a few vintage dresses for me - part 3

This mustardy gold dress may not be the best color for my skin tone, but it's my first thrifted dress find that dates pre-70s! (Most of the time it's gross 90s dresses at the thrift store with lots of fabric, big shoulder pads and bad prints. If you are lucky there may be a 70s gem in the bunch, but not very often...)

The zipper is metal and chunky like my 50s dresses but I'd guess by the style that this dress is 60s. Upside: the fabric is stretchy and is very comfortable, downside: the neck is so tight it almost chokes! I have to have good posture wearing this dress - or maybe I just have a big neck? :-)

I paired this thrifted dress with a bright red Harold's cape coat - Lawrence Antique Mall (Lawrence, KS), gold scarf - from my sister's stash, brown woven belt - Target, patterned brown tights - Target and Tsubo ankle boots like these. 

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And finally, my "fancy" dress. (I just need somewhere to wear this to... someone, quick, get married!)

Isn't the waistline gorgeous?! I'm guessing 60s because of the fitted skirt although I just ran across a bunch of mid-50s dresses with a very similar bodice. What do you think?

dress: Wild Man Vintage, vintage cream/gold scarf: sister hand-me-down, beaded vintage Belgian clutch: gift, bronze strappy heels (not shown): Germany

 Isn't the clutch gorgeous?! Look at all that beading! And to think it came from a garage sale... (thanks S)!


That wraps up my vintage dress posts this week - thanks for following along! I had fun.

See vintage dress intro, part 1, part 2.

a few vintage dresses for me - part 2

This black and white dress is made from a material that is hard to describe (polyester? swishy? rayon? viscose?) ... and even harder to iron. I thought I might've ruined it after I washed it, but I did end up ironing the wrinkles out (and I won't be washing it again anytime soon!).

My book club had a Night Circus discussion in January and Jeremy snapped a few pictures of my outfit before I left. I went all out (black, grey or white with a touch of red for the rêveurs - followers of the Night Circus) and finally found a use for my crazy feather clip.

Super fun.  

dress: Wild Man Vintage clearance, sweater and belt: LOFT, scarf: scarlet knit scrap, red tights, and boots: Nine West.

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And you've seen this dress before. Probably my favorite of the bunch - it's super comfortable, fits well and can go dressy or casual.

After seeing construct of my grandma's veggie dress (exact same side zipper), I think this one falls into the same 5-10 years, so I'm calling it my 50s housewife dress. And it looks handmade. And I love it.

Stay tuned for 2 more dresses tomorrow!

See vintage dress intro, part 1.

a few vintage dresses for me - part 1

This first one is special - it came from my grandmother's closet. This was a dress she wore in the 1950s when she was a junior in high school! It's snug in the top, but I decided if it fit I was keeping it.

So I did.

(Someone always manages to sneak into the photos ...)

It is actually a vegetable print with tones of cream, yellow, green and purple. The skirt is amazing and I think I need a petticoat. It still has its belt (many, many vintage dresses do not) and it's double rope-like belt that I just tied around my sweater.

I wore this one to church one day and got several compliments. On a vegetable dress, I know!

dress: Grandma, sweater: thrifted, cream tights: Target, brown shoes (not shown): JCP.

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This one is a handmade, crazy pink, 70s print polyester maxi dress that seems to have seen better hippietastic days. I thrifted this one and decided I'd try a dress re-do (you can't get good at sewing if you never try!) - so I snapped a few "before" pictures and then cut it up.

The skirt was a crazy wide bell and the sleeves had elastic cuffs (yuck) so I...

... cut off the skirt length
... narrowed the skirt bell
... narrowed the waist (then took it out again and gave myself a little more wiggle room)
... cut off the sleeves in favor of a cap sleeve
... then shortened the neckline ties.

Probably my least favorite of all of my vintage dresses (first time's a charm!?) - mostly because of the crazy print and because it doesn't flatter my figure at all ... I look straight all the way down! But I still am proud of my first attempt.

dress: thrifted and altered, necklace: my MIL's 80s closet, belt: LOFT, white lace leggings: Khol's clearance, clutch: Korea, black peeptoes: my closet.

a few vintage dresses for me! (*week series*)

This week I'm featuring some of my "new" vintage dresses! One of my goals of 2012 was to "continue to develop my personal style" - which included acquiring several vintage dresses.

This was the first one. Remember this post?

Looking forward to some fun posts showing off my recent finds!! :-) 

DIY Sticky Game for Toddlers

I got a great idea from Parents as Teachers and wanted to try it out with Ladybug - a super easy DIY sticky game for toddlers.

1) Take a piece of (old) contact paper and place it sticky side out on a flat surface about as high as your child.

2) Learn with him/her about the light items that stick and others that are too heavy.

(her baby was too heavy.)

This wasn't a long game (it lasted about 10-15 minutes) but it was super fun and she enjoyed it thoroughly. I had fun, too, collecting items that wouldn't break but may or may not stick.

A few things to note:
- the contact paper did leave a little residue behind on the widow.
- I wanted to leave it up for about 24 hours but in about 4-5 it had fallen down.
- Jeremy came home and thought it was "art" that we made. I appreciated that thought! :-)

Have a toddler? Try it out! It's fun.

Ninjago Birthday Card DIY

One of my piano students shares a birthday with my mom (Happy Birthday Mom!) so I celebrated with an awesome card and some of her favorite candy.

She is also a tomboy, hates pretty much everything girly and loves the color green. For her birthday party she went to a "ninja place" - and her favorite show to watch is Ninjago.

RIGHT. Like this mother-of-a-2-year-old knows anything about Ninjago. (I do Baby Einstein, ABCs and Twinkle, Twinkle, not school or Legos or haute kid TV shows.) 

But I digress. So Google was my friend and there was an easy peasy Ninjago idea for multiple things - perfect for an easy card.

I printed off a sample birthday invitation with a good facing photo and printed it off at about 50% of its original size to fit a card. Then I cut the main shape out for a template.

I was going to use black cardstock for the eyes/brows but I had no black cardstock! So I went to plan b and sketched the eyes/brows directly on the yellow cardstock piece cut from the template and then filled it in with a permanent marker.

Perfect! Glue yellow piece on green (her favorite color), cut out a matching piece for writing ease inside and glue.

Pretty impressive for this non-Ninjago Mama, huh? :-)

Except then she told me her favorite Ninjago ninja was blue... ha! Can't get everything right.

Reading about Food.

Lately, I've run across some resources for clean/organic/local/better eating and after our CSA experience last year, I've kept my eyes peeled for different ways of eating. Because, truly, something has to change. 

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser provided an in-depth look into the "dark side" of American fast food from its history to its modern day practices. Overall an informative (and yucky) read on fast food - something that I wasn't overly interested in eating in the first place.

source

Many, many of these types of books are very negative toward food, corporations, mass production, etc and understandably so! There is some junk going on in the industry that is controlled by only a very few and will probably not change. However, in presenting the same information, Barbara Kingsolver shared her family's year long eating experience in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and put a completely positive spin on it. I loved that! It was a long read, but well worth it.

source

Finally, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan was also a very long but informative read about the author's journey through attaining four (very different) meals in the USA. First, fast food, then a supermarket organic meal, a completely local meal from Polyface Farm and finally a hunted and gathered meal. I have to admit that he pretty much lost my interest at the end with the hunting/gathering so I didn't actually read the last section of the book, however I read what I wanted to. This opened my eyes to the corporate organic companies and takeovers and solidified that local is probably the best. Currently, we're looking for the best organic/local/grassfed meat options for our limited budget (eatwild.com). I'll let you know who we find!

I'm looking forward to reading Pollan's follow up called In Defense of Food.

source

We're watching documentaries including Food, Inc., Tapped, Fresh and King Corn.

And I just came across another web resource for Clean Eating (Thanks Jess!). While I was disappointed at the misnomer ("clean" really only means less processed foods rather than truly organic foods) it was a great resource for substitutes and less processed food items in every day places. A great first step for people trying to eat better. 

March's Loaf - Irish Brown Soda Bread

Irish Brown Soda Bread seemed just right for March's loaf on a cold day supper involving a broccoli-cilantro soup.

A wheaty, dense loaf that has no yeast - so there is no resting/raising time required. Just needs about 45 minutes to bake. However, a soda bread really needs to be eaten freshly warm and in one sitting - because it doesn't last as well as yeast breads.  

Mmmm.

After cutting a 1/2" deep cross in the center of the dough, this baby raised in the oven like there was no tomorrow! I love the lack of symmetry in this crusty, handmade loaf.

Happy St. Patty's day, folks! 


See previous loaves here:
January's Loaf
February's Loaf 

**As usual, I'm not going to detail the recipes for sake of time (and my sanity with a 2year old!), but if you'd like a recipe just email me at lisamarie (dot) de (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll be happy to send you a copy.

cutest boy ever! sock monkey inspired.

I can be biased, right? There are no baby boys in the family (or boys at all for that matter!) and this little dude is the only one. My nephew. (Aren't I lucky?)

And we LOOOVE him, along with those long eyelashes and squeezy cheeks.

J, S Hodges

My sister dug out his Christmas present and tried it on him (the tummy buttons are popping - love it!) and it was perfect. Little Mister is 6 months old and this sock monkey inspired outfit started with the onesie. I picked it up and it immediately reminded me of a sock monkey - so I searched on Etsy to find the perfect sock monkey hat and ...

J, S Hodges

...tada!! Here he is.

Ash Wednesday "Experiential" Service

I lead my church's Ash Wed service several weeks ago and am just now getting this post up - it's still Lent and I'm allowing myself to type this online even though I'm just having one session a day. Just in case anyone is looking for resources to plan an experiential Ash Wednesday service, I am sharing the ones I've found and the worship order plan I used. 

My pastor said I could just repeat last year's service but I'm not really into doing the same exact thing two year in a row. Much of it was similar, but this year I focused on the concept of emptying space in our busy lives in order for God to fill us. See explanation further. 

Sample Worship Order - Ash Wednesday, February 13, 2013

(Christ Community Church of the Nazarene)   

On screen before service starts: “Remember, you are dust.” 

Welcome & Prayer 

“Recycled Orchestra” Video 

Explanation of Ashes 

Explanation of Lent 
(Here is a snippet of what I shared.) 

I think it’s interesting that New Year’s and Lent are coinciding for me this year. I’m a small goal person, so I like to take challenges in little steps. For the last few New Years I’ve taken some time to revisit the year before by answering a few questions like what the best thing was that happened in the previous year, the most challenging thing, what were the best books I read, in what ways did you grow, etc. One of the last questions that asked, “What was the single biggest time waster in your life in the past year?” I thought about it, wrote down my answer then a little bit later looked back at my answer from the year before that (2011). It was exactly the same thing.

Oh. 

(My biggest time waster? Spending time online looking at blogs and DIYs and creative ideas and checking my email and checking my email and checking my email...)

It was rather eye opening to realize that I’ve been wasting my time the exact same way for two years.

 

If you haven’t decided a way to fast or empty yourself for Lent this year, I’d encourage you to think about that question: “what is the single biggest time waster in my life?” Is it electronics? Texting? Complaining? Cooking? Eating? Multitasking? TV? Movies? Shopping? The list is endless and let me clarify, lots of these things aren’t necessarily bad or sinful – although for some they are. However, they can reach a point where they consume you and too much of your life. I can find myself spending too much time online – time that could be spent in other ways. So during Lent I’ve decided to limit myself in that area.

 

So, think about it. What is the biggest time waster in your life? Could you move that aside and make some time for God for a season? During Lent, I encourage all of us to be deliberate about setting time aside for Him and not filling those empty spaces with our busy activity. Allow God to fill the emptiness, that space in your life for Lent.

“Emptying to Fill” (read by 6 different women) 
 

Response 
Now let us prepare for a journey of the heart. Let us be open to the grace that enables our growth. With gratitude and wonder, we receive Christ’s Love in our minds and hearts and souls. If you are able, I invite you to kneel and silently pray. As you do, listen to the gracious words of our Savior Jesus Christ:

(Matt. 11:28, 29; John 6:35, 37; Matt. 5:6)
 

Come to me, all you that are weary

and are carrying heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest.
 

Take my yoke upon you,

and learn from me;
for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.

I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me will never be hungry,
and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
No one who comes to me will I cast out.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.

Silent Prayer

Litany of Penitence (pp. 225-226)

SONG:  My Jesus, I Love Thee (vs 1, 2, 1) 

OT Lesson: Psalm 51:1-17 

The Word of the Lord 
Thanks be to God.

Gospel Lesson: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 
The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
Praise to you, Lord Christ.
 

Explanation of Stations 
We encourage everyone to participate, however no one is forced to participate. If they choose not to, they can remain in their seats and just watch/reflect.

(About 20 minutes with music playing in background.)
  
The four stations included:

1) a station of emptying where we filled a small votive with sand and emptied it as a symbol of emptying something out of our lives this season. 

2) Then there is a station where the light of Christ can fill your votives - your newly empty places.  

(Between those two there is a box that can be used to write what you are taking away or adding to your life for the season – as a tangible act.) 

3) There is also a station of forgiveness where you write a word on a piece of paper and stir it into the basin and watch as it dissolves.

4) A blessing station with oil to bless your children, your spouse, your friends. Also communion included if anyone wants to serve each other.

Each station includes more in depth explanations (a scripture, reflection and action), and we encourage everyone to take time to reflect on them. 

Ashes: At any time after the pastors have returned to the center, we are invited to receive communion and the imposition of the ashes on our foreheads.

Music Video to reconvene: “You Make Beautiful Things”
  
Litany of Pardon and Renewal

Benediction/Sending 
May we empty ourselves this season and allow the light of Christ fill those empty places.
May God, who has forgiven and fed us, now make us strong for these days ahead.
May Jesus lead us, and we be found faithful to follow.
May the Spirit drive us into the wilderness, burning away the chaff of our lives, and purifying our hearts for all to see and be blessed.
And may the blessing of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with us and remain with us always! 
Please go quietly and in peace, to love God and serve others.

**To find more links, visit my Ash Wednesday post from last year.

vintage thrifting finds! {shop update!}

Just when I said that estate sales were my new thrifting, I scored at the thrift store! And, mind you, I'm not writing off thrift stores in the least, and most definitely not now...

Stop by the shop to check out the rest!

Ombre Four-leaf Clover St. Patty's Day Banner

Using this tutorial for a "Shamrock Barrette" I made an Ombre Four-Leaf Clover banner. Just for fun and to quiet down our wall from So Many Hearts.

(If I would've actually pinned it, I could've qualified it as another Pinterest project! Isn't it sad that I have to try to do that?! haha.)

It's rather labor intensive (as far as crafting goes), so if you have the time/patience to cut out and hand sew 60+ little clover leaves, you should!

I rather think it's festive, simple, yet fun. (15 clovers = 3 colored sheets of felt @ 25 cents a piece makes for a rather inexpensive project too! the squares on the ends are some scraps...)

We aren't celebrating Irish in our family (although aren't we part Irish, Dad?), but adding some GREEN to wintry March is so very appropriate in my opinion.

A few other green sparks ...

here...

and here.

Cheers!