What I'm Crushing on this Week- Urban Outfitters

Yes, Urban Outfitters. Who knew? And guess what. Their prices are great. It might make your case of covetitis much less acute.

Worth the Wait

I have been searching high and low for this insulated bag ever since Cammy bought hers and shared it with me at the lake. I finally found one and I hope I'll be feeling up to a picnic with my family this weekend so I can take it for a test drive.

I have to tell you that it was a bit of a budget buster, but here's something I have realized about myself lately, I love beautiful things. They bring me such happiness. I would rather have 1 beautiful thing than 10 things that are just okay. I've started to be more discriminating and selective and I have to tell you that I apply this philosophy to all parts of my life...clothing, housewares and even friendships. I would rather be surrounded by people and things I love than to spend my money and time on those that just don't make me happy.

I hope your weekend is filled with beautiful things.

When the Cat's Away...

In the studio I'll play.

Recently Sweet Hubby was out of town on business for a few days freeing up my schedule for play time. My favorite new studio tool is my Janome Sew Mini sewing machine that I use strictly for paper & craft sewing. Here's a little peek at what I've been doing. Sadly I've been sick this week and not even feeling up to playing. I'm hoping to be recovered enough by tomorrow to finish a new project that I want to share with you.

Hope you are having a creative day and not feeling bogged down with the sniffles!

The 7/70 Project

Or how to get your butt in gear and reclaim your house in 8 easy steps.

1) Go online and schedule Amvets to come pick up donations at your house in one weeks time.
2) Gather up everything that you've stuck in a corner for the last year that you intended to sell on Craigslist/ebay/garage sale/cosignment shop and just do it already.
3) Pinky swear to yourself that you will donate everything that didn't sell or get taken to the shop, NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT IS WORTH if it's still in your house on pick up day.
4) Get off your duff and start going through your stuff. You only have 7 days, you know.
5) Let go of the emotional attachments and realize how much more zen you will feel without all that crap sitting around.
6) Challenge yourself to gather at least 10 different things each day to donate. And no, 10 sheets of scrapbook paper doesn't mean you have met your quota. Like things count as 1 item here, buster.
7) Drag it all out the door to wait for the Donation Fairy to take it away.
8) Breathe a big sigh of relief and be proud that you accomplished something BIG this week.

It's Legal

Maddie's driving. DRIVING! All by herself. Going out into the world. Alone. Without her Momma beside her to keep her safe. And she has freedom. Freedom I'm not so sure I was ready for her to have. But there's no going back, is there? What a bizarre feeling it is to watch your child drive off in to the world. She took some of my heart with her. Also, some of my sanity.

Fresh Finds

Don't you hate when you go to someone's blog and they have a bunch of pictures posted of stuff they've bought and it makes you want nothing more than to go shopping? Yeah, well. Here you go. These are some of my finds from my antiquing day with Cammy while on vacation.

Love this crown crock. How have I never noticed these before? How can I be expected to resist anything with a crown?

I also get weak in the knees when I find honeycomb decorations and don't even get me started on shiny brite ornaments. These were a steal.

Cammy and I both suffer from the same affliction. That is, buying old hats so that we can decimate them for their flowers. Shameless.

I love this little quilting piece from a fair. It made me sad that someone gave it up. Don't worry Gladys Winter. I will take good care of it. Plus how could I resist that cute fair tag?

Oh look! Another crown! I love the little stapler and I'm hoping that the petite staples from the totally awesome McMaster and Storm will fit it. We also found some fun paper stuff including an old ledger book that we had to do unbelievable things to get. Let's just say that it involved Me, Cammy & a creepy old guy in the backroom of an antique store and leave it at that. Oh what a girl will do for old paper.

I also found these vintage flour sacks. Don't you just love the colors? I'm seeing pillows and embroidery samplers in their future.

I think antiquing with Cammy was the most shopping fun I've ever had. Did I mention that we were apparently antiquing in the middle of the town where Deliverance was filmed? Scary, but the prices were good, so it was totally worth it. It's nice to shop with someone that has the same taste as you, except that they always find something you wish you had found first. Lucky for us neither of us minds sharing.

Yippy Skippy

Look what's up and running...the new blog for the soon to be released Flea Market Style Magazine. I'm giddy with anticipation for the release of this new magazine. I so miss Matthew Mead's contributions to Country Home magazine and hope this will fill that void for me. Plus I just love Matthew. I'm not kidding. If you do a search for his name on my blog you'll be disgusted by how much it comes up. I'm pretty sure I mention him more than my Sweet Hubby. That's not wrong is it?

What I'm Crushing on this Week- Wheels

Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not covet.

I so desperately want a bike like this. I have a cruiser. And it already has an adorable bicycle basket that I got from Martha by Mail back in the day. And it's shapely and has good bones. Really it's only fault is that it fails to be some shade of blue. Preferably robin's egg blue. So really why am I coveting these bikes?

On top of that, I don't even live in the kind of area where I can ride my bicycle to town to shop. Oh that I lived in a little character filled village like Stars Hollow from my all time favorite show Gilmore Girls. I would ride around on my cruiser with my piggy tail braids and buy organic fruit and french bread and lovely cheeses and wonderful wines. I would carry them all home and assemble the most wonderful meals for my perfect family. My children would never disobey me or talk back to me and my husband would give me sweet kisses every time he walked through the door and then he would present me with sweet gifts just to show me he was thinking about me.
See why I need one of these bikes? See how perfect my life would be if I had one? See how my happiness hinges on it?

At the Movies- Julie and Julia

On Friday I had the pleasure of going to see Julie and Julia with a friend. Over the summer I read both of the books that inspired the movie and you know sometimes that makes the experience less enjoyable. That is not the case with this movie.

I especially enjoyed Meryl Streep as Julia Child. She was pure genius. And now I'm going to say something I thought I'd never say out loud. That Stanley Tucci is kinda sexy. There. I said it.

I must tell you that this movie should come with a warning. There were moments when my stomach growled so loudly, I could scarcely hear the dialogue.

The movie was beautiful to watch, particularly the scenes in France. I love a beautiful movie, don't you? If this one doesn't make you want to hop on AirFrance, I don't know what will. So go see it if you have time, but make sure you eat a good meal first.

Life is no Picnic

But mine gets close enough. I've been reflecting on how my life has changed all because one day I decided to start a blog. For instance, I never would gave gotten to enjoy this lovely picnic on a boat with Cammy and her family if I hadn't taken a risk that day.

These are the top 10 things that have happened to me because I made the leap.

10) Got asked to participate in the BHG challenge.
9) Had a picture published in Somerset Life magazine.
8) Was asked to blog for HomeGoods.
7) Got in touch with my artistic side.
6) Found out about Silver Bella, put myself outside of my comfort zone & as a reward, had my life permanently changed.
5) Realized that there are other people out there like me.
4) Found my voice.
3) Discovered so much inspiration for creative, everyday living.
2) Made blog friends that turned into real life friends like Cammy, Kelli and Shannan.
1) Found all of you.

If you are on the fence about starting your own blog, I hope you will do it today. And if you do, please stop by and leave me a comment so I can come visit you.

Back to School

School started back yesterday. There were a few tears involved. Yes, they were all mine. But then I started cleaning the house & when I managed to get more done in 2 1/2 hours than I had all summer, I somehow felt less sad. It seems I require routine.

For the last several years the pictures I take of Maddie on the first day are always blurry. She is always running late, impatient with the process and fairly disgusted that I feel the need to document the occasion. I wonder what she'll think when I follow her to college to take them. I only got 3 shots and this picture of her with her BFF, Austin was by far the best.

Emma was much less enthusiastic about her first day of school than Maddie was. First we found out that she had P.E on her first day. Well, there goes wearing her back to school dress. Not a good way to start. I thought we might have to drag her to the bus stop but as time went on she started picking up steam.

Finally she found herself excited to go. They both had wonderful first days and in the end so did I. I celebrated the day by going shopping and out to lunch with a friend. Oh and by mopping my kitchen floor, in what may or may not have been my first time doing so since school ended. Shh. Don't tell anyone.

Filled with Love

These last few days before school begins are being filled with some of the projects on Emma's Summer To Do List. One of the things on that list was to do some sewing on her new mini Janome sewing machine.

We decided the first project should be a drawstring bag to hold her beloved blankies. This girl loves her blankies. She has had them since the day she was born. They are hospital issue and while she started out with 4 of them, we are down to 3 with her favorite one really nothing more than a pile of threads and lint at this point. We thought this would be a nice way to preserve them for as long as possible. Sometimes I wonder if she will take them with her on her honeymoon.

Hard to say who's happier about this project. I'm happy to have a girl that loves doing the things that I enjoy. As for Emma? She's happy that she has this bag to drag all over the house without risk of damaging her lovies.

Dog Days of Summer

This is Millie. Millie is demonstrating how we spent our summer. No projects, not much house cleaning and much less cooking than we usually do.

However, there was lots of time spent playing with our special friends and cuddling.

We made sure to find time for relaxing and naps

and we had no problem finding time for fun and games.

Our summer is winding down and as the girls go off to school next Wednesday Millie and I will be left with quiet & the memories of our dog days of summer.

What I'm Crushing on this Week- Boden Style

Fall- it's my favorite season for weather and most definitely for clothes too. Today as I head out to do some back to school shopping for the girls, I'm thinking I also need a back to school outfit. I'm loving these from the new Boden line.

Shirt Dress in Vintage $88
Fun Tank top in Ivy Melange Stripe $58


Fun Tank top in Fun Kaleidoscope $58

Swishy Skirt in Washed Denim $78
This leads me to my next question. Can i borrow $282?

Forever Friends

We're home and back to reality after our vacation last week at Deep Creek Lake in Maryland with Cammy and her amazing family. I find it very difficult to put in to words just what this vacation meant to me, but you know me, I'm gonna try.

Let me start with a little background. In 2006 Cammy & I both started blogging. Neither of us knew how these actions would change the course of our lives. I found her blog almost immediately and was hooked. We became blog buddies and in 2007 talked about going to Silver Bella together the following year. I'm not sure either of us thought we'd really do it but, lo and behold in 2008 we put on our big girl panties, boarded separate planes and met for the first time. A beautiful friendship was born.

It's hard to live 580 miles from your new best friend so we started planning a vacation together with our families. Risky move, right? We've all heard disaster stories about friends vacationing together but this week was perfect. I think we were all surprised at just how well it went. Despite a 4 year age difference, our girls are so much alike, both loving art and the great outdoors above all else. The teenagers became fast friends, were completely comfortable together and totally goofy. However, I think what surprised me the most was the hubbies. They became fast friends, sharing the same kind of sense of humor, the kind that goes mostly unappreciated by other people, occasionally including their wives.

It's hard to say what my favorite part of the vacation was, there was so much to choose from: picnics, antiquing, being on the boat, tubing, Jeff's monkey face, eating on the deck, drinking wine and laughing, realizing that Cammy and I are more alike than we ever realized as evidenced in the picture above that I borrowed from Cammy's blog. Yes, we are dressed like twins. No, we didn't do that on purpose and it happened over and over. Even our kids got us confused.

While all of that was amazing, my favorite moments were the little ones, preparing meals together, grocery shopping and especially sitting at the dining room table every morning and evening, making vacation journals, talking and just enjoying each others company. Cammy, you are the sister my heart has always longed for and I already miss you so much.

This was a week I'll never forget and my eternal gratitude goes out to the two most wonderful, generous, handsome husbands in the world. You guys clearly love your wives beyond measure or you wouldn't have agreed to this craziness.What a bonus that in the end, you each gained a new friend too. Thanks from the bottom of my heart Jim and Jeff. I can't wait to do it again.