The bag of badges.... a thrifted find.

        My mother spotted this bag full of old badges at Goodwill and hunted me down in the shoe isle to show off the Popples button she had seen in the mix. The bag was all taped up, so we couldn't go through it, but I saw enough unicorn goodness inside that I decided it was worth fighting her for. (MINE!)
        My thrift shop negotiation techniques are a little below the belt I will admit... "Aw Mom, aren't you a little old for a Popples button? I'll just take this bag off your hands."
        "You're right Kendra, that 'Thirtyish' pin suites you more, you could wear them together!"
        "Ouch." (It's all in good fun, honest.)

               I am pretty proud of my instant unicorn button collection, I have loads of pins but these are my first magical unicorns! I love finds like this, wondering what sort of amazing unicorn loving person all these pins once belonged to is part of the fun! Another is redistributing the pins among friends. The Garfield pin has been added to hubby's birthday pile, the saxophone is for my brother, Popples and unicorns are greedily squirreled away for myself, Caddyshack goes to Gramps, the "Yes! I am pregnant." button gets passed on to my newly knocked up bestie, Romyn's already called dibs on the soccer ball and sheriffs badge, I will sheepishly hand over the "Amazing Mom" pin to the one I stole the bag from, and the rest will go back to Goodwill. Well.... I forgot someone, perhaps you noticed there are doubles of a certain magical Unicorn? I will be adding the spare to my next Happy Prize Pack giveaway! (I've also got a newly purchased China Glaze purple Prism glitter nail polish in there! it's so sparkly!) I will post the details on my Facebook page soon so keep an eye out.

             

And now a peek into the future…

                My boys love to play video games. They don’t get much time in on any one system, they can’t quite keep up with Mommy in Mario yet… oh, I mean they are too young for video games. Anyway, Angry Birds Space had just come out and we made an exception to our limited game time rule to let them just veg out on Grammies couch with her Ipad. They spent most that play date just swapping the Ipad and Kindle fire between them, racing cars and playing Angry Birds. (Little boy heaven.) Eric and I went off to see a movie and once we returned Grammie picked B up to kiss him goodbye, then quickly put him back down.

               “B! Did you pee your pants?!”

               “Yyyyyyah.”

               “On the couch?”

                “Yah.”

Mom looks at me…. great. My 4 year old has not had an accident in months; obviously B hadn’t wanted to stop playing. (Or at least he didn’t want to leave the birds unattended around his brother, and tried to hold it too long.) Mom said it was “creepy.” We had a talk with B about his bad choice, and moved past it. At least until the next day when Baelin got his hands on Angry Birds again…. and wet himself…. again. OK, that is creepy B. (Angry Birds are in a timeout.)

I can see myself 12 years in the future, and in his room I find a receipt for the newest World of Warcraft game and a pack of adult diapers. I am not snooping in there! I was just wondering what the heck that smell is! Already a hardcore gamer at age 4, I think his uncle and Gramps are secretly proud. I on the other hand, would rather be trying to beat his score, than steam cleaning my mother’s couch.

All the best- Kendra



What I wore to the museum.... a refashioned Moo moo!

Sunday the boys and I visited the Virginia Living Museum for their "What is it?" event. The museum invited the public to bring in their nature finds, like feathers, stones, bugs or fossils, to be examined and discussed by the experts. Being a bit of an amateur fossil hunter and wanna-be-artifact finder I could not wait to bring in my stash. (I literally have a picnic basket full of rocks and treasures in my bedroom!) Well, I’ll tell you how enlightening our trip to the VLM was later, right now I just want to brag about my skirt! (You must forgive the two cell phone pics, this skirt was a pre-blog project, so I am just glad to have “before” pictures at all.)

Many moons ago while digging in the sale rack at my favorite thrift store I came across this green moo moo dress. I instantly fell in love with the bright green color and vintage ribbon stripes. In L-O-V-E!! I knew I had to have this dress in my life, just… not as a moo moo. Hoping I could easily turn it into a skirt, I paid a dollar for it and worked up the courage to cut it up. I am no seamstress, my mother says I am too impatient to sew anything correctly, and she is right. Patterns freak me out, and I normally do just fine without them. …..however, usually I am making dolls, or bunting, a cat costume or tote bags…. never anything that I’ve expected to keep my tush covered while in public. (That’s not true, I did sew a crazy patch work denim skirt in high school, and it was a mess!) Truthfully this was much easier than I thought it would be, I just chopped it above the pockets, folded the top down and sewed in a new elastic waist band with the machine. Because I didn’t take the skirt in at all I had to add a few stitches into the elastic at the pockets and the seam to keep everything in place. (I am sure you sewers out there are cringing at the way I hacked it all together- I was just glad it only took about an hour and a half, and then I got to watch some trashy TV.)

Originally the length of the skirt was determined by the pocket location. I didn’t want to have to move them down, so I just made the waist right above them. (Gotta love a skirt with pockets right?) Yet, after wearing it around a bit, I decided I wanted it a little shorter, so I took off a few inches from the bottom. Looking at that “before” picture up there though- I sort of wish I had left it.... it looked great right? Well, I still adore it anyway. The colors are perfect for spring and it gets me loads of compliments. (And not the “only you could wear that” sort either!)  I had such a good experience refashioning that tired old dress into this trendy skirt that I’ve been encouraged to do it again.  There is actually a basket in my closet filling up with vintage maternity dresses and more moo moos. I'd love to try and do the next set properly, with measurements and maybe even zippers, but, eh.... who am I kidding? Elastic waistbands are this girl’s best friend. It’s the quickest, and I have Girl Scout cookie pudge to deal with after all! (Nom-Nom!)

             Ha! Looking at these pictures I've realized that I was having so much fun this weekend with my rocks that I forgot to get my bangs cut. Well... I'll have to get to that tomorrow. (And don't forget to like Happy Words and Things on Facebook for a chance to win a Happy Prize Package. Good Luck!)

:-) -Kendra

A few happy things from this week....

 I'm pretty easy to please, so many little things make me happy!

Like....

Spotting bright ugly sweaters at the thrift.

(If that v-neck one is still there next visit I might have to get it!)

Like our first visit from the tooth fairy, and boys with lovies.

Like bringing flowers in from the garden and Quidjit, our smelly little dog. (Cutie Quidjiggy-Quid!)

Like finding vintage bow-ties at the thrift store for a quarter each! We love bow ties! Romyn will even wear them to school with t-shirts when he is feeling "fancy".

Like ice cream dinners, sunshine, library books and new music on my Ipod. Happy, happy, happy! I'm going to focus on all these great things today so that I don't stop to think about how fast my baby boy is growing up. (OOOOOOOH a lost tooth!!) Romyn told me last night that he was officially a big boy now, and I should start always calling him that. (Sniffle.) Hey! Let's look at that great sweater up there again shall we?

Have a happy day!

-Kendra

P.S.- Happy Words and Things is now on Facebook!