my flower girl

We just returned from my sister-in-law's wonderful wedding on the east coast, and Mia was the flower girl. Oh a little girl in a white dress... pretty ethereal, oh so sweet, and incredibly easily dirtied! Within 5 minutes of being at the wedding site, Mia tripped and fell into the grass. Well what's a few grass stains, right? About two minutes later someone was holding her and had a leaky blue pen, so not only did her brand new dress have green grass stains on it, but now there were lovely bright blue stains all over the front of it, and all even before she walked down the aisle. At this point all we could do was laugh. What else can you expect from a toddler in all white! It took a little coaxing to get her down the aisle (aka taffy), but she did the sweetest job scattering rose petals. She looked so grown up in her flower girl dress (thanks J. Crew Cuts) and pigtail buns.


And the shoes, the shoes, I mean have you ever seen such totally adorable shoes? They came from the most amazing, unique, most stylish shoe company I've ever seen. Yes, it's my huge new crush. Jessica, the owner of Joyfolie, simply couldn't be more darling herself. You MUST check out everything on her site.

And if you're wondering, we just got Mia's dress back from the dry cleaners and miraculously, everything came out! :)

cricket

This summer we met Cricket, the baby giraffe born at the Denver Zoo. Is she not the sweetest thing ever? Owen just loved her, and decided to draw a picture of her, which I adored so much that I embroidered it onto a new pillowcase for his toddler-sized pillow.

It was a great personalized project and here's a brief description how I did it:

* Using the existing pillowcase as my template, I found a super soft hemp/organic fabric at my favorite local craft boutique

* Cut two pieces for each side of the pillowcase and chose chocolate brown (one of my very favorite colors) embroidery thread

* Drew the artwork onto one of the right sides of the fabric (I first tried to use carbon paper to trace the design onto the fabric but the material was a bit too stretchy and didn't work so well. Instead I free-handed his drawing using a water-soluble pen)

* Placed the drawing in an embroidery hoop and embroidered the design onto one side

* Hemmed the raw edges and sewed the two pieces together (right sides together) around three sides

* Stuffed the pillow form inside and voila!

I was so excited it turned out just the way I envisioned ~ cozy, simple and most of all, something Owen loves. Giraffes have now been declared one of our family's favorite animals!

p.s. Thank you so very much to ohdeedoh (one of my very favorite blogs) for posting this project. I'm truly honored!

the sketchbook project

LOVE this!!!

happy thoughts

I had such a fun meeting last week and wanted to share why. I am inching towards a pretty amazing project, and had a wonderful meeting with the adorable graphic designer I'm working with. Instead of getting down to 'business', I wanted to start out the meeting doing something a little out of the box that I had been thinking about. I began the meeting by asking her to share a happy thought or something that makes her happy and I did the same. I did feel a bit silly at first, but she was so happily taken a back by the request that it made me smile and realize that maybe it wasn't so silly after all. She completely embraced the idea and shared a wonderful story, which set the tone for such a warm, fun, and lovely session. She even asked if she could borrow this idea for her meetings, like a 'pay it forward'. I love the thought of simply spreading happiness. We are not asked enough about what really makes us happy, and it's such a fun thing to think and talk about. What if we could start a 'happy meeting' movement? What if the President did this at his meetings? Hmmmm... could we start to change the world?

kindergarten here we come!

I am the proud mama to a kindergartener now! Today was Owen's first day of school and it was a great one. I loved watching him sprint out of his classroom with a huge smile on his face (which I was so happy we caught on video even though my husband was a bit embarrassed by his paparazzi wife) and that will certainly become such a sweet memory for me of his first day of kindergarten. We are so excited about the kids' new school and I loved celebrating Owen today. I think the highlight of his day was the adorable cookie bouquet from his yaya and baba waiting for him when he got home. He just couldn't believe that a cookie had his name on it. Too too cute!

a collaboration

My mom and I just finished our first project together! I had seen a similar idea somewhere on the web and fell in love with it. And please forgive me... I just can't remember (nor find!) where this inspiration came from. (oh if by a needle in a haystack chance the person who provided this inspiration comes across this post, please do say hello so i can thank you properly and personally! But for now, thank you whoever you are for the wonderful idea!) My mom, our talented resident photographer, took the photos, I came up with the copy and then we worked together in Photoshop to place the words on their shirts. We were both so excited about how they turned out, and I love that fact that we could capture exactly who they are at this very moment not only through their expressions, but through the words too. I cherish everything this project represents, especially creating something together with my mom. I can't wait to have these fun pieces hanging on our walls!

a most peaceful little place

We just returned from several weeks in the mountains and wow, was it rejuvenating! Being surrounded by nature, the fresh mountain air, lots of hikes with the kiddos, making rock nests, using pine cones for tiny wildflower vases (Mia's idea which I thought was so clever and sweet), finding the very best sticks and simply being free. My mom and I even snuck out for a few early morning hikes before everyone was awake! She's such a whipper snapper and so full of energy. I love it and love the wonderful talks we have while on our walks. On our last day in the mountains, the two of us were hiking and just stumbled upon this most peaceful little sitting spot. Don't you just love the flowers peaking through the bench? I wished we had two warm cups of tea to just plop ourselves on that welcoming little spot. Here's to you finding some peaceful little places too!