Snowmen!

HOW CUTE ARE THESE?! They are hanging on my filing cabinet at work and make me smile everytime I see them. I love kid artwork!

This one is Arlene's:

This one is Lydia's:

Vol. 2 of The post in which I talk about my hair

Wow, two hair posts in one week about my hair, crazy! I promise you I am usually not obsessed with my hair. BUT, since I posted on Monday about my hair woes, I just had to post today to announce: hair crisis, diverted! YAY!

So yesterday morning I had spent an enormous amount of time on my hair, trying to get it to do what I wanted it to do. It wasn't doing it. I had two different curling irons going at it, and still, no go. I decided I had enough! I was either going to cut it all off again or call the salon to see if possibly it could be re-cut/fixed. The salon was soooo nice about it! (Let me just state that even though I wasn't happy with the haircut I got last week, I love my salon and would never go anywhere else.) They said I could come back in and get a fixed up cut, for free. IT WORKED! I got a new hairstylist, the best one in the salon, and she did exactly what I had first envisioned the first time I went in! So here you go, I present to you, my newly cut hair. It has the SHAPE that I was going for! Yay! I'm a happy girl.

(and yes I realize that it doesn't really look all that different, but to me, it's a vast improvement!)

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming and blog posts about crafts and my kids, haha!

Etsy Favorites Wednesday - the Cincinnati edition

I love using Etsy's "Shop Local" feature because I get to peek into what other Cincinnatians are creating! Click here to access the feature and search for sellers in your town. Check out what I found!

Vintage Owl Wall Hanging - this seller has a bunch of cool vintage stuff in her shop! I also like this carafe and this mug!

Orange Tea Soap - mmmmm, soap! I heart handmade soap. I want to learn how to make cold-processed soap like this.

Wibbly Woo - I can't do a Cincinnati edition without featuring my pal Abby! Her little monsters rock.

Monogram Vinyl Sticker - I've featured vinyl stickers before in my Etsy Favorites Lists and low and behold there is an Etsy seller from my town making them, and she's quite successful at it!

Paper luminaries - How absolutely clever are these! The seller says these would be great for a wedding, I agree! They would also look super cool on a fireplace mantle, either spelling out your name or a lovely message. I want a set!!

The post in which I talk about my hair

I'm generally pretty happy with my hair. But today, I hate it. And it's my own stinking fault, and I'm mad at myself. You see, for, um, EVER, I've been wearing my hair cut pretty short. A little spikey and chunky. Not really spikey, per se, just like pieced out and sticking up. NOT Kate Gosselin type spikey. Ew. Anyway, the pieced-out and sticking-out look has been my style for maybe six or seven years (which I realize isn't quote for-EVER end quote, but it has been a long time, to me.)

This was my hair before, this past summer:

I recently decided that I wanted to grow it out. My hair grows really quickly, thankfully. Well, I had been liking the growing-out look. I had began to style it a little differently and even got out the curling iron! This is a big deal because I think the last time I used a curling iron was in high school. When my hair was short I blew it dry in 30 seconds, put some product in, and done. This new 'do was taking some work but I was OK with that. My goal is to have cropped bobbed style that is all one length, or with just a few bangs swept to the side. I had multiple days of happy hair and good hair days.

This was my hair just a week and a half ago, when I was photographed for the newspaper.

I had a clip in my hair behind my bangs that sorta looks a little funny from this angle because my bangs kind of flopped down. But in this shot you can tell, it's definitely longer on the sides and top. There's fullness from the top of my head to behind my ears. {I was going to crop the family out of that pic because we're talking about my hair here, but they're so CUTE! I couldn't crop!!}

So things are going along smoothly and all fine and dandy with this growing out plan, and then I got the idea that I wanted to get the back of my hair "shaped up" so that it grew out more evenly. It was feeling heavy in the back because my back layers were growing out faster than the middle of my head. I went to the hairstylist on Friday. She did exactly as I asked, I told her that I'm growing out my hair and she agreed that my middle layers needed to catch up with my bottom layers and that she would "shape it up." My hair is now "shaped up" but it's also shorter. I was really liking how it was growing on the sides, specifically the bobbed shape that was starting to happen and the fullness I mentioned before. Well that's gone now! Cut off! It's my OWN fault, I know! I should have never gotten it cut! Should have just kept it growing! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

This is my hair now. Sorta the same, but not really.

My hair doesn't look terrible; but I'm just not in love with it. *Sigh.*

Maybe I should just do the Kate Gosselin thing and get extensions! Bwah hah hah! Not going to happen. I'm just going to do the normal thing and let it grow out again. And hopefully it'll grow quick.

On a totally unrelated note, this morning whilst driving to work I looked up in my rear view mirror and saw that someone was tailing me quite close. Then I looked close at the driver - a little old woman, with curlers in her hair! It cracked me up! I don't know where she was going with curlers in her hair, but she was in a HURRY! She raced past me and then sped off.

Copy cats

The saying goes that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. But something has been going on with my kids lately, a form of copy-cat, and it's truthfully freaking me out. They copy me. And not just copy what I say, although Lydia will sometimes do that too. They're copying my actions. That cute picture of them up there? One evening a couple weeks ago I had sat down to work on a crochet project while we were all winding down with some TV and what not. The girls wanted to copy me. So they got out their sewing kits and sat quietly for 15 minutes and sewed with me. Majorly cute, yes. Which is why I snapped the picture. But they've been doing it more and more lately. And not just with the sewing; Lydia will copy me while I'm doing work on the computer. She'll bring out her little princess computer and do her "work" which she tells me consists of her "writing about her day" (teehee!) or she'll copy my hand motions and mannerisms while we're eating dinner. Exactly copy them. Mirror image. I'll ask her what she's doing and she tells me, I kid you not, "I want to be just like you Mommy."

All of this copy-cat business has made me realize that now that the girls are getting older, I'm no longer just "Maintenance Mommy" - Mommy who gets us dressed in the morning and feeds us and takes care of us, etc. etc. - I'm "Mommy Role Model" now. Gah! Pressure!

I am proud to be their Mommy and it is beyond humbling that they "want to be just like me." I hope that I am setting a good example for them!

I got crafty

Awhile back I found the cutest button ring at a little boutique shop. It was handmade by someone, I'm just not sure who, unfortunately. Its construction seemed relatively simple - an elastic band with the buttons attached to the top. I knew I could make one myself. So I did, and it was so simple, I made many!

The ring that I purchased is the one at the top.

I was invited to participate in a handmade gift exchange, so I made two rings for my gift recipient, and then whipped up a little crochet wallet to stick them in. (pattern available here) The wallet turned out very, very cute, and it took all but 25 minutes to make!

I also made a little wallet for someone special, along with two rings!

I love those little wallets, I'm going to have to make one for myself.

Etsy Favorites Wednesday - the heart edition

Etsy is filled with hearts and Valentines now-a-days and I can't help but get into the spirit. I usually don't do much for Valentine's Day as far as crafting goes or putting out decorations, etc. But this year the girls are ALL into it. I think it's because their teacher has been talking about it at school. The girls are very excited about handing out Valentines to their friends and I am looking forward to making Valentine boxes with them!

As I've been cruising Etsy I've been favoriting lots of heart-related items. Here's this week's heart-filled Favs list! This list also includes three items from people that I heart a lot on Etsy, Summersville, Jake&Noel and Smashing. Go check out their stores.

Sweetheart Screenprinted Fabric - From Summersville - I have purchased lots of her hand screen-printed fabric. I actually already purchased this heart print! I don't have any immediate plans for what I want to make out of it. It was one of those things: I saw it, I had to have it. She also has a blank print of the design to color in yourself. I want that very badly too!

Heart Necklace - From Smashing - I met her at a craft show last year. Her work is wonderful. I love the bold color of that heart.

Heart earrings - From Jake & Noel - also met at a craft show last year. I have four sets of her "dots" earrings that I wear pretty much all the time. I'm not usually not the hoop/dangly earring type, but I want these earrings; I'd wear them.

Love Letter Envelope - I have seen these little envelopes on Etsy a lot. I do not think that the person selling this particular envelope made it, because there are a half dozen or so other people selling the exact same envelope on Etsy (this one is the cheapest, though.) I pretty certain it's a manufactured item. Regardless, I like it. You could take out that little silver letter and instead fold up a real love note and wear it around your neck. I also like this one. What I'm thinking is that I need one of those little envelopes and my husband needs to write me a little poem to stick inside. Hint, hint.


Owl be your Valentine - tooooo cute!

Tooting my own horn, beep beep!

A story about me is in the local newspaper today! Holy moly! Link here.

Is that picture of us totally cute or what?! OMG!

Etsy Favorites Wednesday - Pillows!

For this week's Etsy Favorites Wednesday list, I'm highlighting handmade pillows. I don't have nearly enough cute pillows in my house. I need more. I'd buy any of these, for sure!

Vintage Embroidered Pillow
Delightful!

Keys Pillow
I love skeleton keys a lot. Love this pillow more.


Felt Foilage Pillow

I think I'd be afraid to use this pillow because I wouldn't want to smoosh the lovely felt design!


Moustache Pillow

YES!


Chair Pillow

These seriously crack me up!

Curly Girls

Many a day ago when I first started my Etsy account I had this image set as my profile image:

I had gotten it out of a vintage song book. I called her Curly Girl and also made and sold a half dozen pendants with her image:

Well now look! I have my very own REAL Curly Girls!! I snapped a pic of them on our way out the door to preschool:

The girls slept in curlers last night and OH MY GOODNESS I about died from the amount of cuteness that was radiating out of their little heads when I took the curlers out! Soooo precious! Lydia's hair took especially well to the curlers, check out this mass of curl!

Culinary masterpiece

It's EASY BAKE OVEN TIME! Wooo hooo! I got the girls (me) an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas. I never had one growing up, boo hoo, so this year I figured it was time, they were old enough (and I had waited long enough!) They were just as excited as I was to play with it.

Just look at that face!

Someone, we won't name names, is missing from 99% of these photos, because someone had a tough time being a nice little girl while we were baking. So someone didn't get to participate very much.

Mixing up the cake mix ...

Mix, mix, mix.

Putting the mix into the pan.

Clearly, serious business. Putting the pan into the Easy Bake Oven.

Making sure it's in there.

Oh look who makes an appearance!

Our masterpiece is cooling in its "cooling chamber"

Ummm, it's a little flat.

Spreading on the chocolate frosting.

And of course, sprinkles!

YAAAAAY!

We were surprised at how flat the cake turned out but it was pretty cute and LOADS of fun. It looked more like a cookie than a cake, but it did taste like a cake. And as Lydia told me, "It doesn't matter what it looks like because it was made of love." Teehee! She has such a hippie spirit. Love it. We have another cake mix to make up plus a cookie mix and a pretzel mix. Easy Bake pretzels! Cool!

And then to the fun didn't end there! We decided to give the dolls makeovers. They had outfits changes and little Emily here is gonna look HOT tomorrow when we take her curlers out!

Why hello, old friend

As someone who loves music as much as I do, I have weird habits when it comes to having music in my car. I hardly ever put CDs in it which is just laziness on my part, I guess. And on the rare occasion when I will have a CD in it, it'll repeat and repeat over and over because I'm just too lazy to switch it up. I rarely mess with having my Ipod in the car either, because I don't like fussing with it while I'm driving. And I can't stand listening to music radio stations. I'm not a top 40 fan nor am I a fan of solid rock nor am I a fan of commercial "alternative" rock.

So where does that leave me? A lot of times I don't listen to anything, but that gets really boring really quick. I will sometimes listen to a classical station, but that bothers me too eventually because it gets a bit boring too. From Thanksgiving to Christmas my car tunes were delightful because two local stations played Christmas music all the time. But then Christmas ended and it was back to silence interspersed with Beethoven.

Monday evening on my way home from work I decided I needed to remedy the situation. I put my radio dial to seek and on the first station it landed on, I heard the voice of an old friend. His name is Kai Ryssdal and he's the host of Marketplace on NPR.

NPR! Of course, NPR! All Things Considered! Kai's voice! How could I have forgotten NPR! I loooooooved me some NPR back in the day, about five years ago when I was traveling 35 minutes in my car each way to work. I had NPR locked into my radio and that's all I would listen to. It made my drive much more bearable. For some reason I had stopped listening to it and had forgotten about it. I guess when I switched jobs I figured NPR wasn't needed because of my shortened drive or something? I don't know.

But I've brought NPR back into my life and I tell you, I'm loving it. Give me some All Things Considered on my drive home and I'm a happy girl. A bonus treat would be Ira Glass' This American Life program, but I have yet to catch it on the radio. I've said before and I'll say it again, I wish that Ira Glass' voice was inside my head, running a commentary on my life and reading my books to me. I dig his voice. (and yes I still think he's cute) The same goes for Kai. I could listen to those two gentlemen talk all.day.long. And it's not just their voices, I truly enjoy the news stories on NPR. I feel smarter and I feel more connected with the world. (major dork, yes, 'tis I) If I were to start my college career over, I would choose broadcast journalism as my major instead of print journalism and I'd be a reporter on NPR right now instead of working my PR gig. For sure.

Go NPR!