Happy Pink Day!

Did you know there's an entire holiday just for the color pink? I didn't either, but the editors at Paper Crafts say there is, so it must be so. (I know they wouldn't lie about something as important as colors; right, Susan?) I've always said that my favorite color is blue, but I've really been drawn to pink lately, especially since I'm such a girly-girl. And with two daughters in the house, I don't have to look very far to find pink things.

(The pink aisle in the toy department is like some kind of Mecca to Betsy!)

Fashion-wise, I have become a big fan lately of the pairing of pink and black. I found this blouse a few weeks ago at Goodwill and I'm wearing it today with black capris.

Here's one of the aprons I picked up at a church sale last weekend (for a whole dollar!) I just love the rickrack trim on the pockets, don't you? When it comes to papercrafting I have a plethora of pink products. One of my all-time favorite paper lines is Cosmo Cricket's Honey Pie, which is very pink-heavy. (I finally caved and bought the whole paper kit, although of course I waited until it was 50% off at Hobby Lobby.)

Hot pink works great as an accent for black and white (this is the card I made for Rob and Laura's wedding - the damask print is just a scrap of the wrapping paper I used on their gift):
I'm also really fond of pairing pink with my new favorite neutral, chocolate brown.


I think pink even works well as a Christmas color when it's matched up with some aqua blue and evergreen.

In the world of sewing, I pretty much can't avoid pink. (Like I would want to!) My most recent project was the vintage dress I mentioned in my last post. I went fabric shopping at JoAnn's with something completely else in mind, and came away with this gorgeous, cherry-blossom-pink poplin. I love how the dress turned out, and I'd wear it every day if I could.

When I first put it on I wore it with a white belt but Matt said I looked like a waitress! So I went down to Goodwill and picked up a black one for 25 cents. I used my Crop-a-Dile, a really handy scrapbooking tool (which incidentally has pink handles), to punch some extra holes for the buckle - worked like a charm.

There's also pinking, which is to say, trimming the seam allowances with pinking shears so that they won't ravel. I've always been pretty diligent about seam finishing, even though it doesn't show from the outside. Only I won't be needing to do that any more now that I have a serger! Hooray! Instead, how about some vintage pink buttons (courtesy of Goodwill, and there's lots more where that came from):

What's more, a length of bright pink silk dupioni that I recently purchased off of Fabric.com (I couldn't help it; they were having a really good sale) is currently sitting in my fabric stash. To be made into some future project (I actually have the pattern in mind already but nowhere to wear it) or at least blogged about.
So, what do you think of pink?

Edited to add a late-breaking Pink Day find! Mom, you are seriously going to die. I found this at the new (and I mean BRAND new) Goodwill store up here:

Vintage. Pink. Crinoline. Petticoat. Pretty much the awesomest thing ever (although I say that about everything I buy at Goodwill, so take it at face value). It's miles too big for me in the waist, so I will have to do something about that (possibly take apart the side seams, although it may just need new elastic at the waist) and I don't technically have any dresses that need a crinoline underneath (at least not yet) (at least not a HOT PINK one) but for four dollars, how could I possibly pass it up? Happy National Pink Day, indeed!

Living in flip-flops.

Ahh, summer. Once I finished all the laundry from our trip to Rochester (which took DAYS), I felt like we could really get into the swing of things. I found some various activities for the kids to do: sports camps for Betsy, summer school for Porter (two weeks through his preschool AND it's free AND they will bus him), and swimming lessons for the both of them (which will be its own separate blog post because there's a really long story behind that!) Matt and I felt like we were walking a fine line between overscheduling the kids and not doing anything productive with them, but I think we've hit the perfect balance. There actually isn't any overlap between the various activities, and everything was either free or really cheap. Betsy started softball camp yesterday, which is free and staffed with no small amount of enthusiasm by the girls on the high school team. But, we've also left plenty of time for riding bikes/swimming/going to the park/playing in the backyard. Our zoo membership is expired, so we won't be heading back there for a while, but we've still got the Childrens Museum. And the IMA has free admission every day, so I'm hoping we can make it down there as well.


Our garden is going crazy with all the rain we've had lately. Matt built a second garden bed this year so we have one for tomatoes/peppers/lettuce, and one for zucchini/squash/broccoli/cauliflower, plus the bean plants Porter brought home from school that I totally thought would die but didn't. We also have strawberry plants growing around the patio, which are in their third year and are producing really well, plus a bumper crop of various herbs. Betsy picked the first red tomato this morning. I can't wait! I've found that tomato plants seem to be ideally suited for the Indiana humidity so we usually have more than we can handle. Maybe I should make gazpacho...


And as for me, I've been getting up early and going walking before Matt leaves, which gives me more energy to face the day. I spend as much time in the basement as possible (and not just because it's cooler down there), pretty much alternating between paper crafting and sewing. My camera did turn up - it got left behind in Rochester - so as soon as I have that back, I will have tons of wedding pictures to scrap, which I'm really excited about. (In the meantime, why not peruse these?) I actually finished a dress for myself, and as I was thinking about it I realized it's been at least a year since the last Joni-dress. I made a couple of tops for me and FOUR dresses for Betsy, but that's it. Anyway, this was my first ever vintage project (sure, I've been collecting the old patterns, but not so much making them) using one of the patterns that Mom gave me while I was in Rochester.

I'm even using vintage buttons (I felt slightly guilty cutting them off of the lovely button card, but then I got over it)

Gorgeous, no? I think that the Butterick from the 1950s have the best pattern illustrations. Once I finish the belt (and have my camera back) I'll do a blog post about it. Sewing vintage was not nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be, and it turned out really nice.

As if that weren't enough, I will very soon have a new toy to play with:

Yes, finally. If you've been reading my blog for a while you've caught on to the fact that I've wanted a serger pretty much from the moment I started sewing but in the past, I've had to rely on my mother bringing hers every time she comes out. (Hey Mom, now that I have one of my own, you won't have to visit any more!) The combination of finally establishing a serger fund and finding a really good deal ($200 on AllBrands.com) have allowed for the fulfillment of a lifelong dream that I've had for the last three years or so. I've been trying to kill the time waiting (yes, even with 3-day shipping it's hard to be patient!) by haunting the thrift stores and such in search of yet more vintage patterns. I picked up a huge stack at a church sale last weekend for, I am not kidding you, a little over two cents apiece.

So, that's summer around here. What's everyone else's plans?

Home again

We went to Rochester (for the first time in almost 3 years) over the weekend to see my brother get married. Which he did, and Rob looked quite handsome in his dress blues, although I'm not sure how he's legally allowed to get married considering that I'm pretty sure he's technically still four years old. Laura was a lovely and gracious bride and the weather was perfect. The most important thing, however, is that Betsy basically set the standard for flower girls everywhere with her serious and diligent fulfillment of the role. I could have died of the cuteness when she came up the aisle... she very carefully and reventially laid down exactly nineteen flower petals on the aisle runner. And she was basically insanely cute in her white dress (we were inspired by the line "Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes" although the sash ended up being crepe) and long curly hair (she sat still like a little pro while Emily curled it) and MAKEUP. Just a touch, but enough to make her feel special.

Now is the time when I normally would post pictures to quantify my claims of extreme cuteness. Funny story, that. I got home last night, went to get my camera out of my purse, and it WASN'T THERE. I'm hoping I left it behind at my parents' house and not at one of the places we stopped on the way home, because then I can get it back. I can replace the camera, of course, but not the 100+ pictures I took over the weekend. (Particularly hard to re-create is the shot of my grandpa Bob, my brother Rob, and my son Porter Robert. Because of course Rob is going to be in Germany for the next THREE YEARS.) I'm just sick about this and am praying for its safe return.

After the wedding was over we took our kids, along with Kevin and Celeste, out to see some of the Church sites. We went to the Joseph Smith farm, the Sacred Grove, and the Hill Cumorah. Also had some really delicious fries in a greasy-spoon in Palmyra. Emily gave Betsy an ADORABLE hair cut so that I don't have to deal with her long, unmanageable hair anymore. Oh, and I came away with a huge stack of vintage patterns that I can't wait to sew, courtesy of a lady at my mom's church. So, it was a quick trip but a pretty enjoyable one.

Fortunately, I had dumped the memory card the weekend before we left. Which means that I can at least share this with you:

(Did you spot Betsy? She's right there on the end of the front row... the bangs are a dead giveaway!)