life + thrifty finds

Clover is very taken with the Barbie. it was her prize for being such a trooper at the thrift store. even after the mean employee there stole her purse. wtf is wrong with people?

at some point I realized that I had made everything on Violet but her shoes. the shirt she has on under the coat is her raglan tee, the pants are treasure pockets, the skirt is Clover's wrenly ruched one, and the coat is the Dear My Kids corduroy creation. 

we refer to Violet as the "bustler" because she always bustles to her next destination. 

childhood

you can see the shadow of my arm holding her Wall-E Eve toy. Haha

Violet is braving our special tree now. 

I asked Clover if she wanted to peek through the tree to have her picture taken, and she just wanted me to take pictures of her dolly

 here is most of my haul from the thrift store - all for less than 10$

I couldn't snap any great pictures because the girls were sabotaging my photo shoot

I grabbed the linen shirt to repurpose as fabric for....something. 

the adorable little orange pitcher just needed to be bought. it has a definite vintage feel. those enameled metal bowls are delightful. I even love the chip in the biggest one. Barbie and Eve (from Wall-E) are bathing in the bowl, I believe. they are huge hits with the girls right now. the Eve is neat, her head and arms pop up and move around.

not pictured (due to toddler thievery) is my leather belt, which will be replacing the one I got at the Gap countless years ago, which finally broke.

I'm considering making it a routine thing to trek out to the thrift store in Leesburg on Fridays with the girls. we can hit La Dolce next door first for some coffee, and sit outside for a little bit if the weather permits, and then go pillage  the thrift store. Clover and I had a pretty sweet little date this time around, because Violet had totally conked out in the car, and I was hesitant to wake her. Instead, I left her in the car (GASP!) while Clover and I grabbed some espresso (for me, ha!). 

We sat outside the coffee shop watching the car and waiting to see if Violet woke on her own. Clover snacked on a little baggie of popcorn that I packed for her, and we discussed the color of the cars in the parking lot. Eventually I finished my drink, and Violet was still totally passed out, so I just had to go wake her so we could get on with our shopping trip. 

I zipped the baggie of popcorn back up and tucked it away in Clover's leather purse for later. at one point during our time in the thrift store, I heard Clover's devastated little cry float up from the toy section. I was just down a rack of clothes nearby and I rushed over to see what was wrong. seeing the little boy playing next to her, I first thought he had taken something from her that she had become attached to. then an employee nervously came and asked me if Clover owned a purse, all while Clover is still weeping heavily in front of me saying "they took, they took". 

she headed behind their counter and retrieved Clover's purse for me, and I thanked her, assuming that Clover had left it somewhere and they didn't know who it belonged to. then she told me that they had taken the purse from her after seeing the bag of popcorn inside of the half open zipper. some kid had left some popcorn around the store a few days before, and they didn't appreciate having to clean it up, so when they saw that she had some in her bag they decided to take it from her. 

lady, you don't just steal a purse from a 2 year old. she has no idea why some scary, strange person just took her thing and ran away with it. normally she likes to just hang out with the stuffed animals and dolls in the kid corner, but after the purse incident Clover just shadowed me.