lately

Snapshots of our life lately...

Best Sculpture Award//Best Dressed Award (okay I just made that one up)

Exhausted from too much fun//Daddy can do all of the Disney character voices

We painted a lot, but you already knew that//Did you know I got a blister though?

Unsupervised art time//A confetti-filled birthday letter 

Popsicle karioke//She's been doing this thing lately... 

She wants to learn to play violin//Hipster ballerina?

Tippy-toes mean trouble//As in getting into things she shouldn't 

Vintage dresses about to get soaked//Take that dirt

Trying on costume options//Striking Halloween costume gold in my stash

Mini pumpkins are the extent of our decor//Enjoying one last afternoon at the lake

A Hip Handmade Holiday was super hip//Look for the e-book coming out November 1st! 

 Getting to know our new backyard//First snowfall of the season! (It melted within the hour)

Life is busy, but oh. so. good.

(rotten) apple picking

When we were searching for a house one of the items on my 'would-be-nice-if' list was mature fruit trees. This was not a deal breaker, but if there were fruit trees my eyes would light up just that much more. So when we first looked at our house way back in February I was happy to look through the window and see rotting fruit hanging off of two big trees in the backyard. There were no leaves and it was cold and getting dark so at first we guessed they were peach trees, but we soon discovered they were apple trees - one red, and one green.

Since six months passed before we finally owned these trees those rotten apples we first laid eyes on from last season were never picked off, and the new harvest was taken over by worms and birds. This left us with a lot of rotten apples on our hands. But, we were determined to find some good ones among the bunch this year - and we did find a few to taste! Mostly, though, we just have a lot of clean up to do.

I look forward to more successful harvests in the future, but for now I am just happy to call these trees my own.

making a house a home: PAINT

Oh, these walls. We have been patching/sanding/patching and sanding again/painting these walls for weeks and weeks and we are so close to being done (with the upstairs at least)! Close enough that I want to share the before/afters of the hallway and bedrooms with you. I swear these poor walls never got a hole patched in 50 years, and although we didn't count there had to be hundreds of them. On top of that there were some pretty horrible paint jobs that needed to be scraped and skimmed over with mud. And then, once all of the prepping was finally done we rolled a coat of primer and 2 coats of paint - Benjamin Moore Marscapone to be exact. I wanted to brighten up the place with (almost) white walls everywhere. It looks so fresh and clean!

(We haven't had time to take all of the tape down yet, sorry it's a bit of an eyesore)

The hallway was painted a beige color. The before is a bit blurry, but I'm glad that I could find one. In the after you'll notice we also ripped up the Pergo flooring and the door frame around the first door on the left. It is the bathroom door and we are fixing it to match the height/style of the rest of the doors (why is it different - who knows?!) so, yes, we will have some more patching/painting to do once that is done.

The girls will continue to share a room when we move since I know it will help with the transition, and they love being together. They are starting to ask to sleep next to each other. Just last night as LM was hugging Lark on her bed she said, "I love my sweet Larkie. I want her to sleep next to me." I promised them they can sleep next to each other when Lark is a little bit older. It is too cute to see their love growing. Anyway, their room was a light yellowish-tan. LM was disappointed I didn't choose to paint their room pink, but I told her we could paint the closet pink as a compromise :)

The master bedroom is one of the more dramatic changes. I don't even know what to say about this brown gold-faux thing going on. It was even worse when we realized it was covering up a grid pattern underneath (see the bottom left corner?). We had to scrape the whole gooey wall down and then sand like crazy to get rid of the grid pattern. We were so happy when we covered up this mess!

A fun discovery happened when took the door hinges off to freshen up the door jams. The original colors that were painted in the master and the girl's room way back in 1958 were hidden underneath! The master was originally a pretty aqua blue, and the girl's room was a peachy-orange. I left the colors there in homage - I love these little connections to the past.

The third bedroom will be the playroom for now (eventually the nursery). It was a dark army green and had a peeling chalkboard on one wall...but, you would never know it now! We also got rid of the swamp cooler in the window.

It's like a breath of fresh air! Next on the long list of to-do's we need to lay tile in the kitchen and down the hallway (where we ripped out the Pergo). We are also waiting on kitchen counter tops and then we will tile a back splash too. I have to think only a few steps ahead or it all becomes too overwhelming. We got ourselves into a lot of work, but it has been satisfying work!

a tiny dress on a big day

(All pictures by The Gemmers)

Heather from The Gemmers took these wonderful pictures of her sister's vow renewal at dusk. I love the way she captured the little details, and the big love between this beautiful family - isn't the bride gorgeous? You can tell this special day was lovingly and thoughtfully planned, and it makes me so happy that I could help in a small way by connecting them to the sweetest tiny vintage dress for their daughter to wear (and doesn't she look a bit like Lark with that pretty ginger hair? She is a doll).

And that, right there, is a big part of why I do what I do. And I love it.

See lots more gorgeous pictures here and here.

p.s. a house update is coming soon!

fall wall

We have been crafting up a swirling leaf storm with all of the leaves we collected, thanks to a Pinterest 'kids leaf project' search. So much so, that I felt an entire wall should be dedicated to the madness. I think a new 'Fall Wall' yearly tradition has been started, and I am sure pumpkins, ghosts, bats, and turkey feathers will join the foray before Christmas takes over.

We started with some leaf animals. I did the moose (yep, it's a moose) to show Little Miss the concept and then she started layering the red maple leaves for the bird's tail all on her own. We collaborated to decide what it should become, but wow that tail! It steals the show. And I love how when the leaves dried it curled up so prettily.

Lark picked up leaves and pointed on the paper where she wanted me to tape them, and I think hers turned out pretty stellar as well. ;)

If possible I like to do a little craft/art project during play dates, so after preschool when LM's 'boyfriend' (her words, not mine) came over I sat them down to do a leaf rubbing. This project is really easy and fun. All you do is lay leaves down on a flat surface, place paper on top (I taped it in place to make it even easier), and holding the crayon sideways rub it over the paper to reveal the leaves underneath.

We also used the leaves as stamps. I found the easiest way to do this was paint the leaves and then lay them face down on the paper and put a paper towel over the top and press all of the edges down, then carefully peel the leaves off. It didn't work very well if there was too much paint on the  leaves. Afterwards we just let all of the painted leaves dry.

Lastly, and my most favorite - we made leaf characters on a stick! These guys were probably the most fun to make since they are so silly. We used the leaves the girls had painted the day before and added googly eyes, mustaches, feathered hats, and super hero masks. Or just one eye, you know, whatever. Obviously, these can't take rough play, but making them was the best part for us. LM was giggling like crazy.  Lark was wandering around chewing on a stick which to her is tops, so, winning!

Happy Fall leaf crafting! If you have any other ideas I would love to know, I 'll put them on the agenda for next year.

soak in the color

We love this time of year. When the trees put on a bright and colorful show that never fails to impress, and then shower their leaves down onto the forest floor like a grand finale with the most wonderful confetti. It just feels like a time to celebrate!

We went to our favorite spot up the canyon, not once, but twice last weekend to go leaf collecting. The colors are breathtaking, but they fade fast so we did our best to soak up every vibrant color while at the same time breathing in the changing of the season. The girls made sure to choose a leaf in every shape and shade. 

I'll show you some of the things we did with our bags full of leaves soon...