pink

This post is brought to you by... the colour PINK!

new pink ballet slippers

eating pink gelato in front of a pink wall

learning how to play Kumbaya on a pink ukulele

the beginnings of pink socks

x melissa

specimens

Today we went for a walk in search of dinosaur bones.

Found some very interesting specimens.

And came home to sketch them. 

(Along with a picture of a man sleeping with a dog and, oops, forgot to take off his hat!)

And here's my Hazel dress so far. I just need to get an invisible zipper foot to finish it up. Kicking myself because I was at the sewing shop just on the weekend but didn't want to shell out $28 for an invisible zipper foot. Thought I would be able to sew in the zipper without it, but then remembered the last invisible zipper I tried to sew on with a regular foot turned out rather crappity-crap. So, I'm going to spend the $28 in the hopes that this time, my zipper installation will be beautiful which will make my dress beautiful and I'll wear it all the time and it'll all be worth it in the end. Fingers crossed..

x melissa

lazy summer days

The weather has been just beautiful this past week. Usually when it's this nice out, I feel like we should make the most of it and head to the beaches, playgrounds and water-parks. But for some reason, my kids just didn't feel like leaving the house these last couple of days. At first I felt like we were wasting the gorgeous sunshine (which is kind of rare in these parts), but then isn't summer also about just lazing around without a schedule? Aside from sleeping in until 9, here's a bit of what we've been up to these last couple days.

painting in pajamas (or underwear)

playing with new birthday toys (my first baby just turned 5!!)

taking dolls (and action figures) for little walks

playing in the sprinkler

trying to drink water from the sprinkler

 cooling down with homemade blueberry milkshakes

harvesting greens from our little garden (crunchy summer peas as a snack, kale to be made into kale chips for supper, and mint that I'm hoping will end up in a mojito for me..)

and of course, my new sewing project. I'm hoping to have this finished in the next couple of days so I can wear it out while the weather is still so perfectly summery

x melissa

late night rambling

-My kids have been having a hard time sleeping lately. I don't know if it's just a developmental thing, or a weird winter gloominess thing. Lil c has been hanging out with me while I sew late at night and although it's kind of cool that she's interested (and likes to copy what I'm doing) I have to say that it also kind of drives me nuts! At the end of the day I really crave my alone (with my sewing machine) time and I just can't relax when someone is watching me. Very closely. Anyways, I've been sewing up little things for a market that's coming up in just over a week. Zipper pouches and tissue cases have been in assembly-line style production. It's actually been great going through my stash and finding fun bits of fabric to make stuff with.

-lil c has always been a chatty girl and started talking pretty early on. She learns by copying sounds as opposed to big C who started speaking a bit later on and made up words and sounds that made sense to him (gacks = bike, mogacks = motorbike). So while lil c can properly pronounce all the names of the cars characters in the Cars 2 movie, something she says that totally makes me smile is "ewk-mew for bweh-fix". That's supposed to be "oatmeal for breakfast". I love it so much I actually don't want to correct her pronunciation, quite yet...

-for anyone wanting to learn more about sewing with Japanese pattern books, check out Katie's blog over here. She's been posting tips for sewing with Japanese patterns and really gets into some wonderful detail on how to read the patterns and work your way through a project.

-Karyn from Make Something just posted this today about the iPhone app for Project 365 and I think it just might be easy enough that I'll give it a go! I've seen other people post their photos on their blogs and although I'm not sure I'm going to actually post mine on the blog, I think it would be super cool to keep a daily photo journal.

-I just started my exercise routine (and I use the word 'routine' very loosely..) I've heard people say that you're not supposed to share your goals if you're serious about them because the act of sharing them gives some of the gratification of accomplishing the goals.. without actually having accomplished them.. And I've also read that you SHOULD share your goals so you can be held accountable to them.. Either way, I've been trying to exercise more and lose my 'sewing gut' (I only call it that because I mostly started gaining weight when I began sewing more regularly - sewing time somehow replaced exercise time) but I never really followed through. So since I've shared my sewing goals with you already, I'm going to share my exercise goals too. Without going into too much detail, my overall goal is to loose 10 lbs by my birthday in May (or the equivalent in belly-inches since I know muscle weighs more than fat - yadda yadda..) And to sweeten the challenge, if I achieve this goal, I'm going to splurge on some of that amazing liberty fabric that I've only dreamed about to make myself a sweet (hopefully sexy) little dress! Yup, now there's motivation for me :)

Aaaand, it's time for bed.

family time and a happy new year

I hope everyone had a beautiful Christmas holiday! Here's a bit of what we've been up to..

illuminated tree at Stanley Park's Bright Nights

kid-made sugar cookies (yes, it was messy, and a little stressful at times, but sooo fun and delicious!)

 family trip to Victoria (Vancouver Island) where most shops on the main strip seemed to require *very* large, often well dressed animals to sit at the shop entrance

hotel dining at its best :)

 Duncan, BC (Vancouver Island) to visit some family. Amazing backyard!

Aunt S's sweet dachshund relaxing by the fire

back home for Christmas Eve and some pretty awesome presents - 

 fairy wings from Aunty S and a spy suit from Nana

Christmas day dinner with the family at my childhood home. Especially excited my sister made it home for Christmas this year! (yup, everything in that kitchen is yellow. It's no wonder I am so drawn to that colour now)

 the classic punch bowl

 the dessert table (I forgot to get a picture of the actual dinner spread which is always an impressive mix of potluck contributions - turkey with sticky rice stuffing (my mom's specialty), Thai noodles, radish cakes, yams, veggies, dips, spring rolls, zucchini pie, prawns, curry pastries...)

C with one of his favourite aunts

stockings lined up and ready for Santa :)

I'm feeling a little sad that the holidays are almost over. It was actually pretty relaxing and although we didn't end up doing half the things I thought we would, it ended up being perfect. New years eve for us will also be pretty laid back, dinner at home with the kids and maybe some grandparents. My kids haven't been sleeping all that well lately so I'm sure it won't be too much of a stretch if they wanted to stay up until midnight (not sure I'll make it though..) And then it's a new year! I'm not normally a 'resolutions' kind of girl, but I do like to think about what I'd like to do with the fresh year ahead. You know, the usual 'start exercising more', 'eat better both health-wise and in a more sustainable, ethical way' (just watched FOOD, INC. again and feel like I just got a good kick in the butt to be more pro-active with our food choices again)... But as for sewing and crafting, oh man, looking all the patterns and books I've accumulated recently, it seems like I have pretty lofty goals for the new year. I'll get into this more in another post.. Do you normally come up with new years resolutions? Do you believe they actually help achieve your goals? 

Well, I'm not sure I'll get back on here before the new year, so I'd like to wish all of you an absolutely wonderful, exciting, and joyful new year! And thank you so much for reading this little blog of mine. This past year was an exciting one for me with the start of this blog and my shop and I feel like since I joined this community, it's really helped me focus more and actually make time for doing what I really love to do. And for that, I'm grateful :)

xo melissa

o christmas tree

Last weekend we set up our Christmas tree. It's one of my favourite holiday activities and it's become even more fun now that the kids can help.

Although you might not be able to tell from the picture, about two thirds of the decorations are hanging from the bottom two feet of the tree. And check out that nicely tangled strand of gold stars! I think I've always loved 'random' and colourful Christmas trees. Although I can appreciate a perfectly colour-themed and meticulously decorated tree, I prefer chaos, which is the mindset you need when decorating with little kids. Every day some decorations are removed, and some are added. I've found stuffed toys (including this little worm), plastic bugs and hotwheels balanced on the branches. This tree is truly one of a kind!

As for our 'real' ornaments, we have a pretty solid mix of ornaments from my childhood, and from my husband's, most of which are handmade and were purchased at craft markets and church bazaars in the '70s and '80s. And every year, we buy or make one new ornament for each of the kids and sometime for us too. Here's a small sampling of what's hanging on our tree right now..

a sweet little mouse from my childhood tree

a folksy horse from my husband's family tree

 I've named this guy 'disco mouse' (love his orange suit and green tie!)

and of course, you need a Christmas seahorse! (or is this a loch ness monster..?)

a cutie little felted wool penguin (I bought this handmade from a craft market in Vancouver a 3-4 years ago and I'm kicking myself for not being able to remember the crafter/artist's name. Hopefully it'll come to me. She had some pretty amazing stuff!)

And this is one of this year's new ornaments. A Christmas Yeti that was selected by Big C from Sweet Earth Celebrations at this market. Yup. Pretty hilarious (and a little scary!) A couple ornaments that I made last year are in the background. A scrappy owl from this tutorial, and a bird from this tutorial. I'm hoping to make a few more ornaments  before Christmas. If you know of any other fun ornament tutorials, please share! 

{this moment}

'A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.' -words and inspiration from Soulemama

If you have a moment you'd like to share, please leave a link in the comments. Wishing you and yours a lovely weekend!

lil c's new dress

Lil c was eyeing some dresses before I took them to the market last weekend. She placed dibs on the turquoise teacup pinafore (similar to this dress) with Jay McCarroll's purple dropcloth print on the reverse side. I promised her that she could pick one dress from whatever was left over from the market and luckily, the one that I had left happened to be in her size :) She held me to my word. 

some silliness and a GIVEAWAY reminder

So it's just one more day before the Urban Artisans Craft Market, and things are starting to get just a wee bit silly around here. While I was busy doing some last minute sewing and tagging, lil C decided she wanted to do some modelling.

The picture's a bit blurry because she also thought it would be 'nice' to do a dance while modelling the Bloom Dress. And here she is checking out the price tag of the Kaleidoscope Skirt. (I think she's saying 'wow, what a bargain!')

And since it's still Movember, check out big C's 'green juice' mustache (he was especially proud of this one)..

Or how about his 'noodle mustache' from a couple weeks ago..



Yup, it's pretty silly over here. By the way, if you haven't entered the Japanese Pattern Book GIVEAWAY, make sure you head on over and do that now. Contest closes end of day Sunday and I'll be drawing a winner on Monday! And also a heads-up that I'll be closing the shop for the weekend while I'm at the market, but should have it up and running again by monday along with a nice little SALE :)

{this moment}

'A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.' -words and inspiration from Soulemama