Daisy

A few months ago while Daphne & I were in Sephora I bought Marc Jacobs Daisy perfume. I love the bottle top. It reminds me of vintage 60’s flower brooches.

I processed the image with Totally Rad’s Oh, Snap! and Grandma’s Tap Shoes actions. Trying to play up the vintage-y feel. It’s not the best shot, but I was really getting irritated with the focus on the D50, not to mention the freaking dust spots. We need to get that camera in to be professionally cleaned before I throw it out the window.

Speaking of perfume, normally I make all my purchases from scentiments.com. They have great prices. I’m a big fan of the original Marc Jacobs scent and instead of having Chris buy it from the Parisian store at the Summit for full price, I had him buy it from Scentiments. For the same price as one Marc Jacobs perfume I got it plus a full size Stella McCartney. And if I’m just buying something for myself I order a tester- same perfume you just might not get the box and it’s usually quite a bit cheaper. Anyway, there’s my plug for Scentiments. They have really fast shipping too.

New Etsy Favs

It’s been a really long time since I had a chance to just sit down and browse through Etsy. There are so many amazingly creative artists/crafters on there and I always leave the site inspired. Here are some of my finds from today:

Superior Cleaners Sign- Vinyl Decal from Tasty Suite

This would look perfect in my next laundry room with the vintage laundromat pictures I found on istockphoto. Do other people decorate their laundry rooms? Or am I just weird? I’ve always decorated the laundry room.

And from Single Stone Studios, Tropical Hibiscus Vinyl Decals. I actually like these better than the Blik decals I considered buying for Daphne’s nursery.

Sharmadesigns was featured over on Modish today and I love these earrings, available at her Etsy shop:

And these too:

And this lovely necklace:

And this isn’t a find from today, just something I saw again recently on another blog, personalized stamp from Craft Pudding. I LOVE this. I would totally never use it, but it’s adorable. I think I need a little Daphne stamp.

Star Wars Fine Art

I love Worth1000’s Star Wars Photoshop contest because it merges my slightly geeky sci fi side with my love of fine art. I can’t pick a favorite- maybe the Yoda Bouguereau or the little girl holding the AT-AT, and the Adam & Eve with Chewbacca is pretty funny. I’m so impressed with the Photoshopping skills (well, in most of the entries)!! Check it out!

Rain Gutter Bookshelves

The other day I saw an idea for a rain gutter bookshelf on one of my mom’s forums. The picture that accompanied the article is pretty horrible, but you get the idea:

Here are a few others from Flickr: bookshelves by pilatfamily and rain gutter bookshelves by Lagomorph. What a great idea for a play room! I think I’ll do this in Daphne’s next room. She has a wonderful bookshelf made by her Grandma & Grandpa Rice, which she’ll enjoy for years to come, but it is hard for her to get the books in and out of the rails.

Has anyone tried using gutters? Seems like an easy, cheap solution.

Fabric Help

Ok, I need a little help from my crafty readers. I’m trying to locate a US source for this Japanese fabric:

I know Japanese fabric and crafts have been really popular for a while now, but it was never my thing. Until now. I’ve tried Superbuzzy and Reprodepot. Any other suggestions? Are there Japanese equivalents to Michael Miller, Freespirit or Moda? Currently I’ve just been Googling with Snow White fabric Japanese, it might help to have a manufacturers name to add in.

Or I could just break down and buy it directly from a Japanese company. I’m just not sure how much of a hassle that would be.

Any help/advice would be much appreciated!

Oh crap.

Daphne & I are home alone this week, at least during the day. Normally my mom works from home but this week she is away on business. So we did a few things that we normally wouldn’t do, like play the piano. Daphne got a kick out of that. Hopefully she’ll still be interested in a few years and we can take piano lessons together. Today she banged on the keys while I played scales and random recital pieces my fingers somehow remembered.

Tomorrow we are headed out to a play group at the park, grocery shopping then to the pool. So far this week has been a little better, but last week was crazy. Daphne was in such a weird mood. At one point while she was in her high chair she decided she was ready to get out, gave me this “I’m SO fed up with you right now, Mommy!” look, rattled the tray back and forth while screeching at me. It was like one of those movies with the monkeys in the lab cages where they are always really pissed off and trying to bust loose. Yeah, that’s pretty much what Daphne did. In that moment Daphne’s terrible two and moody tween/teen years flashed before my eyes and I said out loud, “Oh crap.” And my family will get a kick out of this next story- the next day Daphne managed to get a tortilla chip out of the bag. When Chris took it away from her, she gave him this shocked and horrified face and then fell to the ground sobbing. Who does that remind you of? All of my personal drama is going to come back to me in spades. Oh crap. And now my parents will be luckily enough to be close by and witness me pulling out my hair over the next few years. Hehehe.

Little Daphne

We had a busy day shopping yesterday for birthday stuff and a gift for my niece. I didn’t plan on buying Daphne anything but when we walked into the Carter’s store I saw this:

I immediately thought of my own little pigtailed brunette and had to buy it. (And Daphne wore a purple dress from the same shop home from the hospital.) But I couldn’t stop there. Oh no.

We had to have the matching dress. Every once in a while a family member will mention to me how much fun I must be having dressing up Daphne like a little doll. Ya think? And in this case she actually is dressed like a little doll.

Some Family Pics

I finally got around to editing a couple more Chicago pics. Here’s another shot of my nieces. The little one in front will be turning 2 in a few weeks. She’s such a sweetie!! Which reminds me I need to get her a gift. It’s hard to buy for her since between the two of them (her older sister is 4) they have every age appropriate toy and book imaginable.

And here’s their father, my brother Doug. He’s 4 years younger than me.

Trying to get a picture of my brother is like trying to get a Yeti on film. If that Yeti is constantly barking at you not to take a picture. “Don’t take a picture of me. I said stop it! Quit trying to take a picture of me!” I swear I don’t know where he gets it. Certainly not from his older sister. Me? Nah? Um, yeah. Funny thing is after I took this picture one of my cousins said almost the exact thing to someone else trying to take his picture. So I guess it’s a family thing. Good to know we come by it honestly.

And the reason why we were in Chicago to begin with, my dad.

I wish we had gotten better pics of everyone but it’s hard to hold Daphne, socialize and photograph everything. Too bad.

Hot Child In The City

Is it just my car seat or do all rear facing infant seats bake your baby in the hot summer months? It seems like it traps in so much heat and since she’s rear facing she doesn’t get the benefit of the AC blowing directly on her. When I take her out she’s all sweaty, crumpled and pathetic. I’m thinking about swapping out her Keyfit for the OU Britax convertible seat I bought her last year, just to see if it would make a difference, but I’m not sure it will fit rear facing in the back seat of my xB. I want to keep her rear facing as long as possible and since she’s a peanut she still has to gain 13 pounds or 3 inches to max out her infant bucket seat. So she’ll be rear facing FOREVER!

I’ve seen a few items on Parent Hacks that involved reflective window shades placed over the seat and a seat sized gel cooler pack. I’ll try those tips. Anyone else out there have a suggestion? I have to do something. Yesterday it was 97 degrees and I don’t want to feel like we are trapped in the house.

Cute Chicks

This is totally me:

You might not be able to read the caption, but it says “Jenny spent many a pregnant night dreaming of breast-feeding, washing hemp diapers, and handcrafting education toys from pieces of twine. And then she had the baby.”

I was one of those people who said my kid won’t watch TV until she’s much older, and even then in moderation. Then I had the baby. And if 5 minutes of Noggin will snap her out of a fussy time and allow me to regain my sanity, then let’s watch Oswald, baby! I’m still on the fence about cloth diapers. I swear my child poops more than I thought possible. I should have started back when it was all breastmilk poop and not as offensive as real food poop. Yucko. Oh yeah, I also wanted her to play with handmade, organic toys, not loud obnoxious plastic stuff. Unfortunately she only likes loud, plastic stuff that requires batteries. She doesn’t even touch her stuffed animals.

I love Sloane Tanen’s work. She is so funny and I love those little chickens. A few years ago I had one of her calendars in my office, but my boss at the time was a little offended by the lesbian reference in Paige, so I took it down. Recently, I put her Hatched book on my Amazon wishlist without seeing any of the images and now that I’ve looked at a few of the prints I realize I must have this book. In Placenta, the chicken is babywearing!! (There’s a phrase you probably don’t see often, “the chicken is babywearing”) Only my fellow babywearing mamas probably find that as hilarious as I do. And Ned’s bedtime,
Goodnight Moon and Polygamist are pretty funny too. I think the book would make a really cute gift for a new mom.