We have a winner!

The Design Director chose, she can't read quite yet... And look who won!
Please send me an email with your address, Aileen!
Thanks everyone, that was fun. We will do it again soon.

Happy Birthday to me! (giveaway)

I won't really have a birthday this year (I'm a Leap Year baby), so the weekend becomes a celebration of it's own type... still, that doesn't mean that we can't have a party on the blog...
You're Invited!

a happy, lovely tea cosy... oh, and other fun goodies, too.

I've been making new notecards and other fun stuff...

do tell me your favorite birthday memory...

Fabric covered teapots

This is so something I would attempt, other than thinking it is a little insane... And anthropologie has them marked on sale for $68. Okay, okay, I'll try to do one... I do actually have a random garage sale teapot sitting around... Just have to figure out HOW, now...

Another day to say, "hi"

Hi.

Draft Snake Infestation

I now have decided that when it comes to making draft snakes, the very best filling is going to be those teeny trash-bound scraps that I had no use for - so I have a sewn snake, waiting for filling - right near my serger - and as I am making other projects - (you thought that I wasn't sewing, just because I wasn't posting?) - I take a few minutes at the end of each night to fill a little more in the waiting snake....

Oh, and yes, I did find that after I spent 4 days trying to locate every stray sock in the house - when I was left with a whole basket of strays... well - they ended up in there, too. =)

So these snakes are my new answer to the smallest of all scraps - and random other things and threads that would have been thrown away otherwise. (It's been fun) What I like is that they are heavy without costing any form of value (when you're buying beans like I do for beanbags, it still does add up!) - oh, and in a 90 year old California bungalow - without insulated walls - they work, too.

Later, this week, I'm going to post more of my tea cozies that I have been cranking out - and I forgot to take photos of the 6 totes I made for my 6 table-mates at my MOPS group - or I'd have happily shown those - they were a fun project to work on while J was out of town on a shoot. (I did finally get a lead on how to post a pdf. so expect a tutorial coming!)

Did I mention that I have been potty training this week, down with a sinus infection, researching preschools, planning a formal event that happened the same night as the awards show AND missing J while he was out of town for 5 days? Phew - I need a break.

Hopefully this weekend will be fun... for Christmas, I bought J tickets to a fun play in Beverly Hills at the Greystone Manor and they are for this weekend (on my quasi-bday)... so we've got a big weekend planned.

Pottery Barn Kids ideas (1 of a few...)

Look at this adorable idea for cute canopies or curtains... Ribbon scraps and panels. I mean, does it get easier?  If you don't have hundreds if types of ribbon scraps lying around like
yours truly, send me an email, we can figure something out... :)

keychain

This is super silly, but I made the cutest "bar-code" recently and had it made into some fun products... I have to show you the fun keychain that arrived at my house today...

it makes me so happy...

Night on the town

J was nominated for (and won!) an award and we got to be all gussied up... Woohoo.

Snow Day - Love Day

We spent Valentines' Day in the snow.

It was technically one of those days where J could have surfed in the morning and gone sledding in the afternoon, and it was such a great day that he spoke about wishing how he could do that someday.  

Mimi was unbelievably happy in the snow. She didn't even notice how cold she was and we had to drag her to the car. Last year, when we went,  my next door neighbor suggested bringing a thermos of hot water for hot cocoa in the car - that's our new favorite item to bring along.

What a fun time we had. 

Though I don't love LA - there are days and moments where I feel grateful for certain aspects of it... and driving an hour to the snow was one of those sweet times.

Inspiration a la H.D. Buttercup

The other day, after getting my haircut, I figured I'd use the last hour of my child-free time to go through H.D. Buttercup (which I'd heard about, and driven past hundreds of times) - for some inspiration. What a great place for eye candy. They've taken the old Helms Bakery in Culver City and used the rambling space for stacking stores and showrooms of amazing furniture and furnishings. Lovely stuff. It felt like the combination of an antique store, shopping along La Brea (north of Wilshire Blvd - in LA, about 10 minutes from home), and an art gallery.  If only I'd been actually looking for furniture... but maybe the beauty was that I wasn't. And the result really was pure and simple inspiration.

You can see that I still love patchwork couches of all kinds... like the one I covered. What I found so elegant and palatable about this one was its worn grey denim with intricate hand stitched patches in the same color. I'm so loving the worn, loved look these days.