Flea market Sundays

We got such a late start this morning I figured there would be nothing for me to buy this morning. To my surprise I bought more than I've bought in a long time!

Loads of vintage yardage.

Two feedsacks.

A gorgeous tablecloth. 

And a pile of tiny tartlets? Tart? Something else? Tins. They are small, like half dollar sized. Now what shall I do with them all?

Happy Sunday to you!

Hapde Burfday Grant! 3

 Today Grant turns 3.

 Having three kids has been a crazy ride.

 But a wonderful kind of crazy ride.

I still get all upset when I see his newborn photos, thinking of that day, how scary it was, how much damage was done in those hours, but then we take him to the zoo and he amazes me and makes me laugh and it's all forgotten again.

 We had a family only Thomas party. He wanted that train on the cake SO BAD.

 He even smiled this year for the annual "see how you've grown" hippo photos.

 But what he really wanted was to ride the train. Dave asked the engineer if he could blow the horn and they said yes, but when he got in the engine he panicked so Dave did it for him. We will try again next year.

 He thought feeding the birds little bits of popcorn was the most amazing thing ever. He kept saying to this mean big bird, "come here big one!"

Dearest Grant,

Today you are three!  This is the end of the babyhood. The year you leave behind diapers and other more baby things and start really moving into being a preschooler.

Sometimes it's hard to be the baby, you don't get to do everything everyone else does, but no one is better suited to that job than you! You fit right in there like peas and carrots and you make sure you are not forgotten.

At three you are:
*funny
*smart
*obsessed with trains, trucks, and all things mechanical
*musical, you love to dance, a current fav is Annie, old school 1982 style, "its a hard knock life" can often be heard coming from you
*stubborn as hell
*know your ABCs
*sleeping in a big boy bed
*still HUGE, almost as big as Sammi
*using the potty at school, but not at home
*a real pain in the butt at bedtime
*always asking for more snuggles with Daddy
*a GREAT helper - carrying groceries, cleaning up, doing jobs
*always asking for two of everything - two lollipops, two trains
*currently wrestling with your siblings like wild animals
*friendly! You love waving to everyone
*still think if you turn your head no one can see you
*into bugs, dirt, digging
*an adventurous eater (Indian anyone?)
*when I was making your birthday shirt you kept saying "is that my number three quilt mama?"
*always cracking me up with your curious observations and questions
*my precious baby! my last baby, the one who gets away with so much more than Jack ever did, the spitting image of your father, the greatest number 3 I could I ever imagine.

I love you baby,
Mama

Kids say, kids make

Sam and I are still having craft mornings (and garage sales too) on Wednesdays. This was a Pinterest idea. I had only seen the frank and the pumpkin, when I suggested it she came up with a whole Halloween list of things she wanted to make with paint chips. I had grabbed the black with no idea sad was fumbling when she said, mommy! A spider. Clever girl.

I am in love with these. I grabbed enough chips for the boys to do it too, and they are garland bound.

This boy. This morning was rough. He was uncharacteristically grumpy right out of the gate. I was trying to pee and he was standing right next to me screaming in my ear and stomping on my foot. Then he pops off with "mommy, I like your big butt." And then I started to laugh and forgot all about how awful he had been. 

40th birthday quilt, Liberty fabrics posie

Goodness, this quilt has been a long time in the making. Stopping to paint the whole house was a long delay.

I've long dreamed of owning a little bit of Liberty tana lawn. Around my birthday in May I decided to use some money I had earned and buy myself some. A 40th birthday deserves a special quilt right?

It's even bound in Liberty.

The pattern is posie from fat quarter style.

The centers are cotton couture.

This pattern was easy enough, but seemed to take a long time coming together.

If you followed along on Instagram you know I had drama after drama regarding the field fabric. I ended up with a screen print from architextures. It's the same on the back.

It's pretty. But right now I do not feel crazy in love with it.

The Liberty was challenging and it's not what I envisioned I think.

I do have a fair amount of fabric left over and could surely make another quilt with it, but we shall see if I ever do. I tend to use fabrics once and then move on. Life is short and my quilt list is long!

(I am already working on the next one.) :)

Flea market Sunday

Not a tremendous haul at the flea this week.

Two paper mâché jack o lanterns. My first time being able to afford these! The one if the right is pretty damaged, but it was less than buying myself lunch at McDonald's.

Two not so cheap trick or treat buckets.

And one quilt tip which will likely be for sale on Instagram soon.

I am off to the second birthday party of the weekend, happy Sunday!

Kids say

Mom, what are you looking at?

The man spraying the neighbors lawn.

What's a lawn? I think I need a dictionary. 

Flea Market Sundays, the sparking joy edition

As most you know by now, I have fallen victim to the internet sensation of The life-changing magic of tidying up.

As a result, a metric ton of stuff from our house has gone to the goodwill.

And it feels AMAZING. The house is tidy, the children are helping and life in general is much calmer.

As one deposits said metric ton of stuff at the goodwill, one has loads of time to ponder what "sparks joy?"

It turns out a lot of things that had been collected did not, indeed, spark joy.

But the quilts? Still a heart stopper.

I wish I had chosen to take these photos inside instead of the purple afternoon light outside.

I stalked this pile of quilts rather incessantly until the seller finally showed back up to sell them to me. And then I bought them all.

I actually bought the grandmother's flower garden to sell, but we shall see if I can do that or not.

The postage stamps on the second ones are barely an inch!  What an amazing thing some quilters are able to do.

 Can you even?!?!?! Look at how many one inch squares that is!

 I think these two were a matched set at one time. The first one has been finished differently, with a green back and a different binding and is in worse shape.  This one she appears to have run out of the nile green and used a lighter green in that lighter section.

 

Also happening around here -

There was a bit of a scary incident with Jack this week. I was sewing on a quilt binding and it kept getting later and later and I noticed he had not come home from school. I called the bus garage (thinking the bus had mechanical trouble and was delayed), who said all the kids were already dropped off. The next thing you know phones are ringing all over town, the bus is being searched, and I am in absolute panic.  It turned out he stayed after school for an activity.  But, part of Jack's difficulties are with that kind of language and the child never thought to tell anyone he should call his mother and let me know he was not coming home on the bus.  I marched all the children into school and had a talk with the principal, who had the counselor call me the next day. So, at least Jack is back on their radar. We are having some other difficulties with the middle school transition (nothing that was more than irritating), but this was a serious safety issue! I think the only time Jack realized what a serious problem this was when I started to cry. Yikes.  It's hard to know when to discuss these things, because his peer group is now obviously all over the internet, but yea, that's what this week has been like.

Project paint: grant's room grows up

Grants room has been painted very dark grey since we were expecting Sam. I am LOVING the bright white! He has adjusted to the twin bed with no problems. We still need the rocker for him at story time and we still are in diapers, but those things are easily removed down the line. 

Curtains made from vintage fisher price sheet. (The camera doesn't like the window light apparently.) if you are wondering what's going on with that window it's a piece of black out fabric tacked up there. Lol

This weathered wood shelf is from Walmart of All places, it's a better homes and gardens line and it's perfect in here. I went with a loose transportation theme based on the curtains. 

I switched out the flash cards in his nursery frames and bought that street sign at a yard sale.

His IKEA rug was already in there, target had the perfect transportation sheets. The night stand was already in there too, I just Painted  it white and changed the knob. He loves the felt ball garland from sheep farm felt on etsy.

I would've loved to have had a bunch of old signs on this wall but I don't own any and sharp edges next to a bouncing kid make me nervous. These colorful decals are from Amazon and  work just as well.

He is doing a great job keeping it clean! He is able to do it all by himself, which I love.

Aside from waiting for IKEA to open so I can finish the living room, we are all done upstairs. I finished the last of the basement yesterday and I have a lot of thoughts on this whole process coming soon. 

Halloween swap 2015

The Halloween swap email has been sent! If you think you signed up and have not received it, please email me asap.

61 miles of broiling yard sales

This weekend was the annual 61 mile yard sale.  This used to really signal the end of the prime junking season for me, but there are still a few good sales coming up.

For a few years this sale has been SO tragically bad. This year I was doing the happy dance.

A million yards of an apparel gingham fabric.

A faded cutter chenille, a feedsack, some plaid fabric trim and my current obsession - a border print pillowcase.

A new breadbox and a new canister set. Which happen to match each other.

A creamware bowl that I LOVE (And paid quite a lot for actually), a juice pitcher and a milkglass planter. We cleaned off my kitchen window and put all African violets in those flower pots there, so finding another one was on my list.

A bag of the best antique metal Christmas tinsel EVER. Loads of it. Metal icicles and, wait for it, a 4 foot aluminum Christmas tree!

A box of pink depression glass.

 

Plus 4 new kitchen chairs which I am working on making over (have been on instagram) and the sweetest pair of religious pictures with stars. I went back 40 miles for those, they were calling me.

 

I will close the Halloween swap this evening and send out emails. There are still a few spots left if you are on the fence!

Around the house

How about some things that have been going on around here?

**the swap is about half full, still time to sign up!***

Grant is in love with this "Cookie Monster" hat he found in goodwill. He's starting to enjoy dressing up.

He woke up with a totally dry diaper yesterday, so I sent him to school in underwear. The teacher has been telling me to do it for weeks, but honestly I have tried potty training here at home and it always ends in a mess. Sometimes he seems ready and then sometimes not at all. Anyway, the only way I could think to let the teacher know he didn't have a Diaper was with tape on his back! (I use the carpool drop off because it's an easier transition for him, so I don't see the teacher.) 

He is so much like Jack at this age! He loves helping daddy. This was the new shelf for his room. (Which is almost photo ready.)

Even though it means only having three hours a week with no kids, I arranged the preschool schedules so that sammi and I have one morning alone. This is her last year before kindy. We use that time to craft. Well, I plan ONE craft and then Sam wants to do twenty crafts. Last week we made this house pillow from the crafternoon kits at Joann.

A few weekends ago we cleaned out the playroom. Rearranging all of the upstairs rooms meant things had been torn up down there too. We used parts in other rooms upstairs, we needed to move down the big rug, etc. We got rid of about 50% of the toys. We could likely get rid of more, but we are finally nearing the point where it's easy to clean up down there.

I have honestly taken so.much.to goodwill that the kids at the drop off now say "what have you brought us today?" Hmmmmm.

I put a lot of the vintage fisher price together on one shelf and it's love, love for that. Grant and Sam play with these toys a lot, unlike Jack, who never touched them.

Tomorrow is the sixty mile yard sale. It's sort of the ceremonial end of the summer junking season, which is boo, but I am ready for a break from the kids for the day!