Thursday, June 24, 2010

85 Days of Summer

Summer Week #2 and we're still going strong!

On Monday we spent a bit of time outside, including some outdoor painting time.

Tuesday was a busy day with lots to get done, errands to run, and lots of folks in town for NADEC at the Free School. I resurrected the kids' play kitchen with some long-needed repairs and it kept them busy for hours.

Wednesday was my first day of watching Trixie, one of Lyric's bffs. I'll be watching her a couple of days a week for much of the summer. These two crack me up. (Again, the play kitchen. How did we survive while it was out of commission?)

On Thursday we had a friend over and took advantage of the delayed rain by having a picnic in the People's Park behind our house.

We went to the library on Friday to round up lots of books for vacation. My kids are both way into graphic novels. Me too!

On Saturday our family gathered at my brother's house to have dinner with my visiting Grandpa who regaled us with stories of bringing farm animals to weddings. So funny.

And here we are on Sunday, loading up for our week away from it all in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont! We're all really looking forward to this chance to unplug, get away from all of our day-to-day worries and spend some time alone as a family. See you next week!!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Thursday Thrifting

The addiction continues...

more typewriters

just like the one I remember as a kid

vintage yellow pyrex bowl, filled briefly with roadside blackberries

the perfect stamped embroidery piece for Lil, with pouch

soon, I hope, this wall will be covered with pieces of embroidery!

It ain't a school, it ain't free

A few of you have been asking about the Free School, where Tige and Lyr go. I intend to write a post about our experience there but until then I thought this would sum it up for you, sung by a great guy and Free School parent. (Look for Lyric hanging on the jungle gym in the background!)

Saturday, June 19, 2010

85 Days of Summer

Here we are, one week in! It's been a busy one...

On Monday we spent some time at a local orchard, picking strawberries and feeding the animals.

On Tuesday we walked up a couple of blocks to visit the State Museum. We saw our favorite exhibits, rode the carousel, got a hot dog from the cart outside and took a stroll through a newly renovated cathedral on the way home. The kids finished out the day with a bike ride with Dad before bed.

On Wednesday the weather was pretty icky so we stuck around the house, did some painting, read some books, watched Ponyo, and made ricotta gnocchi for dinner. Yum!

On Thursday we did a bunch of errands and played outside a bit.

On Friday we took Skye to work, hung out at Grammy's a bit, and played outside at Uncle Jim's. Lyric loves the forest of blueberries!

On Saturday we went thrifting in the morning, took a bike ride along the river and ended the day with dinner with some great friends.

On Sunday we went out to Grammy and Grandpa's for a Father's Day celebration with my brothers and their families. Unfortunately Lyric kept losing steam until he was deemed officially feverish. This kid never gets sick and I imagine he'll be good as new in the morning but for now I'm enjoying the cuddling!

Summer officially begins tomorrow--here's to a summer full of new experiences and hopefully at least a little bit of relaxing!!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Thursday Thrifting

Though the rains tried to keep us away we couldn't help but find more treasures this past weekend...

:: Finally, something to hang on our vast walls!

beautifully framed and so perfect for our space, I'm in love (hello, Helvetica!)

:: Some supplies for our camping and picnicing this summer.


:: Some office-y stuff. And books.

love these illustrations, and a perfect reader for Lil!

:: The inevitable crafty stuff.

old!

even older!


:: More for the kitchen.


:: Just for fun ;)


:: A sure sign that I'm destined to open a vintage Etsy shop:

:I have absolutely zero use for this, but it is so pretty I couldn't pass it up! I suppose it was only a matter of time...

Happy treasure hunting!!

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

85 Days of Summer

Friday was the last day of school for the kiddos and yesterday began the 85 days they have off until school starts again in September (not that I'm counting or anything...). I've been trying to psych myself up for being on as Mama much more than I've grown used to and am determined to really engage with my kids. I want them to have a really great summer, which in theory will mean that I will have a better summer, too.

Lyric and his Great Kid award

Tigerlily receiving her Determination award

I've decided to start a weekly blog post to both chronicle our adventures this summer and keep myself honest and accountable to the plan I'm trying to hold to. Through the week I'll take photos of our adventures and do a weekend post of the highlights.

I'll also be adding a few more weekly standard posts in the hopes of posting daily. At the top of that list is offering tutorials, which has me really stumped. I can't seem to wrap my brain around how to do it! Luckily I've found a few tutorials on making tutorials that I'm hoping will help me. For now I will share this idea that I couldn't formulate into a tutorial--this year's gifts for my kids' teachers at the Free School: personalized tote bags!

It was a bit of a process to come up with this final product. It all began with the idea to give all 10 staff members at the school personalized "World's Best Teacher" mugs as a kind of joke but I couldn't find an affordable option for this. I then decided to make 6" embroidered hoops with this wording for each teacher. Here's what I came up with in Photoshop, with a ton of help from this video:
:The fonts I used are C rial and School Script Dashed (love dafont). I printed one of these designs out for all of the teachers and traced each with a layer of transfer paper between the printout and fabric. It worked wonderfully but it wasn't long before I realized that a.) the C rial font was a bit small to embroider easily, and b.) I might be able to finish all of the embroidery by the end of the next school year, but certainly not this one.

So, plan B. I realized I really love the School Script font and wanted to continue with that. I decided to make the embroidered names into patches and started thinking of something clever to affix them to. But when thinking about what that might be I had to remember that there are three male teachers, and as enlightened as they may be I wasn't sure I could imagine them rocking personalized zipper pouches (I'm dying to make some of these). I decided everyone uses tote bags and opted to make morsbags for everyone (I love this pattern but probably should have chosen something a bit more simple with the quantity needed and the time constraint I was facing). True to form I finished them up about an hour before graduation :)

I kept the guys' bags really simple and used up some larger pieces from my stash. All in all I think they were pretty successful, and appreciated. Now to make one for me...