A New Little Peep

I love these shoes. Sometimes it's very hard to send off a pair of shoes, especially knowing they are in my size. This was one of those pairs.

I have a very talented friend, Jessica, who I used to work with, and go to college with. People used to ask if we were sisters. And that was a high compliment, because, the girl is beautiful!

Jess has a very successful photography business called Love Tree Studios. You can see some of her incredible work here.  While admiring each other's work, we came up with the idea of trading shots for shoes. And recently, I was in my old home town for a visit, so what better time to get that done? You can see the results of the photo shoot here.

And for her pair of shoes, we agreed upon something new for me. Women's peep toes. And now I have to make myself a pair. Because I love them. And now, I miss them. Now to find the time, right?

Happy Ever After Shoes

I suppose it's confession time. Way back when my husband and I were a young married couple, we watched the first season of the Bachelorette with great regularity and I must confess we were passionately rooting for Ryan to win. We were happy too when Trista and Ryan made it to the altar, and I have to say, all these years later I am thrilled that they are still happily married with two wee ones adding to their joy.

I wasn't going to try for any more celebrity gifting opportunities for the time being. I am swamped and the last opportunity didn't turn out well at all. But, when Trista said she'd love to receive a bag from The Artisan Group, she insisted that the mailing address be included for each participant so that she could mail a hand written thank you note.

Now, that is just delightful. It's thoughtful, and considerate and in this day and age a rare thing indeed. It reminds me of Roy Rogers who went broke and took extra jobs playing in bars just so that he could pay the postage required to answer every piece of fan mail he received. I liked that.

I ended up designing them on my anniversary, so I was pretty much in a romantic state of mind. Taking inspiration from the flowers from Trista's wedding this is what I ended up with:

Romantic, no? The fabric I used (which used to be a pair of pants) has a silver sparkle to it. 

  The flowers I have fallen for. I love how almost over the top romantic they are. Given her fairy tale romance and wedding, and the fact that she is living out her "happy ever after", I thought princess type shoes would be entirely appropriate.

On another note,I have to tell you how much I enjoy the photo taking after I make a pair of shoes.

It's another outlet for my creativity.

  I love capturing the "personality" of each design with the camera. Does that sound crazy?

  And even the editing process. I live where there isn't much sun most of the year. So, bringing the pic to life after snapping it is sort of thrilling to me.

Anyway, enough waxing poetic. I hope that Trista enjoys her shoes. And I will share when I get that handwritten thank you.

My Emeline is 2!

 Two years ago, my life was forever changed when the midwife turned my third child over and I realized that I had a daughter! After two boys, I was a little bit terrified when they handed her to me. What was I going to do with a girl? 

Well, thankfully, it didn't take me long to figure it out. I love the bond we have. I love that there is a little person running around copying the things that I do that make me a female. For instance, whenever I have lipstick on, she looks up at me and says, "I want some, Mom." She wants to wear my shoes, my jewelry. She babies her dolls. She sings them the same songs that I sing to her at night. It is amazing to me to watch her BE a girl. And I have to admit, I love it.

  Since she hadn't really taken to anything, other than dolls and toe nail polish and being girly, I was planning on doing a simple girly cake for her this year and calling it good. We take turns each year on who gets a big birthday bash. This year, it's the middle one's turn. So, it was going to be low key and just us. 

 But, then, she began to be somewhat obsessed with pigs. I blame Charlotte's Web. She loves the movie, loves the book. Loves pigs, where ever she sees them. Like the pig statue at the gardens that she kept running back to, sticking her head through the fence and shouting, "Hi Piggy!" to a couple of weekends ago. So, to commemorate, I thought, I should probably do a piggy cake. Only, I had really fallen for the ruffle cakes. What to do? Compromise.

  Not a bad compromise, right? Thank heavens pigs are pink.

  Layers and layers of ruffles. And this is butter cream, not fondant. I just used a petal tip and a back and forth motion. I like the horizontal ruffles more than the vertical ones you see all over.

  Plus, I thought this way, she would have the piggy to keep. And, boy, was I right about that. She is currently sleeping with him clutched in her hand. And this is how she spent half of her afternoon:

  Yelling, "Piggy cake!" I say, it was a success.

 Her birthday banner I made for her last year. My husband thinks it's way too girly to use for the boys, so she gets it to herself.

  More piggy books, you have to love Olivia.

  She has adopted my old Cabbage Patch doll, Victor. He has been without clothes for about a year because she doesn't like the sweater ensemble her came in. I finally found some clothes for him at a thrift store (because they do not sell boy doll clothes anywhere anymore). Sure they're circa 1985, but then, so is he.

 And her Aunt Kait bought her a highchair for her babies. She Loves it so much she wanted to take it upstairs with her at bedtime. When it was time for cake, she pulled Victor up to the table in his own little chair. So sweet.

  My beautiful birthday girl. She's growing up so fast. In fact, this week we took down her crib (silent sob) and put up her big girl bed.

  I know it's completely cliche. But, it REALLY does go by too fast.

Bathroom Renovation!

Oh you have no idea. When we moved into our house five years ago, I didn't love the bathroom. The paint job was ugly, the floor was ugly, all of the fixtures were cheap and...well...ugly. But, then, when we lived with the bathroom I began to hate it. We found that the previous homeowners had done things like hide water damage on the floor under a basket. Looking more closely at the grout in the tile, it looked like they had painted it white, to cover mildew. Mildew that grew no matter what we did to combat it. Five years we lived with it while my displeasure grew and grew. And then there was the leak. The ceiling in our kitchen began to drip. So guess what that meant! Time for a new bathroom! Finally! Picture heavy post follows. Hope that's okay. This was a total redo. We tore out everything. And with the help of our talented and knowledgeable and generous friend, Jeff, we made my dream a reality.

Before

  The hideous and awful before. Please, bear in mind, I had no say in any of these before choices. The color, light fixture, medicine cabinet, everything was here when we moved it, and I felt that things like our neon green, purple and gray kitchen (I kid you not) needed attention first. And, I know it's messy. But, knowing that we were going to rip everything out for a week or so sort of put a damper on my desire to clean it. That's just the truth.

  The mildew is so embarrassing, but I swear, there was no conquering it. I re-caulked that tub over and over. I paid to have someone do it. We had automatic tub cleaning spray. It was coming from behind the walls. Plus, the fan wasn't venting out side. Helpful. And you can see in this pic the water damage on the floor that the previous owners had hidden underneath a basket. Lovely.

  Where to even begin with what I hated here. The sink basin was cracked. They had a plastic cup holder permanently attached to the wall. The bottom of the line faucet with the clear and ope nasty handles that get gunky and dirty and you can see that, so you have to unscrew them to clean them every time. The toilet with the odd gummy sticker that I couldn't remove for anything. Uggghhhh. Remembering just how bad it was.

  And here as you can see, the cabinet itself was falling apart. Particle board sawdust got all over anything you put into the cabinet. It wasn't level, so water would track down that side of the cabinet. When they tore everything out, they found that there was NOTHING between the tile and the outer wall of the house. SO there was mildew and water damage on the outer walls. Also, the pipe going to the drain was bent up and over a beam, so water couldn't drain and it would pool. Hence our giant leak. :-/

source

  A little while ago, I fell in love with this bathroom. I wanted to make this my new reality. I already had dark gray paint that I had won from Dutch boy and used in the dining room. That's a start! So I said, let's go for it! So, here is our rendition of it:

  What do you think? I am so excited about it! It's my new favorite room in the house. The kids have been getting extra long bath times.

I LOVE the sink. It matched my inspiration picture almost perfectly. And I love that it's open, that it has room enough to still put a soap dispenser and toothbrush holder. I love that you can see the floor under it. The door barely clears it, but it does. And since it's open it doesn't visually look like it takes up a ton of space. Also, it's unique, and sturdy and only $199 at Home Depot. I couldn't believe it. Just thanked God for his provision and bought it.

  The mirror I bought at one of our favorite antiques stores. It's round like the inspiration pic, but unique. And I lately love wood and gray together. The light fixture is a Martha Stewart item. Since half the wall was so dark I chose shiny and bright, reflective surfaces whenever I could.

 And now the shower!

  Isn't it pretty?!? I love the subway tile. I also love that it was $4/sq ft cheaper than the tumbled stone tiles. I love that it's bright and white and clean and mildew free! I love knowing that there is nothing behind those shiny tiles that I need to worry about.

  The tile Justin fell for and didn't want to look at anything else after he saw it. It's a nice compromise between the modern glass mosaic tiles I was looking at and the more retro black and white check that Justin likes so much.

  I ordered two vintage shelves from the Junkman on Etsy. I love this yellow one. And above it I printed and framed a Japanese toothbrush image from The Graphics Fairy.

  The other one I had left it up on the computer, and when I came down in the morning Justin had printed it out and written "Buy this!" on the paper. So I complied.

  And finally, the floor. We bought this remnant years ago for $15. I am so happy with how it works in here. There is both gray and brown in it. It warms up the room. Oh, and it isn't dingy or water stained. Happiness!  

We're still waiting on a custom shelf unit for above the toilet. And we need need a few decorative odds and ends. But, I just couldn't wait to share any longer.

So there it is! Five years waiting for it. So worth the wait. Now I am exhausted. Perhaps I will go take a bath. :-)

 

Two Sweet Pairs

My dear sweet friend, Debbie, is my best customer. She's been so supportive and encouraging. And over the course of this past year she has purchased a total of five pairs of shoes and one necklace. That's humbling. That total includes these two most recent orders.

The first is for a friend of hers who recently had a little girl. The lucky little one's room was black and hot pink with butterflies. So, Debbie wanted shoes to match.

I happily obliged.

 The second sweet little pair of shoes was for Debbie's soon to be born 7th child and third daughter, Eden. She requested pink and turquoise for colors, and also a little bird for the embellishing. My first birds.

 We chose a pink silk ikat print that had once been my mother's for the shoe. Which left blue for the birds. I love little blue birds.

  I hope one day soon to be able to meet this newest member of the incredible Carlson clan. Until then, I pray her arrival will be blessed and easy and beautiful.

Jolini Brought a Little Joy to My Life

I love introducing you to incredibly talented people. Let me introduce you to Michelle from Jolini.

Michelle is a very talented artist and photographer. What she does to photographs turns them into fine art. They really are beautiful. When I saw that she was having a promotion to win a print of your submitted photograph after she worked her magic with it, I immediately entered. I submitted my favorite photograph of my grandmother from when she was a young woman. Part of your entry was to describe why you thought you should win on her wall. So I described why that picture meant so much to me, what it represented about my grandma. And then I had to wait. And it was agony.

But, this week I found out that I won! And today, Michelle and I e-mailed back and forth for most of the morning. She is such a delight. She told me that the image really spoke to her. It was wonderful to hear that it meant something to her as well, and that she was treating my grandma's picture with such respect. She named it Dare to Be, which is just absolutely perfect, because that is the look I see on her face.

She is standing there amidst flowers and grass, set to take on the world at a time when women weren't expected to do that. Shortly after this picture my grandma went on to be one of the first women to work at the Pentagon. She married my grandpa when he was on shore leave during WWII. She raised two children while he was an agent in Hoover's FBI. She never shied away from hardship, or from charity. She was a listening ear when I needed one. She was laughter. She was just one of the most important people in my life.

So would you like to see the picture? Here is the original:

And here it is as a Jolini Fine Art Print.

Isn't it beautiful? She added the birds and it just made me shiver. My Grandma loved birds. So much so that people were always giving her little birds. And the fact that there are two of them, flying off into the distance, just makes me think of my grandparents being together again, free to fly off into forever. They loved each other so much.

 If you would like to see more of Michelle's work, please visit her site here.

Thank you so much, Michelle! I will treasure it!

Little Girl Blue?

It's funny, I have two boys and my youngest was a girl. I was shocked, scared and thrilled when they turned her over. At first, there was a lot of pink being bought, just because I could! Now, she is nearing her second birthday, and in the stack of clothes I bought her the other day most were blue and some were black. (one was a black and white striped maxi dress, which secretly I am in search of for myself, so there was a little vicarious living going on there.)

So I am wondering, am I dressing her too sophisticated for her tender years? Do I need to dress her in cotton candy in order for her to be age appropriate?

And how did I get over my pink fix so quickly?

  Looking at these pictures though...

  she looks adorable...

  age appropriate...

  and just girly enough. I guess I won't worry too much!