30.1.12

surviving monday

part of our monday survival today is a little tea service for two


we're drinking some Tazo chai and having a couple of tea time biscuits from our Trader Joe's grocery trip this morning. Clover likes dipping her cookies in the tea. she refers to is as "dumping my cookie". and yes, I'm serving my daughter a caffeinated beverage - but it's heavily watered down. she likes her tea black with or without honey. but that might be because I only serve it to her that way. she also likes green tea and mint tea.


as soon as I'm  done sitting on my butt and blogging about it, I'll go finish sewing a raglan tee for Clover. it's from some of Tim's abandoned Gap undershirts. she is woefully short on layering tees right now. gosh Tara, way to make it feel like a chore. since the tee was going to be pretty plain, being made from a plain white tee, I cut two layers of bird from a clean section of a bleach/oil stained shirt and quilted them together. this will go on the tee to liven it up, while still keeping it neutral and useable for various outfit combinations


this is going to accompany me tonight while I cry some lonesome tears over my sewing machine/knitting needles. Tim will be coming home late. this label totally sold me on this bottle of wine. it was so pretty and looked like a modern chocolate bar wrapp


Clover is doing some very serious artwork today while her sister fusses in her bed naps. I love listening to her narrate everything that is happening in the picture she is coloring. her memory for story details in a movie she has seen a very small handful of times is pretty amazing. she is a lefty like her mama.




we're calling this one "monochromatic mouse"




"TEA TIME?"


I've been forcing her to wear her hat all the time because it's the only way I can keep her bangs out of her face. 

28.1.12

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.





break the silence! some more treasure pockets


get ready for an unnecessary amount of photos. it's been a while since I posted and I feel the need to overshare. 
these are the latest incarnation of the treasure pocket pants from sewing for boys
this time with some dark denim, which I used the wrong side of again like I did with Violet's skinny jeans. the print is Sherbet Pips from Moda.

she looked so precious in some mary jane style shoes with her cuffs rolled up at the playground today. 


I made some tweaks and modifications to the pattern this time around, just to mix things up a bit, and also to maximize the versatility of blending pattern sizes. Clover is a very tall (almost) three year old with the waist of an infant, and a pair of toothpicks for legs. 
these pants are a hybrid of the 18 month size with 3T length. 

I also tapered the legs gradually from the thigh down to the cuff, taking about 2.5 inches off the cuff size, for a more slim look.  she still looks like she disappears in them though, since her legs are blades of grass. 

the pattern doesn't call for back pockets, but I thought it would be fun to include some on these and to add in some of the contrast fabric.


sherbet pips! sexy fabric...


I got her excited about having her picture taken by explaining to her that she needed to be like the models in "Project" (runway)
Clover responded with "ooooooh! Project! I'm a model!"
gosh... what a busy life, what with being a ballerina, Kermit the Frog, Rapunzel, a mommy, and a little girl too.








Clover insisted that I get some really close up shots of her pockets, which she facilitated by opening them up and shoving them into the camera.