Thompson Family-Life

Hello!

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday! I feel like I haven't blogged in forever. It's been nice taking a break, but I'm looking forward to getting back into the blogging swing of things. :-)

Just a note to let you know that my Tiny Bazaar Etsy shop is open again! :-) I have a huge new order of the Happy Mail Clear Stamp collection stamps. Those keep selling out, but we're fully in stock again if you were interested in those. I'm so thrilled with how much people seem to like them, and I will definitely be designing more in the new year! 

 

The boys and I went to Memphis to visit my family the day after Christmas and we returned yesterday. We had such a lovely time and the boys got to see their cousin Lucas (my sister's son). We did a photo shoot of the boys together and also some family photos for my sister, so I'll be sharing those soon. :-)

Christmas Eve/Day were equally as wonderful spending time with Ethan's family here in Atlanta. Lots of eating and gift-giving... some really cool gifts were exchanged that I'll be photographing later this week and will be sure to share. I surprised Ethan with a neat-o (as my friend Karli says) gift that he really loved. Luckily for me, I really love it too. ;-) It's some fun vintage-goodness.

I'm sitting here at one of those inflatable jumping places with the boys so they can work off some energy. Ethan is running around after them while I blog. And we are the only people here. Life is good. :-)

Since I'm on his laptop and don't have access to any of my new photos, I've got some SUPER*CUTE crochet goodness to share with you that I've found on Etsy. Working on that gingerbread house over the holidays really got me excited about crochet projects, so I started perusing Etsy for some cute patterns. I couldn't edit these down, so here's everything. Kawaii-cute to say the least!

 

 

 

 

 

How darling would that mobile be in a nursery! and what about this little sewing machine and ironing board for a little girl. I'm definitely keeping these in mind for my niece! she has a birthday coming up!

 

 

I'm thinking about some of the little animals for Valentine's and Easter gifts for the boys. Cooper is especially into soft dolls (stuffed animals) so I think he'd love them. He likes to sleep with them. ;-)

 

of course, these are more girly...

 

They all would be great baby gifts since they're soft and you could substitute handstitched eyes, etc, for the plastic parts that can come off.

Here's a simple flower scrubby...

and check out Pippi! she is very retro-cute...

 

 

This owl pattern is pretty large, perfect for snuggling.

And i know Christmas is over, but how cute are these?

oh! and how cool was this! Grace blogged my fireplace/mantel makeover on Design Sponge last week. So very cool. I look forward to seeing the eye candy and inspiration she has in store for us in 2010.

I have some really cool news to share hopefully on the 4th. :-) Looking forward to some fun new projects in 2010!

links:

Latte and friends

Koma in panda costume

Cute Monsters

Toadstool house

Ironing set

Lion

Seal

Bunny Gurumi

Christmas Ornament set

Little girl animals

Happy Weather mobile

Wintertime bears

Sewing Machine

Scrubby

Pippi

Where the Wild Things Are doll

Mama owl

Anatolia

Tiny Ami 3

Little Panda and Mom

Extra Large owl

Merry Christmas to my dolly-loving-friends out there! :-)

Candy Colored Christmas

 

 

 

 

 





 

Yay! It's finished. I'm so happy with how everything looks. Such a nice change from that awful brown fireplace we've had for so long. ;-) I finished everything up last night while watching The Man Who Came to Dinner last night.

I knew I wanted to cover up that equally awful old brass fireplace screen, so I purchased a large painter's canvas and covered it with fabric. I added doilies as accents (they reminded me of snowflakes as well, so it works for this holiday display too!). I just stitched them on with embroidery thread. This works better than an iron fireplace screen because this room is sort of the boys' "playroom", so everything has to be safe and kid friendly and this canvas works great. We're going to use elastic to attach it to the fireplace so it won't fall over (the boys have already had fun with that. ;-)

I think I had this fabric covered canvas idea in my head for a while for this, but I was even more inspired to do it after seeing the photo of the fireplace over at Dottie Angel's flickr stream. :-)

The paper doily banner is a bit hard to see draped at the top. That is something from the Martha Stewart line from WalMart that I bought probably a year ago. I never used it but it's perfect for this! They remind me of snowflakes as well. I love how subtle they are in front of the white brick.

And the satin ornaments I bought last year. I don't think there's anything better than pastel colored satin ornaments... L.O.V.E.

I had originally purchased some pink flocked fake pre-lit garland online to outline the fireplace with, but when I received it a few days ago, i was so dissapointed in it. It was actually just white garland with pink flocking on it and the flocking was just falling off!! it was awful. So I ended up just using white twinkly lights. But you know what? sometimes plan B is even better. I love it just with the lights.

 

This wreath was definitely a labor of love!! it's taken me about 3 years or so to finish it. lol. I ended up adding other things besides pompoms because frankly, I thought i was going to go insane making pompoms to fill this entire wreath. It's actually a pretty large wreath (around 18 inches wide) and if you've ever made pompoms, you know that they are time consuming! My pompom maker has definitely sped things up though.

I'm actually glad I added some other things that i've had in my stash for so long.. like the vintage light reflectors, the felted balls for the centers and the fuzzy pompoms I got from Michaels. They were great filler and I love the added texture of the shiny metal from the reflectors. 

Hope you all are enjoying these remaining days leading up to the big day! I'm off to take the boys to the park to work off some of this crazy energy of theirs. They are climbing the walls! ;-)

Holiday Affair

Holiday parties... We've been to a few Holiday get-togethers, more like. I found this green and white polka-dot vintage shirt on Etsy this year and thought, "this shall be my Christmas shirt".

I also had a bad haircut a couple months ago and started curling it to cover it up. I haven't curled my hair in years. I think the last time I owned a curling iron was in middle school. I have to say, I'm glad that Blythe (yes, that is my stylist's name... commence cheering dolly-lovers!) gave me a not-so-great haircut, otherwise I would've never started curling it. I really love it and I actually feel more like "me" with it styled like this. It feels like a 40's throwback 'do on a good day, and wings from the 70's on a bad day.

 

Matched with the perfect shade of lipstick and a green polka-dot shirt, I feel pretty festive. ;-)

How are your holiday parties going? Our's are quite tame since we have kids of course, but they are still fun. Did you purchase a special outfit for your's? Maybe a fun vintage number?

 

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We've mostly been spending our holiday moments at my in-law's, eating my father-in-law's exquisite food. (he would totally rock Top Chef). And having lots of animated (and loud, depending on how many cocktails we've had) conversations with their quirky friends. :-) It's nice to have in-laws who have great taste in friends!

We are in the final lap of Holiday preparations around here and I'm feeling quite sleep-deprived from staying up too late tying up loose ends, but it's been totally worth it. Late nights filled with too much hot-chocolate and sugar cookies and watching all of the classic Holiday movies. Working on last minute craft projects. Wrapping gifts.

And I resurrected my pompom wreath from (i think) 3 years ago! Remember this one? Well, I'm so thrilled that it's FINALLY finished. It has taken on a new life...

My Clover giant pompom maker has gotten good use the past two days and I must say that if I never make another pompom, it won't come too soon.

(who am i kidding? i like the way they look too dang much.)

The wreath will be hanging from our newly painted fireplace. I'm almost done decorating and will be photographing the display tomorrow. Will post photos soon. I don't think there's anything more to love than a sparkly pastel Christmas with white twinkly lights and candy colors. Decorating for Christmas is just one of the most delightful things, don't you think? Doesn't get any more magical!

The crocheted gingerbread house has been put on hold so that I could finish the fireplace display, but hopefully I can work on it some the next few days and maybe even (gasp) after Christmas at my parents' while in Memphis. Or, I could always finish it next year. ;-) At least it won't go unfinished for 3 years like that pompom wreath. The house is much further along, thank goodness. ;-)

We saw Fantastic Mr. Fox today and it was so, so wonderful! We have been such *huge* fans of Wes Anderson (I mean really, who isn't?) since we first saw Rushmore not long after college. It sort of became our life-anthem after we saw it. I feel like we've been working in quotes from that movie into our daily lives for 10 years. :-)

Then there was Bottle Rocket which we adore sooo much. Then The Royal Tennenbaums (but not as much as Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. Those two are just so close to our hearts.)

Fantastic Mr. Fox is definitely a new fav.. it's just so delightful and unique and charming.

 

 

 

 

Go see it if you haven't already!