This happy little window is right above Glow’s bed. True came into Glow’s room and said, “How come our room isn’t nice like this?” I said, “Because you guys are always making messes.” LOL. Glow’s room (it’s Soul’s room too, but she doesn’t sleep in it yet) stays pretty clean because she just sleeps in there, and all the playing goes on in True and Brave’s room.
This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…
This video that’s been so circulating Facebook is very convicting.
Thankful for our Thursday night dinner club. We had two weeks off, but now we’re back to it.
I’m so excited 24 is back, but Ben and I won’t watch it until the season is over, so we can do one, big, binge bash. It’s my ultimate favorite show.
Ms. Tips is having a good 25% off sale this weekend! Love this boho bucket bag.
We ordered these large buckets for the garden and I can’t wait to plant our peppers in them.
Brave is going to be a break dance girl. She’s got this move down.
The weekend is here, we’re working in the yard as a family (finally getting things in the ground), and I’m going to need to sneak in time to work on some of my own projects. Huzzah!
I love having season passes to the Safari Park (and San Diego Zoo) because we don’t feel the rush to see everything in one day and we just go at our own leisurely pace. We wanted to see the butterfly exhibit, and it was on it’s last day, but the line was 2 hours to get in (insane!), so we all agreed we didn’t want to wait two hours and just headed to Freebirds for dinner. The L.A. Natural History Museum currently has a similar butterfly exhibit going on, with a much shorter wait time based on past experiences, so we will plan to take the girls to that instead.
I’m thankful it’s Friday and while I wanted to share Mother’s Day projects here, I just never got around to it. We were able to shower my mom with something last weekend and we mailed off a little something to Ben’s mom during the week, so we got the moms in our lives covered. All my Mother’s Day request have to do with food and I can’t wait to fill my stomach with waffles, sopes, and pie. Calories don’t count on special days, right?!
Tomorrow we will be working in the garden. We finally have all our Cor-ten steel garden beds in, they are all filled with dirt, and now it’s time to get planting. I will have to show you the latest transformation, and it feels like we are always changing something back there, but I think we’re getting closet to where we want the garden to be. Well, hopefully.
My brain has been all over the place this week, so you get me talking about the zoo, then Mother’s Day, then the garden. Anyone else have a scatterbrained week?
I remember the first time I came across Henri’s Walk to Paris. I loved the vibrant colors and simplicity of it all; It was just darn so stunning! Then, I started researching where to buy the book, but it was out of print at the time, and well, that was that (vintage ones were expensive!). When the book finally came back into print, I was so ecstatic and very happy that Amazon could get books to my house in lightening speed. It’s been one of our favorites ever since… you could get a whole slew of project ideas from this story!
House Block Plush
Supplies: House Block Plush Illustration (gives measurements for each fabric piece of the house block cushion)
Scissors
1 yard for house front & back (mix up patterns and colors to get a cute & quirky house!)
1/2 yard fabric for house side
1/2 yard fabric for house roof
Polyester fiber-fill
Sewing machine
Coordinating thread
Hand sewing needle (to sew the cushion close)
Seam allowance: 1/2″
Directions:
1. Cut out all your fabric pieces. Use this to get fabric measurements.
2. With their right sides together, sew the 11 1/2″ sides of the left side fabric and the left roof fabric together, and press the seam open. Repeat for the right side.
3. Place the left side fabric and front fabric with their right sides together (be sure to line up the edges from the roof top to the bottom of the house), pin in place. Starting 1/2″ down from the rooftop, sew down the entire length. Repeat this step again to join the right side fabric with the front fabric.
4. Place the left side fabric and back fabric with their right sides together (be sure to line up the edges from the roof top to the bottom of the house), pin in place. Starting 1/2″ down from the rooftop, sew down the entire length. Repeat this step again to join the right side fabric with the back fabric.
5. With the right sides of the roof together (they pretty much face that way because of the sides being sewn together), sew across the entire length of the roof top opening.
6. With their right sides together, line up the edges of the bottom fabric to the what is now the main body of the house (the 10 1/2″ side coordinates with the 10 1/2″ side, and the 14″ side with the 14″ side), and sew around the perimeter of the bottom, but be sure to leave a 4″ opening for turning. Clip any corners, turn right side out (poke out any corners), and fill with poly-fil. Fill until desired firmness, then hand sew the opening closed. You may need to fluff, press, squeeze, and hug to get your house just right after you get all your stuffing in. We love this house block! I pretend the baby is a monster and she crushes the house by sitting on it. It has nothing to do with the story, but it’s really funny. The house block is especially good for leaning on when reading stories like Henri’s Walk to Paris together. It’s nice, thick, and cushiony. This would definitely be just as cute if you made smaller house block plushes, and that would make a really good present to gift to a child along with the book.
If you’ve been following here for awhile, you know how important our tradition of birthday breakfasts in bed are, so even though we weren’t home for True’s birthday, we still made it happen. Naturally, the breakfast items aren’t quite pancakes and waffles like normal (and no way would we do room service because it’s typically way overpriced for basic menu items), and when we travel (even for a weekend) we have a cooler of food ready. Thus, her breakfast in bed was yogurt, O’s, and strawberries. We even made sure to have the little fruit characters made for her too! Now it’s harder to come in and surprise her since we are all in a room together, but I’m glad all the girls still find the whole tradition very exciting.
After everyone had their breakfast, we had True open the gifts from her sisters (and one from Auntie Linda and Uncle John). Oh my oh my, Soul and Brave made a bazillion presents and cards to give to her. I only shared with you a small sampling, but they were just busting out with all this thoughtfulness and creativity for their big sister. It made this DIY loving mama proud. By the way, that colorful handwritten birthday note (last photo) was made by True, so that we would have the words to the birthday song to sing for her. Seriously, these girls are so great!
Do you have any birthday traditions you do at your home?
I love the shapeless, loose dresses that have been popping up lately. I can do without spanx underneath and those dresses are just so comfortable. Sure they aren’t super flattering, but whatever, I like them. Now, the ones that have been popping up are like oh-my-freakin-guacamole-expensivo, so while I have bought a $400 pair of shoes once (this is full disclosure with a story behind it, and not my proudest moment, but hey! I wear them a lot and they’re my faves), I can’t pay that much for a shapeless dress. 1) It’s shapeless, so it’s not that hard to sew. 2) I’d rather buy nice shoes, than a dress, probably because I sew. I’m sure the dresses that go for that kind of Benjamins are handmade with love in the USA with the finest of fabric (and I’m all for small businesses, so I’m glad people support them), but hey, mine is handmade with love too (in the USA) and with linen, which is nice fabric, and only cost me $20, so that works for me.
I’m pretty happy with how my dress turned out, and seriously after you sew yourself a dress, it feels like you just went shopping without spending any money, especially if you have had the fabric for awhile. I have no pattern for you, but I have this sketch that you can use as a guide to make your own. It’s only two pieces (front and back) and it’s loose, so just use one of your looser dresses as a sizing guide, and I made the cut of the bottom portion more cocoon-like, and I did a wide band at the sleeves. It’s easy, I promise, just try it! My book won’t teach you how to make this dress, but it will teach you enough about sewing that you will eventually be able to make this dress and many more other things.
I also got to be part of Lisa Leonard’s lookbook, so I’m wearing her gold love banner necklace (sorry it’s sold out now). The girls love that I have a necklace with their letters, they declare this one their favorite necklace of mine.
Are you yea or nay on loose shapeless dresses? Would you try and make your own?
I’ve been playing around with my food pictures and using different backgrounds instead of just the plain white like before. Do you miss the plain white or do you like me changing it up a bit? I’d love to “style” the photos more, but I literally make a plate, put it on the background, take a picture, put in on the dinner table, and then we eat. I’m pretty quick about it and I don’t like to eat cold food, so I go as fast as I could, and I don’t take too much time to make it all look fancy. Then, our dinner tables really look like this. It’s just a regular family having dinner on a regular table with regular dinner messes. It’s totally not styled and just real life. Sometimes, I’ll be intentional on making sure placemats, napkins, and dishes match, but most times I just let the girls set the table, so I’m cool with whatever.
I have a large growing pile of fabric scraps. I refuse to throw them away because I am sure they can be used for something. I have been seeing different types of interesting necklaces made of buttons, beads, and fabric. Then, I figured why not make one out of my scraps...
I think it made my white shirt a little less boring. This was so quick and easy to make.
How to make a recycled scraps necklace (which is very similar to the straps on my braided tablecloth bag):
1. Take your scrap fabric, I cut a .5''-1'' snip and tear the rest of the fabric down for a nice frayed edge. Used 3 different fabrics for each strand.
2. Take 3 of the torn pieces and tie the ends together with a rubber band.
3. Braid the 3 pieces together and tie ends together with rubber band when done.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 for more strands. Remember you can make the strands any length you want, if run out of fabric, just weave more into the braid.
5. Once all the strands you want are braided, gather one end of each strand together and straight stitch together with sewing machine. Repeat for the other ends of the strands. Snip off any excess.
6. Gather ends of the necklace and sew together (snip excess) or a ribbon can be sewn at the ends to be able to tie the necklace closed, but I just sewed both ends together.
7. Voila! A nice way to make use of all your lovely scraps.
Sorry if the directions get you a little lost, but it really is easy. I promise. Maybe I should put some in the shop. Please share any other good ideas you may have of things that can be made with scraps. I would love to hear (read) them!
This happy little window is right above Glow’s bed. True came into Glow’s room and said, “How come our room isn’t nice like this?” I said, “Because you guys are always making messes.” LOL. Glow’s room (it’s Soul’s room too, but she doesn’t sleep in it yet) stays pretty clean because she just sleeps in there, and all the playing goes on in True and Brave’s room.
