New Blog!

Please visit me at my new blog, My Vintage Charm, where I'll be discussing all things homemaking, crafting and homeschooling the kiddos! I'll also be posting announcements about the new store my sister and I are opening.... Vintage Charm. See you there :)

Sorry for the looooong break

No excuses, but family busyness and personal laziness. I'm getting back into the swing of things with a heartfelt prayer request. A sweet little girlie, Jillian, is newly diagnosed with cancer, the form of which still has to be determined. She's one of 11 beautiful Bettendorf's and her dear mom and dad, Katie and Jeff, would appreciate being lifted up in prayer. Thank you.

Online Black Friday Shopping

Shop from the comforts of home on Friday and enjoy special deals from some work-at-home-mammas! Fruitful Hands offers cloth diapers, wool longies, mama pads, children's clothing, tea cozies, homemade soaps and scrubs....under the Loral Lane Heirlooms store I'll be selling some retro aprons and custom organizers! Everything is 25% off and all buyers are entered into a drawing for a $50 gift certificate!! I hope to see you there.

Patterns from the past

Today, I started a project for a vintage style launch in December. Planning a dress is my favorite part of the process and I love flipping through my patterns...sort of traveling back in time! I settled on a pattern from one of my favorite 50's designers, Helen Lee. I found an adorable cherry print to use, some vintage baby ricrac (gotta have that!) and voila'...a fabulous dress that only needs some sewing to bring it into being!



Vintage pattern collectors tend to pay large amounts for uncut patterns, those that have never been used. But used patterns have a special place in my heart. When I cut this dress out this morning, I saw that the first seamstress to use this pattern was meticulous, with every notch marked and dart traced off perfectly. I wonder what kind of fabric she chose, did she attempt to copy the cover art on the envelope, did she use cotton or was it a special occasion dress in satin and organdy? All I know for sure, is that she is a sister in sewing, and I feel a bond across the decades.

I know, I know, it's too early!

Last week, my sweet hubby made time to stop by W-mart after taking the kids and I out to dinner and a movie. I needed to run in and pick up a few notions for a customer's order. They went for a spin around the parking lot, and my first words upon hopping back into the car were...'we must be skipping Thanksgiving, the store's gone straight from Halloween to Christmas.' Poor guy, he was subjected to a tirade about the commercialism of Christmas, how the lengthening of the holiday season robs Christmas of the special qualities of anticipation that I love, even now as an adult. So you can be sure that I was quite chagrined when he caught me listening to Ralphie's Radio, a terrific Live 365 station that is dedicated to playing holiday tunes from the 40's. I say, though, that when we've already had weather like this...

I can be excused for listening to Christmas tunes from Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee! Especially when I was 'double dawg dared' ;-)

Now, I'm dreaming of miniatures...

One of the most fun blogs, one that I go 'ohhhhh, how adorable' with just about every new post, is Vicki's Turkey Feathers. And she gave me my most 'ohhh, how adorable' moment ever last week with the reveal of her and her daughter's miniature sweet shop, Le Petite Patisserie. It is a picture of perfection with miniature pastries in tiny bakeshop cases and teeny dolls peeking in the windows at all the goodies. Kali and I liked it so much, we decided we needed another hobby...making polymer clay miniatures!

Our first results are not exactly perfection, but we had the most fun time! Polymer clay is a wonderful craft for children. We used Sculpey III, which was soft and easy to condition, and the sample pack contained more than enough colors to satisfy everyone's creative desires. We ended up with a small sea-turtle soccer team (Jack, 7) and a palm tree, smiley sun and snake-dog creature (Kali, 9). I focused on tiny food: little apples, chocolate chip cookies and a birthday cake.

Oddly enough, my clay cake looks very much like the cakes I bake...a bit uneven and lopsided. At least my edible cakes make up for any fault in presentation with tasting great :-) We have 2 books coming on making dollhouse miniature and tiny food out of polymer clay, so I'm hoping for some improvement to our clay efforts.

I received some tips on getting started from a terrific clay artist, Jessica of Jogee Designs. Here were her hints on supplies and resources to help kids have fun with clay:

• I think polyclay is a perfect craft for kids! They can start over, and over, and over again..... plus it never dries out!! It does react really poorly with some plastics though, so when storing stick to plastic sandwich bags or glass/plastic baby food containers.
• Well, for books I would recommend any by Maureen Carlson, or Shelley ???? Carlson has a few just for beginners, and her style is fun!
• As far as tools go, I would say she'd have to have an acrylic roller (pasta machines are really the best, but if you're just starting her out you might not want to spend the money on that yet, so the roller would be just fine for conditioning and mixing colors.) I use my exacto knife ALOT, also any nail cuticle thingy from the drug store. I use both the tiny wooden ones and the ones with the rubber tip. They actually do sell a tool called The Clay Wipe Out Tool that does the same thing, but I've only seen it on line. So a roller, wipe out tool and needle tool are must haves I would say (also a knife of some kind..... they sell the clay blades but I don't use it much. I have to have my exacto knife). Everything else, like cutters, glitter, mica powder, clay extruder gun, bead rollers, are fun to have but not necessary.
• As far as clay goes, Sculpey and Fimo soft are very easy to use....extremely soft (show lots of finger prints though). I don't like to use them by themselves for that reason, but they are easy to condition.
  

I suspect we're just beginning a long relationship with polymer clay, so we'll keep you posted on our progress!

I'm dreaming of a Boutique Christmas!

Jack and Jill Boutique Designers, a wonderful ebay group I'm a proud member of, just launched our offerings for the Christmas season. We used the famous Clement C. Moore poem, 'A Visit from St. Nick', more commonly known as, 'twas the Night Before Christmas', as our inspiration. Selecting a stanza to use as a muse, we each created a unique, hand-crafted boutique item that reflected our love of this blessed holiday season.

Here is a beautiful bracelet by Pam of Black Sheep Designs. The quality of her work is impeccable, her designs are breathtaking and always original...reading her listings is a treat, too, she's a talented writer, as well! In this bracelet, she combines new and vintage beads in a fabulous design.





My sister IRL, is Missy of Spring*Bean. She specializes in Euro designs and vintage styles with a modern twist. The dress she is offering is a wonderful, reversible jumper. She appliqued an adorable fawn on one side and the coordinating print on the other is suitable for wearing all winter long! You can see it here.






And here is one of my listings for this launch. It is the red silk dress that I gave a sneak peek of yesterday. The photos are just wonderful, I'm definitely going to collaborate with Judy again! Later this week I'll be listing my sugarplum inspired dress, again in gorgeous silk dupioni.