A Few Old Friends, Part 2

When I try to get to know people, one of the questions I tend to ask is, "What is the best gift you've ever received?" Hearing the answer often gives me some insight into what's truly important to them. These next few posts are about the best gift I've ever received, a dollhouse filled with homemade furniture that I received from my parents for Christmas when I was 4 years old.

I recently went back to my childhood home and brought back a few of these treasures for my little girls. Here are a few of the gems from the living room.

 If you look closely at the drawer pulls on the furniture, you'll see that they're actually the heads of pins with the pointy side clipped off.

I still have vivid memories of watching my dad cut these pieces out and my mom staining the wood.

I'll show you the bedroom furniture in the next post.

A Few Old Friends, Part 1

I had the opportunity recently to go visit my dad back home.

While there, I saw a box in my old closet that contained a few old friends. These were some of the toys I played with when I was a little girl, and I decided to bring them back for my little girls to play with. 

Not only does the drawer come out of the cash register...

...but the crank actually turns the little record on the phonograph.

I used to play with these "old friends" with my Barbies and also in my dollhouse (more on that in the next post!)

Needless to say, A is fascinated by these little guys.

Ohhh, Ohhh, Godzilla!!

One of my favorite things that I picked up for A was an activity book of cardboard punch-outs that made all sorts of fun things--games, finger puppets and scenery. I found this book and A loved punching out all the little characters with me.

While my family was visiting over the holidays, we worked on one scene in particular--a cityscape, complete with skyscrapers, a roadway with little cars, a cute little mountain and lots of trees.

Of course, a certain uncle of A's got in on the action, and before we knew it, our fair city was being attacked, one cardboard building at a time. (Bob the Dinosaur, how could you?!?)

I'm not sure what was more fun--punching out the scenery with A, or watching her--I mean Bob--trample our fair city.

Back on the Creative Wagon

It's been some time since I last posted. To be honest, this has been a particularly tough holiday season. But with each end comes a new beginning, and I've started to feel creatively energized again.

A asked me to make a flower for Little Lammy, her stuffed animal. She was about to have her lunch and she needed a flower in a vase to set the table just so. It was just the request I needed.

I think it's going to feel good to get back in the creative saddle.

Laundry Detergent + Boxed Wine = LOVE.

I love interesting, smart packaging. I love to explore the reasoning behind it, the engineering to make it and the printing used to make it shine once it hits the shelves. I love it even more when it's coupled with something seemingly mundane like laundry detergent.

As I was walking through the grocery store this past weekend, I happened across the latest packaging from Seventh Generation for their laundry detergent and was fascinated. Have you seen this?

It has the same feel in your hand as a plastic jug, but it's actually a shell of pressed cardboard. 

Inside, there is a pouch, not unlike they do with boxed wine, so that there's less waste.

I LOVE this.

Why Didn't Anyone Tell Me?!

How come nobody told me my favorite magazine was packing it in? In particular, why didn't the publishers let their subscribers know?

http://www.readymade.com/blog/readymade/2011/06/16/farewell_readymakers

Gimme a hand (me down)!

We are in full-on hand-me-down mode here in "Madridia".

After Irene hit the area, we lost power for nearly 4 days, and I knew I'd have to do some serious cleaning around here before the kiddos could come back in--mainly in the bathrooms and kitchen. Everything in the fridge was thrown away, and because we use well water, we were not able to flush our toilets.

All that "Belated Spring Cleaning" motivation quickly spilled into the girls' bedrooms, and specifically, the closets. I took the opportunity to sift through A's outgrown clothes and package them up into different bins for V.

Take a look--each bin is for a different size, so that as she grows out of a size, I can simply dump the older (gently worn) clothes into the white basket, and take clothes out from the next bin. Finally--I have a system! And what's nicer is that V is set up for Fall--I know what she has already and what she needs (which is just about nothing). She has all sorts of warm, wooly footie pj's and a bin full of different shoes, long sleeved shorts, jackets, fleece pants and even a few sets of scarves and hats.

Then I looked through V's clothes, and all the items that were out of season or were too small got packaged up for the second hand store and Goodwill, along with her baby swing, Bumbo and a few other pieces of baby gear.

So yesterday A and I stopped in to the second hand store and dropped off a few bins for them to look through. The little one was so fascinated by all the tricycles, strollers and play yards they had outside for purchase. Inside, it was wall-to-wall clothes and toys. They had us sign in and leave out bins and then A and I ran a few more errands. After an hour, we returned and the store had selected a number of items to purchase and cut us a check on the spot. We took our bins, and the items they didn't purchase back with us, and will drop them at Goodwill another day.

Now, I'd love to be able to say that we made money on this whole Irene business, but sadly, no. Because of the electrical surges we've experienced throughout this whole ordeal, our range hood is now on the fritz--the exhaust fan won't shut off. But at least we won't have to pay to have it fixed completely out of pocket, right?