What I Wore: Pencil Skirt

The last time I posed for a picture of me alone was for my wedding portrait eleven years ago!  I decided to venture into posting some of my favorite outfits with you.  I love reading outfit posts and "what's in my bag" posts just as much as home-tour posts, and I love home tour posts a lot! 

 Jeremy kindly took these pictures for me early on a Sunday morning, out on our roof top.  While we were out there, the kids were inside watching us through the windows waving at us and grinning at us with huge smiles on their little faces.  That was all the encouragement I needed and it made me feel like I should do this more often.

Outfit Details: Top/Target, Skirt/Vintage-Goodwill, Tights/Target, Shoes/Old Navy, Necklace/Goodwill, Bracelet/Booth at Festival of the Nations, Ring/Vintage-Inherited

I found the skirt at the same Goodwill where I found my sofa.  There was no tag sewn inside, so I think it may be homemade. It was in excellent condition and fit me a perfectly-no alterations were needed, making me one happy woman.  

 There's a collection of women I look to for inspiration on what to wear or how to mix and match what is already in my wardrobe.  A few of those gals are personal friends of mine and they have blogs!  

Thrift Finds!

Last Thursday, Jeremy told me I could have the whole day to myself! He watched the kids and I got to run around the city. I stopped at few thrift stores and found some treasures. I always look in the children's book section, I'm pretty picky about what books I bring home and have learned my lesson to make sure there are no missing pages.  I learned that lesson the hard way.  Ahem.

I plan on using the floral curtain for a spring project and that pyrex loaf pan had my dreaming of baking a some of my mom's banana bread.  How have we gone this long without owning a copy of Where the Wild Things Are?  Our family loves the classic Winnie the Pooh stories-so much humor for us old folks to enjoy and Lincoln loves the little size of these books.

Our spring break is over and Jeremy's break is just beginning. We never made it to the botanical gardens, but we did end our week off from school with a picnic at Tower Grove Park, complete with friends, fried chicken and coleslaw. I'm wishing there were leftovers for today!

Our Room

I've been snapping photos around our place before it all gets packed away into boxes.

Here is a peak into our room:

Thanks for peaking!  

I went thrifting

Jeremy watched the kids yesterday and encouraged me to go run some errands, visit an antique mall and stop by a thrift store or two.

First, I picked up some pigskin from Tandy's so I can make one of Rachel's awesome projects for my online sewing class.  Then, I went to an antique mall and picked up a few birthday/christmas presents (not sure which yet) for Lincoln and a bowl for me.

 

Then, I stopped by a Goodwill that I have never been to and found a vintage, tufted and curved sofa. I freaked out inside a little bit and started taking photos of it with my ipod to show Jeremy. I fell in love with the bones of the sofa and decided I could live with the vintage floral pattern until one day I could have it recovered and hoped it might jump start my creativity and help me out of the slump I have been feeling for the past several months.

And here's a fun story...

While I was checking out the sofa a nice older gentleman, also a customer, asked me if I like vintage furniture and mid-century pieces. I told him I did but I had never purchased a vintage couch before and felt a little nervous about it. He was so kind and looked over the sofa with me, gave me tips for vacuuming and cleaning it when I got home and measured if for me while I was talking to Jeremy about it on the phone!  I was so grateful for his help and found out the he lives in the nearby town of Washington and buys and sells mid-century pieces on craiglist. Well, Washington sounded familiar to me and I began to wonder if this might be the man Jeremy purchased some things from last summer.  I mentioned that Jeremy drove to Washington last summer to look at some mid-century pieces, liked them and decided to buy them, then he drove to the bank to get some cash to purchase the furniture and the ATM ate his card! So he had to call the man back, tell him the machine ate his card and couldn't buy it.  Jeremy was afraid that really just sounded like a silly excuse to not come back and buy the furniture. Then a few weeks later, Jeremy and the man reconnected near the seminary with cash in hand to buy two chairs and two stools from him.  

The gentleman at the Goodwill was the same man! He even told me he was driving near the seminary last week and wondered if Jeremy was still there!  

This is what we purchased from him last summer. We intended to purchase these items and then resell them later, but I liked them so much I couldn't part with them, so we sold some of our other stuff instead.

Now back to the sofa. I have been looking for a vintage sofa to replace our Ikea Ektorp. It is still in great condition, but the shape and color don't fit the style of our home.   But now that the vintage sofa is in our apartment I keep questioning if it's a good change. I feel nervous about it being used (silly right? because I know I can clean it) and I have an emotional attachment with the red couch since we have had it for so long. I even got a lump in my throat when I saw Jeremy drive home with the vintage sofa to replace the red one.

Here is a before:

And here is the new one, with old red peaking out behind.  It's more green in person AND I feel out of my comfort zone sharing this picture of the vintage sofa while I'm questioning the change.  Your thoughts on the vintage sofa are welcome we have a week to return it!

Change is good, risks are good and challenging your creativity is good, but it's not always easy!

someone had a birthday last month

A couple of years ago, Emma and I were reading through her Highlights High Five magazine a few weeks before her birthday. We read a recipe for Banana Split breakfast and Emma requested it for breakfast on her upcoming birthday. It was a hit that year and has been ever since.  Keeping with tradition we started out her day with a festive table and her very special banana split breakfast.

It was a school day so she went off to school and patiently waited all day for a trip to The Magic House after school.  The kids LOVE this place!

After The Magic House we headed home for our Friday night tradition: family movie night, homemade pizza and this time birthday cake.

A few weeks later we had a birthday party with her friends from school. Emma's had a few requests for her party: eating cupcakes in a jar, weaving placemats and hunting for real teacups that her friends could quote "take home and keep forever...or until they break." :)

Below the girls are peaking out the window and waiting for their friends to arrive!

The streamers were made by taping a bunch of strips of receipt paper to a yard stick that Jeremy hung above the table. The blue cake plate was found at Homegoods a while back.  I found some vintage plates and candle holders at the Goodwill outlet and made the small cake plates that night before the party.

First we weaved place mats!

Then we went on a teacup hunt.  I found more than enough vintage teacups at the Goodwill Outlet and payed under $3 for all of them!  I wrapped them up in a brown paper bag and secured it with a cute paper straw.

After the teacup hunt, we had our tea party! Our "tea" was apple juice b/c we're bigger fans of the tea party idea and not so much the actual flavor of tea. The girls used their newly woven place mats and drank out of their very own teacups.

The party came together pretty easily and under a small budget. I sent Evites rather than a paper invitations and most of the decorations and the table linens were items we already had.  We only purchase a few things for the party which included teacups for the hunt (those were their favors too) paper to weave place mats, jars for the cupcakes (those will be put to use again) and we couldn't resist picking up some cute paper straws to make drinking water a bit more festive.

have a seat

I went to a few antique stores with my neighbor and sewing  partner on Sunday afternoon. I was in search of some vintage chairs and so happy to find this cute little vintage child's folding chair. It is a perfect replacement for the kids not quite so stylish bean bag chair that fell victim to the very unpleasant symptoms of the stomach flu that invaded our family during the week of Jeremy's finals, this past December.  The fabric ball sitting next the chair was Lincoln's birthday present from us for his first birthday. I made it using the pattern and instructions from Anna Maria Horner's book, Seams To Me.  It turns out it is the perfect ball to throw around in an upstairs apartment without disturbing our neighbors below. 

My other little purchase from the day was a cute little science beaker-I am a sucker for science lab equipment.

my favorite kind of thrifting

One of my favorite types of thrifting is "free thrifting" and one of the awesome things about the seminary is the Free Store, that's right, everything in the store is free.   I went to the store for my first time last summer.  It was amazing because someone had donated a bunch unopened baby food and I had just fed Lincoln our last jar and was short on time for going to the grocery store, so I thrifted some baby food for free in the nick of time! On that same day a friend got a guitar and I also got the polaroid camera sitting on the shelf in the above photo. A few weeks ago I found this mirror and it reminded me of this one at anthro. The red is not the right red for our place so I plan on painting it black or dark dark brown when it warms up outside.

PS. this is just a few of the fun Free Store scores that we've had, I'll share more soon!

thrifted canvas DIY/ Project Restyle

I am super excited to participate in Rachel and Elsie's Project Restyle this year. My first project was super quick and easy.

I purchased a framed painting a couple of weeks ago at a local thrift store. I intended to keep the frame and toss the painting. Then I remembered one of my favorite house tours on design*sponge and chelsea's clever update to one of their paintings.

We are big Avett Brothers fans around here and play their albums enough that painting some of their song lyrics on the painting seemed like the perfect choice for this project.

First, I wrote out the words on the canvas with a white sharpie.  Make you double check your spelling and punctuation before you write on your painting. ;)

Then I painted over the sharpie with some white craft paint.  You will want to pick a paint color that will showcase the words you choose and that will compliment the colors in your canvas.

and here is the after!

I always stop by the frame and art sections when I am in thrift store. It is always exciting to find a fabulous frame or piece of artwork that won't take you over in the home decor category of your budget.

Thanks for stopping by!

on thrifting

Where are your favorite places to go thrifting? Lately, I have had some success at our local Salvation Army. I REALLY like to go by myself, which means if I want to go without three extra helpers in tow, I go there about once a month. Every once and a while, I feel brave (and patient) and bring the whole gang with me.

My most recent finds are this vintage camera and this pretty fabric.

So far the fabric has been recycled into some cute beanbags for a little friend of ours and I hope to make some pretty summer dresses for the girls with the rest.

Another local place that we LOVE is Laverty's. We just added some vintage light fixtures in our kitchen that come from there. Another fun find from Laverty's was this poster, the sans serif font and all that white space had us at first glance.

Any plans to go thrifting this weekend? Garage sale season is just around the corner. A good garage sale, a swing through Starbucks and lying on a picnic blanket in the afternoon sun sounds like a great way to spend a Saturday. Any takers?