Happy Presidents' Day

Happy Presidents Day! In honor of the holiday I wanted to show you some close-ups of the adorable little candy container that Amy Bauer included in my Valentine's Day box.

It's tiny--the whole thing is only about 2.5" tall and I believe it's made out of a toilet paper tube. In case you can't tell from the photo, it's meant to be a little tiny log decorated with faux cherries and a wee axe, all to commemorate the famous story about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. Unfortunately, the axe got a bit mangled in the hands of a curious 2-year-old (seriously, is every toddler as utterly destructive as mine or did I just get lucky?) but you get the idea.

Here's a view of one end of the little container. What's so darn cute about the box is that it looks like a real piece of wood! The ends have tree rings and the middle part looks like bark. Amy even cut the ends of the bark paper with deckled-edge scissors--nice attention to detail.

And the best part? The treats inside! Amy filled mine with chocolate-covered cherries. The box is just big enough for two little chocolates. I absolutely adore it and want to make a whole forest of my own next year. Thanks again, Amy!

Valentine's Day wrap-up

I had such a great Valentine's Day! Maren and I started out the day by making "Balentimes" for Daddy:
We even used glitter glue, at Maren's insistence. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, eh?

Quin brought home this beauty for all of us to enjoy:

It is from Edible Arrangments and it was delish! The chocolate-dipped pineapple in particular was especially yummy. They use dark chocolate to dip the fruit and the contrast between that and the sweetness of the fruit is wonderful. It was a fun alternative to flowers, and something we've all been able to really enjoy.

I attempted to make strawberry blossoms:


They didn't turn out as pretty as I had hoped but they sure do taste good! Between these and the fruit arrangement it's pretty safe to say that we've all met the suggested daily fruit intake for the past two days.

For dinner I attempted Middle Eastern food. Quin traveled to Jordan in December and raved about the food there. I chose a few recipes off the internet and gave them a whirl but I was at a disadvantage since I didn't really know what the food was supposed to taste like! I thought it was okay, but I know I can do better. Time to head to the library and the local middle eastern restaurant (complete with bellydancers!) for a fact-finding mission. Dessert got postponed until tonight, as I read the recipe rather hastily and forgot the vanilla ice cream, a key ingredient. It was no big loss as our bellies were full of chocolate-covered strawberries anyway. If the dessert is good tonight I'll post the recipe tomorrow.

For my RED installment today, I have a photo of some vintage crocheted potholders that I thrifted very recently.

Actually, the basket with the rose is an old find but I thought the photo needed three instead of two. I picked up the two round potholders last week and I love them! I see crocheted potholders all the time in thrifts but I'm very particular about the ones I will buy. Anything red gets tossed into the shopping cart, post haste. The small red one has a tiny circle of the palest spring green in the middle and I really love how it looks with the red; such a great contrast. The larger circle is very nicely done and in perfect condition. I was tickled to add these RED cuties to my kitchen!

It was so nice to have Quin home today. I was able to go to JoAnn's and Target all by myself, which qualifies as a huge thrill for me these days. I'm excited that we get a free day tomorrow too, and I think we'll spend the day getting some of our piles of items ready for listing on eBay. I've also got a few crafting projects that were shoved aside in order to get all my swaps done that I'd like to finish up and get off my desk. I'm sure I'll find plenty of ways to keep busy!

Happy Valentine's Day!

For the last Valentine, I want to show you the one card that might just be my favorite for now.


I love, love, LOVE this sweet girl with her rosy cheeks, bow-shaped mouth, wayward black curls and jaunty red beret. This card is sweet beyond words; I love everything about it! The flowers around the edge, the lace, the bright colors. It's just perfect. And imagine my surprise when I was surfing around Blogland and found someone who bears a striking resemblance to my Valentine girl! This sweet card is the centerpiece of the clothespin garland hanging on my mirror. I love it so much that I thought it deserved the place of honor.

For my RED item today I had to venture into the depths of my closet. I'm not a terribly sentimental person and I don' t tend to keep objects around for sentimental reasons, but this is one thing I just can't let go.

You already know that red is my favorite color, but you combine red with sequins and my inner 6-year-old takes over and I'm powerless to resist. I made these shoes when I was a senior in high school when I dressed up as Dorothy for Halloween. I painted a pair of Keds with red acrylic paint and then used tacky glue and miles of sequined trim and glued it around and around in a circle. I wore the shoes for Halloween but then decided that I loved them so much that I kept wearing them! I'm sure there were kids at school that thought I was a total weirdo but I didn't care. In fact I found out later that year that a boy I had a HUGE crush on liked my style, my red shoes in particular.

The shoes don't fit anymore, and neither does the Dorothy dress--my feet grew a half size bigger when I was pregnant with Maren, and to say that I'm not the same size as I was in high school would be a gross understatement indeed. However, the shoes will stay in the back of my closet, because they're red and sequined and that alone wins them a place in my heart. But even more so because they're a reminder to me to do my own thing and not worry what other people think. There's always someone out there who appreciates me for ME, and they're the ones who really matter.

Tomorrow DH has the day off because of the holiday on Monday, and this is the first weekend in a long time that I don't have a 'deadline' of some sort. I hardly know what to do with myself! Tomorrow I'll have pictures of our Valentine's Day festivities and I think I'll keep up with the RED week celebration, even though the holiday is over. I'm always happy for an excuse to celebrate my favorite color!

Hanging Heart swap, Red Appliance #2 and Vintage Valentine show & tell #7

Today's Valentines are the same style as the ice skaters I showed a few days ago. I love the style of illustration!
I adore the little boy in the sailor suit, although the verse is not exactly what I'd call romantic.

I received my Sweet Goodness Hanging Heart swap package from my partner, Kim, and I couldn't be happier with what she made for me! Kim made me this darling heart wreath by sewing all the individual hearts and attaching them to a grapevine wreath form with a great big bow at the top.
I love it! I love all the different fabrics she chose. The hearts all have cute pinked edges and button embellishments. I was just thinking the other day that I wished I had a Valentine wreath and -poof!- one showed up! Kim also included some of my favorite chocolates and a sweet little treat for Miss Maren. Thanks again, Kim!

And now for my continued celebration of RED week, I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our family, Ruby:


O Ruby, how I love thee. If I knew how to use Photoshop, I'd have fixed this picture so that a heavenly aura would be encircling my beautiful new KitchenAid, because that's pretty much what I see when I look over in her corner of the kitchen. Wait, wait...what's that I hear? Could that be the heavenly courses of angels singing in praise of my gorgeous mixer? {Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh}

Seriously, I've wanted this mixer for about three years now and finally this past Christmas my wish came true. I've already used it for several batches of cookies and it mixed like a dream. I think it's possible that the cookies actually tasted better because they were made in my snazzy red mixer. If my blender is like the fingernail polish of my kitchen, Ruby is definitely the unapologetically bright red lipstick! Is it wrong to be head-over-heels in love with a kitchen appliance?

Back tomorrow with one last Valentine and more Happy Mail. Don't forget to wear red!

Happy RED week! and Vintage Valentine show & tell #6

Today's Valentine is, well, you guessed it--one of my favorites! LOL It's actually much neater in person, as the scanner didn't pick up the embossing or the bright, glossy color. Somehow I got lucky and I actually have two of this same card!

I thought this week it might be fun to showcase some of my favorite RED things from around my house. Red is my favorite color and so my house has lots of red decor. My kitchen is done in bright red, yellow, aqua and cornflower blue--all colors taken from the vintage printed tablecloths from the 1940s and 50s that I love so much. We recently had the need to purchase a new blender so of course I jumped at the chance to buy something RED.

Oh, isn't she beautiful? She's a classic Osterizer Beehive blender and the base is the most beautiful metallic red! The color combined with the retro styling meant it was pretty much love at first sight for me. And let me tell you--she makes a MEAN smoothie! The motor is very powerful and also very loud; it sounds like you're firing up a 737 when you first hit the switch. There will be no middle-of-the-night milkshake making with this baby, I assure you. The red metallic color reminds me of my favorite OPI nail polish. Do you think it would be too crazy if next time I go for a pedicure, I get my toes done to match my blender? :)

Tomorrow: another Valentine and another red appliance, plus my last Valentine swap package. Tune in for lots of red and lots of hearts!

Vintage Valentine show & tell #5

Today's Valentine is another of my favorites. Okay, I know I keep saying that but I have lots of favorites. :)

I love this sweet, smitten ice skating couple. Do you not love their bright clothes? I love the girl's rosy cheeks and the way her black curls and yellow scarf are blowing in the wind. It's just charming! I have a few more cards that are done in this style that I love so I'll be sharing those in days to come. This Valentine is die-cut around the top--you punch it out and then the outside part folds down to become an easel. Clever!

When I put away my Christmas decorations, I left up the little clothesline & clothespins from this post. I had an inkling I might want to use them in my Valentine's Day decorations. I switched out the green clothespins for red and pink and hung some of my favorite heart-shaped Valentines on the string.
I love the way it looks! I love it so much that I think I might just be doing a variation on this theme for all my holiday decorating in the future. I will probably change out the red & white twine for something more appropriate for Easter, but I like the concept. That wall is very bare except for this mirror which is pretty simple and square itself. I like that the garland adds a little spice. Some more of my favorite Valentines are hanging on the garland so I'll give you a close-up view of those in a few days.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Heart swap #2 and Vintage Valentine show & tell #4

Today's Valentine is one of my very favorites from my collection. My uncle gave me a big frame he'd found somewhere that was full of vintage Valentines that had been glued to the paper backing. I love this Valentine because of the bright colors and the sweet graphics. Doesn't it remind you of Mary Engelbreit? You can tell where she gets her inspiration!
Here's the back. Unfortunately I wasn't able to remove it from the paper it was glued to without doing some damage to the corners.


Oh, how I love that little red and yellow cottage with the smoke curling out of the chimney and the little boy wearing shoes that look like Mary Janes. You know, Valentines aren't nearly as cute these days! Heck, even the inside is charming:
I think you can see why this one is one of my favorites. :)

The mailman has been good to me lately! I participated in ArtsyMama's "For the Love of Supplies" swap and was partnered with the fabulous and charming Dede Warren, who I had the pleasure to meet at Silver Bella last year. I received my swap package from Dede the other day and it is fabulous!Dede went with a very romantic, shabby theme for the box that she decorated. I love the flowered wallpaper, the darling vintage Valentine image, and the big poofy blue flower she used!
The insides were wonderful too:


Dede filled the box with all kinds of wonderful goodies like vintage buttons, ribbons, pompom trim, these amazing feathery wings, gorgeous vintage wallpaper, great chipboard shapes, and much more! What a treat it was to pull each thing out of the box. I can hardly stand to put it all away--it looks so pretty in a pile of goodness on my desk! :) Dede also included a lovely handmade card and this sweet little flowered teacup.


What fun these swaps have been! And now it's back to work for me. I have to speak in church this Sunday as well as prepare a Sunday School lesson for the same day, so I have to get a move on! I've grounded myself from all fun crafty activities until my talk & lesson are done, and I have Valentines to make so I'd best get MOVING!

Heart swap #1 and Vintage Valentine show & tell #3

Today's Valentines are both from the same line, and from the names on the back I think I must have gotten them from the same source. They both feature a gap-toothed boy--one blond, one red-head. I love their outfits: the bellhop uniform with the jaunty cap and the raccoon tail hat and knickers on the other! They both look a little impudent, if you ask me.

I also want to tell you about an amazing swap package I received. I participated in Maria's Sweet Heart Box Swap and my partner was Amy, who unfortunately doesn't have a blog (but she does have some awesome photos of her work up on Flickr!) Amy sent me the most beautiful box decorated in rich pink and brown velvet and glitter. It's so pretty! Rebecca, I know you'll be jealous. ;)
The inside of the box was amazing too!


Amy stuffed the box with all kinds of wonderful treats:

Vintage Valentines for my collection, heart tins filled with gold filigree charms and buttons, cupcake toppers, paper flowers, vintage crepe paper nut cups (how did she know I was just looking at these on eBay last week?)

And a few more of my faves:
Personalized stationery, Almond Roca (yum!), chandelier crystals, little grapevine hearts, ribbons, wee feathered birdies, and more. One item absolutely tickled my fancy: in the bottom center, you can see a little container that looks like a log with a little axe and cherries attached. Inside are cherry chocolates--it's for President's Day! Isn't that the cleverest thing? Now I have a mind to save all my TP tubes and make a whole forest of beribboned stumps. LOL

Tomorrow, yet another lovely swap box and more Valentines!

Vintage Valentine show & tell #2

I'm back with more Valentines from my collection. Some of my favorite cards are those that have moving parts, often attached by a brad. Here are three examples:

This is one of the first vintage Valentines I ever bought, and she's stayed one of my favorites even though my collection has grown. When you move the bottom loop of her blue hair bow she gives you a saucy wink! I just love her beauty mark and the way her hair is colored. The cut at the bottom is a little piece that folds back like an easel so that the card will stand up by itself, a clever feature often found on old Valentines. Note that someone wrote the date on the girl's arm--it looks a little like she has a tattoo!

I can't recall if I got these two cards from the same source, but they are definitely part of the same line. Both of them have moving eyes: for the Indian princess, you move her feather and for the Girl Scout, you move the brim of her hat. Love the Girl Scout's kicky uniform and knee socks.

I'll be back tomorrow with more Valentines and a fabulous swap package that I received!

Vintage Valentine show & tell #1

Well, I did okay on my January Blogging Challenge--up until last week, that is, when I totally pooped out! Oh well, I blogged quite a bit in January and I'm still happy with my progress. It was better than December, that's for sure!

I am just about done with my Valentine's (or Clementine's, as Maren says) decorating and up until the big V-day, I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite vintage Valentines from my collection.
I love vintage 1950s and 60s space-themed stuff! I have no idea why it appeals to me so, but I've always said that if we have a son, I'm doing his bedroom in a vintage space/robot theme. I found this Valentine last summer at an estate sale in a pile of papers. I could see there were Valentines in there and that was enough for me--I grabbed the whole pile! I was thrilled to find this one.

Hope you're having a warm and wonderful weekend, wherever you are. We spent today watching funeral services for this amazing man. Like my little brother said, it's not every day that the world loses the best person in it.

The Aftermath & A Swap

Thank you all for your comments about my video. :) Truly, I laughed and laughed! For those of you who mentioned how calm I sounded, I did my freaking out/swearing before I picked up the video camera. The whole thing went down like this: I discovered Maren, took one glance at her "finger painting" project, grabbed her wrists with my Mommy-death-grip and rushed her to the bathroom to attempt to wash her hands before she could touch anything else. I actually was able to laugh about it when I was scrubbing her hands and they weren't getting any less purple! Once I had scrubbed Maren as best I could, I grabbed the camera! After I captured my blog-worthy footage, I grabbed the rubber gloves and paper towels and went to work. With the exception of the fabric on my chair and Maren's pajamas, the dye came off of every other surface due to the liberal use of a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. I've said it before and I'll say it again--I'd like to find the person who invented those little white miracles and give him a big, sloppy kiss!

My calm in the face of disaster may also have been because this is not the first time she has done this. That's right, folks--this is actually the second food coloring incident this month. The first was far less catastrophic: although another of my chairs got ruined, she didn't get any on her brand-new Gymboree cupcake clothing and the mess was minor. I don't know what possessed Maren to get my food coloring out in the first place, other than her internal radar for finding the things that will cause the biggest mess in the least amount of time. I kept it in the back of a kitchen cabinet, and have no idea how she spotted it. After incident #1, I moved it to the very top shelf of my cabinets. That means on Monday when she got it out, she had to climb from the chair and stand on the countertop in order to reach that top shelf, and even then it must have been a stretch. That alone is enough to give any parent heart palpitations--she is fearless, I tell you! And really, the food-coloring mess pales in comparison to the Great Rit Dye incident of '07, which ruined another chair (that's three, if you're counting), several towels, and left a big green spot on the office carpet.

In other (less destructive) news, my swap partner Amy from the Sweet Heart Box Swap received her package so now I can share it with you. The idea for this swap was to decorate a heart-shaped candy box and fill it with supplies and other goodies. I was lucky and found this really great fabric-covered box at at thrift store, so all I had to do was cover the bottom with pretty paper to disguise the nutritional information and then gussy up the top. I made a ribbon flower with a vintage earring in the middle and used a vintage black rhinestone shoe clip to frame a cute fabric tag phrase. Not sure why I went with the black but I just liked how it looked with the pale pink and red. Here's what the inside looked like:

With the exception of I think three or maybe four of those little cups, everything else was stuff that I had in my stash! I'm currently working on another heart box for a different swap and I have enough to fill that one too. That, my friends, means I have a LOT of stuff squirreled away in my craft room. Yikes! This was such a fun swap and I do hope Amy liked her swap package.

It's back to the craft mines for me--I have to finish heart box #2 to be mailed out by Friday (eek!) and come up with a brilliant idea for the Sweet Goodness Hanging Heart Swap, to be mailed out by Monday (double eek!). Back to the glue & paper I go!

Maren, the artist

Crafting in Blogland

Drats! I missed blogging again yesterday. Oh well, I didn't have anything to say anyway! LOL


Last night I made these cute buckets to take to the ladies I Visit Teach. I bought the buckets on clearance at Michael's after Valentine's Day last year. Would you believe I was able to do the handles of three buckets almost entirely with ribbon scraps from my stash? When I say scraps, they were all pieces less than 18". (If they're longer, they get stored in a different system, but the short scraps go into a vintage aluminum sugar canister for when I just need a little bit of ribbon.) I used pink rub-on letters from my stash for the 'love' and filled the buckets with pink frosted and be-sprinkled sugar cookies. Pretty cute, no? Now I just need to go get the rest of the cookies decorated and taken to the neighbors so I won't be tempted to eat them all myself. Frosted sugar cookies are deadly to my willpower!

There have been such cute, creative crafts popping up in blogland in just the past few days. The bright colors of my friend Shonda's button flowers sure do brighten up these January days, don't they? I'm crazy over this tulle hanger and wreath made by Andrea Singarella; the tulle is so romantic and pretty! I have a few vintage nighties that could use a pretty little hanger. And these darling vintage-inspired bunny carts made by Holly from Hollydoodle Designs make me want to ditch all the red hearts and skip straight to Easter! I love the creative inspiration I get from blogs; no magazine could ever match it! Thank you all for posting your creative endeavors for the world (and me) to see!

And now, maybe just one more cookie before I give them all away...Yum! :)

Fun find

Last night I was at Michael's for a few minutes while DH was in REI looking at guy stuff and I came across these fun little guys in the $1 section. They come in black (two designs), hot pink, bright blue, chartreuse, and orange and they're about 4.5" tall. They are made out of that thick felt stuff. Aren't they great? I love the really graphic silhouette effect, plus I am a big ol' sucker for anything with a chandelier on it so of course I had to buy a few. They can probably be blinged up with some adhesive rhinestones or they can be left as is. I can see a lot of possibilities! So go...run and buy some right now, and then tell me what you make with them!

Just testing

Friday Fiver

1. What do you need? Curtains for the sliding glass door in my kitchen. I have some in the perfect color ordered from JC Penney and I just found out they're backordered until the end of February. :( Now I'm not sure if I should wait the month+ and risk them being backordered even further or cancel and do the work of finding something else.

2. What won't you share? I have a hard time sharing certain vintage treasures I've found while junking. I'm always afraid that I won't ever find the item again so I tend to be a little selfish.

3. What do you hurry through? Grocery shopping! I shop with a wild 2.5 year old, in a military commissary that is not quite full-sized and is full of retirees who take their sweet time and park their carts in the middle of the already narrow aisles. The prices are much, much cheaper than the other local stores so I still shop there but I hate every minute of it and want it to be over as fast as possible!

4. Who is worth waiting for? Don't have a good answer for this one--I'm an impatient person by nature and I don't really have anyone in my life that requires me to wait for them.

5. Friday fill-in: I can't bear to ______. I can't bear to switch lotion scents unless I've completely used up my current bottle! There's no real reason that I shouldn't be able to switch whenever I want but my OCD steps in and it would drive me nuts to have two half-full bottles in the cupboard!

Happy Mail

Today I got a lovely little package in the mail from Miss Natalea. I met Natalea at Silver Bella and we hit it off--she's darling and fun and so creative! Natalea hosted a giveaway on her blog last week and I won! Look how prettily she wrapped everything--I hated to tear it all apart. (Because I am a pack-rat, I kept the paper, of course.) And look what was inside:

Isn't this fun? It's the cutest little book about charms. I am crazy for charms, so this is right up my alley! She even included a darling little silver key charm tied to the package. What a fun treat to brighten up a cold, gray Thursday. Thanks again, Natalea!

More Silver Bella projects

With the rush of hosting family for Thanksgiving giving way to my December funk and the craziness of preparing for Christmas, my unfinished Silver Bella projects got summarily shoved to the side of my desk and and forgotten about. Now that I'm in the 'digging out' phase and enamored of the idea of having more than two square feet of workspace on my desk, I figured it was time to get them done. Hey, it's only been two months since I got back from Silver Bella, so I'm already ahead of my usual schedule--I still have unfinished projects from when I went to CKU back in 2004!

The two projects I finished were from my classes with Jenny & Aaron of Everyday is a Holiday. The first class was "Dreaming of a White Christmas" and we made this cute plaque with decoupaged images of candy-colored houses, hand-drawn by Jenny & Aaron. I think my favorite part is the icicles we made by cutting photocopied sheet music into random drippy shapes, then covering them with clear glass glitter. You can't tell by the photo but this piece is 10"x16".



The next class was called "Let Them Eat Cake" and features a plaque with this great cake image. We made a background using hand-painted wallpaper sheets and then decoupaged on the cake. We antiqued the whole thing using a paint wash and then added clear glass glitter to accent the cake. We had the option of adding fabric flowers and a feather for the bird's tail but I decided to forgo those in favor of this cute crepe paper pinwheel from a different class. I think I may use this to decorate for Maren's birthday each year. Maybe I can figure out a way to attach a number somewhere. This piece is 11"x15".


I loved the suggestions some of you had for the Coke bottle carrier I posted yesterday! If you have any more ideas, please share them

Sweeney Todd & Thrift Tuesday

First a Sweeney Todd review: Well, it was pretty gruesome. I'm familiar with the stage version, and although I knew the subject matter is dark as dark can be, it is far less....squirty...than this movie version is. It was like Tim Burton took the "Tim Burton" dial and turned it up to 11. The bleeding was really quite over the top, as was the scene with Mrs. Lovett's demise. The movie itself was visually striking, even though all of the colors were very grayed out. I loved the pop of color in the "By the Sea" number, and covet Mrs. Lovett's kooky red striped dress & stockings.

I was surprised at how well Johnny Depp sang, especially considering that he had no voice training at all for the movie. Helena Bonham Carter was adequate, but her voice was thin and it was obviously a big stretch for her. The music is quite difficult anyway, but a more accomplished singer might have sounded stronger. I was disappointed that a portion of my favorite song, "A Little Priest" was cut--that's the funniest part of the whole show and I think the lyrics are brilliant, so I was disappointed at so much of the humor cut out. I also think they could have played it a lot more manic--on the stage, it's played up for the laughs, and Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett are terribly amused with themselves. I thought in the movie version was a lot drier and just really missed out on how sickly funny the whole song is. Also, much of the really great harmony was cut, although I suspect that's because it was just too difficult for the actors to sing.

Overall, my feelings are mixed. It was really quite gory--from the spurting blood to the way the bodies are unceremoniously dumped from quite a height straight onto their heads, to Mrs. Lovett's fiery end. If you're squeamish, this is not the movie for you. It is dark and sinister and not the least bit uplifting. I quite like the music, and I enjoyed the actors' performances. I don't know that I'd want to see the movie again, although I am hoping we can get tickets when the most recent Broadway version of Sweeney comes to Denver this summer.

In other (less bloody) news, I went thrifting yesterday! I've been on the hunt for Valentine candy boxes to use for my swaps so I've hit all the local stores in the past few days. I was lucky and found one box, which I'm working on to send to Amy, and I've got my fingers crossed that I'll find another before the next swap is due out. I found a few other fun things as well: The dishes are the salad bowls that match my Christmas dishes. I don't have any, which I realized earlier in December when I offered to host a table at a church Christmas dinner and had to use another set of non-matching salad plates. I only found six dishes (I have service for eight) but I think six is better than none, and they were only 50¢ each. The vintage cards are unused and were only 80¢ for the stack. Not like I need any more vintage cards, but when I see old cards I am powerless to resist! I love the one on top with the bear and the red & aqua color scheme. Also shown are two pair of sparkly vintage earrings. They were more than I usually like to pay but they're really pretty and I'll put them to good use.

When I saw this fun old Coke bottle carrier, I grabbed it as fast as I could before anyone else had a chance to see it! It isn't terribly old--there's a date of 1976 on the inside--it is a fun piece, great bright red, and it was only $1.99. Not sure what I'll do with it yet but I couldn't leave it behind for that cheap. I also found these books for Maren (with the CDs still sealed), a darling pair of cherry-print linen Ann Taylor LOFT pants for Maren (did you know they had kids' clothes? I didn't), and a gorgeous vintage dress for me that is so fabulous that it deserves a post of its own.

If you signed up for the Sweet Goodness Hanging Hearts swap, you should have your partners by now! Be sure to email your partner and introduce yourself! I'll be back tomorrow with some Silver Bella projects that I finally finished.

Gratuitous Cute Kid Photo!