trick or treat!

Hello, long lost blog friends! I've been enjoying a super busy fall, which started over the summer. :) I love it, but I'm trying to wind things down soon so that I can fully immerse myself in the holidays this year. Hopefully, that will lead to more blogging, which I've been terrible about lately! You can see what's been keeping me hoppin' over at my photography blog, which is linked up on the right there. >>

Halloween is definitely one of my favorite holidays and I have always tried to make it more memorable for the kids by getting them involved in making costumes. Even as young as they are, they plan waaaaay ahead and actually stick to the plan. In fact, they are already planning for next year!

We went with an Alice in Wonderland theme this year. The twins were Alice and the White Rabbit, while Sarah chose the Cheshire Cat. Halloween portraits are always so fun because you can push the colors and stuff just a little more than you usually would. Here they are!

Happy Halloween!!

back in the saddle! sorta.

Although we are still stuck in the dead of winter, things are starting to look up! We are going to get really busy around here really quickly, but only good things are in sight.

I have been pretty overwhelmed with the great response I got to the super hero capes I made a friend for Christmas. I got tons of requests for them, which is great, but they are pretty much all I've gotten to sew for months now. I'm glad to be caught up so that I can take a break and work on things that are a little more fun for me. My sewing machines are glad too - they definitely did not appreciate all the cape making.

Last week while we were visiting Grandma, we made a stop at one of our favorite boutique fabric shops and the girls each got to pick out some fabric. Over the weekend, I made the time to sew them up some new goodies.

{E} is a monkey junkie and insists on owning every monkey adorned thing we come across! She asked for a dress, so that's what she got. I love these little dresses b/c they really grow with the girls and can be worn alone in summer or layered in winter.


{P} went for this awesome retro mushroom print. I had some coordinating fabrics in my stash, so it worked out great. I used THIS tutorial to make it, which is super easy to do! The only thing I have trouble with is visualizing the sizes so I had an issue with hers being almost a little snug across the shoulders, but it works!

And here's {S} in her roller-skating fairy print top! I used the same tutorial but made the sleeves longer as she requested. Hers wound up a little on the big side, but that just means she can wear it even longer!

{S} chose to wear her top for her first day of SCHOOL, which was Monday!! Yes, that's right, she is now a student again! She's been a preschooler since she was 2 years old, but when we moved we planned to just keep her home for her last year before kindergarten b/c we didn't think we could afford to pay tuition. WELL, as I was pursuing the idea of getting the twins into a nearby church school in the fall, we were offered an opening in the pre-K class for her! Since there are only a few months left in the school year, the cost is much more manageable for us. She is super excited to be back in school and we're hoping she'll make some new friends.

Did I mention we got the twins enrolled in preschool??? YES!!!! They will start in the fall and I am counting down the days!

This week I've been playing catch-up, as usual, and I finally have some new camera strap covers in my etsy shop. I plan to add a few more in the next week or so, so be sure to check it out! My current fave is this one, which looks like free flowing grassy stripes. I tried to get some neutral straps in the shop this time around for all those with hubbies who complain about the girlie ones.


I'm still working on my office space while trying to juggle my sewing projects. Hopefully we can manage a productive weekend and get it finished up. I can't wait to get started on spring dresses and Easter clothes! I've also got grown up camera love bags on my list.

On top of everything, I've even started to ... *gasp* ... exercise! I've been trying Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred video, and it's been good to get those workouts in. We are slowly seeing the snow and ice melt outside, so hopefully I'll be walking and jogging soon, but this is keeping me occupied in the meantime. I have a hot date with 5 twin mommies at the beach in July so I need to get less jiggly and fast!

sew, I've been a little busy...

I have a good excuse for not blogging - I have been sooooooo busy sewing! It's been great b/c I can certainly use the extra cash for decorating the house, but I haven't had time for much else lately. I've done 12 skirts and 10 aprons in the past month, plus 3 super hero capes and a zillion camera strap covers. I kept thinking I'd put some of these items in my shop, but my wonderful online friends kept me busy enough so that I didn't have to do that. :)

I'll be posting a tutorial for the skirts soon!

homemade gifts: aprons

This year, my mom and I are giving the girls their very own aprons for Christmas. I was inspired to make the twins' aprons from vintage materials after finding a vintage embroidered dish towel with the letter "E" on it at a local antiques store. I knew right away that it would be adorable as an apron for Ellen.

None of these aprons are perfect, but I love all the charm they have because of the vintage fabrics and embellishments. I have been hanging onto some of these fabrics for almost 15 years! lol

Phoebe's apron is funky with a retro pear pocket.

Since I only used half of the dish towel for E's apron, I decided to make another apron to sell in my etsy shop. It was a good excuse for me to try out this ruffle technique before we attempt to ruffle some towels for the purple bathroom.

And while I was at it, I made another one of the pear aprons to sell. I know there's someone out there that will love these as much as I do!

I will also be restocking my shop with camera strap covers throughout the week. I'm having a sale, so they are only $8 right now! More on that later...

You can always get to my shop by clicking on the etsy widget on the right side of my blog.

cheap and easy holiday headbands

I'm hoping to get the girls' Christmas pictures taken over the weekend and the only particular thing I had in mind for them to wear were cute headbands with a big flower or something on the side. Because I'm cheap and crafty, I decided to tackle the headbands myself. These are so easy, anyone could make them!

I started with headbands already wrapped in grosgrain ribbon (3 for $1 at Target in the dollar spot), felt poinsettias with adhesive backs (intended for scrapbooking. $2/pkg of 6 in the holiday section at Hobby Lobby), felt and fabric scraps.


I thought the poinsettias were a little small, so to give them more presence, I decided to stack them on top of some other things. Directly underneath each flower is a fabric yo-yo. They are super simple to make and you don't need anything other than a needle and thread. I cut my original circles a little small (pictured above) but you should cut yours about twice as big as you want your final yo-yo to be. Trace a large cup or small coffee can to help you get the shape.

Using a thread and needle (knotted at the end), stitch along the outer edge of the circle. After you've gone the entire way around, pull the thread so that the outer edge gathers in the center. Make a stitch or two to keep everything in place and close with a knot. Super easy! Normally, you'd press the edge over before stitching so that the raw edges don't show, but since they won't show or get any wear on these headbands, I just left them.


I used the sticky backs of the flowers to adhere them to the yo-yo's and also added a few stitches, just in case. For the bottom layer, I cut a circle of felt just slightly larger than the flower and yo-yo. Fold it in half and cut small notches, then fold in half the other way to notch the rest of the way around. This helps to keep your notches fairly even (I am not very good at this part! haha)




Using a hot glue gun, I glued the yo-yo flowers onto the felt circles and then glued them onto the headbands. SUPER EASY!!!


The entire project cost me about $1 per headband! Yay for cheap and easy!!!

Official Christmas pictures coming soon!

Have a seat in our Purple Paradise!

Last week we had exciting things happen at the Pinkerton house! The guys we hired to help with the scary hall bath, RW Handyman Services, finished up their work and it was transformed into a Purple Paradise! Like everything else, we aren't completely finished yet, but it is soooooooo much better than it was!

You can check out all the before pics in THIS post, but here's a shot to refresh your memories:

That huge toilet paper holder was hiding a huge hole in the wall, by the way. lol And here's what it looks like now:

MUCH better!

One of the major things that RW Handyman Services did was install a shower in the tub with a new surround. I was thinking we'd get something a little fancier for the surround, but I made the mistake of walking away while the order was placed and my dear husband picked this one after finding out the one I picked was a special order. Oh, well. It's nice and new and clean! The shower is great - I've already tried it out, even though this is the kids' bathroom. I will be shaving my legs in here for the rest of our stay in this house so that I don't feel like I'm bent in half in an upright coffin in our master bath shower stall. haha! Really, what were they thinking when they came up with those stand up shower designs? There definitely was zero thought given to shaving legs in them.


The shower curtain is something I'm excited about. I found these gingham curtain panels on clearance at Lowe's for less than $1 each, so I stocked up on them knowing we could find uses for them. For the shower curtain, I just sewed two of them together, side by side and added little button holes at the top to put the hooks through. Not perfect, but definitely good enough, and at $2, who is going to complain??? Not me! Since we saved money on the curtain, I let the girls get these fancy glass knob hooks to dress it up.

When I find the time, I'll make some fabric yo-yo's in blues, purples and greens to add as polka dots to the shower curtain. The girls LOVE anything with yo-yo's and I think it will add to the girly/shabby chic look we have going on, while incorporating some of the other colors in the room.


We found this super cute rug at TJMaxx today. LOVE it! The purples don't match exactly, but we'll tie it in with those yo-yo's. You can see our pretty new (vinyl) floor that the guys put in for us. The floor is not level (like, by a lot!) so vinyl really was the best option for us.


Remember how the old vanity was covered in the oatmeal texture??? bleh!! Well, now we have a new one! I LOVE it!!! Nice and white and clean, except for the blue marker Phoebe wiped on there after coloring clothes onto her naked self. I missed it before I took the pic. lol We went from having a vanity that was 22" deep to one that's only 19" deep. I thought I wouldn't like the narrower version, but I actually love the way it gives more space to the room and it seems much more streamlined and modern.


The faucet is new and doesn't flood the counter top now! The kids have been playing in the sink every chance they get. Apparently, they've never seen a sink stopper that works because it's the greatest thing ever to them!

In this pic, you can see the now un-scary linen closet. It's full of tools and junk right now, but I can't wait to put my linens in there! You can also see that we need to re-hang the doors and finish painting the trim. It will all happen this week. Promise!


Today Sarah and I hung some pictures and things on the walls. I have this great faucet *thing* that I've never had a place for, but it's very cute in the bathroom. I also let her use some of my favorite paintings. In this collage, you can also see the knobs we got for the cabinet. I wanted to get glass knobs like the shower curtain hooks, but those suckers are almost $5 each! We got these for $1.75 each and they will fit in fine.


Aside from making the yo-yo's for the shower curtain, we are planning to embellish some towels with ruffles like these awesome Shabby Chic towels at Target. They are pricey, but I know I could easily make something similar and we can use whatever colors and fabrics we want.

So that's the new bathroom!!! I need to finish painting and touching up, but I'm so happy with the way it turned out! Seriously, we wouldn't even go in there before! Now we have to tackle the rest of the house, which looks like this right now:


It will be done by the end of the week. Promise!

fine dining with feathered friends

Operation: Rainbow Bright is moving along. Our bathroom project is just a day away from being finished! This week I also got some things finished up in our eat-in kitchen dining area, which is our only dedicated dining space for now (the formal dining room is our office space.)

I admit, I am not very inspired by kitchen and dining spaces. It's hard for me to come up with creative ideas that will work together, but I came across this wonderful idea to make fabric birds and mount them on a branch, and I knew it would be perfect for our space. The bird pattern is by Spool and can be found here. I made a bird to represent each person in our family. The girls had a blast playing with them before they went up.

Oh, and I have made the executive decision that the ceiling beams are getting painted (white.) We have someone to do it, we just need the cash. I keep trying to work around them and make them less noticeable, so we are gonna paint those suckers! It will give the kitchen a very cottage-y look (we've seen it done in other houses.)




We have a very large window and I wasn't sure what type of window treatment to do, so we went with an inexpensive patio shade (which I'm not sure I love, but it will work until I decide.) We don't need a ton of privacy from it, but it would be nice to have something to cover the window at night when it's easy to see in.


I also hung up some decorative plates that I've been collecting. I LOVE them and am so glad I have a place to display them now. I intend to keep collecting and continue them down the wall.




The plates compliment my teapot collection, which is now over the sink. I'm still working on unpacking, so there may be more to add to the display. It's all just sort of thrown up there for now to get it out of the way. LOVE my new Alice in Wonderland teapot!


When we moved from our old house, I made the decision to replace our dining chairs. The table was in ok condition, but the upholstered parsons chairs had been trashed by the kids. Originally, I wanted to go with some sleek, modern chairs from Ikea to contrast with my cottage-y/shabby things, but they discontinued the ones I wanted! Plan B was put into place, which was to collect old chairs and paint them all a fun color. Unfortunately, finding chairs is not easy! Tables = easy. Chairs = not easy. I scoured craigslist.com for a while until I found someone selling a collection of 6 chairs + a table for $60. We wound up using 4 of the chairs and the table will probably go out on our covered porch. Scott's mom found this great table with 2 leaves for $5, so I had her get it and I freshened it up with some 3-in1 stain. (Our old table is now my sewing table since it doesn't have the leaves.) She also found the two end chairs for us for $3 each! I love a bargain!



In the plate picture, you can sort of see into our family room, which is a few steps down. Just wanted to prove it's a mess!!! lol It's next on the list - I've been working on it. It's a super dark room because of the covered porch, but we're making progress with brightening it up.