My little Dotty made this sweet pillow at school and gave me for Mother’s Day. What a treasure. And she was so proud to present it to me, it melted my heart.

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And now for the winner of the Simply Fun craft book:

Thanks to all who entered, and congrats to Stacy! Shoot me your shipping info and I’ll pop this book in the mail!

Hey Friends! I’ve got a cute book to share with you today — The cover didn’t do a whole lot for me, so I’m really glad I opened it up as I was rifling through the book bin because OH MY GARSH THE CUTE ILLUSTRATIONS! I have a thing for those round, colored cheeks. And the circle of lashes ’round the eyes! Ack!

Simply Fun! Things to Make and Do, by James Razzi, Published by Parents Magazine Press, 1968

Not only is it chock-full of amazing illustrations, it’s got some pretty cute kid-craft projects for a rainy day! Check ‘em out:

Whenever I put together these book bin posts, I always try to find a link or two in case you might be interested in picking up a copy for yourself. Well guess what? I was cleaning + consolidating our kid’s book library over the weekend and I found an extra copy!!! I would love to give away my extra copy to anyone who might want it. Comment on this post if you’re interested and I’ll pick a winner via random.org tomorrow! How about you tell me what you did over the weekend! Or what you’re up to this week.

Good luck!

A peek at a few of my favorite finds from recent thrift trips. I haven’t been thrifting too much recently, but the times I have managed to pop-in have been pretty rewarding.

I thrifted this little guy months ago. He was like, 10 cents or part of a mixed bag of other things, I forget. Of course we love us some Wizard of Oz up in this house, so it was sort of a no brainer that we’d keep him and love him. (He is pretty cute, after all, and who doesn’t love THE TIN MAN!?)

And then last Sunday, I found the Cowardly Lion for a quarter:

GAME ON.

So naturally, I wondered about the rest of this set, which came out in 2007 + 2008 in… believe it or not: Happy Meals! They’re Madame Alexander for McDonald’s. What the what? (also, WOW + WOW)

Well imagine my delight today when…

and I am not even kidding you: I found the whole darn thing! (actually, I’m still out Glinda and one other Lullabye League girl but I’ve got 10 out of 12 and all the important players so I’m feeling pretty tickled!)

It’s possible I’m way more excited about this score than Dotty, because I’m pretty flipping excited about this score. Funny, because I really didn’t play with dolls when I was little. I was on my BMX bike, riding on dirt trails in the woods behind our house with my buddies, swinging from tree vines and building mud pies underneath the deck in the back yard. Why did I feel so compelled to snap these babies up? I have no idea. Their cuteness won me over, big time.

Dotty and I got home this afternoon and I presented them to her and she was pretty excited… when I suggested we play Wizard of Oz, she was into it! And I may or may not have gone off completely busting into song for each and every scene we acted out.

Have you ever heard that saying: The time to buy an antique is when you see it?

How many times have you missed out on something because you spent too much time hemming and hawing over whether or not to get it and then when you finally decide you absolutely must have it, it’s GONE. Isn’t that the worst?! Kind of a rotten, sinking feeling.

Well, I didn’t buy this beautiful quilt the first time I saw it, but I was so glad it waited for me to come to my senses. I got lucky this time, I guess! (full disclosure: I only took one day to hem and haw before I went back for it)

It’s just perfect in Dotty’s new room (still a work in progress, aye!) and she even has her favorite pieces, which I find to be pretty sweet. At bedtime, she likes to look over the whole quilt and make matches of the different prints and we talk about which ones are our very favorites. It’s an all cotton quilt except for one rose printed fabric that’s silky – that one is Dotty’s favorite. It’s a real treasure, being that it’s hand stitched and in such beautiful condition.

When I presented it to her, she actually GASPED and said, “OH, MAMA! I love it!”

That’s my girl.

Hello, Friends! I’m here this morning with two really great reader submitted Presto Change-o projects. And guess what? Both of these awesome projects come from Lara Jo, how awesome is that??! Check ‘em out:

Here’s what Lara Jo had to say about his project on her blog:

“I painted the one on the left a glossy red, for no better reason than I happened to have the paint on hand, but have been wanting to paint the other two something that would complement my vintage jewelry — I would love to have a way to display it rather than keep it hidden in a jewelry box. I’m trying really hard not to add any craft supplies to the house as I have so much crap already, so I made myself choose from the spray paint that I had on hand already. The first try was a weird neon green – disastrous. I have no idea why I have such an alien-esque color  in the house and can’t for the life of me remember using it previously. The only other thing I had was a glossy white. I decided that a blank palette like that might show off the jewelry even more and went ahead and tried it.”

I’m tickled that in her email to me, she called this project “kind of boring but was inspired by your spray painting adventures.”

Um, girlfriend. This is anything but boring! Those busts look awesome, and I don’t find myself saying that very often!

Next up is her adorable makeover of this toddler table + chair set:

TALK ABOUT CA-UUUUUUTE! Seriously.

Lara Jo thrifted this set 4 years ago at a thrift store in Madison, Wisconson (whaddup, Wisconsinnnn!) for around 20 bucks. Originally intended to fix up and resell in her antique booth, it ended up sitting around in her garage (hello, been there, done that!) until, guess what? She had two babies so she decided it was time to “whip this sucker into shape” as she says on her blog. Didn’t she do a killer job??! The set was cute before, but a little dated and maybe not in the good way. I love the fresh, bright white with the chalkboard top and the adorable Michael Miller fabric. Read more about this project on her baby blog, Zero to Twins.

Thanks so much for sharing, Lara Jo! Giant Presto Change-o high five comin’ atcha!!!

Do YOU have a project you’d like to share?? I’d love to feature your Presto Change-o project here, so email me for details!

EDIT: as of 3:15, the following pieces have sold: #1, #6, #8, #9, #10 which means #2, #3, #4, #5, #7 and #11 are still available.

Hi Guys!

Here’s a fun treat for your Tuesday afternoon — I’m offering up this selection of vintage costume jewelry here on the blog – the details are simple:

If you see a piece (or pieces) that you like and want: please email me: frecklebird at gmail with the subject line: COSTUME JEWELRY including the item number(s) you’d like. (note: each piece is numbered 1-11 with the individual price below that)

Sound good? There are 10 brooches and one pretty pair of clip on earrings (item #10, the pretty sapphire blue ones, and I tried them on, they do not pinch and are actually quite comfortable!)

First class shipping within the US is $2, First class international shipping is $4 – I’m happy to combine items into one bubble envelope to save on shipping, just say the word.

Any other questions? Just ask.

Good luck to all! Happy Tuesday!!

As if we weren’t busy enough over the weekend, we also worked on expanding the chicken yard, building a gate and putting up a new fence line. I know, right? The thing that makes me giggle is that on top of this and the patio work, Matty also wanted to borrow a truck to pick up wood and soil and build 4 raised garden box frames. Oh, and somehow find time to make a trip to the nursery to pick up all our vegetable plants and start our garden. I’m not sure what brand of over achievement he was smoking, but I applaud his ambition. Dang!

The goal with this was pretty simple: expand the yard a bit more and build a real gate and put up a new fence line along the front of the chicken house. The gate we had before was super janky and kind of a joke – not even a real gate, but rather something we sort of stepped over every day to get in the yard. It certainly didn’t offer these girls a whole lot of security from, say, the loose neighborhood dog that might come cruising by. It also made getting in there with a wheelbarrow to clean the coop a giant pain in the you-know-what. I wanted to spend as little money on this as possible, as we’ve already invested enough into this chicken situation (fencing and all the supplies can really add up!) and the hope from here on out is just to buy the feed and sell the eggs to cover the cost of that. I think we’re finally on that track.

So we managed to complete this just before dinner on Sunday, and it was so rewarding. There was enough time to bring the little girls out to a smaller fenced off corner within the yard and let them have their first official scratch-and-peck. They were happy. And most exciting of all? We moved a big log pile and exposed about 2 billion rolly pollies and the chickens.went.bananas.

We even set up a couple chairs and a table back there so we can hang out and watch a little ‘chicken TV’ whenever the mood strikes.

Well, Hello Monday!!!! What a weekend we had here at Camp Freckle. We’ve been working on this patio project for what seems like forever… actually, it’s been a little more than a year!! January of last year, we (ok, well – MATT) tore down the old corrugated roofing over the original brick patio on the back of our house. It was pretty dated and since we were having a new roof put on our house at the time, it worked out perfectly to remove that patio roofing.

Then sometime last summer, we bartered a lot of the old bricks with a landscape architect – he came and took some bricks away and left us with a drawing and some plans for this new patio. And then… we had this awful sandy pit on the back of our kitchen. For like… 8 months. It was really depressing. And super ugly. And did I mention depressing? Imagine a high traffic door with a big sandy pit outside. Add in kids and a dog. Think about the sand that gets tracked into the kitchen. Imagine me wanting to pull my hair out.

The project was put on hold during the winter months and we finally picked up with it again around the first of the Spring season.

So a couple weeks ago, 16 tons (yes, SIX.TEEN.TONS) of gravel and a whole bunch of bluestone showed up at our house. That very first picture shows all 8 of the 2 ton bags of gravel lined up around the patio area. Yes, we scooped all that out, one shovel at a time.

Just to back up a bit – before all this happened, we had an original delivery of all the blocks to build the retaining wall. I forgot to mention that we raised the height of the patio by something like 15 inches… the original brick patio was level with the grass. So our first bit of work on this project was digging a 12 inch trench all the way around the perimeter to lay the first layer of blocks to build the retaining wall. (This is all a little boring and technical but I’m putting it out there in the event there might be like three people that find this remotely interesting)

Anyhow… here’s where we’re at as of now: retaining wall is built, inside of the retaining wall has been filled with SIX.TEEN.TONS of gravel and compacted, raising the patio height so that it’s level with the kitchen door – no more stepping down, we will be able to walk straight out from the kitchen which will be faaaaaaabulous (there was always this really awkward step-and-a-half-height-step, but just one step, not two. Always awkward) Next weekend, we hope to have had the sand delivered, and if so, we will be spreading and compacting two inches of sand, adding another layer of filter fabric and then beginning to cut and lay the top layer of bluestone (which will be the finished look of the patio).

A couple things I am super excited about: 1) making a trip to Ikea for a patio set and umbrella (something red! or with stripes!) and 2) landscaping the heck out of the area around the patio. I’m picturing lots of pretty perennials that will add nice color and height/privacy to the patio. 3) picking up a couple galvanized troughs and planting all my kitchen herbs in them and 4) stringing pretty lights and having fires in the chimenea.

Have you ever taken on such a project? Would you like to come over for a barbeque when we’re all done?

edited to add:

Thank you, Eartha Kitsch, Queen of Awesomeness.

I love this little girl more than words can even express.

It’s funny how something can seem like just yesterday and a lifetime ago all at once.

Memories are funny like that.

all she wanted // where does the time go