lovely lovely letterpress

My amazing letterpress cards came.
I love them.
I think I might just be addicted to letterpress now.

Aren't they lovely?
Thank you Elise! I will enJOY them ever so much! :)

In love with my library

I just love our library. I love books. That is no surprise to anyone who's ever been to my house.
We have many bookcases full of books, books in boxes never unpacked from our move (2years ago!) and yet I continue to buy more books. You can never have enough in my opinion.
So last Friday, our library had a used book sale. And we were there at 3pm when the door opened and here is my loot.
Some really good children's books. A huge book of Richard Scary (love him!) Island of the Blue Dolphins (adore it!) Some Little Golden Books (<3 <3) Be Nice To Spiders (always a classic) another ABC alphabet book (I'm such a sucker for those) and some of Alan Baker's Rabbit books.
A few Eyewitness videos (Olivia;s faves) The Parent Trap, The Wizard of Oz (it's kind of freaked Olivia out,) and Charlotte's Web.

But I also found this really really cool old text book.
In French.

With awesome illustrations like these.

Not exactly sure what I'm going to do with it, since none of us speak or read a lick of French,
bit I was thinking of a variation of maybe this or this? They are adorably cute.


I found a complete set, minus #4 (which we already have) of the Little House on the Prairie set.
It cost me all of $7. Score!

I found a couple of adult books too. None I have ever read. I was tickled to find the new John Grisham book. I had looked at it in paperback form at Costco just a few days before. I paid $2 for this hardback copy. Love it! I also found a James Herriot audio tape and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
For someday when Mike and I get to watch movies without kids. :)
One of my favorite finds was this really cool old art book, full of famous paintings.

What sold me (beside the fact that it's ancient old, beat up, and an art book) was these amazing illustrations on the inside of the front and back covers. Click on the photo and you'll be able to read the text. I paid $2 for this. Can you imagine?
So my grand total = $40 I love days thrifting days like that.
I got some great deals, maybe steals, and had lots of fun.
I can't wait until the next one and a chance to bring home another box of books.

just chillin'

Sadie~Rose loves the refrigerator.
Whenever she hears the door open,
she starts crawling towards it as fast as her little legs will go.
I grabbed my camera and caught a few pictures of her
enjoying the fridge.

Your a Winner

The lovely Miss Marta over at m.writes had a fun giveaway last week, and guess who won!
Me! I will be receiving a set of 10 personalized letterpress cards from Elise.
So exciting! I can never find anything with my name on it (go figure) so this will be a treat.
I'll post a picture as soon as they arrive.
I know they will be gorgeous.
Until they get here I satisfy my cravings by browsing through Elise's etsy shop
and catching up with her at her blog. She's super sweet and fun.

Yay for giveaways and letterpress! Could there be anything nicer?

A new do

Olivia and I have had problems with her long hair for quite a while.
For a long time I keep it cut really short
but one day I decided to let it grow,
imagining pony tails, pig tails,
buns, and twists.
Hair bows and pretty accessories.
Somehow in the mix of all of that,
I forgot my lovely daughter's personality.
She doesn't like her hair messed with.
At All. Period.
No combing, no brushing,
no fixing, no leaving it in.
And tears,
always tears.
I got tired of it and decided enough was enough.

So, we made an appointment

And here are the results!

snip snip

My beautiful girl,
her beautiful smile,
and her swinging short curls.
She's so happy with her new do.
I haven't seen her smile so much
since I don't know when.
Short suits her.

love {squared}

So, I'm kind of in love with my square platters.
Why?
I'm not sure.
I'm definitely not a square kind of girl.
Most of my stuff is very curvy, feminine, girly,
princess-y even?
I don't rock the modern, clean edge look very well.
It just isn't me.
But, I do love this platter.

I have two of them.
I originally bought them for the
Cute as a Button Baby Shower
because nothing was better
for showing off these cakes
than to march them uniformly across these platters.

And the other day I made
Sour Cream Coffee Cake
for a Mom's meeting.
I just had to pull out my square platters.

It looked awesome.
Someone asked if I had picked it up at a bakery.
{blush}
It was delicious
and it looked great.
What more could a girl ask for?
I think I'm in love. <3
Click here to get your own.

Bubbly

We found this big bubble wand at TJ Maxx the other day
and decided to give it a try.
I tried to make our own bubble solution
(without a recipe mind you)
and it didn't work so great.
Maybe next time.
We had fun taking pictures though!

Singing in the rain

We've had several rainy days lately
and Olivia decided to go out and play.

She's my happy girl.

We adore our rainbow umbrella,
she's wearing my rain jacket from when I was little,
and her wellies from her Marmee.

{Embellish}

Time for another swap!
My dear friend, Chelle, and I have put together another
great swap on Domestic Bliss.
Go over and sign-up,
and join in on all the fun!

Here are a few of the details:

{Embellish}
A little paperie swap of school-girl goodies

Take a moleskine notebook,
embellish it for your three partners,
add a few favorite school supplies,
and send those pretty little packages on their way.

Sounds fun, right?
I can't wait for my own notebooks to arrive
so I can get busy!

at it again

I've been doing a little bit of scrap booking lately. I had done a little when Olivia was very tiny but once she started to crawl, well that was kind of the end of that. But for my birthday my mom made me a treasure. A scrap book of just me for my 1st year plus a few others thrown in for good measure. :) I love it. And Olivia loves it. She has spent hours and hours pouring over the pages. And then I read this post. And I realized again how important it is to preserve and record these memories even though I agree with what Kelly had to say. I've been inspired by this sweet friend and this talented lady. And I thought I would share. I'm not too big into lots of stuff going on in my layouts and I'm not ecstatic about some of these, but at least they are on paper and in a book. An my family loves looking at them.

This was the 1st layout and it turned out just
as I had hoped.

This one went pretty well too.
I had a hard time with balancing all the page elements.
It could probably be improved, but it's special to us.

This is the first in a {soon to be} series from
our camping trip.
It turned out cute.

The two above LO go side by side and I'm
still working on the journal-ing.
It will be all about her 7th month.

My favorite.
Love the lace, the stitching, and the picture.
And the girl. :)