowed me to be able to spend guilt- free time with my work.During lockdown, I couldn’t send my son, Faris, to daycare or set play dates. I had to take this matters into my own hands.

During lockdown, I couldn’t send my son, Faris, to daycare or set play dates. I had to take this matters into my own hands.

Schedule your day
When I am most organized, I am more productive. I know what is coming next. It’s all in my head. My son eats breakfast and takes nap regularly on the daily but something about writing it down makes things official hehe. I suggest writing every small detail…this way in case your day goes south, you can always come back and see what is left and prioritize for the next day.

Use nap time for meetings or important stuff
I really look forward to this, since my son only takes one nap a day, soo I only have small window to myself. I book my Zoom/phone call meetings during this time. My point is when they’re taking a nap, try to wrap as many emails and meetings as you can so when he’s up, you can manage other things. Baby things!

Have your secret weapon ready (in desperate moments)
We can NEVER plan for everything!!! I can’t stress this enough. I am not a perfect mom and not I am planning to be one. If at the last minute, my boss wants to speak to me or I have to write important email, I let my son watch TV. Lately, he loves to watch The Wiggles and during this time I can quickly wrap up and not feeling guilty of neglecting him.

Encourage individual playtime
I learned something from “Inta” the importance of individual playtime for your kids. I always encourage my son to have his alone time, whether in the swing when he was baby or now with his toys. This is time, I gate the play area and let myself either continue work or take a break for myself. Don’t forget, its important take a 15 min breaks and lunch break… just as if you were at work and need to step away from your screen and clear your head.

Make time for your kids

When you’re not working, spend some one of one time with each kid individually. I only have one, so I try to make sure I give my undivided attention to him, which means no phone, TV or anything that can be distracting. Usually, I take him to the park or on a bike ride. Doing anything out doors helps both of us feel refreshed and calm.

Well, there you have it! I hope some of you found this blog post helpful!

How to organize Kitchen Cabinets

I sure you all agree having an organized kitchen is the best feeling. When I had my baby last year, I had to re-organize the cabinets to include his stuff. To be honest, kitchen organization is an ongoing journey…but here are some tips that might help!

4 Easy Steps to organizing your Kitchen Cabinets

Step 1: Take Everything out of your cabinets

Declutter take everything out of the cabinets, sort, and make a pile of things you don’t need. This way you know what to keep and what throw out or donate. This stage is very critical; if you don’t sort out things then the process of strategy of cabinets is going to be overwhelming.

Step 2: Strategize your Cabinets

According to your everyday needs plan and even label the upper and lower cabinet. Ideally the upper cabinet you put dinner plates, dessert bowls, glasses, cups, dish trays and lower cabinet you store pots and pans, cooking appliances such as toaster, juicer, or blender.

Step 3: Storing items in the cabinets – Sort and Arrange

This is a fun stage, where you put everything back in the cabinets. Make sure you arrange them with your style of cooking. Cookware should be closer to the stove and bake ware should be closer to the oven. This way, its easy to find and functional at the same time.

Step 4: Maintain the organized kitchen – Make a plan

This is very important to remember to keep up with it. Set a weekly quick kitchen clean up, where you make sure all the items are where they supposed to and if not you can arrange it how it was. This is way you’re not overwhelming yourself and keep your kitchen organized and clean!