Valentine Favors

Delaney and I spent time today making our first of many Valentine treats. First we made arrow snacks that we saw the idea for in Family Fun Magazine. We used Pretzel Sticks and Brachs candy gummy hearts. One bag of gummy hearts made about 36 arrows.



For each one, you need a whole heart and one heart that you cut a triangle out of to make a tale shape for your arrow .

And this is how we bagged them up. I got these stickers printed from Pear Tree Greetings. We put them on solid card stock and stapled them onto the clear bags. These will be for Delaney's four year old class at school.



Next we made some favors for Ford's class. We have bags of crayons and pieces of crayons laying around. I found this great idea for what to do with them on Pinterest.

I found the heart ice cube trays at Ikea. We filled them up and put them in the oven for 15 minutes at 250 degrees. Let them cool and then pop them out of the silicone mold. They turned out great. We bagged them the same way we did for the arrow treats. But we did add a note to the back of each that they are not edible just in case the three year olds in Ford's class think they look good enough to eat.

Bird Ornaments

I found these packages of white bird ornaments at Ikea this year. Four come to a pack for just under $4. It is a simple template if you want to make them yourselves out of cardstock or cardboard without the Ikea version of ready mades.


The kids colored them with permanent markers and we added glitter to the edges of the paper wings.


We are giving them as gifts and saving some for our own tree. I just love them.

Halloween Party Time!!!

I warned you that I would make way too many October posts but luckily this month is almost over! Tonight was our annual Halloween Party which is my favorite party of the year because there is nothing I like more than people in costumes. I love dressing up which I owe to my grandmother who's favorite holiday is Halloween and who has dressed up as a very scary witch for my entire life. You can see her below scaring the latest generation of little kids!


This is my spider cider holder and it is my very favorite Halloween decoration. I filled him with punch this year for the little kids and found these great cups with lids by Solo. Below are my shelves that I change out seasonally. For Halloween, I use all B&W photos of all my childhood Halloween memories. The really amazing painted calendar is by my friend Ann and I love it so much. The shelves are from IKEA and I trimmed them out with green spider ribbon for this season.



We served delicious Mole Chili and Rosemary Tomato Soup followed by many sweet treats including these Pumpkin Joe Joe's from Trader Joes. The kids and I made these acorns with mini Nutter Butter cookies, a hershey kiss, and a chocolate chip.


Here is my grandmother scaring Buzz and Woody, her great grandchildren!


And here are all our little guests in their splendid costumes!


My dad came as Two Face from Batman because that is Ford's favorite villain. But Ford calls him "One Face Good, One Face Bad". I love this grandparent picture of my parents with my kids.


And here is my costume which is my favorite one ever. I got the idea on Pinterest and then my mom had the idea of adding the bubble to be a more authentic Lichtenstein girl.


Our craft for the evening was making fabric owls. I found giant fabric sample books in the dumpster and kept them for something someday. I cut all the owl shapes out of the fabric and set up our owl making factory.


Here are the finished products and their proud creators. I think they turned out just wonderfully.


HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO YOU ALL!!!!

Moving on Out.

Well, after 8 years the time has come to give up this loft I love so much. We are putting our place on the market today. Instead of blogging lately, I have been cleaning, and purging, and organizing. I have very mixed emotions. My family is ready to move for space and schools and other things so I will go along with them knowing that I have gotten to live in my dream building and that hopefully someday I will get to live in an industrial space in the city again. Several readers have asked to see photos so here they are:


Almost everything in our house is from Ikea, Homegoods, or Lakewood Antiques Market which I dearly miss! I love these Flor squares covering our concrete floors. They are great because they are tiles that can be replaced one at a time if your kids are too messy!


The building we live in was built in 1913 and was a Seed Factory. When we moved in, our space was raw and my dad, who is a builder, built it out for us. One of my favorite things we did was build this table into this strange hump that is the headroom to the common area building basement. It is great for serving and working puzzles. You can see this hump, minus the table of course, in the opening scenes for Sweet Home Alabama which was filmed in our space before we converted it. Our space was used for the NYC fashion design studio shots.



The red seats are some that my grandfather got from the old Fulton County stadium. And the Texaco sign is from Lakewood and special because Brandon's dad worked for Texaco for much of his career.


Here is Delaney and Ford's room. Delaney hopes to get her own room soon so she can have more of her "ownself time". Their bunkbeds are from Ikea as well as their storage area. The diner is from a friend who got it at a garage sale.



This is my studio. The cabinets are Ikea and can be customized with photos as doors like I did to the middle row.


This is a view from my studio looking back over the main room. You can see our little catwalk library to the left designed by metal artist, Andrew Crawford. We added that on more recently than we converted the rest of our place.



Our bedroom photos give you a good look at the awesome columns in the building. They are giant poured concrete.


The doors to our closet are from Lakewood and are out of an old Chicago hotel. My dad gave them to me for Christmas one year when my favorite song was Martina McBride's "You Must Think My Heart Has Swinging Doors".

If you are looking for a place, here is the listing.