what all the hot mamas are wearing

oh yeah.  look at all this hotness up in here.  you know you want some a this.

New Mama desired a hooter hider for Child The Second's impending nursing phase, and i couldn't let her spend forty bucks on a rectangle of cloth with a two dollar buckle on it.  how hard could it be to make THAT?  i thought.

six hours later, i was muttering to myself : Child The Second had better be nursing till he's twenty two.

the degree of difficulty may have been my fault, what with the triple topstitched hems, the interfacing, the pockets... eh, you know how it goes.  we brought it to the new parents last night, along with some fried chicken and watermelon (no, i am not kidding, after a stay at le hospital that is the best meal ON THE PLANET.  happiness is a plate of that jazz.  new babies help too).  and the thing actually works!  i highly recommend whipping one up if you've got a mama to sew for.  just don't go OCD on it like i did.  

speaking of obsessed, please to meet the frigging best chalk marker ever.  i picked it up at the FIT bookstore, and i want to hug it and kiss it and call it george.  it's akin to the click pen that got a shout out from my girl emilykate when i was jonesing for kistchy school supplies.

wow, that paragraph was linkalicious.

i may be the last sewist on earth to find out about this, but if you ain't heard about it, get one!  and banish all other marking devices to the back of the drawer.  i cracked it open for this project, and maybe that's another reason why it took six hours.  it makes such gorgeous marks i couldn't stop using it.  and look at all the pretty colors!

mmm.... chalk candy.... makes me happy to look at it. 

(if you hadn't noticed, i'm happy again.  with many thanks to your wonderful comments on my last post, you beautiful peeps, you.)

what's your favorite sewing tool?  i have this feeling i've been missing out on a world of sewing shizzle!

flick it good

i made a little hamsa hand out of a long overlocked strip of green jersey to adorn the wine we brought to my friend's seder last night.

my favorite part of the service (and there were many; i think passover can be really beautiful) was the ten plagues. you dip your pinky in wine and flick it off onto your plate to remember & rid the world of said plague. this was the only part of the evening where you were required to sit up straight, as you were remembering the strife and all. the rest of the night, you were supposed to recline and relax during the service and meal. 

we each picked something extra to flick off. my plate, and the surrounding vicinity, was quite red. i was very passionate in my flicking, and said each word with much vehemence and gnashing of teeth. 

can i just say, i can really get behind a religion that requires you to sit back, relax, and drink three full glasses of wine before you even begin the meal?

homestead hoedown!

emilykate and i are swapping crafty goodness! and lucky me, it's something to brighten the home. i SO need help there. for all my yammering about my mad decorating skillz, i have done next to nothing so far.

it's a little sad that this is one of my favorite places in the house, considering it occupies 12 inches of windowsill. telling, really, that i have yet to get my decorating mojo on. i've been going in very small spurts, so there are small blurbs of pretty, and big old swaths of "you've been back for 10 months now, when are you going to unpack."

anyways... this spot for a sprite has my vogue magazines, a vintage pack of playing cards from a wonderful friend (i coveted them, ruggy threw me under the bus), chalk pencils from etsy, and a little plant stand that used to hold a terrarium. it was a gift from me to ruggy, and when i accidentally broke the terrarium, i shot him a look that said it was completely his fault. he understandably accepted blame.

it's also my grandmothers spot, i guess-- the little egg cup was my nana's, and the little note was from my nan. that's her in the photo. i think the note sums up my nan perfectly. it says: the sun is shinging here at last. i know she meant shining, but i like to think she was thinking "singing" too, and so she put those two words together.

and this here is our stairwell to the bedroom. or should i say our stairway to heaven, baby. aw YEAH.

when first settling back in with just two chairs and a coffee table, i was at a complete loss at where to begin. there was so much to replace that i couldn't start anywhere. i found these huge ass pillows at urban outfitters--they're like 4 feet square--and i cut them up into various shapes. there are so many of them, it's like instant decor for about 60 percent of the living room. plus, they keep the blind cat from choosing the wrong path down the stairs and falling to her death.

the yellow painting is a large copy of a happy doodle i made the day that i met ruggy. i found it in a journal years ago, and timidly made a pale green canvas out of it. when we moved back, i decided it needed to be a lot more joyous, so i sat on our bare floor and had at it.

the amethyst was a christmas gift from ruggy's mom, and the metal cat was a vintage find with my mom. mom!! when are we going vintage shopping again?!

see what i mean about those pillows? there are THOUSANDS of them!

during the day, if i'm sitting, this is my favorite place to be. it is also cody's favorite place, and due to the size of this 23 pound beast, there's no sharing. he knows i'm coming for him here.

this hard won couch faces the windows, and our desks, so i can watch ruggy typing away, and eek some little bit of sunlight out of our street level apartment. we spent seven, yes, SEVEN months deciding on this couch. our cats immediately got sick on it upon arrival, and so now the cushions are completely misshapen from washing. hooRAY! but i still love it. the crocheted blanket is from a swap with a crafty friend (i traded her a painting). 

and i love that one of these areas... or maybe some other sorely lacking space in our home... will soon be host to an emilykate creation!

(speaking of sorely lacking:

i know! we said three pictures! but aside from a bed, our bedroom doesn't look much different than this. i couldn't not show you this. this is pathetic. seriously.)

i'll have a purple christmas

do you play sercet santa? i do. ferociously, and with much yelling and stomping of feet. 

i head up the secret santa at work, and this was our last one--we all say goodbye to each other come january 9. rather than curl up and hoard our collective pennies, this was the brightest holiday ever.

peeps hid flowers. wrote poems. left gifts hiding everywhere. every 5 minutes, screams of thanks could be heard echoing up and down the stairwells from happy recipients.

and i had the BEST SECRET SANTA IN THE WORLD. i am serious. this is the one, the ONE person you want to get that you're sure you will never be lucky enough to get. my head about popped off when my santa revealed herself. i am a brat at christmas, it can't be helped, and boy did she have me pegged. i had something beautiful to open every day (one gift being a bag full of goodies from MJ trimmings, thankyouverymuch). i was just floored. shouted about it every night after work to ruggy. i think he may have lost some hearing over it.

and continuing my lucky streak, i chose someone who specifically requested a handmade gift for christmas! i mean, COME ON!!! i rushed out and spent my limit on goodies to shower her with all week long, then went to searching my stash for the perfect purple fabric (lucky me again, her favorite color). 

then the dreaded sewing stall hit. i had nada. robe? maxi dress? lounge pants? FEH. enter burdastyle & modcloth's handmade contest (seriously, i'm a groupie), and bang! inspiration struck! 

modcloth's ever awesome dresses got my brain churning: time for scrunch and who wants to be a frillionaire. i wanted to play up the texture of these dresses with an equally frilly accessory. one can never have too many frills.

she opened it yesterday at our holiday potluck and loved it.  and i will never forget the joyous cacophony that erupted as everyone tore into their prizes together, hugging and laughing and yelling and full of amazing home cooked pernil and banana pudding and most of all, love.

one of my best friends is getting this lavender one on christmas day. and don't forget, you can win your own lacey oonaballoona accessory here!

peanut butter sandwiches

i am about to take this....

and make it into a christmas tree, a la anthropologie. yes, including the cat litter. i'm not even lying. 

tutorial to follow....

my first sale

i made my first etsy sale two days after opening shop, and i kind of can't believe i haven't shouted about it here in full-on oonaballoona-brat style until now. it was the day before thanksgiving, and the best kickoff to the holiday season i could ask for! bonus: the buyer was so freaking cool, i get happy every time i think of her prancing about in one of my belts. in fact, when things get crabby round here, they are easily fixed, as follows:

oona: feh. 

r: you sold a belt. 

oona: i DID. (oona grins and bounces around the living room).

pretty neat trick. so, in celebration of my first sale (and the grins), i'm offering free shipping & a big markdown on all roxietoxl gear! stop by the shop if you'd like, and grab some christmas gear...

so, as self-promotion has never really been my thing, i wanna give a shout out to a fellow etsy-er & blogger. i have been listening to this wonderful & uplifting EP by the incurable homebody's band, tomes. it arrived in a beautiful handmade pouch that i adore just as much as the sparkling music. you know that kind of music that spirals upwards and makes you smile? this is that music. and you can get it for free (though a little dinero will get you the pouch, at their etsy shop). i think it would make a very cool stocking stuffer.

   

(artwork by jed mcgowan of tomes)

and now it's back to santa's sweatshop for me...

WOH, day three: home decorating recipe

take: one box of craft,

two ugly switchplates,

stir until well blended,













and add to wall.

iiiiiiiiiiii want candy

but as i have a sore throat, no candy for me. no talking, either. so i'll quietly play with some virtual candy:

 

r went to japan recently and in r fashion acted as though he didn't really bring anything back for me, other than a few small pieces of hotel chocolate. i believed him and immediately ate the chocolate. he then dumped 2 pounds of candy in my lap.

(i should let you know that he often does this to me and i often fall for it. he once called and asked me to go outside and look at the moon and there he was standing on my doorstep. he was supposed to be in st louis.)

these candies were carefully picked from the array of goodies on set during his commercial shoot, along with other treats found in his wanderings. one had (still has, actually, we haven't dared to try it) a picture of a mushroom on the back...with obvious side effects:

 

what do you think happened there? are bunny and foxy eskimo presenting snowman as a sacrifice? are they plotting to replace his head? does snowman eat the mushrooms, devour bunny and fox, take their hats and start a new snow person colony with snow head?

 

two of the cakes came in such beautiful wrapping, i immediately exclaimed, "i'm going to FRAME them!" r smiled, completely used to that sort of idea. but aren't those wrappers cool? the fish one, another we had concerns about, was one of our favorites, spongey and sweet. mmm. spongey. i stuffed the empty wrappers with dotted tissue paper and used ikea shadowbox frames with good old martha stewart cardstock.

 

but this wins most delicious. it was the first one i tried, at r's request. very sweet with a salty prune like center. i know, doesn't sound like ambrosia, but it's awesome. there's only one left.

i think the sick girl should have it.

feh.

RAINY DAYS IN LA ARE SUCH A JIP.

seriously, isn't the payoff for living here constant sunshine and a median temperature of 77 degrees?

we are not only underwater outside, but also inside... pretty much everyone in LA has got the plague, and r caught it a few days ago. so the good doctor has advised us to drink plenty of water and cram vitamin C and zinc. said doctor practices in beverly hills... in a beautiful office where all the other patients were waiting for their botox injections. ah, the good life. did you know virginia madsen advertises for botox? yep. i was surprised. most women around here do it, to be sure, but i think her support is akin to dole's viagra announcement. as for me, needle in the face? no thanks.

more importantly: in an effort to drink water, i gussied up the reusable glass bottle.

picture taken on a sunny day, like, 2000 years ago.

i can't say it's made me drink more water, but i sure do like looking at it.

off to heat up some soup. our world is made entirely of liquid.

jeb & co.

these are some of r's ancestors... hopefully they had a sense of humor.





they live on the veranda, dontcha know. hopefully soon these flowers will have actual living mates.

hello, sugar!

yeah, it's more like valentine's week around here as i have not yet sent out any of the 25 valentines i made... it's the thought that counts, right? meh.

these were made from a big bag of cards r's grandmother saved over the years. his dad has got me pegged, he gave them to me over christmas... hope he likes his :)

and r liked his valentine's day pants. he's got green horsies, and i've got red. cause nothing says valentine's day like horsies. we don't really go for chocolates (buy it once a week) or flowers (cats eat them) on valentine's day. r got me stephen king's "the gunslinger born"-- marvel comics is doing king's gunslinger saga as a graphic novel. i danced around the living room in glee when i saw it sitting on my desk.

i gotta give it up for ms amy butler's "in stitches". i was at first very irritated about this book-- liked the results (your kimono robe & apron, mom 'n dad), but hated the instructions. because they weren't written as i would write them. and my way is ALWAYS THE BEST WAY. when i finally decided to follow the directions without judgement (or outright skipping of steps) i was much happier. this book rocks.

yeah, my hands are pretty big... but they're not that big.

the pants, however, are HUGE.

birdies!

so howdy and welcome...

what to do with a 54 x 54 inch canvas that refuses to produce acceptable results? cover it with fabric! i swear this canvas is--was--cursed. i mean, it can't possibly have anything to do with the artiste. i got it right about this time last year for 40 bucks at a garage sale, which is insane for a canvas this size. now i know the reason. it is impossible to paint. i've tried twelve times. it was probably used by an art student who was constantly brow beaten by some cranky teacher who told her not to paint the thorns on the roses because they aren't pretty.

okay, that was me in the 5th grade, but i'm SURE she had a similar experience.

R actually really liked version 12 of the painting, so i couldn't destroy it. i also couldn't look at it anymore. so now it's waiting patiently (demonically) underneath what i guess you would call a quilt, until the day when we have a three story lavender house with a wrap around porch and it shall live in The Room I Will Rarely Visit.

and the quilt will live with me.