A very, very...

Happy Birthday to the handsomest cowboy I know.

When Mommy is Bored....

Layla was a wonderful & patient model while I played with my shiny, new camera!

More pics will be up on my other blog, you can find it in my blogger profile.

Squeeee!!!! *Dottie Angel Edition*

oh my goodness.

oh my so!

you have no idea how excited I am right now.

no.

idea.

ever since I picked up the first issue of Mollie Makes magazine, I have been smitten with Dottie Angel. 

Dottie Angel is the alter ego of the queen of all thrifty & homemade goodness, Tif Fussel. 

after reading the article of her crafty life at Mossy Shed I've been obsessed!

okay. maybe 'obsessed' is too strong of a word, but her blog is my new favorite read.

Dottie Angel makes lots of crocheted goodness, but in my opinion her wrap aprons & messenger bags are the cat's meow! unfortunately at the time her etsy shop was on vacation, so I signed up for the email alert to I'd be notified the second she was back in business. 

after waiting all summer her shop finally opened. 

but alas, no aprons.

I waited, and waited, and waited, and then I finally gave in and sent her a message.

I wanted to have one before I big move overseas, and our move date is fast approaching. luckily she got back to me quickly & was planning to list a few the following weekend.

happy happy joy joy!

so that saturday afternoon I kept checking her shop to see if they were listed yet. 

they soon began to pop up & I waited until I was sure she had finished listing items.

then came the tough decision, which beautiful apron shall I purchase??

there were quite a few options, and each more darling than the next.

however, I finally settled on one I thought was darling & would look great while I housewife it up in the Sufflok countryside after our big move.

& then the happy day arrived (today in fact) when I opened my mailbox & found the wrap waiting for me to open!

oh happy day indeedy!

a beautiful thank you card from Tif & a card advertising her recently published book (something else I will probably be ordering in the coming months ahead.)

& my beautiful apron!

I love love love love love the flower of vintage fabric. 

I adore the large pocket.

I find each & every inch of this apron wrap to be simply adorable & it has found a great home where it will be very much loved & appreciated.

xJen

p.s. I know I just wrote an entire blog post on an apron, but I don't care. I love it to pieces & am overly filled with joy to have a Dottie Angel apron wrap in my possession.

If you too would like a Dottie Angel apron wrap or perhaps a messenger bag, or really any one of her masterful pieces you should check out her shop on etsy.

A Few Of My Favorite Things

I like old things. 

Vintage. Antique.

 Two great words to describe my style & taste.

When I go to thrift stores or antique shops I like to browse to see what they have to offer, but there are a few choice items that I try to keep an eye out for.

Things like:

Matryoshka Dolls

Vintage Tea Tins

Books (particularly old versions of Jane Austen novels)

Women's Handkerchiefs

Old Suitcases

& 

Tea Cups

A few stacks of my hankies. I still need to frame a bunch of them, sew others onto some bunting, and I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest.

A few of my favorites all spread out.

The pretty lady on the right is huge. The bearded man on the left is the average size of the largest matryoshka doll, so the beautiful Christmas doll is about 12 inches tall!!

Some more of my beauties. Note the little doggy in the bottom right-hand corner? He's a little cutie I named Basil. He's a toy from the 1930's & I rescued him off a dusty shelf in the corner of an antique mall.

It's a MATRYOSHKA PARTY!

A few of my tea tins hanging out on my dresser. (Also pictured: vintage souvenir Dutch clogs, my Great-Grandma's yellow tea pot with a tiny matching cup, a fake candle with the Eiffel Tower on it, a vintage tin tray on top of a bigger vintage tray both covered in my jewelry, and a piggy bank from Target.)

Another little tin nestled into a cozy section of my dresser. (Also pictured: blue vase I rescued from a dirty old thrift store, a tea cup & saucer that weren't made for each other, but I decided that they belonged together anyway, my Grandpa's old jewelry box, a spool of vintage fabric ribbon, and Dutch clogs the last time I was in the Netherlands.)

I was going to put off posting pictures of this great find until Friday so I could do a 'Great Find Friday' post, but I just couldn't help myself! I went to the local Antique Mall here in Monterey to have a little retail therapy after my dear friend, Melissa, left this morning on her big move back to the East Coast. I went to the corner where my favorite seller displays her items when I noticed on a little roll-top desk a few books sat. The first one I picked up:

Emerson's Poems!!

I adore the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

His philosophies on life are brilliant, and if you've never read anything by him you need to go hit up Borders before it closes & get a copy of 'Nature' or any collection of his essays and poems.

So I looked through this book & fell in love.

It was printed in either the 1880's or 1890's, the seller thinks (there is no print date inside the book at all.) & you can tell it was well-loved by it's previous owner, but it is still in excellent condition!