A Must Visit Town in New England

A must visit town in New England 

Newport, RI (a must visit)

so apparently I am really good at starting blogs and just storing them in my drafts. 

Now that I am trying real damn hard to be a better blogger, 

I am noticing all this gold of blog posts I have stored in my drafts and 

am starting to filter them through by sharing them as a 

Throwback Thursday Blog Post. You are welcome. 

We had no idea what to expect. When we first moved out to New England 

we created a list of all the places we wanted to go and were recommended to go. 

We decided to just start hitting them all and figuring out on our own if we 

liked them or not afterwards. No googling before hand, you told us to go 

and we would go. This lead us to have some interesting outcomes, as expected.  

Here is a look at our Newport, RI trip and what we found out about this gem of a town. 

I will share a list of the other places we enjoyed as well! 

The Cliff Walk

This view is of the cliff walk but to the side you don't need to waste 

your time going on :) Just being honest. Unless you parked over along the beach 

(paid) than yeah you probably want to go this way to be able to leave. 

If you are looking at the water from the stairs, walk to the right along the mansions.
When you get tired of walking, keep walking. You will hit section of rocks, climb
(by climb I mean walk carefully over them) and keep going!
P.S. Parking is going to suck! Get there early so you can enjoy the walk without
heaps of people and park along the streets (read the signs so you do not get towed)
within the homes if there is no parking
near the entrance of the Cliff Walk. Plus, when you park back away
you can take some times to explore the campus of the school- which is BEAUTIFUL!

Here are those stairs I just mentioned. When you walk down them you will 

see another section where people climb down and walk along the rocks. 

See, here is that section. Be careful here people! The rocks can be super slippery! 

If you come down the stairs and go to the right (always slippery) you can 

cut back around the corner where there is a good photo spot. There is a 

place where waters comes out of and the waves crash. 

We were told that it was a hike and cliff walk so we were prepared...as 

in wearing clothing we would hike it. Ha! Let's just say we were freezing 

and under dressed compared to everyone else around us. 

Lucky for us, we could care less. 

The cliff walk is of course along the back side of heaps of  beautiful old mansions. 

We have still not done a mansion tour but have heard they are are beautiful. 

Well- duh! 

They are mansions! Personally I wouldn't pay to do that but hey 

people love that shit. Ryan & I have seen our fair share through out 

Europe so we like to find a place to sit outside and people watch. 

Great people watching here! 

There was this hug field of flowers that was beautiful. As we walked by we would 

see head popping up here and there. People were laying in the field taking photos...

any blogger would understand this but it was so funny to see. It made me think of that

Mack O Mole game.

Food in here is so fresh and tasty. In the town you will find heaps of 

cute little shops and restaurants. We personally love 

Jo's American Bistro, The Mooring - sit outside on the patio, it is worth 

the wait just order a bloody mary and relax then enjoy the Lobster Roll 

(at lunch time). Everyone I was with couldn't stop talking about 

that damn lobster roll. 

Here is a map of the area you will want to spend most of your time after 

the morning cliff walk. 

Other awesome New England places to visit:

Boston, MA (duh.)- 

I have many posts about how amazing Boston is to visit and live. 

One of our most favorite things to do here is simply grab a coffee to go from one of the thousand coffee shops here and walk around starting in the Boston Common, down to Fenway and back to Faneuil Hall Marketplace in time to grab another coffee (for me) and some BBQ Chicken Mac & Cheese for Ryan. 

When we do this, we hit a different coffee place every time. WE have our favorites but I will let you be the one to make that choice. Oh & if you are gluten free & vegan, there is a little tiny place near Faneuil so don't freak: COCOBEET and if you are craving some sweetness, stop by SWEET Bakery where you can grab some delicious GF & Vegan cupcakes! There is also another market, The Boston Public Market right near Faneuil Hall where there is other foods and artisans. 

Oh, & the North End. You must go explore the North End. During the day will be a very different experience from at night, especially TH-Sat. nights. You will feel like you are in Europe somewhere, just be prepared for long waits and crowds. Call ahead if you want to eat anywhere there without getting hangry. 

Summer is when I recommend Boston as most places have open doors to the outside. There are endless amounts of great places to sit an enjoy some drinks and delicious food. Boston is more of a day drinking city. Most places are closed by 11:00 pm downtown & there are NO specials on alcohol. If you see a Happy Hour sign, do not be fooled. If you want a loud, cheap beer environment try Jacob Wirth. Go check out their events and such to see when the next Sing-A-Long is. We love that place.

Portland, ME- 

If you are craft beer drinker, plan to stay here for 2 days. They have trolley brewery tour that will bring you around to various breweries! 

Portsmouth, NH-

We just (Feb. 27, 2016) did a day trip to here (and Kittery, ME). We loved this little town! Portsmouth is one of the nation's oldest cities and it is just adorable! Full of cute little shops, lots of cafes, bakery's and great spots to grab some fresh seafood. We ate are Martingale Wharf right on the water. It was delicious! I had a blacker (GF & Vegan) burger with flipping tasty french fries! This city is very walk-able making it even easier to enjoy. They have another cute little place Book & Bar where you can grab a good read, a refreshing beer and even s sandwich! 

Kittery, ME-

We went here not having any idea what to expect. We just went to go. We started off by just driving and we ending up at a forte. We got up and notice it was on the honest system to paid a $3 entrance fee. None of us had cash and I am a huge Karma believer so we just admired it from afar :) We got back to driving and ending up at Fort Foster. Cars were parked down the entire stretch of the road. We had no clue what this was or where these people were going but we joined in. we entered and walked directly to the left along the fence. We just kept following a little trail. We came across a wider trail and just kept going. Once we hit another trail on our left, we took it. We follow that for not too long before we hit a beach! What a happy surprise! It was not the beach we think of coming from FL but it was beautiful! Rocks galore! 

Burlington, VT-

Another craft beer drinker haven along with anyone who enjoys nature and being outdoors. VT is on the top of my list for all places we have been. So peaceful and simply beautiful views all around you. Highly recommend going here in the fall! 

DIY Home Renovations: No More Carpet

Day One: Get This Carpet Out Of Here! 

It is Feb in MN & things just aren't right. We arrived on Valentine's Day back in (freezing) MN...except it wasn't freezing! We had to shovel our drive way but, by the end of that week-no flipping snow & warm sunshine! 

So bazaar. 

Ryan & I are moving back to MN from MA here soon. We have a ton of work cut out for us to get our home ready so when we do move back we can enjoy our CLEAN, newly done home and our new fur child. If you have missed it, we rented out our home & it was a disaster! I have not shared the entire story with you because...well I can't yet but man, this past year of renting was brutal! So, we are re-doing our flooring, painting, and fixing other things that have been mistreated -aka, ruined by our previous tenant. 

So like I said earlier, we flew out to MN on Valentine's Day. To get things started off nicely, we had a bit of some miscommunication and my bag (with everything in it) was left in our Uber we took at 3am! We both arrived to MN separately around noon and met near the tram where Ryan asked me where my bag was. I replied with you have it...but he didn't. Okay, so sucks but whatever I can buy some clothes to get by. So we handled that, went to Lowes for some tools and other materials for the house. We pull up to our house and see we have some shoveling to do. While getting ready to do that I asked Ryan if he had the key. Nope, no key, we left that in Boston too! Guys, this is totally not like us!! We both said to each other that we must be more stressed than we think to mess up this bad! Luckily our neighbor was just leaving and had an extra key! One thing going for us. 

We finally get into our house & admire the dirtiness/rudeness that our tenant had left for us. Our garaged filled with 20 trash bags full of beer and food with some random household items. At this point it is rather late in the day and we had so much to do before the cleaners arrive on Monday at 8:30 am so we got right to work. Carpeted areas (besides basement) all came up & we had our fair share of rookie mistakes. 

See that darker area? Yeah...you can see the actual layout of how our tenant had the furniture! 

They were only in our home for just about 11 months (4 of them not paid!!!)

Day 1 Project: Getting the smelly & dirty carpet up & out

Tools:

Utility Knife

Flat Head Screw Driver

Gloves

Crowbar

Mask

Rubber Sole Boots or Shoes*

The Process: 

• Prep work: obviously move everything off your carpeted area that you plan to take up. Also, depending on your carpet condition, things can get pretty messy so move everything and anything you do no want covered in carpet dust/dirt. Remove any floor vents as well. Trim! All your trim has to go. We used our Flathead and crowbar to remove our trim. We are planning to reuse our trim or have no trim until we can get the style we want. I tell you this because we had to be careful when taking it off but if you are not planning to keep and reuse it, who cares if they break, just get them off! The trim in nailed in so you get to take out all of the nails that do not come out with the trim...so fun! Ryan used a cloth and crowbar to wedge and create distance with the extremely long nails! This helped us from adding holes to our sheet rock...which we did many times before he figure out this little helpful tip. 
• We found a loose area near the vent that we could use to start pulling up the carpeting. Our utility knife became a great friend for this project. (the photo above you can see the area we started)
• Cut it into pieces that are easy to roll and pick up.
  
• The underlayment comes right up maybe leaving a few chunks here and there in the staples. Oh the staples! We had hundred of staples to pull up. It started off rough until we got the hang of it. A flat head screw driver and a crowbar where the only tools we used for this. 
  
  
  
• So when you take up carpet and underlayment you will find a nail party underneath. We have OSB/Plywood underneath and it was loaded with nails, staples and the prickly tack strips. We watched a YouTube video or two but read a little bet here and there on about this process but nothing too extensive. 
  
  
  
   
• Taking up the staples took forever but the tack strips were the ones I truly did not enjoy doing. After about 1 1/2 hours of working on tack strips, Ryan found a method that worked like a charm! You slide the Flathead right at where the nail head is, get it under the wood pretty good and than had your crowbar to the mix sliding under the wood but above your Flathead. 
  
   My knees and lower back were (are still) a mess!
• I choose to wear a mask the first day when we did the main part of getting the carpets up. I am so glad I did! Ryan woke up a mess! I didn't feel amazing by any means but way better than he did :) 
  
• *I had staples in my shoes so make sure you have some thick soles to protect your feet from getting some nasty nails or staples in them! 

After hours of getting carpets filled with dust, dirt, animal hair and who knows what else plus all the damn staples and nails- we did it! All carpet is up, all staples & tack boards are up & the prickly tack strips are gone. 

BEFORE

 AFTER

We are putting Bamboo flooring in and are beyond excited! We searched and search around, orders samples from all over. Build Direct was amazing! We got our samples within 2 days and they are super helpful! We ending up choosing them due to the quick responses and we fell in love with this dark bamboo! Originally, we planned to do the lighter bamboo in the bedrooms but after seeing the dark with our newly panted walls were were hooked- all dark it is! 

Builddirect.com 

Our house was left a complete mess, smelling like animals, stains on the carpets and just so much more filth. The carpets were really just the tip of the ice berg for our home projects. Being in the house for 6 days left me with headaches, stuffy nose, runny eyes, a sore throat and feeling so yucky! We hope that the new flooring will not only be beautiful but benefit us with allergies and keeping our home clean as a whistle! 

Don't miss my TOP 5 EVERYDAY ACCESSORIES on the TOM & Orrow BLOG today.

Exhausted but still much love, 

Amanda 

A Quick DIY Storage Box

A Quick DIY Felt Storage Box

Want to fancy up your storage boxes? 

Here is a super quick and low cost way to fancy up those boxes. 

Materials:

Storage Box, Cereal Box, Old Bins...

Felt

Scissors (fabric scissors)

Hot Glue Gun

The amount of felt you need will completely depend on the size of your box and number of boxes you want to cover. Felt is very inexpensive so over estimate.

I wanted to cover this storage luggage box I picked up at Michaels Craft Store. 

I layed out all the felt under the box and on top. By "measuring" from actually placing the felt where I wanted it. TIP: use a tiny bit of masking tape to hold the felt in place if it moves and is pisses you off. 

Once you know where you want your felt use a chalk pen pencil to mark any spots you need to cut so your felt fits just right. I did this around the clips and handle, also on the bottom and along the line of the opening of the box. 

When you are all set there, go ahead and cut those area off/out. Now begin gluing starting with the bottom layers of felt first. Work your way up to finishing with any felt accents. 

Hot glue, as you probably know, it HOT and drys quick. IF you make an "oh, shit" just peel the hot glue off...after it is dry :) 

                    

Well here is my box. 

I love this DIY because it is quick and easy but also because it adds so much character to a functional piece you can now use as decor! 

What does yours look like? 

You can use ANY old box. Stack cereal boxes together and wrap them in felt for a new file holder. Take an old shoe box and cover it in felt, creating a new tissue box. 

The list goes on!

Don't miss out on where to find unique designer handbags with us today on the TOM & Orrow blog. 

Much Love,

Amanda Adams 

Darby Smart: diy air plant clock

Air Plants & Clocks: diy your own air plant clock 

Last year I joined Darby Smart and was hooked. 

Air plants were all the range on their site for 2015 and I joined in. 

So, I am going to show you my favorite home accent I designed using craft supplies from Darby Smart. 

First off, Good Morning! 

I hope that you are enjoying the strangely "warm" weather 

we are having for February, I sure am! 

I got on to Darby Smart and had the hardest time with narrowing down my first project. I could easily loose track of time on that site! I picked out some supplies and they arrived before I knew it. 

DIY Home Accent for under $20.00

I picked out:

-wooden clock

-clock parts

-E-600 glue

-2 air plants

-white gravel

-plastic sheets

-2 embroidery hoops

I got right to work measuring out the layout of what I was picturing in my head. 

Inserted the clock parts to the wooden clock

Now the measurements. I use the embroidery loop to measure the level of the plastic.

I covered the smaller loop completely and the largerplac loop with a harsh angle 

placing the smaller loop on the wooden clock, than the larger loop with the angled plastic covering.

test out the layout & get it all figured out. This is where the lovely E-600 comes into play. Add a friendly amount of glue to the embriodery loops to secure the plastic. Than do the same to the wooden loops to secure to the clock and eacother. 

Allow this to dry while you load the laundry, put the kids to sleep, or run errands. Once it is all dry, you are good to add the rocks and air plant! 

Ta-Da! Here is your new air plant clock. 

I left the wooden natural but you can add your own designs, paint it, really whatever just be sure to leave enough room from your clock parts to the plastic so that your clock will work and not drag or catchy on the plastic. 

Air plant turnout...I kill all plants :) It is super hard to kill these. It is not like I took that as a challenge but let's just say air plant life is no longer in our home. You can learn all about how to care for an 

air plant in the product description and care listing on Darby Smart, or simply Google it :) 

You don't want that advice from me. 

Happy Monday! I hope this is good motivation for you on this lovely Monday. 

Later Loves. 

2015 Frozen Four

A Throwback Blog Post....

because I just realized I never shared this. 

2015 Frozen Four: 

My First Frozen Four Experience

We have a friend, the lovely Sara. 

Ryan & I move a lot and love adventure. Luckily we have a friend, 

Sara who loves it even more than we do. Sara has visited us in each 

place we have lived and keeps us young at heart...because we are married 

and feel like we are 75, not in our late 20's. 

Sara was flying in to attend the Frozen Four so we 

figures we would try and get in as well. 

As you can probably guess from the picture above...we got in! 

After spending too much on tickets of course. 

Sadly we didn't know they didn't serve alcohol at the event so after 

3 beers before hand I was rather sleepy. We still have fun of course! 

Especially since the Sioux were playing (the main, well only reason we wanted to go) 

Sara's parents (who Ryan & I look at and say, we want to be like that!) 

were also in town for the game. We had to explore Boston a bit and 

what better way to do that than the Duck Boat Tours! 

Our tour guide was great-laughing made it worth it.  Might have been the 

2 glasses of wine we chugged, yes chugged before we started but either way 

we enjoyed it. I know this because later when Ryan joined us I told him all 

about it over and over and over again. 

This is what happens when I drink wine- I talk your face off. Then fall asleep. 

On our adventure I came across this at  good ole Alewife station.

yup, this happened & actually is still happening! I went back to check :) 

Walking around beautiful Fenway taking selfies as one does when friends are in town. 

Wanted to capture this gem here to send to a friend back in ND...I am not into this 

but he is and I found this one depicted Boston rather well. 

Anyone doing the Cross-Fit thing? I probably should working from 

home as killed my use to be intense workout vibe I had going on. 

Bleacher Bar...not gonna lie pretty friggin awesome! 

Sorry dad-looks like I am a Boston Red Sox fan.  This city is just too great. 

No worries though, I will NEVER EVER be a Patriots fan. As a matter of fact, looks like 

now would be good a goo time to add this photo again. 

This fleece scarf is on sale at TOM & Orrow

The night adventure begin. Pictures end here as I was too busy having fun 

and enjoying the moments rather than taking photos :) You should try it. 

Thanks Sara for coming out. Hope you enjoyed Boston! 

Have you been to Boston? 

What is your must do thing when you are here?

Later Loves.