advent book

The anticipation of Christmas is so magical and exciting. We love watching our children during this season. Every year, we read through a daily advent calendar as a family. Advent means "coming" or "arrival." Daily scripture reading and prayers help keep us focused on the most important part of Christmas.

My Charlie reads advent verses and prayers at breakfast every morning. The whole thing is ridiculously precious... except for the fact that the verses and prayers are being read from a big black three ring binder. I've been busy during November making this Advent book for our family to use every year from now on.

I copied all the words from the ugly notebook and added a little glamour to make this treasure. The pages are sturdy scraps of cardboard (hello recycling!) with numbers for each day made of paint or leftover scrapbook stickers. I drilled holes in the side for ribbon binding. This project cost me $0. It's one of my favorite holiday projects ever. It looks cute on the mantle too!

thanksgiving 2009

Thanksgiving in Mississippi was just adorable. I have so, so many things to be thankful for... My mom and dad, my sisters... sweeties, my Charlie, my kids, thanksgiving food, thanksgiving desserts, family, leaves, a creative mind that never stops, Jesus and His ways, a home, a fluffy pillow, I could go on... but I won't. I'm thankful that I got to spend this week with my family. It was perfect. Here are some pics of the finished turkey masks and other turkey treats...

Hope your week was warm and cozy.

gobble gobble

We're leaving this morning for Mississippi to spend Thanksgiving with my family. My iPod is ready with 3 hours of Christmas music (so we don't have to hear any songs twice). Charlie is not as excited about the music as I am, but he understands... aaaand, the "but I might not get a Christmas tree this year," card seems to be working nicely when necessary. I'm not sure how much blogging I'll get done while we're gone so I'll leave you with a thanksgiving craft...

Turkey mask! It's easy, but time consuming. I plan on making two more during the car ride today. You can do the whole thing by hand, here's how... 1. Cut some felt into the shape of your mask. 2. Cut another piece of felt into a triangle for the nose/beak thingy. I also hand-sewed some fabric to the back of the triangle for extra stability. Attach the beak. 3. Make an embellishment for the top. This one is for little Dean. He gets a crown on top so he can be the turkey king. The girls will get flowers or bows or something frilly. Hand sew the embellishment to the felt mask. 4. Cut a piece of fabric into the shape of the mask and hand sew around all edges for stability (also to hide all the hand sewing jumbaleez on the back). This could also make the mask reversible. Attaching it all together is the most time consuming part. My kids are very excited about wearing these all week. Good luck and happy Thanksgiving!

making things

I made some gifts for a few friends who are bearing children. I like my friends. These baby shirts are a fantastic way to use up all that scrap fabric lying around. I also used some scraps on my latest batch of felt flower hair clippies...

I'm busy today, packing and trying to make a few family Christmas crafts. Hope your Thursday is very productive! Loves!

favorite places

Charlie: Do you have any questions about moving to Georgia?

Little Dean: Hmmm... Are some big machines gonna come move our house?

Charlie: No, someone else will live in our house and we'll get a new one.

Little Dean: Ha Ha! They are gonna have a really small back yard! Ha!

Here are some places around town that have captured my heart. I'll miss them very much...

Whole Foods...

Monjuni's... Besssst little Italian place. Gorgeous art inside.

Superior grill. I would literally drive 12 hours back here to eat Mexican food at Superior grill... It's our favorite date night spot.

I love Honeymoon Bungalow for life! Best vintage thrift store.

Dear Circa, it almost makes me tear up to think about leaving you. You have the most beautiful junk. Love, Me.

we're moving

I love my life. I love my husband. I love the creative ways of my compassionate Creator. So here's the news... our family is moving to Georgia. We've lived in Baton Rouge, LA for 3 years and now we're packing up our life and moving twelve hours away to Georgia. I'm excited and anxious and happy and devastated and overwhelmed then back to excited. It's been a process of emotions for me and for my Charlie (I love him). He's going to get serious about finishing his PhD and we have an opportunity to work with a small church that needs a little love. It really is amazing and all part of God's unpredictable beautiful plan for our family. So my blog posts over the next few weeks may be sprinkled with updates and feelings about all of this. Thank you for your prayers!

i made pants!

It took me 3 days (about 2 hours of work each day), 3 bobbin refills, and $30 of my hard earned toddler art money, but i'd say my first time ever following a pattern was a success! I wanted to redeem myself after the bear incident (see previous blog post) and I needed a distraction from the small amount of chaos that is starting to take over our house. Following a pattern was really not as hard as I thought and the pants came together perfectly (just don't look too closely at the crotch area... tiny disaster).

When the pants were finished, I embellished some plain t-shirts ($3 at Wal-Mart) with leftover fabric and some screenprinted scripture verses that i usually put on baby onesies. Easy, easy, easy.

Hope your weekend is cool and refreshing. Try something new!

little bear

Meet Mr. Davaldi. Since little Dean learned how to ride his bike without training wheels, I thought he deserved a prize. I've been working on this bear for a few weeks and finally finished him last night. He's probably the number one ugliest thing i have ever made... ever. Charlie and I keep looking at it and laughing until tears pour from our eyes. However, little Dean loves it! He's learning about famous composers at school so he wanted to name the bear Mr. Davaldi (After Antonio Vivaldi, the italian composer). Once the initial shock of his ugliness wears off, he's got a cool swagger about him. First of all because he has a mustache and a deep v-neck soccer jersy. He also has some snazzy blue shorts, one leg that's shorter than the other and a protruding bulge from his belly that my Charlie describes as "a hernia or something." I'm so glad Mr. Davaldi came into our lives to make us laugh.

Good job, little Dean, you're the best 4 year old.

embellish a shirt why don't cha?

Speaking of purple. These little shirts were 2 dollars at Target... it would've been ugly of me not to buy them. They were just plain long sleeved T's and I added the flowers... so easy! I cut a few pieces of fabric into long strips and started rumpling it up and hand sewing each rumple (is that really a technical sewing term, "rumple?" o well... you get the idea) until it looked like a flower. The one with more flowers is for Millie g. and the smaller flowers are for Stella Belle. I paired it with a fancy skirt (also from Target $7) and some funky tights. Don't be afraid to add little pretties to plain shirts this fall... all the cool kids are doing it!

wedding weekend

My sister got married yesterday. Was it awesome? yep. Was it big? you bet. Was it perfect? beyond. I'm still collaborating pictures. I don't have as many from the ceremony as I left that to the professionals. Here are a few high points from the beautiful, exhausting, sweet and precious weekend...

We rehearsed...

We brunched...

ps... the fronts of our black shirts say "Valerie's Entourage." Out of control amounts of glamour.

We hairsprayed and texted...

We twirled...

We cried...

Love you, Val! Happy marriage!