Vacuuming in high heels & pearls

Maren's Donuts and Pajamas Birthday party

2014-04-16T05:00:00.000-06:00

Maren's birthday party came right on the heels of the church party that I decorated for, making for one busy week! When we were talking about what kind of party Maren wanted to have, she came up with the idea of a candy party. I seriously love candy, but we couldn't come up with a way to translate that into party games or activities other than, you know, eating candy. I thought about it a little more and hit on the idea of a sprinkle-themed party, but again I couldn't figure out how to translate that to a whole party. Sprinkles led to the idea of donuts, and when I poked around Pinterest looking for inspiration I found an invitation for a 'donuts and pajamas' birthday party. Lucky for me, Maren loved the idea!

I purchased this custom invitation from Etsy (I can't post my own photo because I can't figure out how to blur out all of our personal info) and had the invitations printed at Costco. I didn't have any envelopes large enough and didn't want to go buy any, so we ended up packaging them in a clear cellophane bag with rainbow sprinkles dumped inside like confetti. I sealed the bags with brightly colored washi tape. Wish I could show you a photo because they looked so cute! Since the party guests were supposed to wear their pjs, we held the party from 9:00-11:00 on a Saturday morning.

Instead of a birthday cake, Maren chose to have a donut cake, specifically a glazed donut cake. I poured chocolate and white milk into my vintage glass milk bottles, a detail that was completely lost on a bunch of 9-year-old girls but made me happy. :)

I found fun, brightly colored paper plates on clearance at Target and pulled the pink and white stripey straws from my stash. The plastic 'milk' bottles were a purchase from Groopdealz a few years ago.

Instead of a tablecloth, I purchased a huge sheet of donut wrapping paper from Paper Source. I am totally in love with the bright colors and illustrations of donuts that look good enough to eat!

Paper Source also had this cool donut garland kit. I had planned to make up my own paper donut garland but the kit was totally worth the money.

The kit came with pre-punched donut shapes and templates to make the icing swirls and fringe paper to cut the sprinkles. Making the garland was a fun activity that Maren and I did together. I love it so much that I confess it's still hanging up in my doorway, three weeks after the party. It's just so cute and happy!

When the guests arrived I had them each make a tag to hang on their goody bag using shipping tags and letter stickers and ribbon scraps. I ran out of time to make the tags myself and needed a little something else to fill some time, so this worked perfectly and I already had all of the materials.

The first big activity was decorating donuts. I purchased four dozen boxed plain cake donuts from my grocery store. They were larger than mini donuts but smaller than the kind they sell individually and very economical at around $2 per dozen. Each girl wrote their name on their paper plate and had four donuts to decorate.

I made up a few different bowls of brightly-colored glaze using powdered sugar and milk with a few drops of food coloring and one bowl of chocolate glaze (just add unsweetened cocoa powder). I set out bowls of pretty sprinkles from my collection and let the girls dip their donuts in glaze and then decorate them.

I anticipated this project being a mess but I was actually really surprised out how pretty the donuts turned out! The photo doesn't really do them justice. My favorites were the gold sanding sugar and the neon pink nonpareils with the aqua and pink glaze. After the girls were finished, we set aside their plates so that the glaze had a chance to set up.

The next activity was making donut charm bracelets. When I was planning the activity, I remembered that I had a bunch of teeny tiny glass bottles. I filled each one with rainbow sprinkles and added a tiny eye hook to the cork. I coated the corks with super glue before I stuck them in the bottles so I hope they hold! I ordered plain charm bracelets from Amazon and used jump rings to attach a sprinkle bottle to each one.

The girls got to make donut charms for their bracelets using Shrinky Dinks inkjet plastic. I designed 4 different cute donuts with faces like this one, then scanned them and printed them out on the white shrink plastic. The girls decorated them with colored Sharpie markers, cut them out and punched holes in the top and then we baked them.

I did run into some problems with this project when I was getting it ready. I've made Shrinky Dinks plenty of times before but I had a terrible problem with these curling up in the oven, then getting stuck together and refusing to flatten back out. I did some Googling and found that if I put a sheet of parchment paper over the plastic it was just enough weight to keep them from curling as they baked. I also found that I couldn't use my usual colored pencils to color the Shrinky Dinks because of the coating on the plastic that makes it possible to put it through the printer. That resulted in a run to JoAnn's to purchase a mega-pack of colored Sharpies. It wasn't ideal and was an added expense I hadn't anticipated, but it was really the only option. And now I have a whole bunch of colored Sharpie markers to use for another project, right?

The girls also got to choose a colored letter monogram charm for their bracelets (letter beads that I have literally had for 10+ years. Pack rat WIN). While we were baking the Shrinky Dinks and attaching them to the bracelets with jump rings, the girls played Just Dance Kids on the Wii. Thank goodness for Andrea and her jump ring skillz! We also took that time to package up the decorated donuts. I purchased small cardboard treat boxes from the Wilton aisle at JoAnn's and we put each girl's donuts inside with a bit of waxed paper to keep them separate, then wrote their names on the top with the Sharpies.

After that, it was time for 'cake' and milk in the cute little bottles...

...and then opening presents. By a stroke of luck I found donut jammies at Gymboree. It was fun to have that little matching detail. I even found a pair of donut jammies for her American Girl doll! And to take my devotion to a theme even further, I found these thank you cards at Paper Source. The description says they're supposed to be confetti, but I thought all of those little colored dots looked an awful lot like rainbow sprinkles!

It was such a fun party and it was nice to have it all over and cleaned up by noon! I hired one of my teenage babysitters to come and be my helper and she was fantastic, and this year again Andrea was a lifesaver (see last year's pinata-in-the-front-room debacle). And we had plenty of leftover donuts, which is never a problem! I loved putting it on for Maren but was awfully glad when it was over. Two parties in one week wore me out!

Church party decorations

2014-04-15T05:00:00.000-06:00

The last time I posted, Baby Ben was one week old. Now he is 11 1/2 weeks old! Life has been busy and there have been a lot of things keeping me from posting, the biggest of which is that The Mister is gone and I am holding down the fort all by myself. Let's say he's on a very extended, overseas business trip. Some of you know his profession and can read between the lines and figure out what that means. He left when Ben was just shy of one month old and we hope he'll be home by Christmas. I'm not going to lie, it's been very hard and awfully lonely but we're hanging in there and trying to make the best of things on both ends.

With The Mister gone, I thought it would be a good idea to give myself some projects to keep me busy and keep my mind off his absence. I think I did too good of a job of that in March, as it was a crazy busy month and I was totally exhausted by the end of it! One of the projects I took on was helping with a dinner party for the women's organization in my church.

Photo source

This photo from Pinterest was my inspiration for the color scheme and centerpieces. I had originally wanted to do a color scheme of coral and mint but I couldn't find materials in those colors locally, so I went with a brighter pink and green with accents of metallic gold and a bit of yellow.

For centerpieces I really wanted to use fresh flowers. Trader Joe's just opened up in Denver and I love their inexpensive flowers! Fresh flowers seem like such an indulgence and I wanted the ladies coming to the party to feel like it was a special night that was worth their time.

For the flower vases I thought about doing a gold leafed treatment like the inspiration photo, but dismissed the idea because of the cost and effort that would require. Instead, I used this pin as my inspiration. I purchased plain glass cylindrical vases at the Dollar Store. I taped them off and sprayed the bottoms with gold paint. (sidenote: the spray paint was supposed to look like gold leaf but really didn't look a thing like it, in color or sheen. Disappointing but not a total disaster.) Once the paint was dry, I taped them off again and painted the bottom few inches of the vase with Mod Podge and covered the glue with sparkly gold glitter.

I purchased $35 worth of fresh flowers from Trader Joe's in shades of pink and yellow and used my feeble flower arranging skills to make six centerpieces for the tables. I think $35 worth of flowers + $6 worth of vases wasn't too bad at all for as pretty as they looked! They really brought a breath of Spring to the otherwise ugly church gym. The squares upon which the vases are sitting are two layered paper napkins from Target--one bright pink, one gold striped. I bought them (on super clearance!) for another decorating project that didn't work but this was a last-minute idea and I really like how it anchored the vases on the white tablecloths.

For the rest of the room my goal was to make the most impact for the least amount of money, since I spent so much on the flowers. I have long wanted to try making the tissue paper tassels I've seen frequently on Pinterest and this gave me a perfect opportunity. I used bright pink, green, metallic gold and green and gold tissue papers. The kelly green with shiny gold foil patterns was from the dollar store and I love how it looked with the other colors! I made four dozen tassels and strung them on jute twine. They hung on the sides of the buffet table.

I had plenty of tissue paper left over after the tassels so I made a whole bunch of tissue paper flower poofs in different sizes. To make them easy to pin to the wall, I only opened them to one side so the back was flat. We pinned them in clusters to the walls using pushpins. It's hard to tell the scale from this photo but the large pink flowers were about 16" across. I'm sorry that the color on these photos are so bad--the gym has terrible fluorescent lighting and I tried to color correct but they are still really off.

And one more fun and inexpensive decoration was these fringe garlands I made using dollar store plastic tablecloths. I was able to get 4 long garlands from 1 rectangular tablecloth and we simply swagged them on the walls and then added clusters of tissue flowers at the ends.

It's always a challenge to make our church gym look like it's not an ugly church gym and do it on a shoestring budget, at that. I am pleased with how the decorations turned out and made the event a little nicer and more special for the wonderful ladies in my church. I guess you could say that I enjoy the challenge of making a silk purse out of a sow's ear!

Because of Him--for Palm Sunday

2014-04-13T07:47:00.003-06:00

Because of Him
We have second chances
clean slates
new beginnings
There is no such thing as the end
Because of Him

Baby Ben is one week old! Benjamin's birth story

2014-01-31T15:53:00.002-07:00

Hello, friends! Thanks so much for all of your good wishes on his arrival. I want to write down his birth story for my own record more than anything, but if you want to follow along too that's fine by me. :)

Friday morning started out early--I had to get up at 5:30 am to call the hospital to make sure they still had a bed available for me. It was nearly midnight by the time I had gone to bed the night before and I had strange dreams all night long so that early wake-up was rough! We got ready and The Mister and I headed to the hospital, admittedly a little bit late. ;) We got there a bit before 7:00 am and got all checked in. Headed up to the OB floor and dressed in my gown and poked with an IV (my least favorite part of the whole experience is the stupid IV!)

My doctor came and broke my water around 8:00 am and I was started on pitocin right afterwards. They started out low with the pitocin because it took them ramping it up a few times before the contractions even started (I texted my mom at 9:39 saying I they were moving very slowly). Finally they got the right amount of pitocin and the contractions really started. I breathed through them for several hours and then finally the anesthesiologist came in around noon to give me my epidural. Phew! That was such a relief.

The nurse checked me and I texted my mom at 12:39 pm that I was dilated to a 7. The epidural was funny this time. It took more on the left side than the right, so while my left leg was pretty dead, I could still feel the contractions on my right side. They were minor, mostly just annoying. During the last two births I've been able to nap once I got the epi so I was really hoping for that extra rest after my scant sleep the night before! This time, the epi made me feel very relaxed and kind of fuzzy-headed so I wanted to nap, but every time I'd just about drop off to sleep either my blood pressure cuff would take a reading or I'd have a contraction (and feel it on the right side) or one of the machines would click and make a noise. Annoying!

Right around 1:00 pm, I started to notice that I could really feel the contractions on my right side and they were getting longer in duration and much stronger. Rather than just being an annoying feeling of pressure, they were now hurting. I tried hitting my button to up the amount of epidural and waited 15+ minutes to see if it would help, but it made no difference. I decided to call the nurse and ask if I could flip over sides to see if that would make a difference. While I was waiting for her to come in and help me, my mom left to go to the cafeteria to get lunch. The nurse came in and checked me again and said that the reason I was feeling pain was because I was dilated to a 10 and it was time to push! The Mister texted my mom at 1:30 to come right back. The nurse called my doctor and we waited for her to get to the hospital.

The doctor got to the hospital a bit after 2:00 pm. They got everything all ready to go and then I started to push just after 2:35 pm. Benjamin Donald was born at 2:51 pm after less than 15 minutes of pushing, which is definitely my best record so far! He was purple as a little beet for the first few minutes, then he pinked right up.

Benjamin weighed 8 lbs 0 oz and measured 21 inches long. He is my biggest baby and shocked us all with his weight, even the doctor! I had an ultrasound a few weeks ago and his size was estimated to be in the low 7 lb range, so he was much bigger than we expected.

Because of his quick trip into this world, he had a little bit of bruising around the top of his nose and forehead but at least his head wasn't as cone-shaped as usual since he didn't have to be squished for very long! He was born with long, ragged *sharp* fingernails and scratched up his pretty little face in no time flat.

Because of Ben's quick delivery, my recovery has been surprisingly easy, for which I am thankful! We stayed in the hospital until Sunday morning and then came home. I've felt really good and have been enjoying being able to bend over and reach my feet again. The things you take for granted, right?

The last few nights have had the usual newborn-sleeping speed bumps. I've gone between being desperate for sleep to having ridiculous insomnia. He sleeps and I can't. I sleep and he won't. I know we'll get things worked out eventually, and I'm so thankful that my mom is here to help as The Mister's work schedule has him out of town and unable to take any time off. I don't know what I'd have done this week without her!

We're so happy that baby Ben is here!

It's Baby Day!

2014-01-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

By the time you read this, I am most likely already at the hospital, getting ready to be induced! I have a 6:30 a.m. date with an IV full of pitocin. I'm more than ready to say GOODBYE to the heartburn, swollen ankles, snoring, indigestion, belching, and all of the myriad other rotten things I've been experiencing during this pregnancy. I'm more than ready to say HELLO to my sweet new baby boy and to start this new chapter of our lives. All day long yesterday all I could think was, "Starting tomorrow, everything changes." It truly does but I don't feel nervous at all--I know this is the right thing for us to be doing and I know this is the way it is supposed to be!

Ready to DO THIS! Wish me luck! :)

Thrifting 1, Pottery Barn 0

2014-01-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

I got the new Pottery Barn catalog the other day and was flipping through it when I stopped on this image:

That is their Colorful Cafe Glassware. A set of six of the aqua goblets sells for $57. It reminded me an awful lot of my recent thrift find:

Wouldn't you agree that the goblets second from the right are a darn good likeness of the PB version? And don't forget that I bought 30 pieces of my beautiful aqua colorful cafe glassware for only $15!

Thrift shopping for the WIN!

Goodbye and Good Riddance to you, 2013

2013-12-31T15:45:00.000-07:00

One year ago we were staying with my folks in Utah. It was in the middle of a freakishly cold snap with temperatures in the teens (or below) and lots of snow on the ground. My dad and The Mister went out into the snowy backyard and lit off fireworks while the rest of us enjoyed the show from the cozy indoors. The fireworks were so beautiful reflected against the sparkly snow!

This year our plans are even more low-key. I spent the morning at the big antique mall checking out the sales. I bought a few treasures to keep, but the vast majority of what I purchased is meant to be repurposed and resold at next year's Christmas market. I did have fun wandering the aisles and looking in all the booths--the mall is in an old grocery store space so it is HUGE and I spend about 2.5 hours in there, poking around to my heart's content!

Tonight, I'll make dinner (nothing fancy) and I think we'll break out Maren's new copy of Just Dance 2014 Kids and then call it a night. Being 36 weeks pregnant does not exactly put me in the mood to stay up all night long partying.

As for 2013, I can't say I'm sorry to see it go. It has absolutely been our most difficult year so far. We've lost two good men unexpectedly (my grandpa and The Mister's father), said goodbye to our beloved Bronco doggie (also unexpectedly), spent extended periods of time apart as The Mister has been away for work, dealt with a hole in our basement floor for 10 months and the attendant frustrations and ridiculousness with that whole fiasco, and had our new house deal blow up in our faces less than a week before closing day. I have been sick and uncomfortable and cranky since the very beginning of this pregnancy and have pretty much hated every single second of being pregnant. There was plenty more bad or frustrating or annoying or expensive stuff that happened but these are the major things.

Sadly, I don't think 2014 is going to be better. At least I won't be pregnant anymore but I'll have a newborn and all of the difficulties that come with a new baby. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'm dreading going back to middle-of-the-night feedings and hauling around a heavy baby carrier and changing poopy diapers. We're still in limbo about the new house and have no idea when or what kind of resolution will come to that situation. There's other stuff hanging over our heads as well and it's very possible that a year from now, I'll be telling you that 2013 was a picnic compared to 2014. Wish I could be more optimistic (I'm normally a very positive person, I swear!) but I'm not facing the year to come with excitement about all of the possibilities the future holds--more with dread about the difficulties sure to come. Maybe time will prove me wrong. I sure hope so.

"Elf"-themed Ugly Sweater Party

2013-12-20T17:34:00.002-07:00

PHEW! This afternoon I finally dropped off my 3 boxes loaded with wrapped gifts to be mailed to our extended families in Utah, and now I feel like I can relax a bit. I'm still not completely ready for Christmas--no matter how much I try to be organized and have lists, I still feel like every time I go shopping I somehow manage to forget something, which is so aggravating! I've been to Target 5 times in the last week and a half and I never thought I'd say it, but I think I'm sick of going to Target! LOL The combination of a late Thanksgiving and doing the Rue de Noel market along with being 8+ months pregnant has made it hard to feel on top of things. Having those boxes out the door really does help my stress level go way down!

Even though it's kind of late in the season for parties, I wanted to post about last year's "Elf"-themed sweater party that I helped decorate. I didn't get around to posting it last year before Christmas and I didn't want to hold onto it until next year. I have some dear friends who have held an Ugly Sweater party for the last few years. Last year I helped my friend organize the party and decorate for it. We had other festive plans that morning so I didn't get to go as all-out as I would have liked, but I still managed to add a few fun touches that referenced the movie.

A quick centerpiece for the food table: an Elf-green cake plate topped with fake snow, a silver Empire State Building ornament, a homemade snowglobe with "New York City"inside, a bottle of maple syrup and candy canes.

I hung hand-cut snowflakes and paper chains like the ones Buddy makes in the movie.

I will totally admit that one of my contributions to the buffet was a meat-and-cheese tray, purely so that I could make this sign to sit next to it.

My other contribution was a batch of hot chocolate cupcakes with teeny tiny marshmallows on the frosting!

I made two other signs with quotes from the movie. Luckily my friend had a few Santa decorations out that I could put them near.

An Ugly Sweater Party definitely requires a photo booth so that there is a photographic record of all of the heinous outfits the guests wear. I made some Elf-themed props for our photos.

Last year we also decided to incorporate a White Elephant gift exchange into the party activities, which ended up being pretty darn hilarious--so funny, in fact, that I was too busy laughing to take any photos of the 'gifts'. (Two words: Shake Weight.) However, I do have photos of our other two party games: the spaghetti challenge and the burping contest.

The spaghetti challenge was not for the faint of heart. Or digestive tract.

Each willing participant got a plate of spaghetti, liberally doused with syrup and garnished with mint M&Ms and broken cookies. First one to finish their plate was the winner.

Or the loser, whichever way you look at it.

It was horrifying. Horrifying but HYSTERICALLY funny. The next game was the belching contest.

Participants were allowed to choose from a variety of 2-liter sodas (all chosen for maximum carbonation) and then graded on duration, creativity, and volume of their resulting belches. Extra points given for style. Although two men participated, please note that the winner was one of the lovely ladies.

She got to take home this lovely custom trophy.

Due to my busy November and December, I'm totally off my game in the ugly-sweater-thrifting department. I should have been out there looking back in November when the racks began appearing at the thrift stores but I was too busy at home hot-gluing things, and now I'm paying the price because there are no more ugly sweaters to be found! My big belly makes it even trickier to find something to wear so I think we're going to end up recycling last year's models--thank goodness I didn't get rid of them.

Tomorrow morning is the Ugly Sweater Run 5K (see last year's report) and I am having a serious "what was I thinking?" moment about it. Running it in my condition is obviously out of the question, but even walking 3.2 miles sounds like sheer torture at this point when the fastest I can move is at a moderately swift waddle. Back when I signed us up for this I obviously forgot what it feels like to be 35 weeks pregnant! The Mister and Maren may decide to run it but Porter and I are going to take it easy. Heck, I may just be one of the cheaters this year and cut it short. I will definitely be taking my camera and hopefully I'll have some awesome pictures to share again this year!

Rue de Noel--what I made

2013-12-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

If you follow me on Instagram, you have already seen most of these pictures already because I had fun posting the items I made before I packed them away in my boxes to take to the market. I made a ton of stuff and even though it was so much work, it certainly is FUN work!

One of the things I had in my stash was a bag full of covered buttons that I'd covered with scraps of feedsack quilt squares. I made them earlier this year and then stuck them into a bag in the closet because I couldn't figure out what to do with them. I pulled them out and made two different types of items to sell:

the first is these bookmarks. I had a box of huge oversized paperclips in my stash and the buttons fit perfectly on top of them. I was afraid that glue alone wouldn't hold the metal together and would look messy, so I ended up pulling out my soldering gun and soldering the paperclips to the backs of the buttons. It looked a lot neater and hopefully they are nice and secure! I packaged them up by folding a piece of old book paper and clipping the bookmark to the flap, then wrapping the whole thing in a self-closing cellophane bag. I wanted these to be able to be given as gifts and thought they might be more appealing to shoppers if they already looked like they were ready to give.

The other item I made with my buttons (once I ran out of paperclips) are these hair elastics:

I had purchased the elastics on post-Christmas clearance last year so they were in my stash as well. I packaged them on old Flinch playing cards and put them into cellophane bags as well.

These are one of my favorite things that I made! I used some of my old milk bottle caps and some magnets from my stash and created refrigerator magnets. For packaging, I had some old metal game tins that I bought from the dollar store back when we lived in Georgia, 10+ years ago. I covered up the graphics on the lids with cute vintage-style scrapbooking paper, stuck the magnets to the metal and packaged the whole thing up in a cello bag. I had enough magnets and milk caps to make only 4 sets and I must admit I was a little bit surprised that only one set sold! Oh well, I thought they were so darn cute that I'm happy to hang onto them for a little longer.

These snowman tags were one of the very first things I made to sell. I raided my collection of mother-of-pearl and shell buttons to create the snowmen and made their hats from an old Bingo card that I cut up. I stamped the 'snow' on the kraft tags with white ink and tied the tops with two different colors of seam binding ribbon. I sold out of these on Friday (the proprietor of a very upscale antique store bought most of them--I know she was planning to mark them up hugely and resell them but I'm flattered at having something of mine in her shop!) and these are one of the things I made more of on Friday night to take in on Saturday.

Several years ago I bought a bag of balls of crochet string at a small-town thrift store. I've used them as jar fillers before but this year I decided to make them into snowmen! Their hats are made from old wooden spools of thread and black checkers and they have vintage glass buttons on their bellies. These both sold (as did the tree in the pink LuRay sugar bowl, the tree in the white ceramic trophy, and the clear paint can full of vintage Shiny Brites that are sitting in the background)

I also had enough of the big thread balls to make one big snowman! He has arms made of brown floral wire and carries a glittery cupcake pick tree, which is a bit hard to see in the photo. His face and buttons are all vintage (his nose is an old celluloid button and his tummy buttons are glass). His hat is my favorite part--I was stumped what to use because a spool would be too small. I used the text-a-friend option for help and after I thought about it for a few days, I found an old gelatin mold in my stash that was just the right size and shape. I covered it with black glitter (thanks, Shara!) and added a vintage holly leaf thrifted earring. He didn't sell on Saturday and I'm not sure I really mind because I love him! Now I get to enjoy him for a while.

I raided my vintage canning jar collection and made the few clear ones I have into waterless snow globes using bleached and glittered bottlebrush trees, fake snow, glitter, scrapbooking rub-ons, and various lace/ribbons/seam binding and old bling earrings. These are hard to see but they have little sparkly stars dangling from threads glued inside the lids.

All of these except the pink jar sold. Surprising to me since so many people are into pink vintage Christmas decor!

These cute jars with red lids had wider mouths so I was able to fit a tree and a cute vintage plastic deer inside, along with some cute vintage spun cotton toadstools! Both of these jars sold.

When I ran out of big jars, I moved on to the wee jars! The salt shakers were from a garage sale a few years back--they're special because they have beautiful mother-of-pearl shakers lids! You may have seen the teeny jar on the right on Melissa's blog--she came and visited me on Friday! All three of these jars sold, in addition to the salt shaker's mate.

And two more, one in an old olive jar with a red lid. Wish I could find more of those because they sure made cute little snowglobes! Both of these sold as well.

For a few years now I've been collecting thrifted silverplate sugar bowls and cups to use for holding bottlebrush trees. This year I finally got around to making them! Some of the trees are actual vintage (thifted) and some of them are new trees that I bleached and/or dyed. All of them are decorated with vintage feather tree ornaments and mercury glass beads and other trinkets like sugared bells or tiny reflector flowers. All of these sold except the gold and silver tree that is second from the right. I also made some smaller trees in thrifted vintage Lefton candlestick holders, but I didn't get any photos of those.

Another jar with a deer and a tree in the middle. It's sitting on a pair of vintage books I bundled together and tied with jute. Every single thing in this photo sold!

More bleached and glittered trees. These topped vintage wooden spools of thread and were fancied up with seam binding and a bit of vintage bling. I made 8 of these and all but one sold on Friday. Friday night I found more trees and spools in my stash and made up 9 more of them to take in on Saturday, and all but one of those sold too!

I made three ornament wreaths this year using tinsel, wreath forms, and ornaments that I already had. The large pink wreath in middle was the first to sell, and it went early on Friday morning. Unfortunately, it's the only ornament wreath that sold, which is a pain because they are a drag to transport and store given their fragility. However--having those big, shiny, beautiful wreaths at the back of my booth was 100% worth it even though they didn't sell, because of the amount of people they brought into my booth to look at them! I believe I was the only one at the market who had any ornament wreaths and they were so pretty and eye-catching that they really worked well to draw people in.

Even though the ornament wreaths didn't all sell, the two wreaths I made using vintage light bulbs did both sell, as did 2 of the 3 vintage-style dangly ornament things I made (you can see them near the top, hanging between the big wreaths).

And of course there were banners. This one was my very favorite and it was also the very first to sell! I don't have any more of the red and green diamond ribbon but I think I have enough of the other materials left that I can make one like this for me to keep. I used vintage bingo (actually Beano!) cards for the base, red glass glitter on the letters, my favorite black and white striped ribbon, hand-sewn red crepe paper ruffles, and cute green vintage-style washi tape to make this one.

This one sold too. It had glittery silver letters, iridescent ribbon, jewels, beautiful felt snowflakes, and striped ribbon. The banner pieces were covered with canvas and now I wish I'd bought more of those because they were so fun to work with.

I loved how this one turned out! It wasn't what I had started out making but it turned out so cute. The black stripes in the middles are covered with tiny black jewels and there are glittery black balls on the bottom of the points. I am in love with tissue fringe and used it on several of my banners. This one sold.

This one didn't sell, and I'm kind of surprised. The colors are bad in this photo but those circles are red and aqua peppermint swirls that are actually from a package of Martha Stewart coasters I bought post-Christmas last year. The pennants are glittery silver paper and I used some red striped and aqua ribbon as well as red tissue fringe.

Another one of my favorites--this sold before I even had a chance to pin it up on my board! I had some green bingo cards in my stash that were perfect bases for the metallic red and silver striped paper rosettes, glittery silver letters, green tissue fringe, and glittery red balls. This one had glittery red polka dotted ribbon and green ribbon with red stitching. It was so fun to mix and match ribbon for all of these banners!

There are many more things I made that I just didn't take individual photos of, but that I can see sprinkled around my photos in my previous post: vintage-style foil-covered cardboard bells adorned with vintage Christmas corsages...greeting cards made with vintage sewing pattern girls...book bundles with red and green Readers' Digest books...glittery vintage cookie cutter ornaments and garlands...tags with trees made from folded vintage sheet music...tags made from vintage button cards...rickrack flower pins...Christmas card holders made from vintage folding rulers...stationery folios covered with old sewing patterns and tied with vintage cloth measuring tapes...all of it SOLD! I do regret not getting photos of all of the banners I made that sold but I didn't have a good place to take them before I packaged everything up and then things literally sold out of the boxes before I had a chance to pin them on the board on Friday morning. I took 15 different banners/garlands and I brought home fewer than 5, so those were good sellers and they're one of my very favorite things to make because they're all one-of-a-kind.

I'd definitely love to do this market again next year, so I'm already trying to think of things I can make so that I can take advantage of post-Christmas sales to stock up on materials and supplies. And I think next year I'll start making inventory in June instead of in November!

Rue de Noel antiques and artisans Christmas market report

2013-12-16T12:02:00.003-07:00

Well, it's been a week and I think I'm finally recovered enough to report on how my Christmas market went! As a recap, December 6-7 I participated in an 'antiques & artisans' market called Rue de Noel. It was pretty much the sole focus of every minute of free time I had for weeks. The market itself was held indoors, in a vacant retail space in a mall that used to house a Borders bookstore.

There was plenty of space and the aisle were nice and wide. I had many customers tell me that the arrangement was much better than the previous year's market, when it was in a much smaller empty retail space and it was so crowded and jammed with people that they couldn't even shop. We were allowed to set up our booths all day long on Thursday, which was a lifesaver!

On Wednesday we had a huge snowstorm and then that night the temperatures plummeted. The high temps during daylight on Thursday were in the single digits and the parking lot was snowpacked, though the roads were clear. The mall is WAY across town from where I live--a good 35-minute drive, if there is no traffic and if you take the pricey toll road. It took us 2 trips with 2 cars completely full to get everything over there and loading and unloading all of the boxes in the frigid temperatures was no picnic, let me tell you!

Thankfully, with the help of my husband (and the neighbors who watched my kids and let us borrow a truck at the last minute) I was able to get my booth completely set up Thursday night by about 9:30 pm so at least I didn't have to get to the market until 9 am Friday morning to put the finishing touches on everything.

Friday's and Saturday's weather forecast was pretty much the same as Thursday--high daytime temps in the single digits, though much of the day it was below zero. I was so worried that nobody would venture out in the nasty cold weather and I would have a repeat performance of last October's market, where all of my preparation was ruined by the stupid weather.

I needn't have worried, however, because the shoppers turned out in droves! There were so many people waiting to get in the doors the first morning that we let them in 5 minutes early so they didn't have to wait in the cold any longer. My booth was completely slammed just a few minutes after opening and it didn't let up for a couple of hours!

I was absolutely floored at how much stuff I sold on Friday. In fact, by Friday afternoon when things started to slow down a bit, I started to freak out that I wouldn't have anything left to sell the next day! In my downtime I began making a list of things I had at home that I thought I could bring in to sell. I didn't get home until about 8:00 pm and frantically started pulling things out of closets and ransacking my own Christmas boxes to find things to sell! I hurried and was able to make a few tiny things--my husband and even my sweet dad stayed up until midnight with me, sorting buttons and tying ribbons on tags. I got up early the next morning too and put together a few more things to sell so I was able to make the booth look not quite so picked-over.

Saturday was just about as busy as Friday. Tons of shoppers in the morning, and less of a slow-down in the afternoon. Having the market at a mall was definitely a huge advantage because we got the people who came just for the market as well as the people who wandered in from the mall entrance as well! And thankfully for this 8-months-pregnant lady, I was just around the corner from the restrooms and had a great booth neighbor who watched my stuff while I ran to use the facilities!

Things slowed down a lot on Saturday evening. The Mister had to work all weekend long but was able to get out a bit early and come over so that I could have a break and finally walk around and check out the other booths. The market closed at 7:00 pm and my dad brought my kids, and they all helped me break down the booth. Loading up was definitely easier because I'd sold so much inventory, but again the unbelievable COLD made things less than pleasant when the guys were trying to shoehorn everything into our 3 vehicles so that we would only have to make one trip. Then once we were home, we had to completely unload all the stuff into the house. We were all frozen and exhausted by the time all the work was done that night.

In all, the market was a WONDERFUL experience for me! I still can't believe how much I sold. It's funny to look at my photos now and see that almost everything in the pictures sold! I had a mixture of handmade and vintage items, and the majority of the handmade stuff was made with vintage materials. My sales on Saturday were not as high as they were on Friday and I firmly believe it's because I had just run out of things to sell! I absolutely think that if I'd had more stuff to sell on Saturday, I would have sold it. I just plain ran out--in fact, nearly everything that I hurried to make or to dig out when I got home on Friday night did end up selling on Saturday, so it's a good thing I took it with me!

Really, it's a good problem to have--selling more than you expect. I wish I'd been able to make more inventory but honestly I did the absolute best that I could have. I'm actually really proud because the vast majority of things I made were done with materials I already had in my vintage Christmas and craft stashes! I had to purchase another bottle of Mod Podge and some tags, two spools of ribbon, a container of plaster of Paris, a package of bottle brush trees, a large package of chipboard letters and fewer than 5 sheets of fancy scrapbook paper. When you consider the amount of stuff that I made, I think that's pretty remarkable! That goes to show you what kind of a craft/vintage Christmas pack rat I truly am. ;) But see--it all got used! Sometimes it takes me 10 years to get around to using something (like the rub-ons I used on some of my snow globe jars) but I do use it...eventually!

This post is already long enough so I'll do a separate one to show you some of the things I made to sell.

Rue de Noel

2013-12-02T07:17:00.005-07:00

It's almost here--my very first time as a vendor at a vintage/handmade Christmas market! I've been crafting my fingers to the bone for a few weeks now and I know I'll still run out of time far before I'll run out of ideas of things to make. In the coming days I'll post a few photos of the things I've made to sell. The nightmares have already started--Saturday night I dreamed that they forgot to assign me a space, then they put me in a room all by myself, then they let everyone in an hour early and I was still setting up. I definitely woke up in a panic--darn vivid pregnancy dreams!

Here's hoping I survive until Sunday! If you're local, come out and see me this weekend!

Why it's NOT new house closing day. :(

2013-11-26T07:23:00.004-07:00

Today was supposed to have been an exciting day for us--we were scheduled to close on a new house! I haven't said anything on the ol' blog here or really much even to the people I know in real life because I just wanted to make sure everything was signed and stamped before I opened my mouth. Turns out, my instinct was right.

Let me back up. Back in September-ish, a friend of mine who knew that we have been wanting to buy a new house all year tipped me off to a great house in her neighborhood that she knew would be up for sale soon after. It just happened to be the same floor plan as her own house, which we already knew we liked. We called our realtor and told him about it to give him a heads up, so that as soon as the house went on the market we could get in there and have a look. We were the very first showing on a Friday afternoon, and by Monday or Tuesday, we had made an offer. We went back and forth with the seller for a few days with counters, and then finally agreed on a number--but it was contingent on the inspections. You see, there is a large crack in the ceiling of one of the rooms and we wanted to make sure that was not a huge foundation problem. In addition to the normal inspection, we also hired a separate structural engineer to come and take a look and make sure the problem was not critical.

It took some time going back and forth with the seller to get everything worked out, but we ended up very happy with our arrangement. The seller was very motivated to sell as quickly as possible and we got a great deal on the house. The house itself is really beautiful! The downstairs is big and open, just like I've wanted, so I can entertain and hopefully hold more craft classes and maybe even a little pop-up boutique a few times a year. The neighborhood is great and we already have friends who live literally across the street and down around the corner. We get to stay within our current church congregation (we are divided up geographically) with friends we've known for 9 years. It's only about a mile north of our current house. Everything about this house is just exactly what we had hoped to find.

So then you might imagine how I felt late last Wednesday afternoon when I got a call from my realtor saying that we'd hit 'a speed bump'. It's a long and ridiculous story, but there was a 2nd mortgage on the house that seller apparently thought had gone away in a bankruptcy filing--but it hadn't, and the house couldn't be sold because of it. Just that morning I had been on the phone with painters and the electrician and handyman to try to make appointments so we could get started on the house this week--and then it all fell completely apart.

Now the house is going up for short sale. We decided to keep our bid in--we are already approved for our loan, have shelled out $$$ for those multiple inspections, and we REALLY want the house. But we have no idea what the bank is going to decide to do, or how long they are going to take to do it. There is still a chance that we might get the house, but there is also still the very real chance that we won't and will have spent all of that time and money and hope only to be massively disappointed again. Plus the timing is really horrible--while moving the week before Christmas isn't ideal, moving right after you've given birth is probably worse. We had planned to buy a new, larger car after the house deal was done--something that will more easily fit 3 car seats--ahead of the baby's birth in January, but now that's on hold too because you we signed a paper saying we wouldn't incur any huge new debts while the mortgage was still pending.

So there you go. What I WON'T be doing today. 2013 continues to kick our behinds.

Oh honey, you made pie

2013-11-11T07:09:00.000-07:00

Hello, friends!

I finally got the Halloween decor taken down on Saturday. Phew! It meant a million trips up and down the basement stairs, which for this 7-months-pregnant lady, meant that by the days' end I was absolutely knackered and even spent yesterday recovering. I'm just not used to being limited in the amount of physical work I can do in a day so I definitely overdid it. I'm going to try to be more careful from now on. The upside is that the house looks nice and empty again--even though I love my holiday decor, it's always nice when I take it all down.

The reason I worked so hard on Saturday was that I hosted a craft class at my home that night. We made this pretty box:

And I even got to meet Melissa from Andromeda Vintagehttp://andromedavintage.blogspot.com/2013/11/instagram-recap.html and her cute mom, Diane! They were so lovely and it was so much fun to turn an imaginary internet friend into a real, live person friend. :) I hope this isn't the last time we get to meet!

I cleaned and prepped all day on Saturday but simply ran out of time and energy to wash all of the dirty dishes in the sink. I had just run the dishwasher so it was full and I didn't have time to unload it and reload it with the dirties, and I didn't want my guests to have to look at (or smell) stinky dirty dishes in my sink since we would be working at my kitchen table. Of course I had the brilliant idea to stick all of the light plastic stuff in a big garbage sack and stash it in the oven. You can guess where this story is going, right? Yesterday afternoon we invited our neighbors over for pie after dinner. I forgot all about the dirty plasticware and turned on the oven to preheat while I made the pie.

And this was the lovely result: an oven full of melted dishes and a house completely full of toxic melted plastic fumes and smoke. At least there were no shooting flames--I did manage to catch it before that point! We opened all the doors and windows, turned on the fans, and decamped to the neighbor's house for a while so it could clear out. I came back long enough to finish putting together the pie, then we grabbed the dinner I had put in the slow cooker and headed back over to our friends' home. I'd made double the amount of dinner anyway and they hadn't made dinner yet, so it all worked out--I baked the pie there and we shared the food and the house was nicely aired out by the time we came home a few hours later.

Good dinner, yummy apple crumble pie, and fun company--not a bad way to spend a Sunday evening, it's just a pity that I had to melt my plastic bowls to make it happen! Today I get to find a way to chisel the melted plastic goo off the bottom of my oven. You can bet I won't be making this mistake again!

Vintage collection: Beaded multi-strand necklaces day 1

2013-11-07T07:58:00.003-07:00

It's no secret to anyone who knows me in person that I'm a big fan of accessorizing when I get dressed every day. Even though I'm a stay-at-home mom, it's important for my mental health for me to look nice, even if nobody but the eight- and four-year-old are going to see it! Obviously, some of my very favorite accessories are vintage. I can't stand wearing scarves around my neck but I wear a necklace more days than I don't, and one of my favorite types to wear are from my collection of vintage beaded multi-strand necklaces. All of mine are thrifted--some from stores, some from garage or estate sales. One day last year I dragged them all downstairs along with my dress form and had a little photo shoot but I never blogged any of the photos. Today I want to share a few of them with you.

I don't have any orange clothing in my wardrobe--never have and I can say with almost all certainty that I never will! I just don't think I have the coloring to pull it off. I do, though, have a few orange necklaces, including this one. I wore this several times during October and on actual Halloween. It's a fun pop of color without being too much of an orange commitment and I like the texture on the beads.

I wore this necklace yesterday, which is actually what reminded me of these photos that I took last year! I love the combination of the turquoise blue and green. I have the matching beaded clip-back earrings for this set but that's taking it a little too far into grandma territory, IMO. I do love the oak leaf findings on this necklace--what a pretty little detail!

This gold necklace is a fun one to wear for dressier occasions, although I wear it for everyday too--I love bling! The crystal beads have an aurora borealis finish that adds just the right amount of sparkle.

I know statement necklaces are still very much en vogue right now but that trend is definitely nothing new--these necklaces have been around for probably 50 years and they still look great!

Life, through aqua-colored glasses

2013-11-05T08:01:00.003-07:00

Last week the kids were out of school for Fall Break. That combined with The Mister staying late at work on two nights plus working the entire weekend meant that by the time Saturday night rolled around, I was anxious to get out of the house alone! After dinner I sneaked out for a quick hit of the local thrifts. I was really hoping to find a motherlode of vintage Christmas ornaments (not very likely, since the early Saturday shoppers would likely have snapped them up first) and I was rewarded with one (1) old plastic Santa ornament.

Boo.

Even though I wasn't swimming in Shiny Brites, I did find something I love:

What used to be my favorite thrift store underwent some big changes recently as part of being bought by Saver's. I'm not at all a fan of most of the changes, but one thing they do now is maybe not so bad. When someone donates a set of matching dishes or glassware, the workers pile it all in a basket, tape the heck out of it and charge one price for the lot, rather than each item individually. That's how I found this basket of turquoise glassware on Saturday night. The color caught my eye first, but when I noticed that it just happened to be 50% off that weekend I knew it was meant to be!

The next day I was able to untape the whole thing and figure out just what I'd bought. I was happy to find 6 of the coupes, 4 of the tallest glasses, 8 of the water goblets, and a full dozen of the smaller wine glasses on the right. That makes 30 glasses (plus a giant wicker basket) for just $15, which I think is a darn good deal, especially for something so pretty! Honestly, full price of $30 for 30 glasses still wouldn't have been too shabby, but cheaper is always better, amiright?

While I've been contemplating just where exactly to put 30 new glasses in my already-full cupboards, I've been admiring them all lined up on my kitchen island. I've come to the conclusion that part of the reason I love them so much is that they're just a hair darker than the antique blue glass canning jars that I love so much! My wedding china is a pretty but quiet bone/platinum neutral, and I think these beautiful aqua glasses will add a lovely shot of my favorite color to the table. I think tonight's meatloaf and mashed potatoes will look awfully nice with my fancy dishes and new glasses, don't you?

A Very Despicable Halloween

2013-11-04T09:07:00.002-07:00

In July I was sitting in the movie theater with my family watching Despicable Me 2 and before the movie was even over, I knew that this would be the theme for our Halloween costumes this year!

Gru was an easy choice for Quin, as he already had most of the outfit in his closet! The gray pants, gray turtleneck sweater, black zip-up jacket and black shoes and belt. I found the striped scarf at Old Navy (bonus that it's something he can wear again) and we added a bald cap from the costume shop and a homemade paper nose.

I knew immediately that I wanted to be Dr. Nefario--I'm not afraid to dress up as a male character (see my Ferb costume from 2010) for the sake of the group! We already had the lab coat in our costume box and the hideous plaid pants were something I thrifted a few years ago to use for another project entirely. I thrifted the yellow t-shirt and wore my own black boots. I ordered the welding goggles and black gloves from Amazon, and added the yellow Gru logos on the gloves using sticky-backed yellow felt from the craft store. The bald cap was from the costume shop and I hot-glued a tuft of batting to the top to make Dr. Nefario's wispy white hair. My kids were completely freaked out at the vision of me in a bald cap and couldn't wait for me to take it off!

Porter was a shoo-in for a yellow Minion because he already owned the crocheted Minion cap. I get comments every time he wears it--I bought it from Etsy a few years back and it really is hilarious! I thrifted his overalls and yellow fleece jacket, bought the black stretchy gloves at the Dollar Tree and he wore his own snowboots. I made a Gru logo for his overalls out of black sticky-backed felt.

Maren wanted to be a purple Minion this year. Now, if I'd been smart I would have ordered her a matching crocheted purple Minion hat from Etsy, just like Porter's. That would have been SO much easier and I think it would have looked so much better. Unfortunately, I didn't have that light bulb until it was too late because all of the listings I could find on Etsy were for custom orders, nothing ready-to-ship. Rats! Her purple hoodie and overalls were thrifted, more Dollar Tree black gloves and her own snow boots just happened to match perfectly! Getting the purple Minion hair right was really tricky! I started out with feather boas but those didn't look right. I finally ended up buying a purple wig at Target and cutting it all apart, then hot-gluing the strips to the hood. It wasn't perfect but I think it gave the effect. I made an El Macho logo for her overalls out of gray felt.

Halloween night was cold and windy here, the coldest it has been in a few years, so our costumes had the bonus of being warm already! We layered long-sleeved shirts and leggings under the overalls, which really helped. Porter got cold and bailed on trick-or-treating pretty early anyway, but he did the same thing on a much warmer night last year so I wasn't too surprised. He was perfectly happy to sit near the neighbor's bonfire and eat his candy. Maren lasted a little longer and had plenty of candy to show for it.

We're already planning next year's costumes! Maren told me she wants to be "something scary" so I found a beautiful red and black princess-type dress at Marshall's. I think we'll turn her into a pretty vampire or spider queen. Maybe I can convince Porter to do something similar, and I'm already thinking ahead to having a 9-month-old baby--perhaps I can be a spider web and he can be a little spider in my arms. I have a whole year to plan!

Vintage-style Christmas Box Class

2013-10-27T19:46:00.002-06:00

I'm excited to announce that I will be holding a craft class in my home on Saturday, November 9 at 7:00 pm to make these darling vintage-style Christmas boxes The box measures 5.25"x7.25" and is the perfect size for storing keepsake Christmas cards. It makes a lovely gift or can simply be used as a part of your Christmas decor. The vintage-style details include fabric, lace, gems, pearls, glitter, and ribbon. There is rubber stamping involved but it is easy even if you've never stamped before!

Your kit includes the box and everything you will need to embellish it. You will leave my house that evening with your beautiful finished box and the leftover supplies from your kit.

The fee for the class is $18 and I have 10 spots available. Prepayment is required to hold your spot. To sign up or if you have any questions, please contact me at themerrymagpie@gmail.com.

Book page decoupaged pumpkin

2013-10-18T08:15:00.002-06:00

When I was unpacking my Halloween decorations a few weeks ago I found a pumpkin that needed a makeover. It had previously been painted silver in a failed attempt to make it look like faux mercury glass, then I covered it up by putting it inside a black fishnet stocking.

For a change, I decided to decoupage my pumpkin with torn dictionary pages. This is an in-progress Instagram shot so you can still see the white Mod Podge. (After I saw this photo I didn't like all of that white space in the middle so the next day I went back and put more paper over it.) This was the first time I've ever decoupaged something round so I did one side, then propped the dry side in a cereal bowl and left it overnight to dry before doing the other side the following morning. I ended up leaving the stem un-papered because it was already painted silver and it was just easier that way!

To finish it off, I sprayed the top half with spray adhesive and dusted it with coarse clear glitter, then attached a bow made from lace and cream seam binding that I 'aged'. My favorite way to do this is to run it under water and scrunch it in my hand, dry it quickly with my heat tool and then smear on some brown chalk. I added an old blingy rhinestone earring and a vintage silver foil leaf.

I thought it was pretty darn cute, and someone else must have also because it sold from my little booth space! I have one more pumpkin that needs a makeover so I think he's going to get the same treatment!

Costumes of Halloween Past

2013-10-15T08:28:00.004-06:00

Witches' Night Out, 2004

Maren's first Halloween costume, 2005

Maren, 2006

Halloween party, 2007. Dog the Bounty Hunter and June Cleaver

Mermaid Maren's first Trick-or-Treating, 2007

Superhero Halloween Party, 2008. I'm The Junker and Quin is Michael Phelps

Fairy Princess Maren, 2008

Mary Poppins, 2008

Haunted Library Halloween Party, 2009. Where's Waldo and that Greg guy from Three Cups of Tea

Porter's first Halloween! Alice in Wonderland, 2009

Phineas and Ferb, 2010

The Scooby Gang, 2011

Disneyland, 2012

One of my all-time favorite pictures of my kids, 2012

I'm working on a little photo album with all of our past Halloween costumes and have had so much fun looking at the past. I love to dress up and I'm lucky to have a family that will go along with my love for costumes!

The Night Circus book club

2013-10-09T15:07:00.003-06:00

Have you read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern?

If you haven't yet, then put it on hold at your library or grab it the next time you're at the bookstore, because it is fantastic! I first listened to the audio version (read by the fabulous Jim Dale) last year but later bought my own copy because I knew it was one I'd like to read again. When my friend Becca invited me to join her book group last month and told me that October's book was this one, of course I agreed to join! And because Becca is a very kind friend, she even agreed to let me put together a display of treats for the book club meeting.

One of the things about The Night Circus that I love is that the author is good at describing the details of the beautiful, magical circus. I find it to be a very creatively inspiring book--so much so that I even created a Pinterest board devoted to the world of the book! As I was reading again this time, I kept notes of details from the book that would be fun to include in my display.

For treats, Becca made ooey-gooey caramel popcorn, which we served in black and white striped paper popcorn bags. Peeking from behind the popcorn you can just see a big, glittery raven (to represent Celia's raven). I also tucked a black and silver feather boa around the platters and the whole display sat on a base of black satin fabric.

I made cinnamon twists from puff pastry brushed with butter and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon to represent the ones that Poppet, Widget and Bailey eat at the circus.

My favorite treat to make were these chocolate mice, served up on a pair of black glass pedestals that were ringed with a black mirrored wreath. Their bodies are made of Oreo truffles and then I rolled them in more crushed Oreos to look like fur. I gave them sliced almond ears and a black licorice tail (it was actually cherry flavored--it's made by Wilton). They were darling and delicious.

To drink we had spiced cider (ours was cold, though the cider in the circus was served hot) and I got to use the absolutely fabulous owl and pumpkin punch bowl that I bought last year. We served our treats on black and white striped plates with matching paper napkins.

I had fun incorporating details from the book into my display. I just so happened to have one little white glove, perfect to represent the one that Poppet gives to Bailey. The bottles represent Widget's Bedtime Stories tent. I wish I had thought to print off some of Isobel's tarot cards.

The black and white striped paper lanterns are actually a string of lights I bought at Target last year. I forgot I had them until I opened up my Halloween boxes this past weekend and I knew I had to use them in my display. The black and white striped candles stood in antique cut glass candlesticks that are hung with crystals. Very elegant!

The glittery vintage-style banner with the moon and stars is another part of my Halloween decorations that I forgot I had. I think it was a perfect touch for this theme!

Somehow I managed to forget to take a picture of the whole spread at once but hopefully you can imagine from glimpses what I looked like. I had such fun putting it all together and I think it looked really great--definitely evoked some of the sparkle and magic from the book. It was very creatively fulfilling to put it all together--the only thing I had to buy were the plates and napkins! All of the rest of it came from my stash. I even got into the spirit, dressing like a reveur in a black and white striped cardigan and a red scarf. What a fun night!

Is it a catastrophe or an opportunity?

2013-10-03T13:17:00.003-06:00

Until yesterday afternoon, this was what the wall adjacent to my front door looked like (well, not exactly like this because this photo is several years old but the arrangement on the wall is just the same):

I found the trio of antique oyster plates back in 2009 at a thrift store. I seriously love these plates even though I've never eaten an oyster in my life (unless you count Rocky Mountain Oysters--those I have eaten!) They have an awesome scowly Neptune face at the bottom and then mermaids around the sides. I looked high and low for the fourth plate but never found it, though it all worked out in the end because I was able to use the three plates in a nice symmetrical arrangement.

The mirror in the middle of the wall arrangement was an early thrift find when we'd just moved into this house nine years ago. The small silhouettes are actually John Derian coasters from Target that I have stuck with poster putty to some of the saucers from my wedding china.

Yesterday afternoon I was in the kitchen when I heard an almighty crash from the front room, and walked in to find this:

Somehow the mirror came off the wall and took out an adjacent oyster plate on its way to the ground. The plate shattered into a zillion pieces and the corner of the mirror made a nice series of gouges and paint marks on my wood floor. Boo!

I'm bummed to lose one of my pretty oyster plates and now my nice symmetrical arrangement is toast too. I suppose I could move the top center plate over to the side and find something new to fill its space, and I may just do that for a while but I think actually that I might be ready for a change! I'm bored with that mirror and I wouldn't at all be opposed to sending it right back to the thrift store--it has been nearly nine years, after all! I bought a new chair last weekend at World Market so I'm in the mood to switch things up a bit. I love a new decorating challenge so maybe losing one of my pretty plates isn't such a bad thing, after all!

The Minion Birthday party

2013-09-27T16:36:00.000-06:00

Hello, everybody! I have a husband again and I couldn't be happier! I mentioned before that he was gone for a while--he left on August 6 for a school and didn't come home until September 18. Oof, that was a rough one; really difficult on me physically, mentally and emotionally. SO glad to leave it behind. I feel 500% better in every way now that he is back again.

Porter turned 4 on September 17 and we decided to let him have a 'friend' party for the first time this year. Of course we had to to wait until Daddy came home to help us celebrate, and after throwing Maren's LEGO Friends party back in March solo (which I have just now realized that I never blogged), I was more than happy to wait for reinforcements.

I talked Porter into having a Minion party. He did insist on a Spiderman cake, and I gave in on that one because, let's be honest--the Minion thing was kind of all about me. I found some really great printable resources through Pinterest that made the party really easy to put together.

For party favors I made Minion Twinkies using this free printable, which was originally designed to go around push-up pops but happens to fit perfectly around Twinkies! I will recommend that if you make these, you buy the Sara Lee or Little Debbie versions though, because they come in clear wrappers whereas the Twinkies have Hostess printed in red all over the wrapping and that annoyed me. I used the free printable from here to make the little labels to transform tiny squirt guns into Vector's Squid Launchers. Because my guns were smaller I had to closely trim the labels and then I ran them through my Xyron sticker maker to turn them into labels. The favors also included a few Minion bandages (Wal-Mart), and some little candies and Minion tattoos from Party City. I packaged them all up in large cello bags (Dollar Tree) and tied them with yellow ribbons.

I found this fantastic printable download for Minion goggles on Etsy and it was absolutely worth the $2.99! It gives you three different sizes of goggles and mouths. For my Minion balloons I used the largest size of goggles printed onto full-sheet label paper (Wal-Mart) and cut them out and just adhered them onto the balloons.

I also used the printable goggles for our Pin the Goggles on the Minion game, though I forgot to take any photos of them. I printed those onto regular paper and just cut them out and put tape on the back--no point wasting the sticker paper for this task. For the picture I free-handed the Minion and Maren helped me color him.

And the third use for the printable goggle download was to make the faces on the bottles for our Minion bowling game! I used the smallest size goggles and I did print these on sticker paper. I used 1 liter bottles of clear flavored water, then wrapped a piece of yellow cardstock around the top and a strip of blue around the bottom. The sticker paper goggles and mouths were easy to adhere and the bottles cracked me up! We set them up and let the kids roll a basketball at them.

There is also a free printable available to make your own Minion goggles available here. I printed these out on white cardstock and then cut and assembled them. I ended up adding a piece of elastic string to the back, attached to each earpiece, because they wouldn't stay on the kids' heads with just the cardstock. I forgot to get any photos of those, darnit! Between the goggles for the kids, the ones on the balloons, bottles and for the game, I cut out SO MANY GOGGLES!

The other game we played was made also using a free printable from here. The original idea was to use a Nerf gun to shoot the aliens but don't have one of those, and instead found a 3-pack of water guns on super clearance from Target. I printed the aliens and space ships on plain printer paper and then 'laminated' them using clear packing tape on the front and back before I cut them out. I did have to tape tongue depressors to the backs to keep the aliens from flopping over. I cut slots into the top of some plastic cups and poked the tongue depressors through there so the aliens would stand up.

The plastic cup setup wasn't ideal, as our water guns were too weak to knock over the aliens but the kids didn't seem to care much and just had fun squirting water all over!

I even got to draw Minions on my cute chalkboard banner! Hooray for colored chalk. Oh, and one last thing we did was that I found Despicable Me printable coloring sheets for the kids to color as we waited for all of the guests to arrive.

The party was really very easy and fun. I made everything the morning of the party although it would have of course been a lot easier to get it ready beforehand (hello, procrastination). We had 4 little guests besides Porter, which was the perfect number. The weather was beautiful (unlike Maren's snowy party) and we were able to do all of the party games outside so I didn't have to worry about 5 excited little boys trashing my house. :)

I think Porter had a happy day! This is him exclaiming over his gift from us, a pet fish. :)

The FREE antique typewriter

2013-08-29T05:00:00.000-06:00

Antique Royal typewriter: $65.99
plus tax                            $5.28
total                                 $71.27
less store credit                -$73.88
Final price                        FREE plus $2.61 left over

That's right, FREE! It must have been my lucky day, right? I stopped into my favorite little consignment store yesterday afternoon and spotted this awesome Royal typewriter with a price of $65.99. Now, that really is a pretty good price by itself because I regularly see antique typewriters around this area priced around $100. But the best part is that I had consignment credit that was $2.61 more than I needed, making the typewriter FREE!

It looks like it has been living in somebody's very dusty attic or shed so I'm going to need to clean it up a bit, but I'm excited to have it. I'm sure I could throw it on Craigslist and sell it pretty easily, but I think I'm going to hang onto it for a while and have fun using it for display. Hooray for FREE!

Youth Conference carnival-themed decorations

2013-08-13T05:00:00.000-06:00

Thank you all for your well-wishes about my big news! I have to admit that I have had a difficult time being really excited about being pregnant this time around. I don't know if I truly was more sick this time or if it just seemed that way, but June and July were pretty rough for me. Having to deal with my father-in-law's sudden illness and death, my dog's sudden illness and death, being on the road (and therefore sleeping poorly) for nearly three weeks total in a four week period and my kids being out of school and home all day was not made any easier by feeling nauseated and exhausted 80% of the time. Feeling like poo didn't make me thrilled to be pregnant--it only made me wonder why on earth I'd done this to myself when I clearly knew better?

However, sharing the news and having my first ultrasound last week and seeing a photo of my little guy have really helped, as have all of the well-wishes from all of you and my other friends and family. I think I'm finally pulling out of the queasiness and not a moment too soon because The Mister had to go out of town for work and he won't be home until late September. I am definitely looking forward to the start of school for my kids next week! Even though Porter will only be in preschool two days a week for a few hours each time, it will be a small break from kids and I'm looking forward to it.

I haven't done a whole lot this summer that's worth blogging about but I do have a few things that I'd like to share. Back in the first week of June, I got to decorate for the opening night of a multi-day conference put on by my church for 200 or so teenagers.

We decided on a carnival/fair sort of theme, and I had fun sketching and dreaming up ideas for how I could decorate a huge church gym on a budget. This was my first sketch and it was fun to see that many of the things I made actually turned out like my initial ideas!

I sewed miles of garlands from pink and yellow tickets. In the end, we decided to cut them and hang them vertically and I love how it filled up the space and contrasted with the pennant banners. I also sewed all of the miles of pennant banners--they are made of red, yellow, turquoise and white plastic tablecloths from the dollar store. I know that you can purchase pre-made plastic banners from the party store but they wouldn't have fit my color scheme so I was willing to do it myself. It really wasn't difficult at all and you'd be surprised how many triangles you can get out of just a few tablecloths!

I ordered a large roll of red and white striped plastic from Oriental Trading Company. My initial idea was to use it to drape the doorway to the gym to look like curtains, but logistically it just wouldn't work because of the way the doors open. Instead, I had my helpers use it to make bunting across the bottom of the stage. It didn't swag quite the way I had hoped but I think it looked fine in the end. I did use some of the brightly-colored Christmas lights that I borrowed to light up the front of the stage.

The giant arrow was a DIY project. The theme for the entire event was "Know It, Live It, Love It" and my original plan was to make these marquee letters spelling out the theme in lights to place across the stage. While I still believe that would have looked really cool, it would have been an immense amount of work to make all of those letters and expense to purchase enough strands of lights to light them all. Because I was using church funds for my budget, I felt a responsibility to only purchase materials that could be used again or that were so inexpensive (ie, dollar store tablecloths) that it wouldn't matter if they were thrown away.

In the end, I made only the arrow and used my own two strings of lights for it. It really wasn't difficult either and it looked really cool when it was plugged in! (I will say for anyone wanting to make these letters--with all those bulbs so close together, it got HOT quickly and I was a little nervous about the hot light bulbs up next to the foam core, posterboard and paint. We actually put it on a metal cookie sheet from the kitchen because I was anxious about it sitting on the carpet.)

My signs even looked similar to the ones I originally sketched! I used sheets of foam core from the dollar store. I cut each in half and used a piece of posterboard to make a mortise mask so that I was making a border. I used the same red spray paint from the arrow project and sprayed around the edges of the mask, then traced around the inside edge with a Sharpie to add definition. I even made the side lines wavy to simulate the torn edge on a ticket. My friend Angie used her Silhouette to cut the letters from black cardstock. The font was from the Silhouette online store and it was exactly the look I wanted!

After I made all of the pennant banners, I still had tablecloth leftover so I cut it into strips and made ruffles with my sewing machine. To make the ruffles I just pulled gently on the plastic as I fed it into the machine and it ruffled itself. We used some of them to swag on the fronts of the tables.

I even snuck in a few of my vintage treasures like this old blue canning jar full of pinwheels (made by my mom for my birthday a few years ago, but the perfect colors/motifs)

and I dug out a few of my vintage boxes and baskets to be used to hold bags of popcorn.

There was a fun photo booth set up as well. I specified red and white stripes and they used dollar store tablecloths for it as well, and it looked fantastic! I made another banner to hang across the backdrop.

My very favorite decorations were at the front of the room. I had two big empty wall spaces on either side of the stage that I needed to fill and when I saw them, I knew just what to do!

I found scrapbook paper at Michael's in various patterns in the color scheme of red, turquoise and yellow with touches of royal blue and pink. I couldn't have done this without my sweet friend Angie, who graciously made one million paper lollies for me over a weekend.

For the backing, I taped together two more sheets of dollar store foam core to make a nice, large surface. Then I simply arranged the paper lollies to my liking and used a hot glue gun to attach them to the base and each other. I absolutely LOVE how they turned out and they were a nice way to make a big impact without spending much money (especially if you can catch the paper when it is 5/$1 at Michael's!)

I ended up spending about $125 on all the materials. It was actually a bit less than that, as there were some materials that I didn't end up using but wasn't able to return (a can of spray paint, a few more sheets of posterboard/foam board/tablecloths from the dollar store). The largest expense was the roll of red and white striped plastic (around $25) but we used it on the stage and then cut the rest of the roll into shorter lengths and used it as table runners on all of the many tables around the room so we certainly got our money's worth out of it. Also, a friend who is in charge of another church activity this fall took nearly all of the decorations home with her and she plans to reuse them then, so they will do double-duty!

In the end, I'm very pleased with how it all turned out. Our church gyms are notoriously difficult places to decorate because they're huge, have harsh fluorescent lighting (hence the bad color in all of my photos), giant tall ceilings, and a basketball court painted on the floor. I knew I couldn't turn it into a wonderland on $125 with just a few helpers, but I do think that my decorations made it look happier and more festive and hopefully made the atmosphere more fun for the kids that attended that night. I'm thankful that I had this opportunity to use my creative talents and thankful that I have friends who had the confidence in me to entrust me with the responsibility for doing it. It was fun!

Oh, and one more detail...

2013-08-11T22:43:00.000-06:00

It's

a

BOY!!