Dear Lillie

A Chalkboard "Wall"

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

This post was written a few days ago, but automatically set to post this morning. Other than this, we will probably not be able to respond to any emails, FB posts, or any other things for a couple of days. We ask that you please keep our extended family in your prayers.

I have been in love with all of these chalkboard walls I have seen over the last couple of years. One of my FAVORITE ones by far is Jennifer's over at The Old Painted Cottage. Anyway, as much as I wanted one I couldn't figure out where we could put one. Because we live in a townhome that has a pretty open floorplan we just have a few huge walls and not a whole lot of smaller ones. Because I couldn't find a wall that would work, I pretty much just gave up on the idea for a while. Then recently I thought it couldn't hurt to try it on the end of our island cabinets. It was the perfect spot for Lillie to be able to reach and draw on. So, we gave it a try! At first we painted the end near the dining room (those are the photos shown in the step by step part) but when you walked through the front door you immediately saw it and it was a bit jarring. After starting at it for a week or so it just kept driving me crazy so I ended up painting back over it and hanging the IKEA rod with the basket and painting the other side with the chalkboard which I like so much better!

Anyway, here is how we did it:

First, find a fun little helper and get some chalkboard paint. We got ours at Ace Hardware but I am pretty sure you can get it about anywhere. Then we just used a paint tray, a little mini roller, some tape and little brush.

Then we taped off the trim and put down a towel.

And then we started painting.

And in case you think that the photo above is just for the blog take a look at the first coat - haha!

Once she went to bed I added a second coat to "clean it up" a bit.

In the end, though, we ended up painting over it entirely and we painted the other side instead, which I like so much better!

And here is the other side which we painted back over and added these IKEA rods to.

I hope you all are having a splendid Monday!

Some Valentine's Silhouettes and Three Winners

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Lillie was being really silly and playing around with some of our straw hats yesterday afternoon. Seeing how she's been a lot more cooperative lately when I take pictures I thought maybe I would have success again. As soon as I got my camera out though I got her "I do not want my picture taken" look. Oh well. I did get one where she was sort of smiling that I am going to use for a photoshop tutorial and then decided not to push it.

I also spent quite a bit of time yesterday cutting tons of these Little Girl Holding a Heart Silhouettes. We will be having them in both black and pink and in both this small size (approximately 3 1/4" tall by 2 1/4" wide) that would be great for making valentines or decorating and a larger size that would be fun to frame. I am hoping to have them available either Monday or Tuesday.

You can find the recipe for making these Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls in this post here.

And now, on to the winners of our Baby Cloths and the Two Briar Hats!

First, the winner of the Baby Cloths!

And now for the two winners of the Briar Hats!

Send us an e-mail (dearlillie@hotmail.com) with your shipping address and we will get your prizes out in the mail to you ASAP!

I will be back Monday with our kitchen chalkboard project.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

A Quick Friday Hello

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Whew! I can't believe it is already Friday. This past week my sisters Dana and Jamie, our friend Christine, and Jon's dad all were in town to visit. Needless to say it made for a very busy week. I didn't take any pictures at all with my "real" camera while everyone was here so I don't have any photos to show, but I did want to share with you all though, a photo Jamie took of super easy and delicious Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars she made last week at home and then again with Lillie while she was here visiting.

You can find the recipe over at The Girl Who Ate Everything.

We aren't big coconut fans here so we did it without the coconut.

Although I didn't get any photos taken while everyone was here, yesterday I finally photographed our little chalkboard paint in the kitchen project as well as some new additions to the dining room (a little shot of that is below). I can't wait to get them all edited and show you all next week!

Sorry for the short post! I will be back either tomorrow or Sunday to announce the winners of the baby cloth and briar hat giveaways! And then I will have the kitchen and dining room pictures ready for next week. And possibly a couple of new projects in Lola's room to share as well if I can get those photographed today or tomorrow.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

P.S. We had sold out of both the white and cream Ruffled Heart Pillows. We probably won't be restocking the white ones in the near future but we did just restock the cream ones this morning!

A Giveaway In Honor of little Benjamin Oliver

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

On Monday, my cousin Cathy and her husband Jason welcomed their newest son, precious little

Benjamin Oliver!

I cannot wait to meet him and snuggle with him. In honor of his birth I thought we would give away a set of our baby cloths, which are available in our shop!

So, how can you win?

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post!

Even if you don't have a baby these would make a great gift!

You don't have to have a blog to enter, either. If you aren't a blogger, just enter a comment and then where it says "comment as" scroll down near the bottom and click on anonymous. However, if you do that, make sure to leave your e-mail address so we can confirm that you are the winner. If we draw the name of someone who doesn't leave any identifying information we will simply draw a new name. Make sure to check back here on the blog to collect your prize!

You can comment each day if you would like to up your chances!

For extra entries become a follower of our blog, twitter

and/or like our facebook page!

Just write "follower" as a second comment so it counts as an entry, and "twitter"

and "facebook" as their own entries.

And for one more extra entry:

"share" it with your friends on facebook and come back here and let us know you did!

You can enter this contest through Friday night and then this weekend we will announce the winner.

We will announce the winner of the Our Briar Hat Giveaway then too. You can enter that giveaway by clicking here.

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Painted Curtains and Pillows for the Master Bedroom

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Well, I finally got my pictures uploaded of the curtains and pillows we painted a couple of weeks ago for our master bedroom. Believe it or not the white "curtains" we had hanging up there for the past three and a half years were just white twin sheets. I had them hanging like curtains so I don't think anyone knew, but it always drove me crazy. I never could find exactly what I was looking for, though, in my price range.

My sister, Dana recently moved and got a new job in New York and got to decorate a new apartment with her best friend, Christine. It turned out fabulous and I hope at some point I will be able to take some photos to share with you all. Anyway, when it came time to make some draperies she sent me a link to some fabric swatches that she was interested in but wasn't quite sure about. I agreed that although they were all pretty none of them were quite right for her space and suggested a stripe. I thought the bold look of a wide stripe would be a nice contrast to the otherwise soft room she was designing. It turned out finding a decently priced striped fabric that would look right in her apartment was not an easy task. I mentioned that I had seen on Pinterest some painted curtains but wasn't sure where. She found some links and decided to go ahead and give it a try. She bought two long white panels at IKEA and painted away. When she sent me a phone picture they were GORGEOUS! I fell in love with them and had her pick me up a pair of the same panels at IKEA and she sent them back down with Jason after Christmas. I used leftover paint from Lillie's room (London Fog by Benjamin Moore) and decided to go ahead and give it a try. I was in a hurry so I didn't bother to look up any tutorials but basically what I did was just used painters tape to tape off every 12 inches or so and then painted away. If you do want to find a full tutorial for this idea here is one from Shaunna at Perfectly Imperfect. I LOVE her blog!

I did two coats heavy coats (I didn't want the stripes to be see-through at all) and then ripped off the tape and that was it! It was pretty time consuming taping each panel off, but other than that it was really easy and I have to say I am so happy with them! And seeing how I used paint I already had they only cost me $24.99! (Or whatever the IKEA curtains were...I think it was $24.99, but I will check with Dana and make sure that is correct).

I moved all my porch furniture aside to make room so I could lay each panel down. I had to do one at a time because of the space it took up. Oh how I wish we had a basement! =)

After they were dry we pulled the tape off (Lillie loved that part!) and hung them.

I also played around with the pillows on our bed a little bit. First I brought back up the bolster pillow. It was in the garage after the girls did some damage to it =). I fixed it back up, though, and added a little panel with some new words on it that I was playing around with. We are hoping to have a bolster designed to sell soon. I also used the sheets that used to be our curtains to make pillow covers for our Euro shams on the back of the bed. You can see them below on the all white side that has a little ruffle in the center.

I made the Euro Shams reversable. On the other side I painted on thick strip down the middle using the same paint as the curtains. Once again, Lillie had lots of fun ripping off the tape once the paint was dry.

Here is one side of my extra sheets that were once curtains and now are pillows.

And here is the other side:

Neither side is perfect but seeing how they go behind everything it doesn't really matter.

I didn't like mixing the gray stripes with the black on the other pillows so when I switched them to this side I removed the black pillows. I was a little torn on which look I liked better at first but now I am pretty sure I like this softer gray look better. What do you think?

While I was taking photos of our bedroom, Lillie made me these little Valentine's and wanted me to take pictures of them. =)

And here is my little rascal doing a dance move on the trunk in front of the new curtains.

I also wanted to let you know that we have two new Valentine's pillows available in our shop today! Well, actually they don't need to be specifically Valetine's pillows. I have used the ones I made last year in Lola's room year round.

First we have a Ruffled Heart Pillow in Cream:

And we also have a Ruffled Heart Pillow in White:

That's it for today! I hope you all have a wonderful Monday!

Nine Months

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

I didn't have time last night to finish editing the photos of our bedroom so I can't post those today but should have them finished later today and will post them tomorrow. In the meantime I wanted to post a quick picture of little Lola who is nine months old today! Yay! She's started crawling and babbling this past month and now that she is mobile is getting into all sorts of mischief. I can't believe that in just three months she will be a year old!

I hope you all have a blessed Sunday!

Briar Hat Giveaway and London Reid

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

YAY! Time for another giveaway!

This time we will be giving away TWO Briar Hats!

Here is Lillie modeling one. They are a cream color with a champagne colored flower clip.

The cream is a slightly more yellow hue than our usual cream Briar Hats.

For this giveaway we will be drawing TWO different winners!

My sister, Dana, lovingly made and donated these hats so we could do a special giveaway this time.

For this giveaway anyone can enter by leaving a comment but you can get two extra entries by heading over to visit little Ethan and his family and leaving even just $1.

Just come back here and leave two comments saying you did.

We are doing this on the honor system.

On another note we wanted to introduce another new sponsor:

Amber makes beautiful customized jewelry! She also has a wonderful blog where she often has giveaways. Here are a few of my favorite items in her shop:

I LOVE this Tori Necklace:

And this Isabella Charm Bracelet is lovely:

I hope you all are have a wonderful weekend! I will be back either tomorrow or Monday with a post of our bedroom with our new curtains and a some new pillows made from sheets!

More Growth Charts

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:15:00 +0000

We have another batch of growth charts that we are finishing up.

They will be available tonight at 12:01 EST.

Oh and if you have ESPNU the Tribe will be playing VCU tonight at 8!

GO TRIBE!

Have a wonderful Thursday!

Happy Birthday, Jenni! (Jason's January Post)

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:15:00 +0000

I’d like to start off by wishing Jenni a very happy 30^th birthday! This would also probably be a good place to point out that until few days ago, I was under the impression that Jenni was twenty-five or twenty-six. No, that’s not my way of giving her an underhanded compliment and saying she looks younger than she really is (the look test would probably put her at about 35-40 right now), it's just that I genuinely have no idea how old anyone in my family is.

Age discrepancies aside, I began to recall my reputation for slacking off on other people's birthday gifts. There was that birthday of Dana's that I felt it appropriate (and cost-effective) to give her an empty box completely covered in glued-on pretzels (surprisingly she wasn't that upset...I actually caught her nibbling away at the packaging a few hours later). Then, of course, there was that summer I gave Jamie a pet rock--complete with its own shoebox ecosystem. The only time she spoke to me that week was to make a threat on my life (#angryphase).

So needless to say, I figured that I really needed to step up my game for this important milestone in Jenni’s life. Then I remembered that the things that Jenni likes (houses, decorating, ect.) are not in the slightest bit interesting to me. So instead of getting Jenni something for her birthday, I decided to get Lillie something.

Now before you criticize my logic, let me at least pretend that there was an attempt to be thoughtful on my part. The gift that I got Lillie just happened to be her very own children’s digital camera so that she could in turn give Jenni a present.

The result (as you can see below) was a bunch of near-studio-quality photographs, complete with Lillie’s very own watermark! So while Jenni putters around listening to Tim McGraw’s “My Next Thirty Years” all day, sit back and enjoy Lillie’s handiwork!

"Happy birthday, Mommy!"

In an unrelated event, Jenni had a little difficulty putting the tree back in the box last night, and I felt it necessary to snap (and share) an incriminating photo before helping her up. Enjoy...

And this is why she won't be allowed to use the Baby Bjorn anymore...

Better Homes and Garden's Shoot and Hot Chocolate Bar

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

A couple of months ago we got an e-mail from Better Homes and Gardens asking if we would be interested in having our home photographed for their Christmas Ideas Issue. It seemed too good to be true and to be honest I kept thinking it might fall through but the last two days we had a stylist from Better Homes and Gardens here and today we had a photographer and a second stylist here as well! It was so exciting getting to watch such talented people work their magic and they were incredibly sweet and easy going and so wonderful with the girls. I had feared that Lillie would not want to have her photo taken when it was time but instead she hopped right up in her window seat and smiled and posed and did everything the photographer asked - he was so good with her! At one point she even had him sliding down our stairs "on his bum-bum" like her and he pushed her around on his cart once he was done! I can't thank them enough for making it such an easy and enjoyable experience. Now for the hard part - we have to wait 8 or 9 months for the magazine to come out!

Now that it is over, I have to say I am exhausted. It has been so crazy trying to get everything finished up in time. Once they left yesterday I started taking down all of the Christmas decorations. I am just about done and then I can start figuring out what to do to fill all the bare holes. In some ways it is such a good feeling to have it all down and to get everything clean and organized but it also does make all of the rooms seem so empty and cold now.

I didn't take any photos while they were here yesterday but I did take some photos last week of the hot cocoa station I added in our dining room.

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

The Last Day of Christmas...And New Items in Our Shop!

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:30:00 +0000

Whew! Today is finally the last day of Christmas here! I think poor Lillie is so confused. I can't wait to tell you more about it but for now I have a million things to finish up before the photographer and stylist arrive but I did want to quickly let you all know our Oversized Ruler Growth Chart is now available in our store as well as a new pillow! And if you have e-mailed me I promise as soon as today is over I am going to start getting caught up so you will hear back from me very soon!

Here is our Oversized Ruler Growth Chart:

(Please Note: The price of the ruler factors in the extra cost of shipping an oversized item. Your actual shipping charge will be the same as if you purchased any other item in our shop).

And here is our Burlap Heart Pillow with a Ribbon:

And Without a Ribbon:

Have a wonderful Monday!

A Few New Things in the Kitchen

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

I had planned on doing a tutorial but I didn't have time to get it written up last night so instead I figured I would just share a few pictures of some things we have added to our kitchen. I have been pulling some all-nighters this week and it looks like I have a few more ahead of me before things settle back down towards the middle of next week. I am so excited for the shoot but also a little overwhelmed trying to get everything ready. Of course, it hasn't helped that neither of the girls have been sleeping well and that Jon will have been gone 6 out of 9 days. Oh well, hopefully I will have time to sleep soon!

The buckets and wire basket are from IKEA and the basket is from Target.

Tomorrow I will be headed out to some nearby woods to cut down some fresh everygreen to fill the buckets up with.

I also got this for the powder room too! We never had anywhere to store extra toilet paper and it always drove me crazy so I love having this in there now.

(There is no natural light in here so sorry for the blurry photo).

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Some Valentine's Pillows Restocked and The Ruler Growth Chart

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

We just wanted to quickly let you all know that we have restocked our Valentine's silhouette pillow cover, and the Je T'aime ones in 12 by 16 and a new size 12 by 20.

And we are super excited to announce that we are going to be selling our

Ruler Growth Charts!

We plan on having them available Monday as well as possibly a few other new items if we can get them photographed in time. (The photos shown below are of the original one we did last fall. We will be rephotographing the news ones as we were more careful with the staining and more precise with marking the lines) but for now these images are of the original one that is a little messier.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday. I am hoping to be back tomorrow with a tutorial if I have time to get to writing it up tonight.

A Little Settee Makeover and French Charmed

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

We are knee deep in projects here. I was hoping to show you a few today but haven't had any time to photograph any yet. It has really been a whirlwind these past few weeks and I am looking forward to things slowing down a bit in another week or so.

Anyway, even though I don't have any new projects to show today I thought I would share one of my sister, Jamie's. When she and Josh got married they inherited this settee. The bones of it were great (and it was FREE!) but the colors were a bit dated. Jamie decided to go ahead and attempt making a slipcover for it and it turned out FABULOUS! When I saw it I was amazed at the transformation. And it looks perfect in their upstairs hallway, especially with the mirror Jamie painted and the sconces.

Here is the before:

And here it is after:

I love the pleating on the bottom:

And the sconces are beautiful:

Along with the lots and lots of projects we have been doing here, we have been doing lots of playing too. Lola now wants to do everything that Lillie does. They climbed in this basket and wanted me to pull it around and pretend it was a boat...lots of fun but not so great on the back - haha! I am getting old.

I also want to introduce you to one of our newest sponsors:

They were one of our first wholesale customers when we reopened this fall and carry our Je T'aime pillow cover on their site. Now we are excited for them to be a sponsor of our blog. Here are a couple of my favorite things from their site:

I love this silver chalkboard:

And this French Cushion:

I hope you all have a wonderful day! I am going to attempt to take some photos either today or tomorrow so I can share some new pictures soon.

Our Old House, A New Valentine's Pillow and the Arabelle Tutu

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Whew! It was such a busy weekend. I am behind on taking photos so I don't have anything new to share today (as soon as I finish our bedroom I will share those pictures) but thought I would show you a few photos of our first home. I had to pull out some old CD's to find the photos of Jon and his Grammy from our wedding and when I did I found some old photos of our first home in South Carolina. The pictures are awful and my style has changed a bit but still I thought it might be fun to show.

Here is the front of the house.

We used to love sitting on the front porch and swinging...

Our bedroom:

Powder Room:

Guest Bedroom:

Dining Room:

Kitchen:

Our Living Room:

The back patio:

Also, we are excited to have a brand new Valentine's Pillow now in stock:

And we now have our Arabelle Tutu available for the first time since we reopened in September!

I hope you all have a wonderful Monday!

My Little Cheerleaders and a Peek at the Curtains

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

There have been a few times these past few weeks where Lillie has actually wanted to let me take her picture (she normally HATES having her photo taken). I was quite excited when she was all smiley for me yesterday afternoon before we headed to the William and Mary game. Unfortunately, she doesn't sit still long enough to get much of a shot but still, it was nice to have her actually smiling. =)

Now, Lola on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with pictures!

A little happier now...

Lola's first tooth officially popped through on Friday and now she wants to eat everything....well, everything except actual food!

Lillie likes to takes pictures now too. She did a pretty good job on the shot but not so much on the focus. =) It was in manual mode, though, so not too bad for a three year old. Lola's wearing the first little outfit we bought for Lillie.

Here is Lillie in the same outfit that Lola's wearing - I can't believe how big she has gotten! (Or me - ahhh! There is no way I could fit in those jeans now - haha!)

I promise I will have some decorating posts soon. I painted one curtain on Friday and got it hung up (that's a picture from my phone below so it's kind of blurry) and I finished painting the other one last night and hope to get it hung after church! I am also finishing up some pillows and then I will take some updated photos of this room.

I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!

Verse and Quote Downloads in Honor of Jon's Grandmother

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

A little while ago we received a request for a printable that someone could print out to give to a friend who's family member had recently passed away. I actually had been thinking doing one for a while but had not had time. Then, earlier this week Jon's grandmother went to be with Jesus. The girls and I were not able to travel back to Indiana with Jon but we are home praying for her whole family as they deal with her passing, and for Jon as he speaks at her funeral later this morning. I thought now would be a good time to do a couple of printables in her honor.

For today both of the downloads will be free. Just click on either of the images and it will bring you to the page you can download the full PDF from.

Here is Jon and his Grammy dancing at our wedding:

We are still busy working away over here on lots of projects and hopefully I will have some pictures to share really soon!

Have a wonderful Friday!

Every Day is the Best Day and Valentine's Pillows

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

I had been playing around trying to add a quote to the photo above of our hydrangeas on our back porch and couldn't find anything that seemed right for the new year. Then, I saw this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote on Joan's blog with a beautiful photo and thought it would be perfect. What a wonderful quote to start 2012 off with! And here are a few more shots of the hydrangeas.

We have been busy working away here. Lillie and I did a little painting project in the kitchen this afternoon and tomorrow I am hoping to get started on two projects to finish off our master bedroom. Actually I am kind of dreading one of them but I know once it is done I will be so glad I did it. And then this weekend I am hoping to pain a large piece of furniture for the tiny little hallway at the top of our stairs. It is one of the few places in our home that I have never really done anything with. I found the perfect piece at a consignment shop yesterday but wanted to come home and measure first to make sure it would fit. It's going to be a TIGHT squeeze but it should work so I am excited to go back tomorrow and get it. I hope it's still there! And I have been on the hunt for some chairs to fix up and a storage piece for our entryway. No luck with those yet, though. I really want to have all this done in the next ten days but not so sure that is going to happen. =)

We are starting to get our Valentine's inventory ready to sell. We won't be doing any clothing this year, but will be offering several home items over the next few weeks as we finish them up.

Today we have our 12 by 16 Je T'aime pillow covers back in stock!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday! I will be back tomorrow with TWO free downloads!

Free January Download

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

All right, here is the January quote as promised. I could only take a few close-up shots of it seeing how the rest of the room is still fully decorated for Christmas. Seeing how January will be more than half over by the time we can take it all down I figured I wouldit would be better to just do that and get it up while it was still early in the month.

To download this for FREE just click here or on the image below and it will bring you to our site where you can download the full PDF file.

I hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday!

A Magazine Shoot and our January Family

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

As I mentioned last week, we have some exciting news. A couple of months ago we received an e-mail from an editor about photographing our home for their Christmas issue! It was a magazine I have purchased and read in the past so I was absolutely thrilled and so excited, to say the least! They will be coming later this month to shoot everything so our Christmas stuff will remain up for another two to three weeks. In fact, I still have several projects that I still need to finish. So, the posts I do over the next few weeks will still be kind of "Christmasy" or there will probably at least still be Christmas lights in the background. =) I didn't want you all to think I was that crazy person, though, that never takes down their Christmas lights. I will share more about it once it gets a little closer and will definitely give all of the details after they come and shoot everything. I am going crazy trying to finish all sorts of projects now - ahhhh!!!!!

We also have another new thing we are excited about. This year, each month we are going to choose a different family/organization/cause to donate a percentage of EVERY sale made that month. At the beginning of each month we will share where it will be going.

I had already planned in my head who we were going to donate a portion of all of January's sales to when I saw a Facebook post on my friend, Ashley's wall about a little boy that she had recently photographed that completely touched me. I couldn't get it out of my head all day yesterday and seeing how we hadn't announced it yet on our blog or our facebook page we decided to switch it. So, this month a portion of all our sales will be going to Ethan and his family. Little Ethan had surgery to remove a tumor above his eye on December 22 and was diagnosed with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH), a rare cancer-like disease that affects 1:200,000 children. Ethan will most likely be starting chemo on Friday, which is his 3rd birthday. My heart just breaks for him and his family. If you would like to know more about Ethan and his family click here. Please keep him in your prayers.

Also, we have restocked some of our Briar Hats in black:

I can't believe how young Lillie looks in these pictures. She's grown up so much!

I am finishing up a free download for January and hope to have it available tomorrow.

I hope you all have had a wonderful start to 2012!

The Year In Review

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Okay, technically this post should have been yesterday's seeing how it was the last day of 2011 but as I mentioned I am behind on everything as always. So, yesterday's post is now going up today and the post I had planned for today will be up tomorrow! And then hopefully after that everything else will be according to schedule! =) Anyway, here is a recap of some of our favorite projects and events shown here on our blog this past year:

January

My favorite project from January was this pleated slipcover for our leather ottoman and some fun pillows for Valentine's Day.

We also sold our very first Je T'aime pillow cover in January (we will have more available in another week or two):

February

In February we went a little crazy with the pink and decorated for Valentine's Day:

And we had a fun little Audrey Hepburn themed birthday party for Dana:

March

We finished turning our guest room into a nursery for little Lola and were featured as the Cottage of the Month on The Old Painted Cottage's Website:

And a tutorial for some easy moss letters:

April

In April we did made some inexpensive crepe paper peonies to embellish gifts and other things with (and included a tutorial):

And we welcomed our precious little Lorelei:

May

In May we did our first Photoshop Tutorial (Lillie is wearing our Arabelle Tutu which will be available next week!)

And we also added some color to our porch for the summer:

June

In June we took a trip to the beach with my family:

And then the girls and I descended upon Moose Mountain where Lillie pretty much basked in the dirt all summer while Jon was on the road recruiting:

July

In July I had so much fun photographing my cousin Michael and his beautiful wife, Danielle:

And we were mentioned in the magazine Romantic Country:

August

In August we had a Jane Austen themed party for Jamie:

And said good-bye to Moose Mountain:

September

In September we reopened Dear Lillie with our very own website:

And decorated for autumn:

October:

In October we did a little post showing where we hide all of our toys in our family room:

And another Photoshop Tutorial on making eyes "pop" (I am planning on doing an updated version of this soon with a better photo):

November

We had a Vintage Cinderella themed party for Lillie:

And how to make over 50 ornaments for less than $1.50:

December

In December we gave a little tour of our home decorated for Christmas:

And also showed Jamie and Josh's home decorated for the holidays:

I can't wait for all that 2012 brings!

Happy New Year!

Some Photoshop Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:30:00 +0000

About a month or so ago Jason did his November post with his "Christmas Card" photo. After several concerned texts about Lorelei's dangerous perch we mentioned in the next post that we would show you all what the photos really looked like pre-photoshop. Of course, things got busy and I forgot all about it until now. I was hoping to do a different post but I don't have time so for now this will have to do. We go home safe and sound yesterday afternoon but it has been quite crazy trying to get unpacked and organized. I forgot how disastrous the house can get when trying to unpack, especially when you have two little helpers. Fortunately we are just about done and so hopefully by tonight life can resume back to at least somewhat normal.

So, in the meantime, here is the original shot of Lola balanced on top of Jason's Jeep. As you can see, he is holding her nice and securely. It wasn't the best shot of her. It would have been a little easier to work with if her arms had been positioned a bit differently but it was all I had so we made it work.

I removed Jason's hands and the repositioned her arms and cloned in some areas on her shirt. To be honest, that part did take quite a bit of time to get it to look somewhat natural. Then once she was done we found a few pictures that Jason liked and just plopped her in them. After that I just added Florabella's Tea Time action (and a lens flare to the last two), and that was it!

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year's Eve!

Our Christmas Adventure

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:30:00 +0000

Wow! We had quite the Christmas adventure! Just like last Thursday (when I did the post on our back porch decorated for Christmas), I am writing from a hotel room so this will be brief, but I wanted to pop in and share a few photos from our Christmas in Indiana. We had an absolutely wonderful time with Jon's family and I have to say I think it might have been one of my favorite trips I have ever taken to Indiana despite the fact that it turned out to be a bit more interesting than planned. We had a wonderful time visiting with all of Jon's relatives, ate tons of delicious food, including some divine hot cocoa that Jon's mom made which I am going to try to make at home sometime and if I do I will share with some links to the recipe, and oh yeah, spent some time at the hospital. There were 11 people that we celebrated Christmas with (Jon's mom and dad; his sister, Meredith; her husband, Matt; Matt's sister, Helen; Matt and Helen's parents, Al and Anita; and then of course, Jon, myself, Lillie and Lorelei) and everyone but me got the flu!

Yup, all of the other 10 got hit HARD. So hard in fact, that Matt and Lola ended up in the hospital. Needless to say that was a wee bit scary. So, although that probably seems like an awful Christmas I have to say I think we all still somehow managed to have a wonderful time. It was quite the bonding experience - haha! I think if anyone had walked into the house on one of the nights they might have passed out at just the sight of everyone. There were people sleeping on bathroom floors, living room floors and my poor mother-in-law was washing sheets and towels at 3 and 4 am just trying to keep up with everything, despite the fact that she herself was sick! And my poor father-in-law was stuck driving back and forth to the E.R. all night and morning. I am so grateful that I somehow escaped it because I don't know how else I would have been able to take care of poor Lillie and Lola.

Anyway, needless to say, I didn't take a whole lot of photos and most of the ones I did get were taken at night so they are pretty grainy. Here are a few:

Lorelei and Grammy after the Christmas Eve service:

Grammy and Lillie looking at the nativity scene on Christmas Eve before Lillie headed to bed:

"Coachy Coach" (as she called him this trip) and Lillie on Christmas morning:

Lillie and Aunt Meredith playing with a new toy on Christmas night:

Helen and Lillie reading:

Uncle "Matty Matt" (another new nickname by Lillie) and Aunt Meredith Christmas morning:

Poor Lola snuggling with her Daddy on Christmas morning right after getting sick all over her new Christmas jammies:

Lola out on a walk with her Daddy Christmas afternoon.

Our little Lola Wren:

We still have one more day left on our adventure. We made a short trip from Indiana to Ohio yesterday. We stopped at a high school game to watch a recruit on our way to the hotel. Then Jon dropped us off at the hotel and he traveled to Kentucky to watch another recruit. And then tonight, after William and Mary's game we will begin our journey back to Williamsburg. We have so much to get working on when we get back - ahhhhh! And I have some exciting news to share in a few days.

I also want to wish my beautiful Mom a very happy birthday today! I love you!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

What You Really Wanted (Jason's December Post)

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:15:00 +0000

Merry Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Dear Lillie) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Merry Christmas! I hope you all had a blessed Christmas Eve and woke up to a beautiful Christmas morning. I don't have any photos to share yet of our morning but I do have a few from last week when Jon and I did our little Christmas with the girls before heading to Indiana. Both girls were wide-eyed with excitement and it was so much fun watching them. Lillie was so thrilled to open her gifts and Lola was in heaven trying to eat all the wrapping paper. We did our Christmas with them at night so these pictures are pretty grainy but I was happy to get one of each of them actually looking in the general direction of the camera and a couple of them together.

And here is our Christmas card. I was so behind this year.

I got most of them out last week but still have a few left to send when we get back to Virginia!

This is the front:

And when you open it here is the inside:

And then here is the back:

"Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you;

He is the Messiah, the Lord."

- Luke 2:11

MERRY CHRISTMAS!