hoops and hankies

vintage hankies have always been a weakness of mine - i think i inherited the obsession from my mom! you can generally find hankies at estate sales or thrift stores for a buck a piece and they have the sweetest floral prints on them.

my friend jenni showed up the other day and gifted me eight 4-inch embroider hoops and i knew immediately what i would do with them. hankies are typically very thin fabric, so i layered them on top of some white muslin i had in my fabric bin for extra stability and then stretched them in the hoops. my next step will be to embroider embellishments onto the flowers and maybe add a word or two to each. in my head, i can already see how sweet they are going to be!

what is your thrifting weakness? and do you reuse your finds, or put the in a drawer for safe keeping?

storms and warnings

lately we have been plagued with really heavy rain storms in the south. a major one was schedule to hit the other night, so i promptly went out to my favorite rose bush and cut off almost every bloom to place around the house in vases. my rationale was that if i left them on the bush, there would be none left after the heavy winds and rain.

the result? they are thriving inside, so full and vibrant. don't you wish that sometimes in life we had this luxury? the warning of a large crisis ahead where you could take cover inside, wait it out and continue blooming? mind you, i have not had any crisis as of late, but you never know when one will hit.

bunnies and brothers

some new additions to the Linwood Avenue house arrived yesterday in the munchkins easter baskets! aren't they so innocently sweet???

my boys are definitely getting older and would rather be watching icarly than sponge bob, so i know my days of handmade easter treats are winding down. however, i couldn't resist this cute bunny pattern, so i bought it, then adapted it in a few ways to make it more suitable for my boys. i omitted the diaper bottom, and gave them some curious eyes which i think made all the difference. the part i love most is that i used men's shirting fabric to give it that extra masculine look that boys of 8 and 6 desire :)

i couldnt' help but giggle as munchkin #1 snuggled his bunny at bedtime and said he knew the easter bunny would bring him one because he saw it in a store and wished for it.

um, no, but the sentiment was sweet anyways!

i just wanted to stop by and wish everyone a happy easter! i am currently laying in bed trying not to fall asleep from food overload. we had a wonderful dinner with extended family and some good friends. before dinner, the kids overdosed on egg hunts while i worked on getting the table setting just right. do you do that, stress over the smallest detail? it's not often that i can set a table with pale pink glasses, so i went with it.

i hope everyone is having a day filled with love, relaxation and some creativity sprinkled in there somewhere :)

trespassing and a work in progress

to make progress on my flower of the month calendar, i have needed to find an iris to draw. who knew they were such a hard flower to find??? i visited 2 florists and explained that i draw flowers and could i buy an iris stem and they both looked at me like i was crazy and one even added that irises are very temperamental flowers. thanks for the info.

last friday, a friend and i went to a community yard sale in the fanciest subdivision of our little community. people come out by the hundreds to be let behind the gates and sneak a peek at how the other side lives. we stopped at one sale in a culdesac and i couldn't help but notice the un-kept yard next door. this is very unusual because most houses in here have yard crews. upon further inspection, i noticed that a section of the yard was overflowing with the most beautiful irises. i quickly asked the lady running the sale if the house was empty and when i found out it was, i hurried over and snuck away with 3 iris stems safely tucked in my car. score!

the hardest part about drawing flowers is the time constraints. they literally change minute by minute, so you have to draw part by what you see and part by intuition. a teacher of mine said to photograph the flowers, then draw from the photo. i find this really hard to do though because i feel that the photo always looks flat. so i suck it up and sketch as much as i can before the flower wilts. the above photo is after i have done my sketching and before i go in and blend out all the harsh lines.

i can't wait to add this to my calendar pages. february will be checked off shortly!