"THE" Dress

The finished ensemble had many details.





And the wearer looked very pretty in the outfit...




Yes... she is wearing little earrings and a sparkly head band. The dance was a grand success. She and Daddy were out partying until 8:30pm... definitely past her bedtime.

Daddy-Daughter Dance

The Daddy-Daughter Dance is tomorrow evening at Elsie's school. They will have pictures taken, refreshments, a ball dancing lesson, and then get to dance for an hour. It is the first time Elsie and the spouse have attended and apparently some of the little ladies get quite elaborate with their dresses. We have been discussing The Dress for a couple of weeks, and two days ago we had to narrow things down a bit.
I was first presented with this illustration and STRICT instructions that the skirt "go straight down".



From the image, it appears that the wearer of the dress would not be able to walk. So I asked if the skirt needed to "go up" as she twirled. "The skirt needs to go STRAIGHT DOWN! NOT OUT!" was the reply. Then I was presented with this drawing...



So again, I wanted to make absolutely sure she indeed wanted a hobble or pencil skirt. At this point it was no longer a discussion but rather a fiery argument ending with the words "I drew you two pictures showing you what I want!!" I think I have a budding designer on my hands.

The straight skirt request meant that she didn't want a petticoat (because they itch), but she did indeed want the skirt to twirl away from her as Daddy spins her about. She had also requested that it be strapless... I nixed that request immediately. We selected a pattern online (to save some time looking through pattern books) and headed to the store. After steering her away from the hot pink/vivid aqua/pastel green & lavender plaid combination that was calling to her, we selected these raw materials...



which I am currently transforming into a dress. Daddy cannot see the dress prior to the grand unveiling tomorrow night. I did pin her into all the parts last night... she looks very, very pretty.

Baby Owl

I was at the farm a couple of weeks ago and this little guy (and his brother) were hanging out. The mother had been living in the backyard all fall and winter. She took over an old magpie nest and had two little (relatively speaking) ones this spring. This one had fewer flying skills and liked to nap in the sun... so I took the opportunity to take some up close and personal pics.



He is a Great Horned Owl (no "horns" or ear tufts yet) and he does have talons.

Oh... and I finally uploaded some new picture to Flickr so have updated my badge which has been showing the same images for almost a year now.

And even better news, I have new allergy medicines that work, so I am able to spend some time in my garden. Stay tuned for some rose pictures! The bad news is that I am allergic to everything on the allergy scratch/prick test. It is never good when the allergist comes in and looks at your results and says "Oh my!". Needless to say... they stopped the test about 5 minutes into it rather than making me wait the full 20 minutes. The new medications are working for now, and hopefully I will be starting allergy shots soon. I am just happy to be in my garden again.

I'm dancing this Friday and Saturday!

I've been taking ballet classes at the Laurelhurst Studio here in Portland for the past few years. I love the Creative Director of the studio and the teachers... and most of all the other adult ballet students. We are a happy bunch and get a kick out of trying things. It's a great workout and a lot of laughs with the usual gang. Every spring the studio puts on a spring dance performance... and this year I am in it.... after much prodding and encouragement from my fellow students, I might add....
It is this Friday, May 29, and Saturday, May 30 at 7pm at the DaVinci School here in Portland if you want to come and watch. Our piece is called Softy Etude.



The students from the Youth Ballet in Training program dance in the majority of the pieces.. and they are really, really good. And then there are all sorts of pieces from the other classes. Many of the students have choreographed dances too.

Mister Judy Press

My sister and I had a great bit of promo written about one of our Mister Judy products.
Check out the Evergreen Mom's blog article on our Little Hostess Tea Linen Sets!
How can you resist this little tea party setup anyway?

Closet Project

Our 1922 house has never had a coat closet. You enter into the front living room/dining room/LARGE room, and there is no place for coats... other than the chairs at the dining table which evolved into ON TOP of the dining table.
What we did have was a hall linen closet that was unusually deep... like 4 feet deep which me (my short little self) would have to get a step stool to reach anything that had been inadvertently shoved to the back. Usually those things remained forgotten.





Children are for scale...



You can see in this shot with the drawer out how deep it is. And that there is wasted space beyond the back of the drawer. You did not, under ANY circumstances, want to pull one of these extremely large drawers out all the way. You could not hold them and, as you let go, would hope to high heaven that you could get your toes out of the way in time.



So we ripped everything out. Used some of the unfinished fir to put in the floor... there was no flooring on the closet floor that matched the fir in the hall... Now there is. And primed and painted... and then added shelves up the back.




In front of the shelves is a coat rod, so the coats hang in front of the shelves. There is plenty of space for both things, and we cleaned out tons of stuff from the closet that we didn't need or could have been stored in a more appropriate place. Read as: stored somewhere that we would remember and be able to find the item at a later date.
There is always one box of stuff leftover...



I'm still trying to figure out where to put these things.

When they are too quiet...

So I had a meeting this morning on Skype. I was on my headset and Mister e was keeping himself busy with some Nick Jr. shows and a finding Nemo game and doing some drawing too. He, like his mother, likes to have a lot of things going on at once. Apparently he branched out a bit, and I lost track of the time, and he presented this work of self-art:



Note that each side is it's own color complete with coordinating eye details. I am not sure if he used the mirror down here or not. If he did, he was REALLY quiet. A bath was required for this clean up.

It's raining... and I'm excited!

It's been raining since last evening, and my allergies are SO much better! This is probably one of the few times that I will be excited about rain. I also have a new $100 allergy nose spray... thankfully we didn't have to pay the full price. So now I'm on double allergy meds and decongestants 24 hours a day. I am able to breath which means I can function once again! Hope to be more productive in the next few days.
On another note, I found this cool site called Frugal Living. It's all about saving money, coupon clipping, and living on less. Good info... and a cute little bird logo to boot!

Springtime allergies... yuck

So it's 4:30am in the morning... and I've been up since 2 am with a running nose that is also plugged tight. How the two things can exist simultaneously is beyond me. After suffering from allergies all week, I felt really good yesterday afternoon and went outside to do some weeding. The spouse was sweeping up grass clippings and the side walk (which was covered... and I mean COVERED) in pollen. Apparently I got into the cloud of yellow and have been a mess ever since. It's a bummer because I really like gardening and can't participate yet. This year is the worst that my allergies have ever been. I think it's time for a trip to the doctors to adjust the meds.
For now I will leave you with this lovely picture done by my 2-1/2 year old son.



He is really into circles and will spend lengthy amounts of time creating these topographical maps.... which he prefers to do in marker... never crayon or some other less messy media.

Shark Softie

Miss Elsie received this invite to a birthday party this month....



The shark really caught the spouse's eye, and we decided to turn it into a custom softie for the birthday recipient. So I scanned in the invite and blew it up really big.... YAY for Illustrator!



The result matched the image very closely.



I like his teeth.

Well... hello there

It has been awhile since I last posted. I needed to slow things down a bit and take a break from a few things. My blog was one of the things that was pushed to the side. In the meantime, however, spring has finally arrived here in Portland. I can tell because:
1. I now have all sorts of flowers that I can cut and bring inside and
2. My allergies are on overdrive. Apparently my allergy meds wear off around 5:45am. As long as I'm asleep it doesn't matter, but if I wake up... look out!
I planted these lovelies last fall. They are very orange but have a little big of light tipping on the edges.



I think there are 2 different kinds of tulips in this bouquet... both orange. I can't remember what I planted.



Bulbs are like that, though. A little bit of a surprise in the spring.

Family Room Redo

So right after Christmas, I decided that the family room needed a redo.



It wasn't as light and bright as it could be. I've been seeing so many beautiful rooms with light colored walls that seem so airy and calming... especially in the now defunct Domino magazine... R.I.P. So as you can see from the pictures, we had a LOT of stuff on the big bookcases.



When the bookcases were emptied most of the stuff was toys and about 60 pounds of magazines. We moved the bookcases into other rooms that desperately needed the shelving. I repainted everything! Ceiling, trim, walls... everything is really, really clean with brand new paint.



We bought a new shelving unit from IKEA that would hold our television... which was 1/4" too wide to fit on the old bookcases. No, you couldn't just wedge it in there... we tried and it looked, well, wedged.



After we completely assembled the bookcase, we realized that it didn't have feet and had to sit over a heat vent... the only heat vent in the room. And we discovered this at 10pm at night. Everything was closed so there was no way to finish this project that night. Which was extremely disappointing as I had painted and used fans to get all the paint on the shelving unit wall done and dried so we could install our new furniture and get the TV back up and running. The next day the spouse bought wood and ebony stain and started making block feet that would raise the shelf about 1-3/4" off the floor. You cannot make stain dry any faster than it is designed too. We checked with two experts (my dad and his dad) and both said "Don't rush it"... speaking from experience, of course. So the 6'x6' case was flat on the floor for 2 days while the feet dried.



The result is exactly what I had envisioned... and I LOVE it.



We even replaced the the spouse's "unauthorized purchase" couch with a brand new couch from Dania. This is my first brand new couch that I have ever purchased in my life! The old couch is on Craigslist if anyone is interested.

Hello Spring!!!

I love spring. I really, really love spring and summer. I like a little winter, but not too much. I was done with winter 3 weeks ago. I know, I know... too early... but mentally I was already sitting in my back yard smelling roses.
So I started some seeds...



.. because it's that time of year....



I have a lot started. I might have too many tomatoes, but I'm always afraid some might not come up.



But outside I found my first few flowers opening up their sleepy heads...





I love green flowers, and hellebores fits the bill so nicely.

Crater Lake

I was cleaning out my iPhone and found this lovely picture of Crater Lake:



I fly back and forth to Irvine for one of my freelance clients, and it was a clear day on the last trip. I have never actually been to Crater Lake, but fly over it frequently. I really want to go this year.

Board of Inspiration

So here are the images that I have affixed to my board with my fancy new magents....




The first image has a couple of sheets that are part of a "Decadent" inspiration board. I think that defines my style... as I like the images, color, and materials of those sheets... and, of course, you can't go wrong with John Galliano who is featured smack in the middle of those tear sheets.
Now I just have to figure out how to make all this work with my existing wardrobe.....

Why does it take me so long to get around to doing things???

So I posted back in the middle of summer that I had put up these linen covered magnet boards.


...which have basically remained linen covered boards with nothing on them for 6 months. I finally got around to making my magnets for them. I wanted to use these clear, thick scrapbooking lens stickers with letters, but my magnets were, of course, magnet color which is black meaning the letters wouldn't show up on the black magnet.


So I painted them all with a couple of coats of a cream colored acrylic.


I let them dry and stuck the stickers on top. Ta da! They look pretty swanky.


I have now filled my magnet boards will all sorts of inspirational images to help me stay focused on sewing some new things for me and revamping my wardrobe a bit. While I am delighted to have beautiful images to look at, I have discovered that I have completely conflicting views of style. I love vintage looks and tailored suits while swooning over goth gowns and heavy eye liner. I'm a sucker for rhinestone jewelry, but also love elaborately detailed coats and jackets that would not require any additional adornment. And I love the look of combat boots and layers of tulle... I don't know why, but I really, really do. I'll post pictures of my dilemma board tomorrow. Either way it still looks better than empty linen.