Yes, I’ve recently discovered the magic of animated .gif’s. Please don’t ask me to explain the process – it’s pretty simple, but there’s no sense in reinventing the wheel on this one. Check out an awesome tutorial here.

Happy Friday, friends! We’re just so thrilled to all be back under one roof! God is good!

Okay, not really. I’ve survived worse.

But, for those of you who have noticed on my sidebar, yes, all of my happy friends and followers have been wiped out. One day the widget was gone, and when I tried to fix it, it was empty. Ah well. Like I said, worse things…

BUT, a few things I thought would be useful to share with you:

1. If you want to re-follow and subscribe via Google Friend Connect (not sure what this even means or does, honestly – please, enlighten me!), you are invited to join my three new best friends over there on the sidebar. Hello, friends!

2. Second, while we’re talking feeds and my limited understanding of such things, I thought it might be interesting to tell you about what I use to follow all my favorite blogs. Bloglovin’ (who totally doesn’t know I exist and certainly hasn’t asked me to share this with y’all) is a great way to keep all of the blogs you love to read in one place.

I used to keep a feed on my sidebar when I was in Blogger and that worked well. But WordPress doesn’t have anything that works like that, so my friend Kayla Aimee told me about this.

Just go to their site & search for blogs that you want to follow. Then click follow. Pretty easy. Every evening you will get an email with all of the new blog posts that have been published on your favorite blogs that day with a little picture or preview of that post.

Another thing I like about bloglovin’ (not my #1 pick for a name, but I like the system, so I’m moving on…) is that they have an iPhone app. So, when I’m at the salon waiting for my hair to process (wait – what? You’re not a natural blonde??) or in the car waiting to get Oliver from preschool, I can just open up the app and check in on stalk all my friends and favorites from there. (You think you guys are the only ones who read blogs and don’t always comment? I’m so guilty, y’all!)

It’s just handy and I like to use it. So, I’m sharing it with you!

I hope this wasn’t the lamest post ever. Just a couple of blog-following tips and, for good measure, a photo of two people I’ve been seeing a lot of these days:

Happy Thursday, friends! Ryan has been in Boston since Sunday afternoon (it’s been a looong week, but I don’t know the rules about blogs and saying your husband will be gone for five days so I never mentioned it…) and is flying home today! So, after a quick rainy run with my girls and just a little more single parenting, and I get to see my beloved again! Hurrah!

God is good!

But one thing he definitely did notice was the blonde-haired, blue-eyed pair of onlookers who couldn’t bear to be anywhere in the house except for where the action was. (Who can blame them?). I finally agreed to let them watch him work under the condition that they stay put in their chairs and not ask too many questions. We wanted to keep the shutter man happy, after all.

While he was working I snapped this photo of the kids with my iPhone and posted it to my Instagram. After further inspection, however, I noticed a few funny things about the photo:

1. My beautiful, expensive, beloved DSLR is sitting literally within arms reach on the table as I snapped this photo. Glad to see  this resolution is going so well.

2. I put that pink headband on Hazel moments after the shutter man arrived because the colors she was wearing were clearly not giving him any clues that she was a girl. I could see he was having a hard time remembering if I had two boys or a boy and a girl. This was my silent hint. It worked.

3. Hazel is wearing the “clever disguise” shirt I made for Oliver about a year ago. Only now do I see the convenience of the message and the hilarity of it all. A pretty handy shirt for a little girl who looks so much like her big brother and is too often mistaken for a little boy.

4. Just noticed this today too: the far left photo hanging on the clip is actually the picture I took of Oliver when I made the shirt. That shirt feels awesome in this photo.

5. Oliver is wearing his favorite R2-D2 shirt. Can we talk about how hard it is to find tasteful character gear these days? So glad he and I could agree on something that expresses his current passion while avoiding obnoxious cartoonyness. Yes, cartoonyness.

Excited to show you photos of the play room in all it’s shuttery glory! Have a lovely Wednesday, friends!

skinny jeans | lullaby | matilde | optima | clumsy | folk | halo handletter

It occurred to me last week that it may be doing y’all no good to just give you links to download pretty fonts if you don’t know what to do once you’ve hit the “download” button. I haven’t worked on a PC since college, so I’m not really sure how to load fonts on anything but a Mac. Maybe it’s pretty similar?

Either way, here is my ten-cent tutorial on loading new fonts into your computer:

1. Click on one of the links I provided above and click download.

2. Open your Downloads folder on your desktop & find the font folder you just downloaded. Open it.

3. Open a separate folder, click Macintosh HD / Library / Fonts

4. Drag the .otf or .ttf file(s) from your downloaded font folder into your font folder. (It will appear in alphabetical order in the adjacent column.)

5. That should be it! Go get ‘em with your fancy fonts!

Have a fabulous Tuesday, friends!

Even though we are still very much in the planning/dreaming stages of this little piece of awesome, I thought I’d answer a few of your already frequently asked questions, just to give you an idea of what I’m thinking:

Where is this all coming from?

Great question. Here is a little background on what we are thinking and why we’re acting on it:

1. Women love to craft, but are often hindered by a whole pile of [worthwhile!] things (i.e. parenting, cooking, cleaning, caring – not to mention needing supplies, instruction, time, inspiration, space, etc.)

2. Being creative and enjoying the things we love to do (and learning to do new things!) is important. God created us to create! He gave us skills and talents and an eye and appreciation for beauty.

3. Making the time/having the space/rounding up the supplies/receiving the instruction/finding the inspiration is not something that will likely fall into many women’s laps. To make this happen, you have to be intentional.

With these thoughts in mind, we are creating a little getaway craft weekend that we have lovingly dubbed:

And, yes – it’s exactly what it sounds like! It is:

A weekend away (noon Friday – noon Sunday) in Franklin, TN.

Women only (sorry, no babes – this is your time to get away!)

Fabulous projects that you will start and finish while you’re here (for our first Craftcation, none of these projects will be kid-centered – if you have a home or a body, you will be able to use  - and love – what you make!)

Supplies and tools enough to make your head explode with glee

Instruction and inspiration to keep you focused and directed as you create

Food. oh, y’all. the food alone makes it worth it. The lovely Miss Peyton has years of practice cooking and baking for her family of eleven (she is Devon’s oldest daughter – also, my friend!) and between her skills and her passion for Pinterest, this girl has some impressive appetizers, meals, desserts and snacks up her sleeve. Let’s just say you will NOT go home hungry.

Loot! Oh yes, there will be SWAG. And you will be glad. (Interested in being a Craftcation sponsor? Connect with me and I can give you details!)

Beds – beds for each of the twelve spots available – complete with fresh, crispy sheets and towels. This is your Craftcation, after all!

Space – there are plenty of places for you to tuck away and be alone (maybe wake up slowly with a cup of coffee and enjoy a book or devotions in the morning), and there are lots of places to gather as a group. This can be as sleepover giddy or as getaway quiet as you need it to be. Just don’t miss any of the happy projects!

Fun! But what if I’m not very crafty?

No worries! There is no crafty-skill prerequisite for Craftcation – only the desire to play and learn! There will be plenty of help and instruction available, and hopefully you will walk away a craftier person than you came in!

Hurrah! I want to come! When is it? How much does it cost?

We hope you do! And, we’d love to have you!

I know I said last week that we were thinking March for this happy weekend. But, a few scheduling details have gotten in the way (plus we prefer the warmer weather and the time to make it just right!). We have officially set our dates for our very first Craftcation Weekend for:

The cost is $375 per person. Tickets will go on sale Wednesday, February 1st at noon CST. There are twelve spots available, and don’t worry – I’ll be sure to remind you  and give you more purchasing details closer to time!

So, the cost includes…?

Basically: just come with your toothbrush and a change of clothes and return home with new skills, new friends, new experiences, new pretty handmade things for you and your house, and a bunch of great loot! You’ll feel like you’ve been on a Craftcation!

Feel free to ask questions in the comments – I will try to answer them as they come in!

Happy Friday, friends!

Our little Stella & Dot party went swimmingly last night. At least, once all the food was finally set out and we got to start trying on all the gorgeous jewelry. I felt like I was a little girl playing dress up – I think I rotated through five or six necklaces throughout the evening, and I felt fabulous in all of them! (Now just to put on some too-big high heels, smear lipstick all over my face and cut my hair with my mom’s scissors – that would complete the “playing dress-up” vibe, right?)

We had about a dozen girlfriends and one very fabulous stylist. Angie, Chelsea and I jumped in the corner for a photo at one point wearing half the jewelry on the table and Melissa had to intervene on our behalf because, well, that’s what a stylist does!

We spent the evening chatting, snacking on truffles and St. Andre brie on little toasts with raspberries and cheese honey. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need to make this a regular Wednesday night activity because I love my girls and we loved getting to pick out pretty jewelry to try on and take home. Not sure our husbands would be on board for jewelry shopping every week, but still, it was fun!

I know a handful of y’all have asked if I would be able to open the trunk show up online since you don’t have a Stella & Dot rep in your area. Good news: Melissa says we can!

The trunk show will be open online until Monday, January 23rd. If you’re interested, go here to shop (and please tell me you are loving this and this with that pretty white brooch!) and when you checkout, you have the option to pick your “hostess” from the drop down menu to indicate which trunk show you’re a part of. Pick me and I might get that pretty set of silver rings we all took turns wearing over the course of the evening.

Thanks for asking about the party – feel free to shop if you like and don’t if you don’t like. Either way, have a lovely Thursday, friends! This is the day the Lord has made!

Ladies and gentleman (I always wonder… any guy readers out there?), I give you a 15-minute project that will cost you less than $10 and make your DIY heart happy:

We have a bench at our dining room table. Partly because, when we bought our table four years ago as a floor sample at Pottery Barn, we needed seating and couldn’t afford six new dining chairs to go with it. I found four Windsor-style chairs at a yard sale for $10 and Ryan painstakingly painted them black with an oil-based satin paint (and that’s a story for another day), but we still needed two more seats.

We found this bench in the scratch-and-dent section (without a scratch on it!) at American Signature Furniture for $60. (I just looked, and they actually still sell it here. At full price it’s still only $129.) The structure has been sturdy as can be with my monkeys-for-children torquing all around on if for three meals a day the past four years. However, the original upholstery wasn’t pretty. Just plain beige – begging to be soiled.

Between then and now, I’ve recovered the bench about four times (once a year, usually). It only takes half a yard of fabric and a few staples to make it feel brand new all over again. (OR, if you have seats and not a bench to recover, this fabric will go even further!)

So, this is what the poor thing looked like yesterday morning. It’s a houndstooth material that my sister had leftover from reupholstering a sofa for a salon downtown Franklin.

But, do you see what has happened? Pudding, yogurt, and Heaven knows what else has made it a pretty ragged seat which my Mama opted out of sitting on in her clean fancy pants last time she came over. Can you blame her?

(Isn’t it funny how we just live with things and they get yucky over time and you don’t notice until you finally just look at it in a horrified moment of objectivity and realize what you are subjecting all of your sweet guests to?)

Yeah, something had to give. Time to turn that bench upside down and release the seat from it’s screws.

See the holes in the wood part of the frame? There’s a screw in each one – unscrew them to begin the transformation!

Once you’ve dismantled your bench in a moment of both rage and inspiration, go ahead and assemble some tools. You should be able to accomplish this project with half a yard of upholstery fabric (I was still undecided when I took this photo – both of the fabrics you see here can be found here and here), a pair of scissors, a screwdriver and a heavy-duty stapler.

(Can we talk about the fact that a yard of this pretty upholstery fabric is $9.75 and I only need to use half of it!!)

You may also want to grab a roll of batting if you want to add a bit of extra fluff to the seat.

A note on staples: I used to use long staples and it was so frustrating when they wouldn’t go all the way in on the first shot. I was in a constant pattern of staple-hammer it in the rest of the way – staple. Not pleasant. Silly me for not realizing that I need them to be just a bit shorter. All my dreams have now been realized. Amen, little 3/8″ staples. Amen.

Okay, so back to the project. Take out all the screws and release the seat. Set the frame aside.

You can see on the underside of my seat (I beg your pardon!) a few of my previous design choices. That red fabric is from back in the days when I worked at Ethan Allen. I’m showing you this so you can see that sometimes I take off a layer before putting a new one on, and sometimes I just add fabric right on top.

In this case, I’m using a light-colored fabric, so the houndstooth had to go. I took that off (just tugged at the staples until it all came loose) and beneath that was a layer of batting. (Thank you, last year Raechel, for taking the time to add fresh cushion so I don’t have to do it this year. Check.)

Okay, houndstooth is gone. This is where we stand. Now lay your pretty, clean, new fabric right-side-down on the floor and lay your seat on top of it, seat-side-down.

Pattern note: If you’re using a graphic pattern or a fabric with any kind of noticeable repeat, make sure you are lining things up really well. Nobody wants a wonky reupholstery job. Nobody.

So, start with the front of your seat and (with your pattern lined up carefully), start stapling from the center and working your way out – keeping things pulled tight and straight. (Hint: it helps to put your staples in about 2″ from the edge – any closer and you could risk a weird, visible puckering on the edge where each staple is.)

Now onto the backside. Give the whole piece of fabric a good tug and make sure the top looks just right. Then staple the backside.

I had a full yard of fabric here, so after I did the back row of staples I trimmed the remaining half yard off and set it aside.

Now do the two remaining sides the same way. Keep things pulled nice and tight as you staple.

Corners: the key on these – as you may have guessed – is keeping things tight. Pull the fabric from the front and staple it close to the side edge in one direction. Then pull the fabric from the side and staple it close to the front edge in the other direction. Then pull the triangle of fabric you’ve made super-duper tight and staple it in place well. Cut away excess fabric.

The back of my seat has notches for the frame, so I just behaved as though there were two corners on each side, making a slit with my scissors down the center, not too close to the edge.

And just like that, we’re almost there! The pattern lined up nicely!

Set the seat back in place and drive your screws back in the holes – they should be sharp enough to go right through your new fabric without too much trouble.

The fabric I used is pretty light – especially since I’m raising two blonde chickens in my house. So, a couple of coats of Scotch Gard is a good investment.

Don’t we all feel better!?

Happy Wednesday, friends! I’m looking forward to the Stella & Dot party at my house tonight! A few of you asked if we could open it up to an online party and it turns out we can – thanks for asking! I’ll give you more details on that tomorrow with (hopefully) some pretty pictures from the party!

little days | learning curve | learning curve dashed | lobster | didot | clementine sketch | raleway

He was going on about which one he wants next and which ships come with which guys and I reminded him that not only did he just get quite a few great new Lego kits for Christmas, but those bad boys aren’t cheap and if he wants to keep collecting them, he’s going to need to get a job to support his habit.

And then I said it. Just one fleeting puff of air – an almost empty promise that, in a moment of exhausted parenting escaped my lips: If you potty train Hazel, I’ll buy you whatever Star Wars ship you want to get next.

In his defense, I did say it. And I am always saying how we need to be people of our word. And to be honest, if I were going to sub-contract out one part of parenting, potty training would be it! And if it was only going to cost me $40, I was willing to play along.

Of course, he jumped on this one sentence like it was his golden ticket into ultimate Lego Star Wars bliss. I should have known. He wanted details – parameters. He wanted to nail me down then and there while there were witnesses in the room. Did I mean it? What did he have to do? When could he start? And before I could tell him that we wouldn’t start today, he had already left and returned with her little pink and white potty chair, ready to get going.

That was Wednesday evening. I told him it would have to wait until he had a full day to commit to it.

Thursday morning he work up ready to roll again (this child does not quickly forget!), but it was a school day and so I put him off another day.

Friday came. At the breakfast table he asked if today could be the day he potty trained Hazel. I didn’t really have much else on my plate for the day, and Ryan was around for backup in case things got too crazy, so I agreed. He started asking questions about what I did to potty train him, then he started working on Hazel – getting her pumped up for the day.

(The problem with this is that right now, when you ask Hazel a question, she always says, “no.” No matter what the question is. So every time he asked her if she wanted to learn to go potty in her potty chair today, she would answer, “no.”. Oliver got smart quickly on this one and started wording his questions in his favor: “Hazel, do you like how it feels to have potty in your diaper?” “No.” “Hazel, do you want to go poopy in your pants for the rest of your life?” “No.” “Do you want to skip potty training today?” “No.” All fixed.)

So, they set to work. I haven’t worked with Hazel on this but once since she started showing signs of readiness and I ordered her chair, just because I haven’t been ready to focus on it. She’s only 21 months old, so it’s not a big rush for me. So, I intentionally left them to it and tried to uninvolve myself as much as possible. I helped her get her diaper off and rolled up the rug in the living room, but apart from that, I sort of just left them to it.

The rules were:
1. Potty train her for good = you get a big Lego Star Wars kit
2. Get her to go potty in the potty chair twice in one day (she’d never done it before)  = you get a small Lego Star Wars kit
3. And each accident she has cancels out a successful potty.

If we’re going to outsource our parenting to our children, ground rules are a good idea.

And seriously, y’all? I was really impressed. I have never seen Oliver more vigilant. I don’t think Hazel quite got what was going on, but he told her to sit on her little white donut and kept her salty snack bowl filled with treats and offered to refill her apple juice like a waiter at an expensive restaurant. He waited on her hand and foot and she loved the attention. Nevermind that his attentiveness was really more for the love of Star Wars than anything else, but he really did show her a good time!

Here they are after thirty minutes of intense training – they decided to take some pressure off and watch some Dragon Tails until the apple juice did its thing.

And, before we knew it, we had our very first potty training success! I’m honestly not sure who of us was more thrilled – though I’m leaning toward Oliver for obvious reasons.

After that first success he started to get panicky though. He wanted her to go again right away and she was tiring of all the pressure. He wanted her to stay seated just in case, and her little bottom was tiring of sitting for so long. And of course, he was terrified that she would have an accident and undo all his hard work.

So, I put a diaper on her for everyone’s sake (Ryan and I both needed a break from what was quickly turning into an obsession in our living room). I ran out to do a few errands in the meantime and when I returned, this is how I found Hazel and the potty chair. She thinks she’s hilarious.

So do we.

We took another go at it that afternoon. The good news is that Hazel did NOT have any accidents, and that she DID have a successful *ahem* yucky moment in the potty. Go team! And of course, the exhausting news is that as soon as she went Oliver – predictably – wanted me to seal her back up into a diaper and shake hands and head to the store right then and there. He’d done what he came to do. That boy.

I made good on my promise the next day when I took him on a date to Target to pick a mini kit as a reward for his hard work.

And who learned a lesson in all of this? Did Hazel really learn anything about potty training? Did Oliver really learn anything about helping and teaching and encouraging? Maybe. But most of all, I learned to keep my big mouth shut when it comes to making promises related to Legos and Star Wars. That wonderful son of mine knows what he likes and is willing to do what he needs to do to get it.

Already talking with God about what a special child Oliver is and how He will use these passions to further The Kingdom…

(and in the meantime, I’ll let you know if he ever actually earns the BIG kit!)

Happy Sabbath, friends!

**updated for Oliver to show off his Imperial Starfighter**