Thompson Family-Life

One Pretty Thing: First Aid Kit

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I don't post a lot about music because, quite frankly, I feel out of the loop most of the time! I'm trying to figure out a better way to stay in touch with the great music out there. The obscure bands that I might not know about. How do you keep up with good music? I'm thinking of trying out Sirius XM.. do you use that? I've been at a few coffee shops lately that use it and I've really enjoyed being introduced to so many new sounds. Now I just need a better way of tracking down these musicians. I tend to listen to the same albums over and over mostly because I feel overwhelmed with what's out there, and where the heck I should start. I want to broaden my horizons.

One nice thing is word-of-mouth. That is often the best way to find new bands! I follow Ben Gibbard on Twitter (you know, because we're BFFs) and he mentioned First Aid Kit last week. Now don't laugh if I've been living under a rock, but. just. WOW. I'm in love. They just put a new album out this year, The Lion's Roar, and it's breathtaking. If you love 60's folk, you will LOVE them. Their harmonies are incredible. They're sisters from Sweden! And very young. Their Dad even plays in their band! How cool is that? The album is #1 in Sweden right now.

Listen to them.

Although I don't gravitate to hippy styles for myself, I'm quite smitten with their style. The photo at the bottom with the mod dresses seems a bit out of place, they definitely seem at home in their long prairie dresses and big floppy hats.

What new music are you listening to? Please share with me! I need new sounds.

Another band I've been obsessing over after watching Crazy, Stupid, Love (it really surprised me how GOOD that movie is... it is so not a Rom-Com thankfully). The song "Blood" by The Middle East plays at the end of the movie and it took my breath away. I immediately downloaded their albums. They are definitely a must listen.

One Pretty Thing

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I caught this pretty photo on my contacts page on Flickr yesterday by photographer Kevin Russ and instantly fell in love. It feels like perfection in every way, from the girl's expression, to her peacoat in the perfect shade of blue, the light coming in through the window, the color of her hair, the cat's stoic pose, the old dresser and typewriter... and the kites. Those kites. 

You can just tell right away how gifted some photographers can be.

See more of Kevin's work here.

See more of One Pretty Thing here.

One Thing: The Boys & Their Thrift Loot

I started this feature as "One Pretty Thing" but "Pretty" doesn't really relate to this post, so we'll just call it "One Thing". I know, that's extremely creative of me, right? ; )

Like many of you seasoned thrifters out there that are also parents, I often take one of my boys with me thrifting. We do that a lot on weekends to separate them for a bit since they always seem to hit that wall where after they've LOVED on each other for a while, they realize they can't STAND each other and it's Bicker City. So separating them is the best solution for maintaining our sanity!

And it's a good way for both Ethan and I to have some one-on-one time with one boy, and we usually fit in something we like to do, like thrifting or watching a soccer match on TV, etc.

Of course, when the boys come with me thrifting, I always let them pick out one small thing. They usually find something in the toy aisle, but they often gravitate towards the stuffed animals, which always gives me a little bit of the creepies. There's just something about old stuffed animals. They are usually raggedy looking and, I dunno, just always look germy. (ha) 

But that said, if that's what they want, that's fine with me. I immediately wash them when we get home so it's all good. Today I caught the boys uniting their recent thrifty finds on the couch. They thought they were the cutest things sitting there on top of each other. Campbell said that Cooper's brown dog was the baby and his big dog was the Mommy.

I tried to steer Cooper away from that brown dog at the time because he just looked a little too well-loved. But that striped doggy looked almost brand new! And I loved the look and colors of that polyester-y fabric. He's a keeper.

One Pretty Thing: Handmade Accessories by Sunshine & Carousels

This weeks One Pretty Thing is actually a group of things: the new Fall Collection from handmade artist Sunshine and Carousels. I would be happy with any of these accessories in my wardrobe, but the vintage patterned fabric ascots have my heart. I can't pick my favorite! And the velvet bow headbands remind me so much of the ones I made for my Blythes. You can't go wrong with pretty velvet bows.

These colors are my favorite for Fall. Although I'm not ready for Fall yet (and the holiday preparations that come with them!) it is still lovely to see these palettes creeping into internetland.

Lovely job, Erin!

Digital fabric buttons by me. Find the kit here.

New Feature: One Pretty Thing

I thought I'd add a new feature that features, well, One Pretty Thing! Let's face it, blogging is very time consuming (but I love it!), and some days I don't have the time to do a long fleshed-out post. But I always have a stash of pretty things I'm crushing on at any given time, whether it be something pretty I found browsing the interwebs, or something I found at a thrift store, or maybe a local restaurant or boutique I've visited recently. It could be anything.. but I bet it's pretty.

So I'll be sharing One Pretty Thing every once in a while. Hopefully this little feature will keep me posting regularly during the week. My goal is to post once a day, minimum, and these little short-but-sweet posts would help me do that.

Today's One Pretty Thing is a vintage patchwork quilt pattern book that I found browsing Etsy this week. I snapped it right up because I fell in love with that triangle pattern! The mix of colors and patterns is just perfection to me. You might remember that I took a quilting class last year and made this quilt, although I STILL haven't put the binding on it. (inexcusable, although honestly, i'm scared to do it.)

But, I recently met one of the mothers of a child in Campbell's new class that teaches quilting (insert a big "YAHOO!"). I told her about my un-bound quilt and she was all non-chalant "oh we can remedy that. Come over to my house.".. I was beside myself. I loved the class I took, but there's something about one-on-one instruction that helps me much more. Some things I just don't get.

And now that I have a studio set up, I will have more space to set up my machine and work on it. I think once I get that quilt bound and complete, I'm going to start that triangle motif up there. I'm excited to have someone local to quilt with that knows what they're doing and can share their knowledge!

P.S. Thank-you to everyone that purchased my digital kit yesterday! I hope you enjoy it! Please share anything you create with it in my Flickr Group. : )