A rainy sunday project

Finally it’s raining here! Happy day! I love winter and having my family nice a warm inside with the sound of rain outside; it’s the prefect time to do a quick sewing project.

For awhile now I have been thinking about a place to keep the Kennedy’s library books, the pile on the floor just wasn’t working for me anymore. I came up with a a hanging pocket for the side of her bed.  Thought it would be pretty neat and had the potential of being cute.  So out came the scrap pile of fabric and a few hours later the perfect bedside book pocket was born.

I thought I was pretty ingenious with my design until I did a bit of “pinning” and found that I am not the only one to think of this.  It’s still super cute I think and works perfectly.

One of many

So if you haven’t explored the world of pinterest.com yet, you should. Unless you don’t want yet another web-world addiction.  I love pinterest.  I find so many inspiring ideas and have finally started making things, my version of, that I am inspired by.  This is one example:

An advent calendar with pockets for activities for the month of December leading up to Christmas.

Overall this was pretty simple to do, very, very time consuming, but simple.

I started my making 24 pockets using a packet of paper from Martha Stewart of course!

Then came the layout, a math intense process; luckily I like math.

I added some sparkly ribbons and other fun things and it was done. (This all took about 5 days working for a few hours each day with a toddler interrupting and “helping”).

The tags say things like:

Go visit santa, Decorate the Christmas tree, Go have lunch with Daddy at work, Camp out by Christmas tree, Open a gift, Drive around to see christmas lights, Bake cookies with Nanny

Overall I really like the way it turned out and it’s done before Thanksgiving!

Oh Dora

I’ve been thinking about writing this entry for a few days now, ever since I posted all my pieces on etsy. Yes, finally!  I, for some reason, procrastinated until the last moment before my completion date, but it’s done.  So, why would thinking about a blog entry have me awake at 5:30 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. I can’t stop thinking of the Dora the Explorer song:

“We did it, we did it, we did it, yeah! Lo hicimos we did it, we did it, hooray!”

(If you just read this, and you can hear the music and Dora’s voice, you too must have a young child).

Maybe getting up early, to blog, will solve my problem. (I hear you Dora while I’m typing). It’s nice and peaceful this early.  I made a strong cup of coffee and am curled up on the sofa with my laptop.  It’s still dark outside.  It’s raining; Myles is purring next to me.  It’s really quiet (except for her voice…”we did it!”).

Maybe I should get up early more often, I used to.  That was in my “past life” (before we became parents).  Honestly, that probably will not happen,  now that we are finally sleeping through the night (two-and-a-half-years later), I like sleeping. Plus, if I got up early every day, precious moments like these would not be as precious.  I would not enjoy the quiet, the darkness, becoming light, a simple cup of coffee, like I am right now.  Hearing the day begin, Myle’s loud purring, it’s beautiful.  Thank you Dora!

Rearranging takes more time

I have discovered that rearranging my etsy world is taking way more time than I was expecting it to.  Of course, I already take into account that with a two year old everything takes longer, but this is getting crazy!  I was thinking, “oh this will be super quick.”  Wrong!

First, I decided that along with the new name “Vintage Princess by me,” I needed a new “image.”  I found a vintage linen that my mother-in-law gave me, it’s beautiful and has the original tags on it. It would be perfect.  It’s the image that you see above, in the blog header.  Pretty, right?

So then of course, there are business cards and hang tags.  I played with the designs for a few too many days and decided to posted what is currently made on etsy first!  I pulled out the stock pile and started to repost the pieces… well, yuck.  With the new logo and colors, the background of the pictures looks dirty.

So, I repainted the background and re-photographed everything! They are so much better!

I’m happy with the results.  The pictures are downloaded into the computer, but that’s where it ends.  All the photos still need editing and then uploaded to etsy.  All the details still need to be rewritten and then back to the business cards.

I know I can’t be too upset with myself.  Since getting the photos taken, we have been super busy: visiting my mom, helping demo her master bathroom, attending a super fun birthday party with wonderful friends, volunteering as the public relations and alumni relations person for our daughters pre-school. We have our normal busy life. Oh, and I have had the worst head cold ever (or at least that I can remember).  So I have been busy!  And honestly, I procrastinate.  The only thing that works for me is a deadline, so blog world, here it is:  I will have my stock pile reposted to etsy by October 1, 2011.

At first I thought, that’s a good date, a few weeks away… ha ha ha wrong again.  It’s next weekend.  Let’s see if I can do it, shall we!

xoxo-me

Today I failed…

Today I failed.  It was the second day of pre-school and I actually had almost two hours of free time! You know what I did?  I cleaned.

So sad that I cleaned, I am not supposed to do that during pre-school time! I am supposed to work on my freelance packet and my etsy stuff.  I am new to this free time thing, so, lets hope this is the only time I clean, but  I am sure it won’t be.  I’m a want-to-be June Cleaver, after all!

things are changing…

Hello world,

That’s kind of a funny thing to say, “Hello world,” how many people are really going to ready this, I hope many!

This is my first post on this blog.  I have a blog that I started a few years ago, sadly with only 3 posts but now it’s time to get serious about this and my many adventures of entrepreneurship, so I am re-naming my art/sewing life to Vintage Princess by me.  This new “identity” seems to fit with what I love to do, which is to take found objects and make them into clothing, stuffed animals, fun things for kids and anyone who is interested.  I will also be sharing about life in Davis with my husband, John,  daughter, Kennedy, and our cat, Myles.  I promise there won’t be too many Myles stories, but the occasional, “Myles brought us a nice big dead mouse” story might be included.

This first post is entitled “things are changing…” well things are changing right now.

Kennedy is starting pre-school! How is that possible? Not really sure, it seems like yesterday she was born.  Funny, everyone says that and before kids I thought that was a weird thing to say, but now I get it! She was super excited to go and I even left her there for a bit.  She did awesome! Happy day!

So now that Kennedy will be at school for a few hours a week, I will actually have time to work on what I have been wanting to do for a few years now: 1. start my own free-lance design company. I am a furniture and cabinetry designer (more on this later, if you wish there is a link to my portfolio on the right) and 2. get my etsy site running.  I have had a few sales over the last year, without putting the effort I should into it, but now I will have time! (My shop has changed too, for those few who followed me here from my old blog- there is another link on the right)

I will not clean during school time! I will not shop during school time! It will be all me, that’s the goal at least!

~m.e.