Vacation & Caught My Eye: 4.28.12

WE ARE GOING ON VACATION. A little get away for some R&R, sun and sand. And boy do we need it. We leave early Monday morning so unless I get some sort of inspiration while laying in the sun, blogging may be slow for the next week. 

In the meantime, here are a few things that caught my eye this week:

Check out this rainbow birthday party invitation template. With just under three months to go, I'm already mentally planning Lucy's first birthday party.


I may have given this blog a shout out before, but you should check out Meggan's take on home birth, homemade baby food and other topics on organic mothering.


Earth Day was this past week. Check out the card Danielle made over at Neat&Tangled using recycled materials. 


I love this idea. Movie theatre/restaurant in one??


Jo always has great gift guides. This one's for Mother's Day. 


This picture is inspiring me to take up watercolor painting.


Has anyone done Project Life? I'm dying to. Just can't decide when to start.


I wear my denim shirt probably too much, but I'm all about this trend. 


Who doesn't love free art?


I'm a bit obsessed with all these amazing Photoshop tips. 


So dainty.


Speaking of jewelry, I'm on the hunt for the perfect thin gold ring. Or a dozen.


In other news, I signed our baby girl up for the Gap casting call modeling contest. Check out her entry here, and feel free to 'Like'! I'm not sure if the likes even do anything. Gap chooses the finalists mid May to vote. 

All You Need is LOVE is All You Need

I mentioned on Monday that I did purchase one item while at Clover Market. The vendor I bought from was Black Heart Letterpress. I'm a lover of all things letterpress. I searched for weeks finding the perfect letterpress invitations for our wedding. I was so determined that I was going to have letterpress invites. There's just something about the finished look of a piece of stationary or card made in letterpress that I love. I prefer that over a glossy standard printed card or invitation any day.

Black Heart Letterpress specializes in custom designs of greeting cards, invitations, coasters, prints, and more. After I brought my card home I made sure to check out their website to see what else they offer.

You'll notice thay have a lot of Philadelphia-themed pre-made pieces, which I'm a fan of since my mom's side of the family is from Philly. Here are just a few pieces that caught my eye. 

This is the card that I purchased from Black Heart Letterpress. When I purchased I knew I wasn't planning to use the card for it's actual purpose as a card. I loved the print, the saying, and even the color of the letterpress and thought it would look great in a simple white frame.

Here is just a snap of how the card was packaged, with a copy of their logo and website address packed on the back of the packing. It obviously came with an envelope, which I don't need, so I just stashed that away in case I need one for something later.

I used an Ikea Ribba frame for the card and added it to the newly updated gallery wall in our living room. I'm still filling a few of the frames on the wall. As I've mentioned a few times I've been trying to brighten up the space in our living room and I just felt that the dark frames on the small piece of wall were crowded the space. Plus with all the dark furniture we have, it was just overkill. I recently swapped out the frames for all white and have been in the process of replacing the wedding photos with prints and other family photos (aka Lucy). Hope to finish up this weekend!

Be sure to check out Black Heart Letterpress sometime!

Lucy's 9 Month Milestones

I feel like I just posted her 8 month update. 9 months just seems so old and our little girl just seems so big these days. It amazes me how much she develops each month and how different she looks in pictures just weeks apart. I love to just watch her when she's playing independently and interacting with her toys. I'd love to know what goes through her mind sometimes. 

We have her 9 month appointment this Friday and will find out her current weight and length (and if she's still super tall for her age). 

• Lucy now has one and a half teeth on the bottom
• She is eating two solids a day - usually cereal and either a fruit or vegetable - along with her usual diet of breastmilk. Keeping all solids organic.
• We've also given her a few dissolvable finger foods that she will feed herself, but she mostly likes to play when them.
• She is a crawling machine, but is already trying to walk. She stands up any chance she gets and scoots around while holding onto tables, chairs, people's legs, etc.
• She claps and waves a lot now and is starting to react when you clap or wave to her.
• She still laughs so much. It's my absolute favorite sound (until that little voice starts talking.)
• We have slowly been transitioning Lucy to sleep in her crib at night. It isn't easy and some nights she only makes it half way before we bring her into our room because she just won't sleep. We've had one night that she lasted until 6am, so we are being patient. Each night gets a little better.
• For the most part her talking is still babble, but she is learning new sounds all the time (for example, she recently started saying 'fffff'). She did say 'hi' to my mom the other day, but I can't get her to say it to me. Again, we are being patient. She will talk when she's ready to chat.
• You can see in the photos she is tugging at her ear - Lucy's sign of being sleepy. I was able to get a few good shots before she was over the camera.
• She is pretty on target with her age and the size clothes she wears., but I think her feet are small. She's wearing size 3 in shoes and even then, they are sometimes big.

Clover Market

Last weekend, my friend Amy and I hit up Clover Market in Ardmore, PA. Neither of us had been to this vintage outdoor market before, but we were both incredibly impressed. Clover Market feature vendors selling antiques, clothing, jewelry, crafts, and other great handmade and vintage finds. 

Clover Market is open one Sunday each month during the Spring and Fall months. The next one is May 6th. You can read a little more about Clover Market on their blog.

While I didn't come prepared with my 'good' camera, I did snap a few shots on my phone to share with you all. 

How great are all these storage boxes? Jordan and I have been wanting to find a card catalogue for our dining room to store wine. We're looking for a larger version than the one below (plus I wouldn't have room in my car to bring it home anyway). Amy purchased one of the vintage crates in the left photo to use as storage on her office desk.

Does this little floral tray look familiar in the lower right photo? I picked up one just like it for $3.00 from Goodeals and it now sits on my nightstand as a sort of catchall. I didn't note how much they were going for in comparison.

There were some great handmade textiles and screen printed pillows. The skirts in the lower right photo were made from old t-shirts. 

I loved the day of the week chalkboard, but we have absolutely no room for it in our house. It would be great in a kitchen as a dinner planner for the family or a chore schedule for kids.

While I was mostly just browsing for ideas and looking for some inspiration for the guest room, I did purchase one small letterpress greeting card that I plan to frame and add to our new gallery wall in the living room.

Now that the weather is getting nicer I'm ready to hit up some great outdoor markets and yard sales. Anyone suggest any good flea markets in the DE/PA area?

Pallet Paint DONE

It look much longer than anticipated, but the pallet is finally, 100% finished being painted. It took so long due to a number of things, both within and out of my control. Two weekends in a row of rainy, damp weather didn't help since the pallet needed to be worked on outside on our deck. The pallet was also a lot more prep work than anticipated. I did several rounds of sand, spackle, sand, spackle, prime, spackle, sand before I was ready for the real paint to go on. While I didn't mind a few of cracks and minor flaws, I wanted to make sure to fill in any large gaps, cracks or holes in the wood.

Even when it was finally time to paint, I had to alternate between spray paint and painting by hand to get between and underneath all the wood panels. It was quite a chore. It will be some time before I'm ready to prime and paint another pallet! Luckily my next pallet will be staying as is.  

It's not perfect, but I never expected (or necessarily) wanted it to be perfect.

I bought these great hooks from Home Depot. The look almost identical to the ones in my inspiration photo, except I opted for a different metal finish. These ones are more of an oil rubbed bronze, whereas the ones in my inspiration photo are brushed nickel.

Of course the next step is hanging it up on the wall. We've been going back and forth a little on where exactly to hang the pallet. There are two possible spots: on the left side of the wall right after where the door opens, or on the opposite wall in place of the dresser. If the latter is the case, we may move the dresser into the closet or try to find another spot for it. Because of the size and layout of the room, we are pretty limited in our furniture placement. We also need to plan out exactly how we are going to securly install the pallet so that we can properly use the hooks and hang things from them.

In the meantime I am still planning out the rest of the room, I am on the hunt for some good light fixtures, a solid mirror, window treatments, and a few more gold frames for the wall.