Whew, what a day!! James is out of town (hopefully I'll have some good news to share about that soon), and two of my little Hatchlings are battling stomach flu. Ugh. Stomach bugs are so hard on little ones, and there's not much you can do about it. So, I've been doing load after load of laundry, and consoling and cuddling the day away (that part I don't mind so much :) ). Anyways, I'll keep it short in my stolen moment of blogging.
I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago that I love Louisa May Alcott's Little Women series. And since I have three boys, I feel like I can really relate to the second book in the series: Little Men. It talks all about Jo and her husband and the boarding school that they start for boys. I like many things in the book, but one part in particular details how Jo recognizes the need that little boys have for collecting treasures. This tendency, if left unchecked, can get totally out of control (don't I know it!!). So, Jo gets a big chest of drawers, and each boy is given a drawer for his very own. A place to deposit anything he deems worthy. The only two rules are that you can't fill it with anything that can escape (live bugs, frogs, snakes, etc.) and you only get one drawer, so you have to pick and choose what will fit.
Brilliant. Simply brilliant. I am totally adopting this idea. My boys (and girl for that matter) would love to have a space all to themselves that they could fill with whatever they want. I love it because it satisfies their need to collect things, and it satisfies my need for an orderly, attractive home. Which brings me to this picture:
I am really loving this painted sideboard. Something like this would be a perfect host for little boy and girl treasures, and I love that it's beautiful and funky and you could put it anywhere in your home. I'm totally doing this. People sell old furniture like this all the time at garage sales, for cheap. Usually because the finish is ruined, but that makes it a perfect candidate for painting. And the stripes? LOVE. It works because the color difference is subtle. Fun, but elegant. The process of refinishing this sideboard was blogged HERE.
Hi everyone! Can you believe that it's the end of October already? I sure can't. The kids will be trick-or-treating tomorrow night (a day early where I live), and we'll be celebrating my baby girl's first birthday in a few days. Seriously, where has the time gone?
We have pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating to local businesses on the agenda today, so I'll keep my post short and sweet.
Here goes:
Florabella has put out some really lovely collections of actions and textures for photoshop. I would love to play around with all of them. You can find them HERE.
My friend, Jean, sent me the link to a website that has over 100 free purse patterns. You should check it out. Some of them are super cute. You can find them HERE. This pig-shaped cutting board rocks. Large wood cutting boards are the best, and I love pigs. We raised pigs for 4-H in the summers growing up. This cutting board would be right at home in my kitchen. You can find it HERE.
With the weather cooling down this week, it's had me dreaming about being able to send out Christmas cards this year. Giving into my wishful thinking, I perused my favorite digital scrapbooking site, Designer Digitals. These were some of my favorite finds: You can find them all by going HERE.
Have a happy and safe Halloween everyone! Here's hoping we won't be trudging through the snow while trick-or-treating this year. :)
So, obviously the whole get-the-tutorial-done-for-the-needlebook thing didn't happen :( I've been battling a nasty cold...I've basically been eating soup and lounging in my sweats all week. But, on the bright side, my non-crafting means that I spent more time on the internet, and have some cool things to share. We celebrate the small things here at A Lemon Dropp Life ;)
This dining table from Restoration Hardware is gorgeous. I love the simple lines, and the turned legs. I love the aged patina it has, I love that it's made from solid wood, and I love how it's rustic, yet elegant. You can find it HERE. James and I had to get rid of our dining table when we moved a few months ago. All our earthly possessions had to fit into a 10x10 storage unit, and our table didn't make the cut. Don't feel too bad for us, though. It had seen 5 years of hard, hard (ab)use and it needed some help. If we had decided to keep it, we would have had to re-finish it, and we weren't sure we were up to that. So, getting rid of it meant that we could buy a table that we really loved later on. Since we have four kids (three of them boys), we need a table that can stand up to a lot of *loving*. So a table that is solid, weathered, distressed, and already perfectly imperfect is really appealing. I don't want to freak out about every ding, scratch, and stain. The only thing that gives me pause about this table though, is the fact that it's unsealed. Don't get me wrong, I love the look of it, but I worry about spills on a table like this. A few blemishes don't bother me, but I don't want it took like a mess, either. I've done some research, and I guess steel wool can work wonders on unsealed wood, that and Murphy's Soap, but I'm still a little nervous. It will take some thought for sure :)
How about this linen quilt? Lovely, right? It's also from Restoration Hardware. You can find it HERE. I've been searching for a long time for bedding that both James and I could dig. This quilt is a good blend of masculine and feminine, and we both really like it. Another picture of it can be found HERE.
This is one of my favorite paintings. It's called "My Presence Shall Be There" by artist Sandra Rast. It has all of my favorite things: The Salt Lake Temple (where James and I were sealed) Rain Spring in Utah Tulips Umbrellas (yeah, I have a fetish for umbrellas) Symbolism (you can read about it HERE) Bright, yet balanced colors
I've had my eye on this painting for a long, long time. Hopefully it's still around when I've saved all my pennies for it :)
Lastly, a catalog came in the mail today filled with Christmas decor. Surprisingly, I found three things that I would totally buy. I couldn't save the pictures, but you can find them HERE, HERE, and HERE.
Opinions are always welcome, especially your thoughts on an unsealed dining table. Happy Friday!!
One of my all-time favorite things is a good deal. And, Hancock Fabrics had this really great sale on Monday where all of their Butterick, McCall's, and Simplicity patterns were on sale for $1 each. Sweet!! I don't normally buy patterns because they are so, so expensive, but it was too good of a deal...I bought three: This apron pattern was too cute to pass up. I love the one on the left. I told James I want to be one of those housewives that wears an apron all day. It just seems so handy and would protect my clothes. His concern is that I would look frumpy all day. Valid, but not with a cute apron like this, right? It's McCall's pattern M5997
And, how cute are these vintage softies?! I can picture a whole shelf or windowsill of them in Natalie's room. And, they would make great gifts/humanitarian projects as well.
I also bought one more pattern, but I couldn't save the picture. It's a pattern for reusable grocery bags. It's Simplicity pattern 2806. You can see it HERE.
Another one of my favorite things is working on projects, which is why I've been MIA on this blog lately. I'll have to figure out how to make enough time for working on projects AND blogging about it. Wish me luck :)
This pretty little needle book is one thing I've made. Cross your fingers that I get the how-to up next week :)
And, I've been working like crazy on baby quilts to donate to Lua Nova. All I have left to do on this one is to trim it up and sew on the binding. Then I'll wash and dry it into crinkly goodness.
And this is another quilt top for a strip quilt. I used fabric from my stash for this one. It's bold and a little funky, but I like it...I just hope the girls at Lua Nova do too :) Sometimes "funky" crosses over into "hideous". Hopefully that's not what happened here. hehe. I also have another quilt in the works. I have all the pieces cut out, but I still need to piece, quilt and bind it.
Every Christmas Eve, we give our kids one gift to open. They each get a new book. Even James and I give each other a book. Why? you ask. Well, we want our kids to love books and reading. And, after a lot of thought, we realized that one way to instill a love of books is to establish fun traditions involving reading and books, thus the Christmas Eve tradition was born.
Books are important to me. I love books. I mean, I really love books. After reading a book, I feel like I have a whole new set of friends. The characters in a book are more than just characters, they become real people to me. I spent many happy hours reading as a child, a teenager, and now an adult. Not only are they entertaining, but you can learn so much from them, even fiction books. I like to read the Little Women series by Louisa May Alcott over and over again, because it teaches me how to be a good mom and how to raise amazing kids. Books are magical, and I want our kids to feel the same way about them.
Plus, I could never sleep on Christmas Eve...actually, I still can't. I get way too excited. I figured that there's a good chance that our kids may be the same way, so I'd help them out by giving them a book to read if they're not going to sleep :)
Since we love books so much, and Christmas is coming up, I thought I'd share some of our favorites with you, and you can share your favorites with me:) We have lots and lots and lots of books, and these are the ones that are most requested for me to read. And as an adult, I enjoy them too.
Here they are:
I bought the libray bound edition of this book from Barnes and Noble, so instead of a paperback, we have a nice hardcover copy. My friend, Anna, told me about this book, and we all LOVE it. It's a lot of fun.
My parents bought this book for Matthew when he was a baby, and it's still a hit. It's well loved and I don't think we'll ever get tired of this one.
This is a fun advnture book with great illustrations. The little boys in your house will love it.
Who doesn't love the story of the Little Engine That Could? And, this one has simply gorgeous illustrations. We love it.
Suggle Puppy and Blue Hat, Green Hat (below) are two more of our favorite Sandra Boynton books. The Piggy in the Puddle is a fun book to read out loud. My younger sister loved it when she was a little girl. She would check it out from the library over and over again. I think it spent the better part of five years at our house :) My mom bought it for our boys a couple of years ago, and they love it, too.
The Magic Treehouse books are great for beginner readers. Matthew started reading them last year, as a kindergartner and I think they're terrific. Their simple plots make it easy for young readers to follow and their magical adventures are a lot of fun.
So, I'm revealing another one of my obsessions, well almost obsession. Almost because I've never actually sewn anything from one of these books, but I want to. I really, really want to. I've been hearing a lot about Japanese pattern books lately, and I love to look through them online. They're in Japanese, but word on the street is that you don't have to know Japanese to understand them. They apparently have very detailed diagrams that make them easy to follow. I hope to take a stab at it soon :)
This book has the most adorable little girl clothes. I totally ♥ these patterns!! You can find the book HERE.
The dresses in this book are simple and feminine. I don't love all the patterns in this one, but the ones I like, I LOVE. You can find it HERE.
There are more pretty dresses in this book. These two are my favorite. You can find the book HERE.
The next few pattern books come from the Etsy shop This And That From Japan. You can find the shop HERE. How cool to make your own eco bags!
These stuffed toys are adorable.
The motifs in this crochet book are gorgeous.
LOVE it!! Have any of you tried Japanese sewing or crochet patterns?
These gorgeous roses are made from coffee filters. Can you believe it? They're the most realistic looking paper flowers I've ever seen, and don't you just love the color combinations she used? For the tutorial, click HERE.
This quilt is so, so fun. She made it using 3 inch squares. For the quilt top, she literally put all of the squares into a bag and drew them out at random. To finish it, she did some simple machine quilting (just straight lines about 1/4" from each seam). I love the results. You can get all the info on this quilt HERE.
How cool are these reusable grocery sacks from Envirosax? I'll admit it, they're a little pricey, but for something that you'll only have to buy once and use all the time, it's not that bad ;) Once we have an income, I'm saving up for these. I like to be green when I can, and this is a fashionable way to do it...what's not to like? :) You can find them HERE.
(Image via A Life of Blue)
