hello

Happy Memorial Day! I love weekday mornings when I get to wake up next to Husband, and especially ones when he gets up with the Little Miss and lets me sleep in. We took a walk to the park this morning and now are about to have my family over for a bbq and games, oh how I love holidays!

Here are a couple of pictures we took before church yesterday. The Little Miss is wearing a vintage dress I got from 3 Ring Circus. I LOVE it! I want to get some 'official' family pictures taken soon and she will be wearing this dress again. And I am obsessed with her curls in the last picture. I don't know where they came from, but I hope they stay forever!

Enjoy your day!

thirfted goodies: melamine

After the dress photo shoot we came inside and had a tea party. I've been collecting vintage melamine dishware as I plan to make or buy the Little Miss a play kitchen soon. She is starting to really get into pretend play which often involves pretending to drink or eat out of any object that resembles a dish, saying, "Nummy!" and then giving me a taste. So I think a play kitchen is just the thing we need around here.

Melamine is perfect because she can't break it, the design and colors are beautiful (I just realized they match her dress perfectly), and you can find them pretty easily at the thrift store for $0.50 a piece. I think I will get some utensils and pots and pans from Ikea but I'm not sure where to get the food. Do you have any play food you love? I would appreciate some suggestions!

Thanks and have a lovely weekend!

p.s. the giveaway winner will be announced on Sunday so go leave a comment quick!

skirt turned dress

I spotted this skirt at the thrift store and was hoping it would fit me, but when I pulled it off the rack it turned out to be more than a little mini. But I loved the colors and the print enough to buy it for the Little Miss and see what I could do.

Turns out I didn't have to do much to transform it into a dress. All I did was cut out a strip in the back where there wasn't any elastic at the waist, sewed it back up, and used the strip of fabric to make straps.

Then I hand stitched these doilies on the pockets for a little something extra.

And here is the back view.

I love how it turned out. I would totally wear this myself!

giveaway at little miss heirlooms

Feeling lucky? Head over to Little Miss Heirlooms and enter a chance to win $50 to spend in my shop! Feel free to pass the word along. I hope you win.

weekend snapshot

Over the weekend we finished the garden boxes and planted our little seedlings. I am hoping they like their new home and will really begin to stretch their leaves and see what they can do. We also played at the park and I started a summer dress for the Little Miss refashioned from a skirt. I'll show you when I'm done. What were you up too?

our toy story

This week we had an adventure. But first, I need to introduce you to Lyevka (li-yev-kah), the Little Miss' best and softest friend. Husband speaks Russian so he has dubbed all of her stuffed animals with Russian names - it means little lion. She calls him Kevka and sleeps with him every night and is starting to want to take him everywhere. So on our thrifting trip this week I let her carry him inside hoping that if she was hugging him it would keep her seated and content in the cart.

Fast forward to a few hours later when we are home and it is time for her nap and I can't find Lyevka anywhere... and then it hits me that the last time I saw him was as we were walking into the thrift store that morning. I cannot begin to tell you how sick I felt at the thought that I had lost him! Our poor little lion was left behind. I didn't say anything to the Little Miss because she will sleep with other stuffed animals, so I laid her down and then commenced panicking. I called the thrift store and they said I would have to come in and search for the lion myself, but I knew I couldn't get there for a few more hours so thoughts of someone buying my little girl's favorite playmate plagued me.


This is the part where you are probably thinking, what's the big deal? And I might have said the same thing until this happened. After I hung up the phone with the thrift store I started sobbing - the kind of sobbing that takes you by surprise because you don't really know why it is affecting you so much. But since I knew that Lyevka was a big part of my little girl's world then he was a big part of mine too. Not to mention I felt horrible and knew it was my fault for forgetting we had brought him.

When Husband got home from work we set out on a rescue mission. We drove out to the thrift store and I basically laid down on the floor to see if she had dropped him - no luck. I checked the top of every rack - no luck. I walked down the toy aisle and didn't see him - I was beginning to get worried. I decided to look down every aisle while Husband and the Little Miss gave the toy aisle a more thorough look. I walked down several aisles when all of a sudden the Little Miss came running around a corner yelling, "Mommy, mommy! Kevka!" with the biggest smile on her face. It was a moment I never want to forget. And then I almost started crying with relief. Turns out he was patiently waiting for us on the bottom shelf of the toy aisle half hidden by other toys.

I have learned my lesson well - Lyevka will never come shopping with us ever again!

shop update: creatures big + small

Another shop update for you!

the post in which i lament...

...the fact that I do not own a house and therefore have no room for certain amazing finds. First, let me start by saying that the shop tour on Decor 8 featuring Brass Razoo is giving me all kinds of inspiration. I am definitely filing this away to return to when I have more space to fill (and will keep the small things in mind for now).





With that said, there is a definite downside to thrifting and this week I am suffering from it. It goes something like this - you stumble upon an unexpected amazing find that you don't really need (or in my case you don't really need it or have room for it) but you know that it's a one-of-a-kind! You can't go back in a month or a year when you have the perfect spot for it. It will be long gone and you'll only be left with the memory of that perfect chair, or couch, or dresser that no other finds will ever live up too. Dramatic, right? I know. Let's just say if you want the perfect vintage couch that looks like it was never sat in and still has the original matching pillows go to the DI in AF. And whoever got that mid-century chair I passed up because I couldn't think of a place to put it, you're welcome. Sigh...

At least I am not becoming a hoarder.


Photos by Amber Fischer

weekend snapshot: brian regan

The main event of our weekend was front row seats to see Brian Regan. If you haven't heard his comedy you should really check him out - he is hilarious and totally clean. He had us laughing so hard our faces hurt. This picture is actually from last year when we got to meet him (so, no, I didn't cut my hair). This years show was even better - you know someone is funny when they mess up a joke and then make it even funnier on the fly. Have you seen him before?

and, wow, I look really short

kitty romper

I decided to start another project yesterday during nap time. If I'm lucky I still get three hours to myself in the afternoon and I try to take full advantage of it. I know one day soon I won't have any time to myself! This is another vintage pattern and fabric I already had in my stash. I added the bow pocket because I thought since the kittens had bows on so should the Little Miss!

We are off for the weekend so see you next week!

shop update: creams + whites

Here is the latest shop update. The lighting was tricky since the weather was horrible today. I would usually wait for the sun to come out, but I decided to take pictures regardless since we are going out of town on Thursday and I wanted to get this done. Hope you like it!

And just for fun I thought I would share some of my favorite items in the shop. These are the ones I would choose to keep in a heartbeat. So you better snatch them up before I do!

pocket smock

Over the weekend I got the sewing itch so I cleared out the seedlings and unearthed my machine. The Little Miss is obsessed with pockets right now so I decided to make her a pocket smock so she can store all of the little 'treasures' she finds around the house. It's funny what she ends up with sometimes. About five minutes after I put this on her she had a wooden block and four little plastic speckled eggs weighing her down.

I used a vintage pattern and scrounged through fabric and notions I already had on hand. The flower print is from an old pillowcase and the gingham I thrifted a while back. The button on the front is leftover from this romper refashion. I love how it turned out and it was worth it to hear her excitedly yell, "Pockets!"

By the way, she is modeling it on the ledge of a freshly painted wall in our living room. It was a darker bright blue but now it is a light silvery blue (hard to tell in the picture). We still have to touch up the edges but I love the new color - its much more peaceful. Until I decide how I want to hang all of my pictures up they are leaning against the wall on the ledge.

I'm adding this to the elsie marley flickr group for the Kids Clothes Week Challenge.

mothers

I am so happy that I am a mother. I love that I get to spend my days with my sweet girl and watch her learn and grow while learning and growing myself. Sometimes I think that she is teaching me more than I am teaching her. She is helping me to be a better person in every way - more patient, more selfless, more loving, more forgiving, more fun... I have never felt so fulfilled and I honestly think that without my role as mother I would never be able to live up to my full potential.

Today I wore my Grandmother's old choir dress in honor of her. She was a wonderful woman and I hope to live up to her example of a life full of love and service.

I am also grateful for my mother and everything she has taught and continues to teach me. I feel blessed to have a mother who is so involved in our life and is a loving grandmother as well.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you, no matter what role of mom you play!

i was thinking of you... month four

another engagement pic by JC, we laugh about Husbands big thumb :)

This one is a little late...

April:

When I weaned the Little Miss off of her night feedings sometime around 6-8 months Husband became the one who got up and helped her in the middle of the night if she awoke. Usually she just needed her pacifier popped back in her mouth and a little back rub. I was quite happy to have the excuse that I couldn't go in anymore because she would smell my breast milk and want to eat (or so I read). But what I didn't expect was that he would take over the night shift completely from then on out (I figured out he has been doing it for about a year!). So for the month of April I told him I was going to take over the job and he could sleep. I have to admit it was hard for me to drag myself out of bed after being spoiled so much. The Little Miss does usually sleep through the night now, but she is teething so she still has her days and nights of fussiness. My one month didn't even come close to making up for his one year, but I hope it let him know that I appreciated him getting up all of those times.

I actually already told you about Husband's surprise to me. He built me my garden boxes and I was so excited! I had told him I wanted some, so one Saturday morning he announced that he was going to spend all day digging out the garden area and building me my boxes. It was a surprise that I didn't have to remind/coerce/make him since he isn't one to enjoy working in the yard - at all. So I felt loved because he knew what would make me happy!

So far our little experiment is working. I know some couples might not need this kind of reminder to do service/gifts for each other, but for us it works well and I think both of us look forward to getting and planning our surprises!

******
Note: Husband and I sat down at the beginning of the year to write down our goals. Among other things, we decided to surprise one another each month with a small gift or act of service that costs little to nothing. The point being that we would be thinking about the other person and how we could make life for them a little easier, love them a little more, or make them happy in some little way.

See past months here.

if those walls could talk...

I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully explain my love for old things but maybe if you look at these pictures from heinrick05's photostream you will understand a little bit.

(found via SJV)