Thompson Family-Life

vintage slides

I'm working on a project using vintage slides and I can't get enough of these charming little bits of memories. People I don't know and I wonder who they are, where they lived, what they're doing in the photos. There's something kind of magical about photo slides, even more so than their printed counterparts. I think it's because when you hold them up to the light, all of the colors just seem to glow. The people seem almost alive right before me. I love the typography on the chipboard frames and that lovable Kodak logo. And every time I see the word "Kodachrome" I can't help but think of that Paul Simon song.

Do you collect these? I just love them.

Butterfly Cross-Stitch Pattern Freebie

Remember this pendant I stitched? I used some super cool wooden cross-stitch blanks that I bought here, but it looks like they're sold out. (boo!) The same size but with a scalloped border is available here. I can't seem to find them sold anywhere else.

Anyhoo... I have a free pattern for you in the same motif that I came up with for the pendant above! You can download it here. (for Personal Use Only, no Commercial Use. Thank-you!)

Unfortunately I don't know what DMC colors of floss I used (I'm not very organized with my floss), but you could of course use any palette you prefer.

You could also use the design for any number of items. I think I'm going to stitch it up on a thrifted throw pillow I found, large scale, maybe with yarn.

Hope you enjoy it!

P.S. Thank-you so much for your words of encouragement on my last post. Means a lot to me! I love hearing your experiences with a similar situation. Thank-you so much for sharing.

new specs & a little heartache

Sorry for the crickets chirping last week! I always feel like I shouldn't feel the need to "apologize" when I don't post regularly, but I feel like you guys are "guests" in my online "home", so I feel bad if this place is quiet when you stop by. So thanks for stopping by if you did. : )

I feel like I only blog when I'm inspired to, and honeslty we've been so busy and my head has been all over the place, the last place I was thinking about is this here. I enjoyed and loathed last week simultaneously. Enjoyed just being in the moment with my family (a certain little boy named Campbell turned 5 last week!) and had lots of just general good times.. I also have a lot of loathing towards last week. Big-life-stuff went down. The kind where you spend the entire next day in bed just crying. It's a good thing that I work from home and am a stay-at-home-Mom. Goodness, I could've never gone into "work" with those enormous puffy eyes. I remember when I had normal jobs before kids and how rough it would be the next day at work, if something emotional had happened. Having to put on a happy face.

We made an offer on another house last week, a really great house with LOADS of space and just a lot of good attributes. A LOT of really great things about this house, that I won't go into, because that would be torturous. (ha) It came down to it one night that we could pretty much have the house for the price we were okay with paying... and then things took a drastic turn.

Some things in life should be private, so I won't go into all the details, but Ethan and I were basically not on the same page as far as being ready to move goes. It was devastating for me, because we were SO close. I've spent the past 2 months looking at houses, I've been knee deep in it, more than Ethan since he works and only looked at the houses that I knew were a possibility.

When it came down to it: He just wasn't mentally ready.

He feels awful and Lord knows I was angry and upset about it (only because when you put an offer on TWO houses, you figure everyone's pretty much committed to the idea of buying). But you know what? That is life. And I can sit here right now and say I'm honestly very happy. I had my big cry and got all of my big-baby moments out of my system. It took one night and one full day and I was pretty much over it. Because you just gotta move on. And I know that FOR SURE we will move this time next year. We have much more of a plan this time, which we didn't have before. We just want to make sure we're in a "good place" for the possibility of having two mortgages (because you just never know when your house is going to sell. It could be a month. It could be a year.) 

We've always played life very safe, in all the ways we need to play it safe. We've never lived paycheck to paycheck, we've never had any stress when it comes to finances. We've always always made good decisions, and I owe 100% of that to Ethan. It may not be what my heart wants, but it is what my head says is the right thing to do. And everything happens for a reason and I feel good about it.

But I won't deny that it hit me to my core.

House-hunting has become a more gut-wrenching experience than I ever could've imagined. All of you going through it right now, or have in the past, I know you know what I mean. It's SO different than renting, it's such a commitment. I am truly thankful that we are able to own because I know not everyone has that opportunity. But with owning, it just becomes personal, you know? You know you could possibly live in this one place for years. Decades. For us, it's been a decade and a half in our present home.

So it's a BIG DECISON.

So all of this talk totally doesn't go with these photos.. but if you wear glasses, you know that a new pair of specs is pretty high up there on our list of exciting things. I don't get new frames a lot (because it gets pricey!), but luckly there are SO many new places online that have such a variety of designs. There's just so much more to choose from. These glasses were actually a pair of reading glasses I found at an Anthropologie store! I loved the color and the look and knew I wanted to put lenses in them. So this week, I went to Sam's Club, had lenses added and I already got them back. I'll tell you, a new pair of specs can make a week's worth of crap go away in an instant.

Let's just hope they go with my new pink hair that I'll be dying this week.

O_O

What I wore: Glasses: Anthropologie // Shirt: Vintage (it was too small when I bought it from Etsy a few years ago, and then it was REALLY too small, and now it fits just right. Yay!) // Pants: Sears.com (I was really wanting to bite into the colored jeans trend but didn't want to pay a bazillion dollars for them. These were around $20. Although I'm not keen on how wrinkled they look in these pics, I do like them!) // Shoes: Saltwater Sandals

P.S. THANk-YOU for your kind words about my studio! It is such a happy place for me!

Studio Tour

sources: chair: vintage // desk: IKEA // wall cabinets: IKEA // green chevron curtain fabric: Etsy // all other accents & fabric: vintage

The completion of this room has been a long time coming! It's nice to finally be able to share it and to be able to enjoy it in person in a more complete state instead of it being the catch-all-dumping-ground it's been for the past year or so. This room is the tiniest of our three bedrooms (about 120 sq. ft.) and played home to Cooper and Campbell's nursery. Once Campbell outgrew his crib, we decided to let them share a room and this room became their playroom.

It was a big F-A-I-L.

The playroom that is. For some reason, my boys only like to hang out in our living room, or wherever Mommy and Daddy are. ; ) I know that will change one day. It's funny because even in our tiny house you'd think we've sent them to the DUNGEON or something if we ask them to go play in their bedroom. You can literally hear them down the hall. They aren't going to know what to do with themselves when we have a bigger house. It's going to be a learning experience for sure. (I can imagine many an "I'm scared!" if they're on a floor all by themselves, much less a room down the hall. Sigh.)

sources: all accents: vintage unless otherwise noted // needlepoint purse by me: DIY & pattern here // kokeshi pens: Ebay // kawaii stationery items: Yozo Craft // little japanese anime figurine: the mall // butterfly perler bead glass vase "sleeve" made by me

I found the hanging light above on Craigslist and then had the idea to add giant pompoms to it. I've had those poms for a while now and finally attached them to the shade. I don't think I realized just how HUGE they were, but I really, really love the way it looks.

After we realized the "playroom" wasn't going to work out and that the room was essentially being unused, that was the greenlight for me to move all of my crap my "Studio" into the room. (You might recall that my "studio" was a designated corner of our living room.) I was very happy to have all of my girly stuff out of the living room since it's one of the first rooms you see when you walk into the house. Now the boys' large bookshelf occupies that little corner.

I found this hutch on Craigslist and it needed loooots of TLC. For some reason I neglected to notice that the thing WREAKED OF SMOKE. Yikes. I went to town on it with this stuff. And it really worked. I took out the glass in the outer doors and inserted matte board that I cut to size and covered with wallpaper. I store quite a lot of stuff in this hutch, and it started to look messy, so covering two of the doors really helped, and also helped to break up all of that wood color. Eventually I'll replace the knobs and maybe even add some wallpaper in small areas at the bottom. Not sure yet how this hutch will be used when we move one day.

 I saw the string ball lights on Oh Happy Day a while back and had to have some, but she bought her's in Paris. So I did some googling and found some on Etsy. At first I was confused because I was like "are these handmade?" and then later on I saw that the shop had been taken down, no doubt because they are mass produced. But i'm sure if you did some Googling you could find some that would ship to the States or elsewhere.

I mentioned these super cool comics that you see here framed on the wall in this post if you're interested. I bought them in this shop and I see that she has more listed! I found the plastic mint colored frames at a dollar store. We took down the original doors to this closet (really disfunctional sliding doors) a long time ago and hung a curtain instead. This is a twin sized vintage sheet. I backed it with a white cotton shower curtain since the sheet was see-through. You can find the "I Play with Dolls" decal that I designed sold in this shop.

Continuing around the room, there's a chest of drawers with my dollhouse sitting on top. I changed out the original knobs last week with some new knobs that I DIYed. I bought the plastic flowers from Land of Nod because they screamed the 60's to me, not really knowing what I wanted to do with them. Then I had a light-bulb moment and adhered them to some hardware store-bought wooden knobs that I spray painted. I had to sand down the knobs first because they were a bit of a rounded surface. I love how they turned out.

Here are some peeks at what I store in this dresser.

And some more peeks inside the dollhouse.

As you move around the room you can see the built-in cabinets around the windows. We were lucky that this room came with these cabinets, but unlucky because of the shoddy doors that covered them. So, out they went and I sewed and hung curtains. They are attached with velcro to the wood. The astrology themed fabric is vintage that I found probably 7 years ago. I was thrilled to finally find a use for it!

The It's a Small World Avon girls will be moving to our bathroom because I finally found the perfect shelf for them to sit on. I store all kinds of junk supplies behind these curtains, but here's a small peek of some fabric. It was about the only spot that didn't look a mess. ; )

Hopefully you can read all of my chicken-scratch on these photos. As you can see, I used curtains to hide lots of unsightly things. The curtain underneath the desk is truly loved. Who wants to see all of those cords?! Mine are a hot mess, too. The scalloped valance hanging at the very top there, is actually hiding another built-in cabinet. This curtain is one of my absolute favorite items that I found for this room. It's vintage from a seller in Sweden and I couldn't believe how perfectly it fit up there.

These original ink drawings have a whole other story to go with them that I've been meaning to tell you for months. Just need to find the time! They were created for a newspaper in New Orleans, LA by an artist that later moved to Atlanta where she died. I found them at the Estate Sale that her family held. I feel quite honored to have these drawings of her's. More on that later.

And last, here are some more close-ups of things sitting on top of the wall cabinets, hanging on the wall and inside the hutch.

As you can see, this room has been a labor of love. It was a kick for me to be able to go all out with everything that I love. Not that I haven't girly-fied the rest of our home just a little, but I didn't have to hold back at all for this room. And I love it. Ethan even likes it! He spends time on that computer, too. (I think he's just glad I finally got rid of all the sh*t crowding the floor. ; )

I think in a lot of ways, this room reflects me in very transparent ways. I like to think of it as what my bedroom might have looked like if I was a teenager living during the '60's. (alas, I wasn't alive then, but came along not too much later, in the '70's) With bright pops of color and bold graphic patterns everywhere. In some ways, yeh, I might be making up for the fact that I don't have a little girl - maybe her room would've looked like this? But let's face it, our kids have opinions and tastes of their own. I'm not sure I would've been so lucky to impose my kookie vintage tastes on her.

At least I have this studio to indulge myself. Thank-you for letting me share it with you!

THANK-YOU for the comments on the pool post! They have been invaluable to my husband and I! The consensus seems to be that they are totally worth it. Not as much money and upkeep as you think. And that is really cool to know. I don't think we'll be getting that house with the pool, in fact we're in the process of looking at another house, sans pool, but you never know! One day we might indulge in a pool. For now we'll have to count on the neighborhood pool. ; )

do you have a pool? do tell.

source

Today's post is all about inground pools. As you know, we've been house-hunting. Having a pool has never, ever, never been on our wishlist for a new home. We are not pool people. I was when I was a kid, but somewhere along the way, as I got older, I just wasn't into pools. Or any place where I had to wear a bathing suit. ; ) Ethan isn't into pools either. We aren't tanners and are ghostly pale most of the year. I can actually tan, but I don't try to. Ethan is a white sheet, can't tan, and has no desire to.

ALL THAT SAID, we stumbled onto a house that we really liked... that had a pool. A really beautiful pool with beautiful landscaping. It's a kidney bean shaped pool and on the small side. It's kind of a dream. That said, we did put an offer on said house last week and experienced our first sad experience of househunting: they just didn't want to budge on price (we're noticing that a lot of homeowners are slightly delusional about what they think their houses are worth now days. Sigh.)

source 1 & 2

The great news is that while these experiences can be slightly heartbreaking (and new to us since the only house we've ever bought was the ONLY house we looked at and bought it the day we saw it. There was no haggling on price.) there are a lot of houses out there. This is true in our area at least, and more and more come on the market every day (especially now since school is letting out soon!) And we've seen many houses that would work for us and what we want. So that is a very very good thing. 

And I believe that everything happens for a reason. That house with the pool is still there. And we're not sure we're done bargaining if you know what I mean. ; ) But we're also still looking at other houses. The right house will happen.

Back to the point at hand: POOLS. Most of the houses we've looked at don't have pools. But this one has a pool and also another one we're looking at. Now, you'd think that since we put an offer on that house, we would've thought long and hard about the idea of keeping up a pool. How much it costs, etc. But, er, no we didn't. (bad bad) But that said, the pool is in tremendously great shape.

source 1 & 2

But I would love to hear YOUR thoughts on owning a pool if you have one! What has been your experience? From what we've read, you have to clean it every other day. Do you use a pool service? (I have no idea how much something like that costs) Do you clean it yourself? Has it been worth it owning one?

I know for certain our boys (ages almost-5 and 8) would flip their lids to have their own pool. We're not sure we'll end up with a house with a pool, but I would certainly love to know what it's like.

Maybe we'll find out that we're Pool People after all?

source 1 & 2

Things might be scattered here on the blog over the next few weeks. My mind is kind of everywhere these days: working on my website (that I hope to launch end of the month or beginning of June! It's a laaarge collaboration with many other talented folks, something that I haven't gone into much detail about on the blog, so stay tuned), researching houses online and visiting them several times a week, and you know, just general-life-stuff with the boys/family. I hope things will get back to normal posting-wise once we find a house and when this website launches!

Thank-you as always for stopping by. I've really enjoyed reading your input on this and this post. I'm trying to start adding my own comments in the comments section on a more regular basis. I will often respond to certain comments, via email, but I think keeping it in the comments section will be better.

Have a lovely day!