Better not pout

How much do you love this new paper that I bought at the scrapbooking store yesterday?


I don't know about you, but I love it so much I think I might have to marry it. Seriously, people--the vintage Santa, the perfect combination of red and aqua? What else am I supposed to do?

It's from the Peppermint Twist collection by Brenda Walton for K & co and the rest of it is just as yummy! Brenda has lots of neat projects and examples up on her blog--check it out! I see a trip back to Archiver's in my not-so-distant future...

Tablecloth Thursday

I don't have near the number of tablecloths that Sarah does, but I love the few that I have found. All of mine have been from thrift stores; I've never been lucky enough to find one at a yard sale, but I'll keep looking! This red and blue square tablecloth is from Goodwill. It has a small, dime-sized hole but it's hard to see because of the busy pattern so it doesn't bother me. I actually just took this cloth off the small round table in my front room, where it has been since I decorated for Fourth of July back in June. The colors were perfect to go with my patriotic decor. I left it up until just the other day because it matches the room, but mostly because so much junk has been piled on that table that I couldn't get to it sooner. LOL

For more Tablecloth Thursday, visit Misadventures of Mama & Jack and The Hunt for Vintage to see their beauties!

Sister Swap Twenty Questions--part 2

Here's my other half. You can read Laurie's 20 Questions here! It's fun to see that we have some things in common. :)

11. Do you have any pets, if so what kind? We have a yellow lab named Bronco. He's a lover, not a fighter. LOL He's really the most mellow, sweet, tolerant doggie ever, even for a lab. He's the perfect dog for my DD to love on, because he just puts up with all kinds of ear-pulling and loving and harassment from her without so much as a peep.

12. Are you a reader? If so, what type of books do you like? I love to read. I read a ton of magazines--Country Living, Country Home, Home Companion, Scrapbooks Etc, Family Fun, Entertainment Weekly. I also read a lot of books. This past summer I reread a lot of children's books and the Anne of Green Gables series. I read a lot of nonfiction as well, mostly history and biographies. I recently checked out and read every single book my library had on vintage and used clothing (which sadly, was not a lot). We have a great library system and we use it a ton!

13. Are you celebrating a birthday or anniversary in October, November, or December? If so, what day and what is the occasion? Nope.

14. Do you collect anything? If so what type of things do you collect? My loving husband would tell you I collect old people's junk. :) I like ephemera, buttons, ribbons, vintage sequined fruit and veggies, refinishing projects (the garage is packed), old Valentines and greeting cards, hankies, old costume jewelry, 1940s and 50s kitchen stuff, vintage printed tablecloths. Basically, if your grandma saved it, used it or wore it, I collect it. :)

15. What type of things do you like to cook? Are you an appetizer person, cookie maker, dessert freak or a take out type of person?? I love to cook and do so often. I usually try 1-2 new recipes a week; my favorite source is Cooking Light magazine. I love to make cookies and desserts but since my willpower is nil I have to bake and then give most of it away, or risk eating 3 dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookies by myself. I do love cupcakes! I think they're the happiest dessert ever. We don't eat out often, as with a wild toddler it's more work than enjoyment.

16. What is your favorite scent? Is there one that you can’t stand? I love the smell of coffee, even though I don't drink it! I also love citrus smells like lemon and lime and grapefruit. I have a very weak sense of smell so scents have to be pretty strong for me to really notice them. I do like pumpkin candles and I just bought a Yankee Candle called Cider Doughnut that smells delicious and is certain to give me mad cravings whenever I burn it.

17. What’s your favorite song? I don't have one specific favorite song. In my iTunes I have a lot of Beatles, Jars of Clay, Tears for Fears, U2, Jane Monheit, and 80s new wave.

18. What’s the last movie you went to see at the movie theater? We went out on an impromptu date last Friday night and saw 3:10 to Yuma. We had free tickets and that was the only one playing at the theater that we even remotely wanted to see. It was pretty good; I love me some Christian Bale! We don't get out to see a lot of movies.

19. What’s your favorite Candy? Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I also love gummy bears and red licorice, and most chocolate things.

20. Tea or Coffee or other? I don't drink tea or coffee. I'm an ice water (no lemon) girl almost exclusively, but I do like Dr. Pepper when we go out to eat, especially with Mexican food.

Sister Swap Twenty Questions--part 1

I'm delighted to be part of the Sweet Goodness Sisters Swap and my partner is the lovely Laurie of Old School Acres. Laura is a very talented sewer of cutie pie softies who just turned fabulous 40 today! As part of our swap we are all to post answers to 20 questions about ourselves, to help our swap partners (and everyone else!) get to know us a little better!


1. Favorite Color: Red and turquoise, especially when they're together

2. Chocolate Lover? Milk, Dark, White, or none of the above? Chocolate lover? Yes indeedy! I will honestly say that I probably eat something chocolate every single day, even if it's just chocolate-flavored, like a chocolate graham cracker or a fat free chocolate pudding cup. I love it. I'm addicted. Hey--I don't drink, smoke or swear, so I'm allowed some kind of vice, right? My favorite chocolate in the world is Neuhaus, a fancy-schmancy Belgian chocolate that is both divine and very hard to find in this country. I like both milk and dark, with dark just edging out the milk for my current favorite. I do not like that white stuff. Ick. I'm not even going to dignify it by calling it 'chocolate'.

3. What is your favorite craft hobby? I love to do paper crafts. That includes rubber stamping, scrapbooking and just general messing about with paper, glitter and glue.

4. What is a craft/art hobby that you would like to start? I would like to learn to embroider. I have an embroidery kit that I bought about two years ago and I've opened it, but never taken the plunge.

5. What craft do you NOT have an interest in or just not great in? I don't sew, although that's more a function of my lack of ability than anything. I can see myself sewing simple things for Maren and simple home decor stuff but beyond that, I just can't imagine it ever happening.

6. Do you have any allergies? Does housework count? Otherwise, nothing!

7.What’s your favorite part of Halloween? Decorating, candy eating, costumes, or something else? Yes. :) I love it all! Halloween is my favorite holiday to decorate for. I don't like the gory, bloody stuff, but I do like creepy and slightly macabre and vintage Halloween. I'm not so much into the cutesy. I love to dress up, I love to eat candy, and I love to decorate. I think I'll get out my decorations this weekend, in fact!

8. Do you decorate for Thanksgiving/Fall? Yes, but I wait until after Halloween to do so. The first part of September here feels like summer anyway, and I don't want to get out all my fall stuff then have to put it away for October, then drag it all out again. I decorate with gourds and leaves and have started to amass a few more Thanksgiving-themed items as well.

9. December Holidays--what holiday do you celebrate? What type of decorations do you like to put up in your house for that holiday? I celebrate Christmas, and I like vintage-style Christmas decorations, whether they're original or reproductions. I put up my vintage aluminum tree and trim it with vintage glass balls that I've picked up along the way. Last year I did a pink & aqua theme but this year I'm going to go with more traditional and bright reds, greens, blues and yellows. I'm hoping to find one of those kitschy sequins-and-felt Christmas tree skirts to go with the bright color schemes.

10. Do you have any children, if so what are their ages, boys/girls? We have a beautiful and charming daughter, Maren, who is smack in the middle of the Terrible Twos. Read back a few posts about our sleep issues and you'll get an idea of what kind of fun and games we're dealing with right now. Let's just say that I fought her for two hours last night until she finally fell asleep at 10:30 p.m. and then she was up again this morning at 5:35 a.m. Serenity now!

Tune in tomorrow for the other ten!

Today I'm Loving...

...These cute slingback heels in red (of course). Ooh! And they're on sale too! Hmm, I may have to boogie over to the local store and see if they have these in stock.

...This fun, foofy umbrella that looks like a bouquet of roses when all closed up and has a darling rose border when open. Who cares if it's raining when you're under a pretty umbrella like this? Makes me wish it rained more often here!

...These neato personalized frames using photos of things that look like letters. You can do the same thing yourself for free using this handy tool: Spell With Flickr.

...The October issue of Country Home magazine. Their best in a while--I tore out so many pages to keep! Matthew Mead's pumpkin designs were really original and innovative--love the one with the woven twine especially. Also love the section with pie recipes. Maybe I'll have a prize-winning pie again this year with their help! And I think I'm going to use wallpaper on the interior panel of an old door I turned into a headboard. It's just the touch it needs, and it sounds so easy! I think I'm going to do mine patchwork-style, a la Miss Alicia-Posie's very neat closet door. Now I just need to find some great old wallpaper.

...Tim Gunn's Guide to Style, Thursday nights on Bravo. Have you watched yet? If not, you're missing out! Tim is The Man when it comes to telling it to people straight, but not being cruel or making fun of them. Now when we look at clothing, DH and I love to say "WWTGD?"

Hope your weekend is lovely!

Thrift Thursday

There's a little town that I pass through whenever I drive down to visit my grandparents. It's a tiny place, one of those old towns where the highway is also main street. The town used to be dumpy and dirty but in the past two or three years things have really improved. There's money coming in from somewhere and now the downtown features a few cafes, a day spa, a yarn store and several antique stores--a big leap for this wide spot in the road! We rarely stop to shop, as it seems we're always in a hurry to get to grandma's or back home, but every time we pass through I stare longingly out the window at the the antique stores. One in particular has always looked intriguing--the tiny storefront windows are filled with a jumble of dusty merchandise, perfect for a digger like me--but it is always closed. I mean ALWAYS, no matter what time of year or what day of the week you pass through town.

Except.

Except for the last time I came through town in August, on my way home from our family reunion at The Barn. I'd already had a particularly fruitful thrifting weekend and my car was stuffed to the gills with junque, including my grandma's old dress form riding shotgun in the front seat. I had Maren and the dog in the back and we were making good time, but when I drove past the store and realized that -gasp- it was OPEN, I had to stop! I parked in the shade of a big old tree and cracked all the windows for Bronco, but still knew I could only be inside for a few minutes--the length of time I felt comfortable leaving him in the car and how long it would take before Maren was doing her best "Bull in a China Shop" impression. It didn't take long; the minute I walked in the door to the tiny shop I spotted this:

Of course I was immediately drawn to its chippy, mirrored, pink fabulousness! Hard to tell from my blurry photo but it is an old metal medicine cabinet that someone once painted pink. It has its original glass knob and the mirror is all streaky with age. The inside has some really interesting shelves and I just know it's the kind of thing I'd see in a magazine photo, all cleaned up with some really great vintage pearls hanging off the knob and stuffed full of glitter and other trinkets.

So what did I do? Why, I talked myself out of buying it, of course. As much as I loved it, I couldn't imagine where in this house I could possibly put it. Only my daughter's room and the guest bedroom have any pink, and it's heavy so I'd have to anchor it to a stud, which would make hanging it a pain. No, I was just not going to buy it. I had all kinds of other goodies in the car already, and I was going to exercise some restraint for once and by the time I got back to Denver it would be a happy memory. I collected Maren, we said goodbye to the nice old gent running the shop, and I went out to the car to change Maren's hideous stinky diaper.

In the time it took to fix Maren (who was precariously balanced on the driver's seat in a feat of acrobatic diaper changing), I got to thinking about one of my favorite quotes from designer Betsey Johnson: "If you love it and it's beautiful, it goes with anything else that you love and is beautiful."

So you guessed it--I talked myself back into buying it! Man, I am a pushover! I ran the 5 steps back into the shop, threw my money at the man and grabbed my prize. I had just enough room on the seat under the dress form to wedge it in for the ride home. I've never regretted it since, but I can guarantee you that I would have regretted not buying it! It needs a good scrubbing, inside and out. The interior is dirty from being used as a medicine cabinet for who knows how many years. When I first opened it in the shop, I found an old dirty Q-tip (skeeve factor 11 on a scale of 1 to 10. yack.) so I'm going to be donning the ol' rubber gloves and hitting it with a good amount of bleach for my own peace of mind. You just wait--it's going to be a beauty, and I even have the perfect thrift store pearls to hang from the glass knob. Still have NO idea where I'll put it, but I know I'll find a place, because I love it!

Ahoy, me hearties!

Break out the puffy shirts and gold hoop earrings, it's time to celebrate--it's International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Be sure to visit the ITLAPD official website, where you can find all kinds of fun stuff, including several versions of the Pirate Name Generator and a bunch of other silly fun. I love Pirate day!

And how lucky is Miss Andrea? She gets to share her birthday with the pirates! Happy birthday, ya scurvy wench! (and I mean that in the nicest way! ;)

Just when you think your week can't get much worse...

...you are magnificently proven wrong!

Yesterday morning DH came home from Hawaii and I'm not sure who was more excited to see him--Maren, me or the dog. LOL Maren woke up at 5:50 a.m. (after fighting me until 10:45 p.m. the previous night to go to bed) and was exhausted by noon. DH was able to get her to go down for a nap and he went to take a nap too, as he'd flown through the night without much sleep. I left at about 1:30 while everyone was still asleep to go run errands and get my hair done.

DH called my cell phone while I was having my hair cut. I could tell he had that note in his voice; the one that says something isn't right, but he didn't say what it was and just asked that I call him as soon as I got finished. I called as I was walking out to the car (by this time it was nearly 6:00 p.m.) and he informed me that our basement had flooded! It seems someone (probably culprit: a little 2-year-old someone) turned on the faucet in the laundry sink downstairs and it ran for probably a good 3 or more hours before DH opened the basement door and discovered the mess.

As you might imagine, I cried all the way home from the hairdresser. Our basement is about 1000 square feet but it is a huge, unorganized mess. We've been meaning to get down there and reorganize for a while now but I'm afraid it just hasn't been a huge priority. DH has a $4000 big screen TV and an Xbox 360 down there, as well as a lot of inventory for his business, all of my holiday decorations, and our washer & dryer and food storage, in addition to all kinds of normal basement junk. All I could imagine was all of this floating in about a foot of water.

Thankfully, when I got home it wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined. The laundry room has vinyl flooring and DH had been working hard with our steam vac to suck up all the water, so it was mostly dry. Only a small part of the larger carpeted area got wet--really only a few square feet at the base of the stairs, a huge relief. The room that got the worst of the water damage backs to the laundry room and is the only unfinished part of the basement, which we use for storage. There's no flooring, only the plywood subfloor atop which the previous owners (who also used it for storage) laid down old pieces of carpet and carpet padding. The water soaked more than half the floor, so that meant that we had to take almost everything out of that room and find a place for it in the rest of the basement so we could pull up the soggy carpet & pad and get the plywood dried out. Well, we had been meaning to reorganize that room--nothing like a watery kick in the pants to get us motivated, huh?

We are lucky that most of the things in the storage room were in plastic tubs already, so there wasn't much damage to our belongings. So far the only real casualty looks to be a couple of dozen vintage glass ball ornaments that were on the bottom of a box that was right next to the wall to the laundry room. PSA: vintage colored glass ball ornaments and water do not mix! The colored film comes right off the glass ball when it gets wet. I set them out to dry last night so I think they'll survive, albeit with a much more wrinkly texture than they had before! The box for my beloved aluminum Christmas tree also got wet as did the box for its rotating spotlight, but I think both will be okay once they're dry.

We cleared everything out of the storage room last night and threw the sodden padding & carpet out the basement window, so this morning we'll go out and hang it all over the balcony. Good thing we have a couple of sunny, warm days forecast! LOL We borrowed some box fans from a neighbor and ran them all night. I just went and checked and the plywood floor is still pretty wet, so I'm guessing it will be at least another 24 hours before things are dry. We bought some shelving units to put together and once the floor is dry we can spend a few evenings this week getting everything all reorganized and put back in there neatly, a task we desperately needed to do anyway. And really, things could have been much, much worse--none of the electronics got wet, the carpet is dry, I'm not freaked out about mold growing, the food storage was off the ground on a storage shelf, and the washer and dryer are fine. However, this week as a whole still ranks right up there on the ol' Crappiest Weeks top ten list.

One thing that wasn't crappy about this week? The cute little consignment store I found in Boulder where I found these vintage felt pennants! They were marked down to $5 each and there was a huge stack, so I went through and picked those most meaningful to me. The Utah & SLC pennants are for my guest room with all the vintage travel memorabilia. The space pennant is for the future. If I ever have a little boy, I want to decorate his bedroom in vintage space and robot stuff, and I already have a small collection of treasures to get me started. Now all I need is a son! LOL At the same store I also bought an adorable vintage-style glittered papier mache candy bucket shaped like a black cat. I have considered gifting it but I love it so much that I'm not sure I'm going to be able to part with it. He was only $3, which I thought was a steal!

I am so, so glad that this week is nearly over! I've had enough--Check, please. Today I doubt we'll do much with the basement as it's still too wet. I have a wreath-making project that I'm going to attempt, and maybe if I can go get dressed I can go find a few yardsales; not too many more weeks before the season is over! Hope you all have a happy (and dry!) Saturday!

My thoughts are all over the place today so this entry will just be a bunch of random stuff that's floating in my brain:

• Went to JoAnn's today and they had a display up by the registers of these big silver glittered letters with eyelets in the top. They are clearly a copy of the big glittery Wendy Addison letters but they're not glass glitter like hers are. However, for $1.00 they sure would look cute strung on a ribbon or tied on a package!
• I just got a call from a friend who found out she is pregnant with twins! Yikes! She already has a 4-year-old DD and a DS who is just barely younger than Maren. She is going to have her hands full, that is for sure, but I'm excited for her! Congratulations, Jen!
• Yesterday Maren and I drove an hour north to Boulder to do a little shopping and just get out of the house for a while. Can I just tell you all that Boulder completely deserves its reputation as a haven for ultra-liberal, pot-smoking hippies? Seriously, it's a little weird up there. Good shopping, though! I went into a little consignment store and bought a few fun things that I forgot to photograph today, so I'll show them tomorrow.
• Maren's nap situation is still not great. Yesterday we left to drive to Boulder at 1 pm, which is normally naptime. I thought perhaps she might sleep better in the car than at home and while she was asleep within just a few minutes of leaving, she only slept for about 30 minutes total. She had no problem going to sleep last night although she did get out of her bed at about 1:15 a.m. She went right back without trouble, but then was up for the day at the unholy hour of 6:00 a.m. It's still dark at that hour, and I just don't do well when I have to get up before the sun does!
• A friend of mine watched Maren for a few hours this morning (I watched her DD yesterday) and I went to the craft store and got a pedicure. When I came home Maren was very tired from the early wake-up and playing with the kids so thankfully she went down for a nap without any trouble. I had a long nap while she slept, and we all woke up feeling much better! Amazing how much more positive my outlook on life is when we've all had some sleep, eh?
• Daddy comes home tomorrow! Hooray! His flight leaves Hawaii tonight at 10:00 p.m. local time and he arrives here at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. I am counting down the hours!
• I am so saddened to hear Katie's news. I will fully admit that I've been a whiner and complainer this week but when I read her post I shut right up. I know that all of us here in Blogland will be thinking of her and her sweet DH in the days to come.
  

So I won't forget

**Photos from our visit to Ground Zero, November 2006

Naptime Nightmare redux

I've been having a hard time blogging since I came back from the beach. Guess I just don't feel like I have anything interesting to say, but I'd like to stay in the habit so I'll plow on and just be boring.

An update on the Maren-climbing-out-of-the-crib situation: At present time, things are Not Good. After I posted my original "I'm going out of my mind" message, things actually improved. We had a few small struggles but for the most part Maren went back to her normal naps and not once did she climb out at bedtime. At the beach house we rented a crib and the first night we were there she got up at something like 3:30 a.m. and got out of the crib and I didn't get her back to sleep until 6:30 a.m. She got out of her crib several other times during that trip as well, including one morning at about 5:30 a.m. Her whole sleep schedule that week was a mess, but then once we got home things seemed to get back to normal.

Fast-forward to now. In the last few days things have gone all to hell. Saturday morning we did a 5K, with Maren walking/running a good part of it. We thought that would wear her out and she'd have no problem napping, but we were wrong. At one point that afternoon, Quin put her back in her bed again and laid down on the couch to take a nap himself. While he was asleep, she climbed out of bed, came downstairs, pushed a chair over to the counter and grabbed a big black Magic Marker and proceeded to decorate herself, the counter, the chair, and the garbage can lid with permanent black scribbles. He only woke up when he heard her bang on the garbage can lid, and she never did go back to sleep. That evening she behaved like a wild hyena because she hadn't had a nap, and when bedtime finally came she climbed out several times before finally falling asleep.

Yesterday Quin left at noon to fly to Hawaii for the week for work. Or rather, 'work'. After church I put her down for a nap, only to have her climb out of the bed a few minutes later. I've been trying the Supernanny method of just putting her back in the bed without a word and finally after a very long time, she stayed up there for about an hour. Whether she slept or not, I'm not sure but she did stay in her bed. Of course, she behaved again like a wild hyena yesterday evening while we were at the neighbor's house because she'd had almost no nap. I knew she was tired and put her to bed at about 8:00 p.m. (after she was almost falling asleep on the couch while we read books) and continued putting her back in the bed for a good hour and a half past that point.

Today hasn't been any better. I even waited until a little after Maren's usual naptime, hoping that combined with her late bedtime last night (and early 6:30 a.m. wake-up this morning) she'd be good and ready for a nap. Wrong again! I put her back in her bed at least a dozen times before I just gave up. I could actually hear her out of her bed upstairs but since she didn't come downstairs I just ignored her, which of course led to a mess for me to clean up when I finally did go upstairs. DH doesn't come home until Friday and the thought of going through this fight at every naptime and bedtime until then makes me want to poke my eyes out. Oh, and let me remind you that my DH is in Hawaii, all-expenses paid, while I'm stuck at home cleaning up the disasters wrought by a kid who won't sleep. If you think I sound bitter and cranky right now, you're right.

And because I hate to end my post on such a down note, I did visit 2 garage sales this weekend. They didn't look like anything interesting from the street but at one I bought 4 old blue glass Ball jars (the kind with the wire bail) and 2 huge picture frames for a dollar apiece. At the other I went though the owner's mother's costume jewelry and came up with 3 great pairs of vintage earrings and 3 vintage pearl necklaces, all for $5. Lesson 1: garage sales in the cookie-cutter suburbs can still have neat things, and 2: it's always worth a closer look, even though at a distance all it may look like is old VHS tapes and baby toys.

Hope you're having a better Monday than I am!

Weekend plans

Back from the Beach

We're easing back into non-beach life--wouldn't want to go too fast and strain anything, now would we? ;) We had a wonderful time! The only day that ended up less-than-ideal was Sunday morning (the last day we were there) and even that wasn't too bad, it was just less-than-ideal. For the most part the weather was great, the food was great, Maren behaved reasonably well, and we got to spend time doing whatever we wanted to do! I've got more stories to tell, but for now I'll just leave you with this photo of Maren that I love.