So What Inspires You?

A while back, I was struggling to come up with some creative new designs, so for a couple months I let my shop languish and I went on summer vacations instead and enjoyed sweet faces like the one in the picture above. My daughter is inspired by a simple rock. Ahhh childhood! It must have been the break I needed, because when I got back, my brain was practically exploding with ideas! I designed 12 new styles in 3 weeks, and I have about 6 more to design and post in my shop.

So to celebrate creativity, I asked what inspired you and held a blog giveaway for the Audrey shoes. LadyJane, you are the winner! You have 48 hours to contact me. Also, I know I said that they were in size 3-6 months, but I'll make you a fresh pair in whatever size you would like (my email link is on the profile page).

I got the BEST answers. Some pulled at my heart strings, like the mom who went to the hospital BY HERSELF with her new baby, or the Moms who are entering with the wish that God has the plan for a child in their future. There seemed to be a common theme in inspiration when it came to nature and your children. Inspiration came from nature, children, etsy browsing, friends, science, photography, other creative blogs, and magazines, to name a few. To that I answer, yes, yes, and yes. All those inspire me. There are such beautiful things surrounding us everyday, but the key is to stop and LOOK! I guess I needed a vacation in God's beautiful mountains with my sweet family around me, to get me out of the daily grind, and refresh my soul.

New blue shoes for girls

So the last blue baby shoes I had for girls sold out. Meaning they were so popular and I ran out of the fabric I had and couldn't make any more. Nor could I ever find that fabric again. So I have been trying for quite a few months now to make a new blue girl's shoe that I like just as much. I found the right fabric. Beautiful blue toile in a miniture print. Perfect for tiny feet....the only problem....I couldn't get the shoe to look right. I made it into five different kinds of shoes....and hated all of them. But this time....I GOT IT! May I introduce the Helene baby shoe?

Simple. A rosette on the toe with a French linen look.

Elegant. With some satin ribbon and pearls. Not over the top. Perfect.

Just so you know it's not all pretty perfectionism over here, I'll leave you with some fun pics caught at the end of summer. We're at the outdoor play fountains at the mall. Seriously fun to put your kids in swim suits and let them run around in them. It's right next to the Baskin Robbins Ice cream and totally, 100% free fun.
I believe it's chlorinated thank goodness. I'm praying there was a lot. And my personal favorite. The booty crack, water fountain enema. Nice. I should probably tighten that drawstring. Boys.

I made six, possibly seven new styles, so stay posted for more to come. They will be appearing in my etsy shop soon!

Shine on!

I don't know if I ever posted a picture of the floors that we put in over Father's Day weekend. It's been a busy summer, and I have loved having wood floors with kids going in and out of the house all summer. The plush rug I got for $50! It's a $250 rug. What a steal. I have been working on several projects in this room. I have three done this week, and I'll share one today here with you.

So this floor lamp has been majorly bugging me. For seven years. I love it. It's a great lamp. Bright, right height and shape.....and white. Where's the lamp? Look closely...it blends in with the wall and you hardly notice it. That's just not OK for an artist like me where a white space is room for the imagination. So I did something about it. I monogramed it with my letter stencils. I fused the green fabric to fusing, cut it out and then fused it to the lamp shade. A couple rows of grossgrain ribbon later....it still needed a little something. Some fabric flowers, and I am finally satisfied with my lamp shade. Now I really like the lamp. The monogram sillhouette really pops at night too when the lamp is on. I like it because it's not overly bright to where it competes with the painting (and my wedding picture) behind it.



My other lamps were also "fixed". Here is one example: This is remnant upolstry fabric glued to a white lamp shade and made pretty with red bias tape edging (also glued on). I was out of fabric glue, so I used wood glue. I have done with with fabric before that was extra thick and heavy. It holds better. Just make sure the fabric is a dark color, because the glue has a tendency to bleed through and yellow the fabric. This fabric is dark enough that that doesn't matter.

"Nostalgia" - I Heart Faces

So the theme at I Heart Faces is "Nostalgia". So why did I pick this random shot? Well, I took it on our annual grandparent/grandkids motorhome vacation. Each year, it's my chance to spend time with my growing nephew and nieces, and for my own kids to get to know their cousins again. My in-laws take the kids somewhere new in the good 'ol USA for about 10 days. This year we went to Yellowstone. Here is Miss Aubrey (my niece), looking after my daughter, Ainsley. Aubrey just doted on Ainsley that week. It's the middle of summer, they are wearing cutoffs and old clothes, their shirts are stained, they've been playing in the dirt, blowing dandelions, saying "hi" to the horse, and it's time to come in for dinner. The sun in glinting off the Grand Teton Mountains in the distance (which are directly behind those bushes), and I just love how Aubrey is carefully making sure that Ainsley crosses the pasture successfully. This picture speaks of childhood, family ties, and good vacation memories in the beautiful USA together year after year as those ties grow stronger. These are the moments I file carefully in that imaginary file box in my head to take out and think on fondly as the years go by and the kids grow ever taller. To see many more nostalgic moments go to I heart faces by clicking on the button below:

T-shirt revisited

So I found a regular men's t-shirt at Walmart marked down to $2.00. Well, that was just asking to be bought and remade into a shirt for me! A few seams cut into it and resewn, the eiffel tower fused on, and a kicky fabric rosette and pearls sewn on, I had made myself a new shirt! I'm running and trying to grab the camera from Hunter. I asked my four year old son to take the pictures of me in my shirt since Tone was nowhere to be found. He probably would have snorted his soda out his nose if I would have asked him to take a picture of me in my shirt anyways. Though he never says anything, I think he thinks some of the things I make for myself are slightly...well....odd. Anyways, it was down to my four year old son, and thus heads and legs are cut out of pictures. You were only interested in the shirt anyways, right???

So this next one isn't bad....minus legs. I'll just tell you what I wearing on the lower half. My red, shiny, patent, peep toe pumps. Finished the outfit off nicely if I do say so myself. Tada! My $2.00 shirt.

Milestones

So it's Hunter's first day of kindergarten today. Now prepare yourself for a long post. This post is number 200, so that is another bloggy milestone, and I believe that permits me a "mommy moment" to post every single second of Hunter's first day of kindergarten. It's a bittersweet day for me, because my first baby is leaving the nest and going to school. Hunter was so incredibly excited! He was dressed at 6:30 this morning in the outfit he has had picked out for 2 weeks now. We even gelled his hair. Here he is in front of the mirror checking out his new digs with his hair, new clothes, and backpack on. He's amazed at how good he looks!

Now he's just trying to be silly. This is the look he'll give someone who is "mean" to him. It's a "must-practice" before the first day of school ya know.

Then we went to pack his lunch. Peanut butter and honey sandwhich. I even cut it into racecar shapes with a cookie cutter for his special first-day lunch.

Can you tell he is really excited about his new Speedracer lunch box and the lunch I packed him?

Then he stood in front of the clock and waited.....and waited. He has PM kindergarten so it's from 11:00-3:00. I told him we weren't going to out to the bike and leave until 10:30. The clock says 10:10 right here.

Then we went outside for some first-day-of-school pictures. He really didn't want to take more than a couple.

Then he got so excited, that he decided it would be fun for me to play, "I'll run and you chase me with a camera and see what kind of picture you get, Mommy!" I'm gunna be honest, it wasn't my favorite game. Hunter's best friend, Emma, who lives next door took some pictures with Hunter too. Her mother must be some kind of over-achiever, because are you kidding me? That is the cutest outfit I have EVER seen on a little girl for the first day of school!!!! Even her hair was in perfect little pigtail ringlets. Emma is the cutest!
And then Emma's mommy, Heidi, got one of Hunter and me. Darn lense flare on my head got in the way though.

Ainsley was super excited too. Somehow she caught the excitement and thought she was going too. She couldn't understand why she didn't have a "pack pack" and "wunch box" too!

So yeah, we roll in style. It can be a zoo in front of the school, and they are also doing massive road work right in front as well, so I decided to hook up the bike stroller. It was actually quicker than driving since the school is only two blocks away. Weanies drive for only two blocks, even though it was still really hot today.

At this point, neither one of them is thrilled about the helmets, but they got over it.

Hunter is now a John Wash Tiger!

Lining up. And this where my day got interesting. He burst into tears after being SO excited up until this point.

He cried all through lunch. Parents were invited to stay, so I did because Hunter was completely losing it. Ainsley though, thought it was great and sat right next to Hunter on the cafeteria bench. She wanted to go to school with Hunter so much! So she ate most of his lunch and had a great time waving at all the other students.

Doesn't this next picture break your heart? They are lining up to go to the library and then their classroom.

So all the parents and kids traipsed over to the library. Hunter was looking back and making sure I was still there and bawling his eyes out. By the way, he is the only one crying. All the other kids in his class are loving it! That's his lovely teacher, Mrs. Her. I think he will have a great time in "her" class. Poor thing. My kids certainly made it challenging for her today. The embarrassment after being a teacher, and now on the flip side I'm being the parent with the annoying kids. Sweet.

And Ainsley is still trying to be a part of the whole thing. Sitting on the rug too, getting in other kid's way, talking when it was supposed to be quiet. She was quite a nuisance. I wanted to leave, but I wanted to make sure Hunter got to his classroom alright. He doesn't do well with new transitions.

So then all the parents and kids walked to the classroom, where Mrs. Her led them in a song around the room. Hunter is starting to warm up in spite of himself. Ainsley is still trying to be as disruptive as possible here.

So when they finally sat back down on the rug, I tried to sneak out with all the other kindergarten parents. That's when all hell broke loose. Hunter started screaming and threw himself at me. Neither me nor his teacher could pry him off. He went balistic!

"I...AM...NEVER...EVER .....LETTING GO MOMMY!!!"

When I did get him off me, he bolted out the door after me.

Trying to calm him down only brought on fresh hysterical screams.

"I...JUST....CAN'T GO BACK IN THERE MOMMY! DON'T MAKE ME GO! IT'S TOO SCARY!"

I asked her what she recommended. She called the principal, Mr. Sever. Mr. Sever quickly drew Hunter to the side to show him a sparkley rock, and I beat it out of there before Hunter could change his mind. I quickly became, "THAT PARENT" with the two bratty kids, on the first day of school. NICE. This is every parent's dream for the first day of school right? I'm sure they would be pretty funny pictures had I been able to capture them, but he was attached to me and it's hard to whip out a camera in such situations.

I got a call a couple minutes after I got home, that Hunter was happy and fine. Here he is coming to meet me from class as happy as a clam. Whew! Let's hope round two tomorrow doesn't involve the principal. I hope he never, ever has to visit the principal again.

And when we got home, we photographed the special magic sparkle rock that Hunter got from Mr. Sever. It's quite the treasure right??? Mr. Sever is brilliant I think.
Happy first day of kindergarten Hunter! You sure put Mommy through the ringer!

Ranunculi headband

So I am in wedding mode lately, which has inspired some very bright fabric flowers around here. I made this headband with two Ranunculi flowers on them or at least I think they look like Ranunculi. Or maybe they're just roses full blown open. That's about the time I toss them when they are in a vase. So I'm going to go with Ranunculi. See Ranuculi look like this:


Gorgeous right? And my headband looks like this: So see, I say, definately Ranunculi. Or...sorta....kinda.
Here is the view from the other side. I'm not really sure which view I like better.

Now if I could only get a certain little two year old girl to pose for this for me. She loves to wear it, but the girl is always full speed ahead and I get a blur when I try to take a picture. It's much better taking the picture on a rock. Rocks don't move......

I'll see if I can get a pic for you when she wakes up from her nap......

Later on today: So the girl woke up. I took them out to a street in Fresno that is just completely gorgeous. Huntington Boulevard has a huge grass boulevard running down the center with huge trees, lamp posts, and old houses lining the walks. Here is Ainsley sitting at the base of one of the huge trees. Mind you this photo shoot was totally unplanned. Therefore, she is wearing her denim dress, which may come off just a tad "80's" in these photos.
However, I was lucky enough to spy an old house that was vacated. The sun was behind the house casting a beautiful glow and it had old peeling whitewashed brick, an old gate, black shutters, a porch, and all just a couple feet from the sidewalk. Just....Oh my! Perfect for an impromtu photo session. It reminds me of looking through the garden gate to a secret garden that has been deserted for a while.....or something like that. OK, maybe not, but it really WAS a lovely spot.
And yes, there were plenty of lovely trees and flowers by the sidewalk to get some great shots. I got some wonderful shots of Hunter in a huge old tree. My favorite though is this one of him in this little Japanese Maple.Now even though this street is in the old part of town. It's pretty classy. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as we stepped out of the car and got everything out (stroller, snacks, camera, waterbottles, etc.), Hunter informs me he has to go potty. He wanted to pee right there in front of a classy house on their bush. Ahem, well, what's a mother to do? I walked him around a corner where it wasn't so classy and let him do his business.......And Oh all right! I guess they can't all be lovely shots. After about an hour of so walking around in the stroller, pointing at houses, and stopping every once in a while to take pictures, Hunter had to get goofy. A boy can't smile ALL the time, right?