Exercise

I've been doing really well with exercise in the past few weeks. (Sarah and I even went on a few walks together... here we are swinging our hips:). I'm supposed to exercise at least 30 minutes, 5 times a week to help with my anxiety. And I think it has helped.. but I've had to take a break due to my under-the-weather-ness. I never thought I would miss exercise, but I actually do!

I'm Sick

Dave and I are in Southern Texas trying to recover from the flu... and trying to play some gigs at the same time. They don't seem to go together very well, but we're gonna make it. I wish I had some more of Dave's mom's chicken & matzo ball soup (it was soooo good!). I hear it has wonderful medicinal properties :).

Grace

I got to hang out with another adorable baby a few days ago. Her name is Grace. She's 8 months old and likes to take her socks off.

We're trying to put it back on...

She loved it when I made little clicking noises with my mouth :)

What a doll!

Wedding

How funny is this...

Our Newest Video

I thought it would be fun to start uploading our videos on my blog. I hope you enjoy it...

Good Feeling

I sold this dress over the weekend. I have such a great time designing these little garments, and it's so wonderful to know that other people enjoy them too. I just decided that I would love to take some sort of beginning sewing or fashion class and dig a little deeper into this new hobby of mine. I'm hoping that there's a community college around that will offer a class that will magically fit into my schedule. We travel so much, and I'm a little doubtful that I'll find something that works. I guess I just need to take the first step and look!

Why I Love My Job

Reason #348: I get to sing in places that look like this...

Stauffer Chapel at Pepperdine

Dave's REAL Birthday

Dave turned 28 today. We got to spend the morning in Costa Mesa, CA with two of my wonderful cousins. We made birthday omelets with onions, bacon, tomato, avocado and cheese (Dave's not one for pancakes) and hashbrowns. It was a very low-key birthday full of airports and rental cars, but Dave insists that he doesn't mind. We even had a gig tonight... that HE booked. I guess that means he loves playing music :).


... and here's some pretty fabric I bought a few days ago.

3...2...1...

Launch! My Etsy store is FINALLY up and running. I've listed two items so far, and I plan to keep them coming! I was bummed that the name "Lovely Little Things" was already taken, "The Lovely Little Things" was one letter too long, so I settled on the abbreviation.. tllt.etsy.com Check it out friends!

Another Sale!

I'm so excited! I sold my second dress (thanks Sarah!). I'm looking forward to seeing a cute toddler wearing this funky little modern dress.

Dave's Pre-Birthday

Dave's 28th B-Day is coming up soon, and we decided to do a bit of celebrating early. We went to a wonderful dinner with our dear friends, Tim and Sarah. And now... a bunch of photos of us :)


After dinner we walked around Old Town Pasadena.

Dave got some boba (a rare west-coast treat). And then we went to the Coffee Bean to buy something for the rest of us non-boba drinkers. The barista screwed up Tim's order and was about to throw it out... but Dave volunteered to rescue it from the garbage can. And that's why he has two drinks.

I LOVE my friend Sarah!

Hermosa Beach, CA

We had a great time walking around the shops and going to the beach on Sunday afternoon

Dave bought another pair of his beloved birkenstoks to replace his dying ones in this shop. I was totally into the floor :)

Here I am with Dave...

For reals..

Pretty Pretty Plates

My friend Carol was given 8 of these gorgeous oversized italian dinner plates for free because they all have miniscule chips in them. She brought them home and realized that they didn't go with her decor. And lucky for me she's super nice and decided to give them to me!

I'm still in awe. I could not believe how pretty they were in person and I still can't decide if I want to use them as dinner plates or as platters. I guess I can do both depending on the situation. Oh the possibilities! I'm going to have to make myself some pretty cloth napkins now :).

Thank you sooooo much Carol!

Basement Bathroom

Here's the photo progress report:

I'm excited about the built in shelving we added. It's going to be painted white.

Sewing Date

My friend, Carol, and I have been getting together to sew once a week for the last 3 weeks and I love it!!!! Last night we spent several hours sewing, cooking and talking. It was wonderful. Carol has such a lovely home that makes it easy to feel creative. Please notice her amazing decorating skills :)... you have to look beyond the virtual explosion of all things sewing.


I feel so blessed to have found a friend who lives somewhat close by that I share so much in common with. I look forward to many sewing dates to come!

Flowers

I never buy flowers. I always want to, but never bring myself to put down the cash. These however, were only $4, and it IS Valentine's day, and they ARE really beautiful.

Forgiveness

Thanks to everyone who posted such wonderfully encouraging words to me about the camera. I failed to mention in my previous post that although Dave was a bit sad, he was genuinely forgiving. He didn't say a single unkind word to me about it, which says a lot about his character (I am married to a wonderful man).

I'm pretty sure I've also forgiven myself as well... and that feels good.

BIG MISTAKE

Today I wanted to take some photos (finally) of all the items I want to sell in my etsy store. All my dresses and onesies were ready to go with their cute little orange tags... all I needed was Dave's nice, expensive camera to photograph them. I picked up the camera, but unfortunately, it had the wrong lens on it. I took off the wrong one, and put on the right one. Somehow it never properly snapped in place and proceeded to fall onto our hardwood ("hard" being the operative word here) and broke. We're not sure how much it's going to cost to get repaired. I felt so awful.

It seems so ironic that it happened this week. I've been working through this program to overcome my anxiety and panic attacks, and this week happens to be the session where I'm supposed to focus on being assertive and doing things on my own. I'm trying not to feel defeated about trying to use the camera on my own, and failing. I know that if a good friend had done what I did, I would tell them that it was an accident, and that it's no big deal. There are more important things in life than broken lenses. Why is it so hard to tell myself the same things? I'm trying to learn how to put less pressure on myself, and lower my expectations. I am truly a perfectionist that wants to be good at everything. I never want to make mistakes and I want everything I touch to turn to gold. And, wow, does that sound unrealistic. I've got a little... or a lot of growing to do still, but I'm making progress. And that's what matters.

Hem For Her

A friend of mine asked me on Sunday if I could hem jeans. I've done it before, but I was wary to commit to hemming her jeans because sometimes it's soooo obvious when jeans are hemmed. But THEN I heard about a way to use the existing hem so that it actually looks good. I found a tutorial online, and I tried it out with an old pair of my jeans.
Before:

During....I like my feet :)

After!

It's hardly even noticeable that I messed with the hem at all! People, I'm very excited about this.

Kitchen Curtain

I made this little cafe curtain to go with our new kitchen. I like the look of a full curtain, but it just blocked out too much light. I think the short one still looks pretty cute.

The color in the previous photo isn't really accurate, so here's a photo of what the fabric really looks like.

Kitchen Ammendment

We actually figured out that the kitchen probably cost us around $600 (instead of the $900 that I posted). Pretty stinking awesome!

Modern Dress

Okay. This is definitely different than my other projects, but it was really fun to experiment. It was a good challenge to try and figure out how to soften the hard lines of the print. I settled on little pockets (obviously) with a sweet polka dot accent.

My Fearless Husband

I think this photo speaks for itself... yikes.

It Is Finished

We finally finished the kitchen. It's been almost done for awhile now, but I didn't want to post photos until it was completely done.

Here's a list of the changes:
1.Tear out cabinet on far right and "wavy" things
2. Add pendant light fixtures and dimmer switch
3. Sew and hang new half-curtain
4. Add bead-board around door
5. Re-drywall damaged ceiling
6. Paint the entire ceiling (it used to be painted tan)
7. Paint cabinets
8. Paint the non-bead-boarded wall "silver sage"
9. Purchase and install new hinges

Cost - Approximately $900, and much, much time. It makes such an unbelievable difference though. Our kitchen feels so much lighter and brighter both in the daytime and at night (because of the new pendant lights. Our friend, Brian did an excellent job leveling out our ceiling, and it makes it feel way more put together. We think the before and after photos are pretty dramatic!







A couple more photos...

Contest

My friend let me know about this contest to make a purse or bag inspired by Amy Butler, so I thought I'd pass along the information to all of you crafty ladies out there. Since I can't for the life of me figure out how to post a link, you're just going to have to cut and copy this one.. http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2007/12/amy_butler_contest.html?

Lovely Little Logo

My new friend Katie graciously (and patiently) helped me design this logo for the store I'm about to launch. We played around with several different designs, but I kept coming back to this simple one. I just made up some tags, and now I need to sew them in! Hopefully I can get my store up and running by the end of the week. Here it is:

Ikea

Dave and I stopped by the Ikea in Atlanta on our way back home to Nashville. Going to Ikea seems like a really special adventure because there aren't any around our hometown. I could've stayed in the store for about 2 hours, but we had a long drive ahead of us, so we had to keep it short.
This blue chair is what I saw... and liked.. but had to leave at the store..

This is what I took home. These boxes were so cute and so cheap. They'll help me keep my sewing room a bit more organized.

I also bought some fabric. I know it's totally modern and completely different from what I usually do, but I thought it would be a fun departure. I'm planning to add some ribbon and perhaps a little butterfly applique to soften the look.