Thompson Family-Life

6

So my oldest is turning SIX next week. :-) That number seems really big to me. Ya know? Like anything 5 and under they still feel like babies... but 6? Not so much. I have to say that I'm really really enjoying this age with Cooper. He is just so easy. And Cooper has not always been easy! He was quite challenging from about age zero to FOUR!

So i really am enjoying him these days. He gives me relief from my Terrible-Two-Year-Old. He's got a great sense of humor, he's smart, he's really good at Wii games, and he's observant almost to a fault (when he calls Mommy out on something that she tried to slide by him. ;-) He reads so well at his age. It amazes me. I remember sitting in Kindergarten thinking "i don't know how to read. This is bad right? shouldn't I be, like.... reading?" I swear kids do things so much earlier now!

For his birthday party, he wanted to have a bowling party. So while looking at bowling alleys online, i TOTALLY lucked up when i stumbled upon this amazing vintage style bowling alley right here in Atlanta! I had never heard of it. It was recently renovated in a 50's style. It's so family friendly, but cool for adults too. And it has the coolest backdrop ever!

I took Coop last weekend to take some photos of him for his party invites. It was super fun and Cooper's motivation was that we'd bowl a game after photos. Of course that didn't stop him from whining most of the way through the shoot, but we still had some fun and some laughs (i had to resort to some potty humor to get him to smile and laugh, but what are ya gonna do, ya know?)

And we did a little of this too, which he loved...

Sorry i can't stop it because it's an animated gif image.. i just took still shots and made it into a little movie... but it's cute, right? :-) If you look in the bottom left-hand corner you can see where i did a shotty job of photoshopping out a car that got in each shot... i didn't take the time to do a good job, but i kind of like the effect it gives to the overall movie! That's a bowling ball on the ground, not a basketball.. i actually changed the color of it for the invites because it looks so much like a basketball in orange!

Here are the invites.. i designed them as 5x7's and just had the front and back printed individually at Sam's and then glued them together with spray adhesive. He invited a small group of kids so it made more sense to do it this way instead of having them press-printed (cheaper this way!). I had to find some larger envelopes to fit the 5x7 size and I found these manilla envelopes I've had forever... I felt like they sort of *fit* that old school theme well.. I had the last minute idea to add a little diamond design to it (to mimic the diamond motif throughout the bowling alley) and I went ahead and added the "to" and "from" addresses so that i wouldn't have to handwrite them all! I just used scotch tape to temporarily adhere the envelope to regular printer paper, then ran it through the printer making sure my design and the envelope lined up just right.

I had to add the orange washi tape to the end of the envelopes because the printer didn't like me running them through the printer so much, and they came out with some ink stains on one end. But it worked out fine - the tape was the exact color of the envelopes. Then i adhered the printed Coopers and little word bubble stickers a la Martha Stewart Crafts, and handwrote the "i'm 6!". Even though they were a bit of work, i love how they turned out. And i only had to do 10. :-)

I've got more pics to share later, and some from our bowling game too... here are some pics I took with my Fuji Instax Mini at the bowling alley... so fun!

In other news, I have some SUPER*CUTE little kawaii single credit-card (or anything credit-card sized!) holders that I'll be adding to my Tiny Bazaar orders while supplies last. Just a small (free!) "thank-you" from me. :-) They are so adorable, i wish i could keep them all for  myself! this is only a SMALL sampling of the 40 unique designs I have.. i think this little feathered redhead is my favorite. :-)

I found this AMAZING crochet project while blog hopping the other day and it totally stole my heart. :) I found it on Vanessa Cabban's blog.. she is a children's book illustrator and also creates the most gorgeous crocheted projects.. her blog is just truly delightful and full of eye candy.

This project looks totally doable and i definitely want to ATTEMPT it so I can wear it by the time cold weather comes along (which shouldn't be too soon around here). We FINALLY bought our pop-up camper this week (YAY!) so i predict ALOT more free time for Danielle to work on projects for *me* on our camping excursions... things i always put off that I want to do, like crochet and embroidery. I'm definitely going to attempt this one. Her color choices are right up my alley and so inspiring!

And i love how she documented her color choices on her blog...

Make sure to check out her freebies in her left-hand sidebar and her etsy shop!

And also check out the new post over at the Kitschy Digitals blog... I've shared LOTS of new artwork by Creative Team members.. some really inspiring stuff! Here's a preview of everything.. check out the blog post for a closer look. :-)

Scandinavian design.. how do I live without thee?

Gosh, I have alot of inspiration and fun finds to share! I thought about dividing it up into a couple posts, but let's just throw it all into one. :-)

First I wanted to show you some fun funghi photos (wow, say that 20 times fast)... Yesterday, as I was driving to and from, to and from, (moms, don't you feel that way? every day it's like, pick up, take them there, pick them up, take them here... I feel like a chauffeur to my kids. ;-)... I kept passing by this house with a huge patch of HUMONGOUS mushrooms. You'd think with all of the rain we've been getting that they'd be everywhere!

But no, this ONE house seemed to have won the mushroom lottery....

SO! of course I had to take some photos! So, I meeeeeekly, walked up to their door to knock and see if they'd allow me to take some photos. Luckily they were not home as this dwelling did not seem very friendly to strangers... it just had that vibe, ya know?

Not to mention the "go away" sticker on their back door.

But that is neither here nor there...

I decided that for the love of all mushroom photos, that I just HAD to trespass and get these photos. And trespass I did. :-) I'm sure it was quite the site, me scrambling to get the photos before anyone came home. (I was half expecting someone to throw the back door open with rifle in hand....)

But I pushed forward, and after about 132 mosquito bites, a few digital photos, and a couple Fuji Instax mini photos later, I was gone. Poof.

And they weren't any the wiser that I was there. :-)

So anyway, short story long, here are the photos.

And a Fuji Instax min photo... and yes, that's me still wearing flipflops... Fall where art thou? Oh yeh, i live in Georgia. (and don't laugh at my unpainted toes.)

Yes, those mushrooms were THAT big!

Ok, onto less funghilicious topics...

I love Scandinavian Design. I'm so in love with it. I want to marry it. :-) Who doesn't love Scandinavian design? I mean seriously.

I love the colors and patterns they use... I just love everything about it. I love the boldness of their design, but it's sophisticated at the same time.

I really want to visit Scandinavia SOON. Japan isn't going to work out for us next year b/c we couldn't get one of our tickets with miles (boo) but we hadn't planned on going til 2011 anyway.. so I'm not too sad... We will probably end up going somewhere in the States for our child-less vacation next year, because going to mainland Europe or Scandinavia is going to be a bit too expensive as well... The problem is that the only time we can go is in the Summer.. but LUCKILY my mom is retiring (hopefully) in a couple years, so BOTH of my parents will be available to keep the boys during non-summer months.. that means cheaper airfare!! YAY!

Here are some amazing Scandinavian brands that I just love. Some that I've been a fan of for a while now, some I just stumbled upon!

Smafolk at Ittikid.com. I've bought several shirts from here for the boys. It's SO hard to find vibrant, colored clothing for boys with cool patterns. Smafolk came to the rescue for me. They are designed in Denmark.. they also have other brands in this store designed in Sweden. They are a bit pricey, but I rarely splurge on clothing for the boys.. it's usually Target and WalMart. So when i find things that are super cool, i go for it. You don't have much time to dress boys in clothes like these, so you have to do it while you can! :-) They have some new fall designs... this one is probably too girly, but i love it. LOVE the colors!

I stumbled onto these next two shops at Decor8 this week... so if you've seen them already, I apologize...

This artist, Ingrid, is actually from the Netherlands, which of course isn't part of Scandinavia, but I think there are certain design elements that ring true for all of these areas... Her work is very colorful and I think goes nicely with the theme of Scandinavian design.

Of course, I'm just in love with her crocheted designs.. aren't these stools to die for?

And I LOVE these granny square garlands.. i never ever have thought of making granny squares into a garland! Love that idea. Wouldn't it be fun to use some Autumn colors and make a garland celebrating the coming season? (which would help people like me that don't see an ounce of Fall in sight?)

I also really loved this photo from her Flickr, how she displayed these items is SO CUTE.

Here's Ingrid's website as well to check out.

Next is an amazing store, Lutterlagkage in Sweden, also featured on Decor8 this week... I just totally fell in love with the designs in this store!! Especially the vintage wallpaper on the walls. Be still my heart.

And most of all I fell in love with these vintage wallpaper wall decals. I'm thinking I might need this tree for my birthday.. or Christmas? You could totally do this yourself with vintage wallpaper, but isn't it nice to have the work done for you? :-) Unfortunately the site hasn't been completely translated into English, but you can click around the site to see everything...

The wallpaper also reminded me of this AMAZING wall in Jenny Ryan's new store, Home Ec, in Los Angeles that just opened! How I wish I could go! Here were her progress photos as she was creating it...

I have more inspiration to share, but this post is getting too long. :-)

Before I go, I wanted to say "hi!" to anyone coming here from Decor8! Holly featured a little home tour of my home yesterday.. needless to say I was so thrilled and it was fun answering a few questions that she asked about my inspirations and more. Thank-you Holly! :-) And thank you for the nice comments about the room makeover in my last post!

that's better

Finally got some new pics of our living room that I finally finished decorating. Taken with my "good" camera now that it's back from the shop (all is right with the world now. Phew.) :-)

Still a bit grainy because WOW my house is dark. But it's an old house, which I don't mind.. especially in these times of constant downpour and flooding in my city. I keep hearing of trees falling on houses and contractors saying "well, if you're house was newly built, you'd be toast"... isn't that nice? The newer your house, the crappier it's built. Sometimes it's really nice having a home built in the 60's. Well, there are LOTS of great things about old homes. :-) I love our's. It's not perfect. It's not luxurious. But it's quirky and homey and the place we've lived for 10 plus years now. I've never lived in a home that long.

It's home. :-)

Here are the pics... I love mixing new items with vintage. I love the hodge-podgyness. I love that nothing is matchy-matchy. I often don't put alot of forethought into how I'm going to decorate. I just throw it all in and see if it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it does.

The last time you saw photos of this wall was at Christmas Time last year. Here it is without the Christmas trees.

I found this lovely embroidered horse table linen on ebay. It has a sister (or brother?), but i liked this one the best. So I framed it in an old frame I found at an estate sale. I covered the background in vintage wallpaper (to cover up the print that was there). I then snipped some sewing pins in half and pinned the embroidered doily to the background... I made the pins smaller so that way if they went through the back of the frame (which they do) they wouldn't be so long to scratch the wall.

I added the prize ribbon (new) that I got from Little Pink Studio.

And speaking of prize ribbons, I've been collecting them for a while now (i think i've mentioned that), from various places and I finally hung them on the wall... I decided to hang them "inside" my wall decal that's been on the wall for a while now. I love the way they look hanging there!

Most of the ribbons are vintage except for the small orange one that I also purchased at the Little Pink Studio. :-) To adhere them to the wall, I just used that putty that you used to attach posters to your walls in your college dorm room, remember? It's yellow and you can get it at craft supply stores. It's nice not to put holes in the wall, and it has kept the ribbons up well!

Here's the vintage plastic doily diy project I did to frame this little vignette. The small cabinet, mirror, crewel piece, etc are framed by one doorway on the left and a closet on the right. I've been wanting to do something with these plastic doilies for a while now.

I cut them in half with a craft knife and adhered them to the wall with adhesive spray. On 2 of them I accidently used permanent adhesive, and on the others I used temporary adhesive because I was worried about them messing up the walls if I took them down. But after seeing them up for a while, the permanent would be fine on all (they come off just fine). I really love how they "frame" this little grouping of items. This is essentially what you see when you walk in the front door, so the doilies give it alot more presence.

I love this little antique Hawaiian mandolin that I found recently...

Curtains are from Pottery Barn Teen i think!

Thanks for taking a peek!

Rainout

Wow, it's been a crazy few days here in the ATL... lots of flooding and some really tragic things happening. We forget what a force water can be. We don't plan on going out at all today. Luckily our area seems to be ok, but places very near by weren't so lucky. It's actually not raining for once today, and it's eerily quiet outside. Here's hoping the rain goes away soon. I know there's been lots of rain in so MANY States lately!

The boys' schools were closed today so we're trying to stay entertained around here. (no small feat.) We've painted, we've eaten two meals, we've played, and it's only 1:30. It's going to be a long day/night ahead. ;-) Kids around here have been cooped up inside for probably over a week now. Rain, rain, go away, ok? They're like wild animals when they've been stuck inside too long, right?! Long day with a little one that still can't grasp the concept of *sharing* or napping. :::sigh::::

I love 'em to pieces. They still wear me the heck out.

:-)

BUT I do have some inspiring eye candy for you. Although I'm sure most of you get Martha Stewart Living, so you've probably seen these images by now, but I couldn't help but share them because they have kicked my summer-lovin' butt into high Autumn gear! :-)

I've been in denial about Fall coming, mostly because, well, I live in the South and we're still wearing tshirts, shorts and flip-flops around here. I feel like I'm still holding onto some summer projects I wanted to do... but after flipping through this new issue, I'm head-over-heals ready for Fall. I was honestly *this* close to not renewing my subscription to this magazine... it just really hasn't done anything for me in a LONG time, and then BAM! They show me this... just when i think i'm over mushrooms and toadstools...

This crepe paper mask article is just stunning... I love the yellows and grays in their costumes...

breathtaking...

These must be made...

These scans don't do the photos/magazine justice, so go out and get yourself a copy! :-)

I also wanted to share an artist I recently stumbled on, Yellow Goat.. she so kindly mentioned my Photos Inside Label Collection on her Twitter, and a few clicks later, i discovered her incredibly inspiring blog and shop!

I'm not usually into "refined" jewelry.. i'm usually more into the "the bigger and louder and cheaper the better"... ;-) But these pieces are just so unique and clever... I truly love them! I think she's come up with such innovative ideas and designs, while using such traditional mediums. They are truly stunning.

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"Gentleman Shirt Bangle".. how genius! :-)

This headband is sooo, soo dreamy and unique. LOVE.

And this polaroid ring? to die for. :-)

Here is an image from her blog of a diy wall vignette she created... she had the girl and balloon image laser cut from acrylic.. how BEAUTIFUL and magical is this? :-) She took the image from her necklace design above.

Here are more details on how she created this.

She's also doing a fab giveaway of these CUTE little mini clothes line clip earrings... make sure to check it out!

And here are two other random Etsy finds that I love...

This crocheted collar is just.... amazing. :::::sigh:::::: (i want!)

And what a lovely embroidery... :-)

I'm sooo SOOO jonesing to embroider.. i guess because I'm working on embroidery patterns. I'm going to have to sit down and do some embroidery just for fun. I need that right now! A just-for-fun project!  :-)

Photos Inside Label Collection

Just wanted to share with you a new Printable PDF that is available! The "Photos Inside" Label Collection :-)

This is a 14-page high-resolution printable PDF filled with lots of fun labels to keep your photos (or anything flat and fragile) safe when mailed! The great thing about a digital PDF is that you can use the file over and over again!

I've designed these with the vintage camera enthusiast and photographer in mind. :-)

What's inside this PDF:

 Labels with these different messages:
1. Please Do Not Bend
2. Please Do Not Bend: Photographs Inside
3. Please Do Not Bend: Memories Inside
4. Please Handle With Care
5. Please Handle With Care: Photographs Inside

The "Do Not Bend" labels are perfect for Etsy sellers that offer photograph/prints and mail them in flat mailers, and also great for family/portrait photographers (The "Memories Inside" message would be perfect for you and your clients!) The "Handle with Care" labels are perfect for your larger orders, photo albums, etc., or really any item that you'd like to protect.

I've included generic "Please Do Not Bend" and "Please Handle with Care" versions for those of you that just love vintage cameras! Adhere them to any package that you want to protect while en route. You don't have to be a photographer to enjoy these labels. These would be great with the holidays approaching... protect your gifts!

Read more about it and purchase here!

Here are some more pics.... I've designed these so that they work directly with a particular sheet of labels at one of my favorite places, OnlineLabels.com. I printed the PDF directly onto these label sheets:

I love the rounded corners! **edited: Online Labels is offering *$5 off* a pack of labels (instead of the initial 10% off deal I mentioned... much better, right? :-)**  I've included instructions on how to obtain your discount code in the PDF. :-)

You don't have to use these label sheets to print on, you could print them onto full sheet adhesive labels you can get at any office supply store and cut them out, or just print them onto regular paper, cut out and adhere to your packages with clear packing tape.

Here's what you get in the PDF:

As I mentioned in my last post, I plan on creating some clear polymer stamps to family with these (you could use the stamps in lieu of these labels.. I use both when I package my orders, and I love both methods!).... and also a Digital Kit and an embroidery pattern filled with these smiley vintage cameras. :-) These will be available soon!

Also!! If you like these labels but don't want to deal with printing them yourself, I will have professinally printed label sheets available very soon! I'm also open to a wholesale discount on large quantities of these for small businesses.

Ok, off to bed I go for a short nap before I pick up the boys. I've got that achey feeling that I know is a sign of no good things. :( Here's to feeling healthy soon!