How did we ever live without a dodger?

Our beautiful new dodger & cover!

Seriously, having a dodger makes all the difference, when you live on a boat!! I don't know how we survived on our last two boats without it. That's not true, I know how we did it, actually. With our second boat, we knew we were not keeping her for a lifetime and since you don't really make that money back, we thought we'd just wait until we bought the forever boat, before we really started throwing money around.

Without the dodger

The dodger, sans cover

Now that we have all new canvas on the boat, the rest of it is really looking drab! Time for me to start back up on the teak, and get the rest of the trim looking as nice as it does around the cockpit area!!

More recently, I have been working on creating a design to go with our boat name. You may remember the t-shirts I designed last year...we both liked the design so much so, that I have now started branding everything on the boat, from, t-shirts to coolers to cups....

Irie t-shirt design

It has taken some time, since I am not exactly a tech savvy person, much less a designer, but I have figured out a way to use my design, from the shirts, and keep it going throughout all other items on the boat...

close-up of the new & old YETI tumblers w/my design decal

Y'all know how much I love my Seafoam Yeti, right?? Well, when I heard they were bringing back the seafoam, for a limited time, you better believe I was trying my best to figure out a way to get rid of the used, brown one we had picked up from the resale shop and replace it with a much prettier color! As luck would have it, Joe told me he wanted to sell the big one (the downtown-doo-doo-brown one) and get a smaller-ish one, that fit better. So we did! And, now our back porch looks a lot better.....

Matching YETI's on the back porch

close-up of the new Tundra 35 w/my design decal

close-up of the Roadie 20 w/my design decal

Continuing with what has now become our "unofficial" boat colors...at least for the exterior (and maybe a little in the interior too).... I finally convinced hubs to hang up the hammock he bought me, for Christmas! Ahh, so relaxing....It is my new favorite spot on the boat!! I even got my first sunburn, over the weekend, from laying in the hammock for too long, but it was worth it!!

Chillaxin' in the hammock while Joe is installing the windlass.... I call it supervising ;)

Keeping busy....decorating vs. organizing

There's no reason why you can't decorate when you live on a boat....you just have to be more creative about it! 

Now every female of a liveaboard couple knows, you can't drill any holes in the boat for decorating purposes. {I use a lot of tape and command hooks} Although, if you ask me, I'd say that in a way, hubs was "decorating" the cockpit when he drilled eight holes to hang the lines up in this very organized way.

....but what do I know?! ;) The lines do like nice though, don't they?! 

      FYI: rope is referred to as line once it's brought onto the boat. No, I don't know why normal words all have a new word that means the exact same thing, other than sailors want you to learn a whole new language whilst also learning a whole new hobby. Left is port, right is starboard and rope is line. Why can't it just be left, right and rope?? I don't know, maybe there's a Rosetta Stone somewhere out there that teaches the sailing jargon. I could play it when I go to bed each night and get in some valuable sleep learning time!!

-rant over-

He did allow me a few holes to hang up a spice rack. Which helped clean up the space so much! I went from this bowl of my 'most used' spices....

 

To this neatly organized spice rack!

I think what it really comes down to is, the wording. If I say I want to hang up a pretty picture for decorating purposes, it's a no go on drilling holes. But, if I want to organize the boat in order to keep it neat and tidy looking....that just might me the magic phrase. :)

For the jazzed up galley cabinets above, I used a decorative tape. It's like contact paper, but instead of large sheets, it comes in a small roll {similar to duct tape}. 

 Simply remove the hardware, affix the tape, replace the handles and there you have it!!

I have big plans for the bathroom{head}, if only I can remember where I bought the tape in the first place. Haha! 

Until next time....

Fall isn't in the air{which is fine by me}....but it's here

Halloween is almost here and Thanksgiving is right around the corner which means, it's time for me to decorate for fall! Yay!!! Though, decorating on a boat is slightly more difficult than decorating your house. Good thing I can think outside of the box....my sis' has long referred to me as a crappy crafter, so I put my crappy crafting skills to work yesterday and came up with this!! 

There may not be room for all the decorations I would have used at my house, but there's always room for a wreath! :) and, I think it turned out pretty good!! 

I have never been one to decorate specifically for Halloween, I prefer to just do a fall/pumpkin/turkey/maple leaf theme and that way it can stay up for October & November! :) 

I think my homemade wreath {by moi} looks exceptionally beautiful on our handmade companionway doors {by hubs}!!! 

Not at all bias, I know!! ;)