Jesse & Holly: MARRIED!

FINALLY, some paper. 

i have the privilege of knowing some awesome people. in that lump of awesome people are holly and jesse. i knew holly first, we met 5 years ago when she started singing for my mr.'s band. she has managed to make both of my kids, at separate times and for totally different reasons, fall in love with her. and me, and countless other people. then came Jesse. and he snatched her up! separately these two are some extraordinary people. but together, now that is something special. i can't wait to see what this couple brings to those who love them. 

so, i love them. and they love each other. and that love was made forever through some pretty awesome covenant vows that my mr. and i had the privilege of witnessing on saturday. it was a beautiful wedding. and i got to be a part of it in a small way. this is how.

holly and jesse really wanted something vintage and travel related. so i recreated an old telegram for their invitation card.

she didn't really give me much more input other than those two objectives and the wedding details, so i kind of just went for it. i loved the map i made for heather & aaron's wedding so much that i made a similar one for holly. something about vibrant colors on brown paper bag make me swoon.

since they created a wedding website for people to RSVP i whipped up about 10 of these little postcards for the few people she didn't think would have access to internet. i printed them from home, so the quality is not as nice as everything else i outsourced, but i love the design.

ah, the wrap around label. i push for these with almost every client because they are SO. MUCH. FUN. thankfully they went for it and i added some old school air mail stripes and a little dingbat to give them a vintage touch. 

 i love this wedding invitation suite and i hope you do to!

Refashioned Boy's Pants

i am so excited about these pants. i feel like such a rockstar. i MADE PANTS. ok, sort of. in a round-about way. i chopped up men's pants and shrunk them down into a size 4 boy's pants. 

double rainbows. 

i love the internet. it is chalked full of useful tutorials. like this one. and the even greater thing is that if there is a sewing technique i haven't heard of or know how to do, like blind stitching, you can just look up a sweet video on You Tube and learn how to do it. right then and there. lickity split. johnny on the spot. 

 i must say, these pants were pretty easy to make. the longest part was deconstructing the pants. the tutorial suggests choosing pants that look pretty easy to take apart, but true to i-like-to-make-everything-harder-"because-i-work-better-in-stressful-situations" form, i chose pants according to the color with LOTS of pleats and crazy seams to deconstruct.

 after hours of seam ripping i was able to get down to business.

 (this is his "serious model" face)

 i was right on track and had it all under control, when right at the end as i'm reattaching the waist line (the thickest part of the sewing) my needle breaks, shoots me in the neck, and my sewing machine got all cranky and made a bad sounding noise that i was sure could never be fixed. F. so i panicked, almost cried, then almost shouted some real profanity, then i called my dad. and he walked me through fixing it with his mad sewing machine repair skills. love you dad. big hug. little kiss. (Xo)

the amazing part was that after i finished all the final touches and tried them on my son, with one eye open, THEY FIT! perfectly.

i can't wait to post pictures of him looking so cute, walking down the isle at Holly & Jesse's wedding (which i also made the invitations for and will be post pictures of NEXT WEEK! i love them and i think you will too.) yay.

for now, i am done sewing. i am officially retiring from my sewing career. but like every true rockstar i will probably come out of retirement when i feel like it.

Refashioned Boy's Vest

dudes.

last week i took my sewing skills from beginner to intermediate. all thanks to my late grandma and the internet.

it all started with our sweet friend, Holly-licious, and her upcoming nuptials. we've known Holly Lolly for-ev-er. she sings in my Mr.'s band, 330 Plan, and is all around awesome and talented. she recently asked if our son Big A would be able to be the ring bearer in her wedding and we were all super thrilled at the thought. thus began the search for a stylish little man vest and slacks for the wedding. off i went to every place on the face of the earth that sold children's clothing and found the perfect outfit the first time was out of luck. (seems they only carry fancy clothes during the holidays.) so i searched the internet and stumbled upon this sweet blog and the tutorial for refashioning men's pants into a boy's vest.

here is attempt #1:

read: this is not my son. in fact, it is my 2 YEAR OLD daughter, little a. i apparently did not measure anything correctly and instead of having a free vest (i used an old work skirt and some shorts that i decided didn't fit my husband right for this vest.) i had to go buy something to cut up since my Mr. didn't want me digging through his old perfectly good clothes.

attempt #2: off to the nearest thrift store for some pants on the cheap. $3 each. nice.

now that i'm such an experienced seamstress, i got it right. here is the only picture of my son i could get with him not being silly.

and here is his true personality. i love it!

i am truly grateful for my Grandma Shirley, who taught me how to sew when i was younger. she took the time and had patience. she showed me how to thread the bobbin, thread the sewing machine, and everything else. i never really used that skill very much, but am glad we had that time together. i can't wait to conquer my OCD with some basic sewing skills for my kids as soon as i'm they're ready. and yes, i will be teaching my son how to sew. whenever i'm in a bind and can't figure something out on my sewing machine, i call my dad. his first job was a sewing machine repair man when he was a teenager and i don't know what i would do without him.

but for reals, how do you mommy bloggers get such cute shots of your kids? i had to bribe him to model for me. i told him it was practice for the wedding and Hols wanted to see him in it before the wedding.

i'm pretty happy with the outcome. (picture me brushing something off my shoulder, with a proud look on my face.) (sidenote: why do we brush stuff off our shoulders when we're proud?? doesn't brushing stuff off our shoulders mean we have dandruff? i don't know about you but i would NOT be proudly brushing dandruff off my shoulders. sorry, back to the point...) i still need to finish the buttons but it fits him nicely and he looks so dapper. thank you endless resource for sewing tips, the internet.

next up: SLIM SLACKS, repurposed from men's pants.

Baby Announcement: Welcome Hawea!

several months ago i had the pleasure of creating birth announcements for the brand new daughter of someone i love dearly. new mommy, Kahea, and i were instant friends and i miss her tons now that we no longer live near one another. i am also super bummed that i haven't gotten to hold her sweet baby girl yet! soon, very soon.

Kahea asked for a monogram, and right around the time i made these i was super excited to find a free monogram download from the Wedding Chicks blog. you can personalize a monogram for yourself here.

matching wrap-around mailing labels.

welcome sweet Hawea, i can't wait to meet you!

Preschool Co-Op: Letter A

a couple weeks ago some of the mom's at our new home church invited me to be a part of their small preschool co-op group. i was totally honored and excited to be making such sweet memories with my kids and some truly great woman, while also teaching the kids the alphabet.

we all decided a small group would work best, so it doesn't get out of hand. we had a planning meeting to decide on the structure of our "curriculum" before we got started, which would consist of a letter coloring sheet, craft, activity, and snack that would all correspond with the letter we are on for that week. we will also be taking some field trips. so. fun.

i found these awesome free printable coloring sheets here.

all our students.

ms. andi was the teacher for letter A and planned so many wonderful crafts and activities for the kiddos. after the coloring sheet we all went outside in the beautiful sunshine (!) and did a hunt for envelopes with the letter A on them. each envelope contained items that started with the letter A, like a picture of an acrobat, alligator, each one of my children since their names start with A... so on and so forth.

next we came back inside and decorated paper plates with red tissue paper and streamer. once finished we stapled 2 plates together and added pasta inside to make an "apple shaker". we also had "ants on a log" snack variation, "ants on an apple", which is apple slices with peanut butter and raisins. sorry, no pictures. while the kids were outside playing airplane, i was prepping the mini apple pies. LOVE. it was all andi's idea and i totally took it over!

each kid got a mini pie tin, two rounds of pie crust some apple pie filling, and a decorative "apple" to put on each of their pies. i added a little egg wash and popped them in the oven.

LUNCH TIME! it was so cute seeing all the kids sit together and eat their lunch.

it was pretty bright so my daughter was covering her eyes and another little girls eyes from the sun. sweet moment.

once lunch was over, the apple pies were done. ms. andi had the kids sing "The Ants Go Marching On" while using their apple shakers as instruments.

then we all called it a day. a really good day.

all photography by Jen Bell.

our house: the living room, two ways

ok people, i need your help. for some reason i am totally struggling to figure out the best way to arrange our furniture for this living room floor plan. i think the issue is that the fireplace is smack dab in the middle of the wall with a window on each side. it forces you to either make it the focal point or ignore it all together. since we don't have a flat screen tv to mount above it, we are choosing to ignore it. so i would love your input, which do you like better?

nice amount of floor space for the kids to play. (please excuse the Christmas decorations. i took the pictures when our decorations were still up. it was the last time our house was this clean and i had to seize the moment.)
with this layout, the tv is SUPER far away. we've had this tv since we got married 7 years ago and it was a hand me down from our brother-in-law. we're not complaining, but at 32" it's more like 12" from across the room. i mean, we're struggling to read subtitles at this point.
also, do you notice that huge empty spot on the wall between the couch and the desk?? yeah, me too. i would really love to get the coordinating Sloan leaning bookshelf to put there, which would also help me get my storage boxes of DVDs out of the garage.

NEXT! ok, i have to admit i like this layout better cause it doesn't make me want to spend $1000 on new furniture. but it has it's own problems. like, the tv is WAY closer, but we're totally on top of it. watching tv for the first time like this was like movie theater action. which is totally an optical illusion because we plainly DO NOT have that status going on.
like our rugs? me too. we got them for free (!) from a friend who was downsizing all his belongings to only 100 items. he wants to own less so he can give more. uh-maze-zing. read all about it here. we probably won't keep them in this spot though, for obvious reasons.
not so much play room for the kids, but that's what there bedrooms are for, right?
still a big blank spot, but less desire to fill it. maybe a plant? for sure.
feeling better about this office area. it's behind the living area. no one wants to see the office, not even in their peripheral. no one.

so anyway. here's a little window into our new home (we've lived here for 4 months). none of our family has seen it yet so i thought it would be nice to give a tour. i'm really hoping my husband's mom will give me her opinion, she's wicked good at decorating and i could really use her help!

if you think something else would look good i'm open, send me a comment!

Christmas Card

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Pack it up, pack it in, let it begin!

here is our Christmas card for 2010. i used the free pattern from Lovely Design and altered it a little to match our clothes. the amazing Jackie Wonders shot our family. hope your holiday season was a good one. thank you for reading my blog. if you're not a follower you should totally become one. wink.

now i need to clean out the kid's rooms and make room for stuff. Neighborhood Thrift needs to get ready cause i'm about to unload a bunch of gently used toys and clothes on them!

have any resolutions for this year? i haven't really thought about it. i feel like i should cut out sugar or something that will only last for a millisecond... i just don't get into all that reflecting and making broken promises stuff. one thing i would LOVE to really be serious about (and this is not uncommon to other days of the year) is to really, truly, and whole-heartedly seek a deeper relationship with the Lord. as a stay at home mom of two youngins i find it difficult to be consistent in my quiet time. like, i only read my bible for a couple days in a row, once a month. dude, i'm just being honest. i suck at making my time with God a priority. i'm beginning to find that there are idols in my life that are taking my attention away from the Lord, like looking at blogs, or social networking. i don't think i want to completely stop or anything, but i definitely think i need to "do my homework before i can go out and play", you know?

anyway, does anyone know of any good "bible reading plan/daily devotional/commentary for stay at home moms who only have a 5 minute attention span that won't make my OCD jump into high gear when i miss a day by having dates and stuff in it"? let me know if you do.

ps. here was last year's Christmas card. i also used Lovely Design's free pattern. i REALLY like her patterns. can you tell?