Thompson Family-Life

Winner, Pretty Objects & Fabric Wallpaper

The JoTotes Camera Bag winner is....

Yay! What an awesome giveaway! Thanks to JoTotes for their generosity! Wendi, I'll be sending you an email today. :-) Thank-you to everyone who stopped by and entered the giveaway!

So, we're still plugging along over here in Sickville. Seems that we're on the tail end of this thing. Thank you for the get-will wishes for the boys! Coop seems to be doing better than Cam. Cam is still stuck to my hip for the most part. Sick boys are very needy boys. He and I also didn't get much sleep last night. It's crazy how sickness can really mess up a child's sleep patterns. Not that Cam had a great sleep pattern anyway. The boy still wakes up every single night. But that's a whole other story. : P

So, I thought I'd attempt to write a blog post in my sleep-deprived-fog. After two weeks of illness, I'm hoping that next week I'll be able to catch up on some "work" and hopefully some "fun" too. :-)

(a bright spot in my week, getting this new brightly colored StitchNation yarn by Debbie Stoller.)

She has some free patterns on her site.. here are 2 of my favs. I wish she carried some 100% cotton yarn because we are wool intolerant. So I'll be using this yarn for projects where it won't be touching our skin. lol. I adore this "Weekend in Stockholm blanket" pattern.

 

And this Cabled Chapeau is gorgeous, especially in that color.

I thought I'd share these photos I took a few weeks ago of some cute little odds and ends I sent my Creative Team for Valentine's Day. I wanted to send them a little something to tell them how much I appreciate all that they do. Because seriously, I couldn't continue my business without the help of their gorgeous artwork and inspiring projects using my products. :-) I'm pretty lucky to have such talented girls on my side!

I took some photos before I packed them up to be mailed all over the world. I couldn't resist photographing these cute little objects, because really, I'm a sucker for taking pictures of things.

Here they are all packaged up.. because the packaging is the funnest part, right?

(Have a Nice Day and plastic yellow bags from nothingelegant on etsy.)

 

Here's what was inside...

Chocolates in the shape of ponies and vintage buttons. You can't get much better than that in my eyes. ;-) I used these button molds I bought last year from Bake It Pretty and I actually found the horse molds from a local place, isn't that great! I NEVER find cool things locally!

 

This is what was inside the little tissue paper cupcakes... I found these rings here. They were too much fun to pick out!

Some super cute erasers from Michaels Crafts...

In other news, we are redoing our dining room (I think I've mentioned that) and I'm contemplating putting up wallpaper. (When Ethan reads that, he might throw something at me as we've spent a better part of our life taking down wallpaper in this house! It was almost totally covered in ugly 80's wallpaper when we moved in, minus one room. And let's be honest, some of that 80's wallpaper I'd probably now consider pretty chic and photo-backdrop worthy at this point!)

BUT, I saw this very cool idea on the Ruche blog yesterday... using fabric as wallpaper. You can easily take it down when you're tired of it and it doesn't mess up your walls!

I am seriously thinking about this.

This image was also very pretty from their post...

And they introduced me to Milk Paint.. anyone ever used this? It's pretty pricey but it's chemical free which I love and the colors look pretty.

 

So does this eye-candy filled post make up for my absense lately? ;-)

Off to put away our mountains and mountains of laundry (I've done more laundry this week to rid the house of germs to last me a lifetime.)

apparently the CDC was right...

... Over prescribe antibiotics, and you might develop an immunity to them.

Looks like that's exactly what's happened with my 2 sick babies. :( They never shook their strep! They still have it after a full round of antibiotics. Here's hoping the new "stronger" stuff works this time.

And if you knew how rare it is for my children to A) be napping and B) be napping together, you'd know that they indeed are feeling very under the weather.

: (

Having sick babies is bar none the saddest thing in the world.

Please send get-well-thoughts their way!

March Sponsor info

hi there! We've had a turn for the worse around here. All four of us are sick. Me with the flu, Cooper with fever (sinuses) and Cam is currently at the doctor to see what's causing his fever. He also took a nasty fall at school yesterday and then fell AGAIN on the same spot on his head at home last night (he's always falling!)... He seems ok, and there doesn't seem to be any bad effects from the falls, he did vomit last night but we don't think it's because of the falls. (we did some research online and he doesn't seem to be having any other symptoms dealing with head injuries). But he's had fever, so we'll see what the doc says. He just got off an antibiotic that didn't seem to do squat for him. :( And now Ethan is feeling bad!

I've been walking around with a mask on, constantly washing my hands hoping to keep the flu away from them. Coop was actually tested for the flu yesterday and didn't have it. We worry about the flu especially with these boys with chronic respiratory issues. The flu in those cases can be scary.

Crossing my fingers all they have are sinus issues at this point.

Just wanted to explain why things are a bit quiet around here and if I respond to emails slowly.

SO, ALL THAT ASIDE, I wanted to take this quick computer break to let you know that I'm accepting new sponsors for March if you are interested.

Please email me at thousandclowns(AT)yahoo.com and I'll get you the info. Might just be a little slow at replying. We had quite a great month in February for the little blog with lots of great press on sites like Sfgirlbybay, Paper Crave, Creature Comforts, Vintage Indie and MyDeco. You can view my Press folder here to read about all of my press to-date.

Ok, now to sanitize this keyboard and mouse.

JoTotes Camera Bag Giveaway!

I have an *amazing* giveaway from our February Sponsor, Jo Totes! A camera bag. :-)

We all know how ugly typical camera bags can be. And since this bag looks like a purse, the knowledge that you are carrying around expensive camera equipment will be your little secret. And I love the fact that these are designed with such pretty interior fabrics.

And you know what's even better? The winner gets to choose which bag they want. That is very cool.

All three of your choices are in the photos above: Scarlet, Olive (1 or 2), or Noir. (Make sure to click on the links to see what interior fabrics are available!)

Just leave a comment, and make sure to include your email address. I will choose a random winner on Friday.

Thanks Jo Totes for this amazing giveaway!

Fabricworm Giveaway Winner & our weekend

Hope you all have had a lovely weekend! :-) Thank you to everyone that entered the sponsor giveaway from Fabricworm! And the winner is....

 

Meg, I'll be sending you an email! :-)

See those cute little fabric covered buttons above? Those are part of a new digital kit I'm working on that I hope to release this Friday! There's nothing I love more than fabric buttons. I have a total weakness for them. The wood frame is from my Woodgrain Frames digital kit that you can find here! 

We had a really great weekend. We went camping! We went to a new state park.. it was really nice! I was actually feeling better (I ended up getting those meds after all.. Hallelujah!) by the time we went camping. It was a successful trip and I think we let the boys play harder than we ever have. There was much rolling around in clay/dirt, rolling down hills, little boy wrestling, and so on. This is one of the many things I love about taking our pop-up out camping.. the boys can just go wild. They really need that. Boys NEED that. Better out in the woods than in my house. ;-) 

The only negative to the whole trip was that we got hella cold the first night. For some reason our portable heater didn't put off the same heat it did last time, and damn, it was cold. But we survived. Lol.

 

 

 

There was lots of hiking, relaxing, crocheting, game playing, cooking on the grill, YUMMY food off that grill, peeing in lots of places that weren't actual bathrooms (that includes mommy), stick and rock collecting (I mean really, that is all a little boys needs in life: a good stick and some rocks) and wine drinking out of pink plastic cups.

 

 

 

 

Bad news? I'm sick again. Woke up this morning with a fever. After 2 weeks of us all being sick. Both boys with strep. It's really wearing me down and I'm trying to just keep pushing forward. Being sick sucks. And I'm just ready to be well again. Here's hoping things look up this week. :(

I worked on one of those little potholders from Crochet Today that I mentioned.. I got a little cocky and my diamond shaped potholder turned into a house shape. :-) I kind of just kept doing rounds and not totally paying attention to the pattern. Ha... I'm ok with it. It's still pretty cute. ;-) I was telling Ethan that crochet is the first hobby I've found that I think I enjoy the process almost more than the final product. I've never had that with any hobby. I just love the whole process, the repetition.. Those ruffle-y rows.

I'm really itching to commit to a big project now - a blanket. I've been researching yarn and yarn weights, etc. As much as I LOVED working with the sport weight yarn, that particular brand is SO soft, it's a bit too lacy for what I want in a blanket. And even though I hate the acrylic stuff from the craft store that I was working with above, I like the weight of it. I like that it works up really thick and it's not "hole-y" like the sport weight.

So I think I've settled on this brand/weight for my blanket. I like that it's 100% cotton because this family can't tolerate wool. (most of us at least). The description said you can use it year-round (which I love) and of course it's washable! Also a plus! And most of all, I love the large color selection.

I'm thinking of going with these colors (yes, LOTS of colors!).. I wanted some really springy, sherbet colors.

I was also trying to figure out what pattern I wanted to go with for this blanket. I didn't want to do the traditional boxy-ish granny square, but I also didn't want to use a circle within a square type granny. But I wanted a simple pattern. I did some surfing and found this pattern:

(source)

I like that the middle is circular. I'm really excited to get started on this! I want to make something that's pretty big, larger than a "throw" because honestly, those never cover me up enough! I am always cold, so I think this could be a go-to blanket year-round. And a nice accent for our bed. (I'm having a custom-made quilt made for our bed -from vintage linens! - that I'm SO excited about! I'm looking forward to giving our room a new look.)

I've got *another* amazing sponsor giveaway this Tuesday, don't miss it! You photographers out there will LOVE IT. :-)