Posts Tagged ‘adventure’

Easter Sunday

April 1st, 2013
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Easter was a little bit hectic for us, but I still managed to do a couple of special things for the kids and get our family photo.

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I had planned on making easter coordinating outfits for everyone, but I only got around to items for Penelope and Me. I still want to do for Chris and Felix what I had originally planned, it just may take a few more weeks. I’ll be sure to share those with you when I’m done. We still managed to match perfectly for our photo!

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We call this the Gene Simmons tongue. Felix does this regularly. Also, do you see the buttons on the back of Penelope’s dress? Those are my first button holes. First ones with my current machine (it’s been about 5 years since I’ve tried). I’m pretty proud of how they turned out. Having a nice new machine with automatic button holes makes a huge difference.

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Getting these pictures for the family was a bit stressful – when are family photos not stressful? – but we got them. The photos aren’t magazine perfect, but the most important thing was that we got together and took a picture. Last time we had our family photo taken was nearly a year and a half ago! I keep thinking to myself that we should do this more often, I do have this photo corner permanently set up.

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I love this shot of Penelope. She was so excited to find her Easter basket and this was about the expression on her face when I showed her her dress and my matching skirt. She always knows when to make me feel appreciated.

At the same time, she’s in this phase where she likes to manipulate Chris and me with her love (or in my case, the lack of). I’ll take any of these sweet moments I can.

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Felix is still not walking or talking, but we may have figured out the cause of his developmental delays. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but it feels right. We will be visiting a specialist in a week and a half to find out for sure what’s going on.

He’s still so affectionate and cuddly at 25 months, I’m not sure what I’ll do with myself if he ever grows out of it.

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Penelope and Felix are getting along much better now. Now that the weather is nice they ride outside together; Penelope on her bike and Felix on his fire truck. It’s so rewarding to see them interact nicely together.

I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend! And happy April Fool’s (sorry no pranks here today).

I’ve got some great posts coming to you this week – an easy DIY with one of my favorite Target dollar finds, the only way I want to eat my Asparagus and how to make a Kate Spade inspired skirt. What are your  plans this week?

Fabric provided by Kollabora.com.

Learning, Teaching, Design, Etc.

October 16th, 2012
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It was a crazy weekend last week! I attended the second Sewing Summit. There were no nights between Wednesday and Saturday that I went to bed before 3 am. I was either working feverishly to prepare or having too much fun sewing and gabbing with new and old friends. It was definitely a weekend to go down in the journal.

This was part of our amazing group of thrifters on Thursday afternoon. We all scored some amazing finds! From left: Maria, Lisa, Heather, me, Katie, Veronica and Carrie. Photo by Katie.

I taught a design principles for bloggers lecture while I was there, sharing with fellow attendees my personal must and must nots of blog layouts. I had a great turn out (60+?), but several couldn’t make it due to scheduling. So I thought I’d do a ‘quick’ 28 minute recap for so you can glean from that lecture as well. If you want a personal design consultation, I’m now offering them here.

Basic Design Tips for Bloggers from melissapher on Vimeo.

While at Sewing Summit I made a table cloth, a skirt from a top, a maxi skirt for Penelope, two maxi skirts for me, I refinished the insides of a few of my handmade items, I made a pillow with an invisible zipper and four perfectly pointed quilt squares. I stayed BUSY! I took a serger class (maxi skirts with Leanne Barlow) and took advantage of the precious serger time and finished a bunch of outstanding projects with the Babylock sergers. They were dreamy and now I lust after one. I’m not sure that purchase will be in the near future, but at least I’m not so afraid of them anymore. Or invisible zippers (thanks to Miranda).

I had some awesome roommates, Miranda, Mim and Rach (not pictured). I could totally bust out my inner 12 year old around these awesome women. I definitely looking forward to next year.

And in other news:

Babble posted my blog as one of the top 50 design blogs for moms. I’m pretty excited about my major award and being listed among some really top notch reads. I discovered quite a few new-to-me reads there as well. You should check it out.

Valerie from DIY Bride interviewed me as part of her real DIYers series. I feel honored to have participated.

I share my current reads and obsessions in Mom’s Best Fall Mag (page 49).

Find Your Art

July 10th, 2012
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This post is sponsored by Art.com. Find your art and love your space with art.com’s prints and museum-grade framing.

Art.com just relaunched their website (in the most amazing way) and to celebrate, they invited 25 bloggers to San Francisco to eat amazing food and talk about art. I was just thrilled beyond the moon to be included. The trip to San Francisco just so happened to fall on the weekend before we made our big move, which was perfect. I left the stress of packing house behind for my favorite city. The city that first inspired me to pursue art.

lush garden by kim parker

We were all asked to pick out a favorite art piece for our homes. While together, we each took turns talking about why we chose our art, it’s amazing how deeply personal art is, no matter the genre or history.

I find it quite ironic that the art major girl (me) chose her painting based on looks and how well it would go in her new home. I know. Upon finding out more about the artist, Kim Parker, I found out about the mission behind her work. She creates paintings that are beautiful, accessible and from the gut. I’m a big believer that art shouldn’t be aloof, or unreachable by the uneducated. I love art that draws you in with its beauty, but then keeps you interested longer by its meaning, history and symbolism.

What kind of art do you gravitate towards? If I were to put any one genre in my home exclusively, it would likely be abstract expressionism and the works of Kline, Rothko and Calder (who may not have been technically in the genre, but whose work is stunning).

To me, the new Art.com is a brand that helps you reach for more meaningful experiences with what you hang on the wall, not just to help you find something to match the pillows.

Check out the cool video above. We got to see and hear about the behind-the-scenes work to make this bit. It was amazing how much work went into it!

Beyond having a new fancy-pants design, Art.com now offers a much easier way to browse through their hundreds of thousands of images. Search by genre, movement, color, subjects and collections. You can make your own collections using your facebook login and arrange them on a wall or even your own if you have an image! Great things are going on over at Art.com, I suggest you check it out.

Get Inspired • You + Art • Craftsmanship • Art Apps • Photos to Art

Newness and Peace

July 4th, 2012
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It’s been a rough couple of weeks. I’ve eluded to the fact that we’ve been in the process of buying a house via twitter and instagram, but I didn’t really want to spill the beans until it was official. I guess I’m a bit superstitious about these sorts of things. We bought a house, and we couldn’t be more excited about it.

Shy of two months ago, we started really looking to buy a house. Chris is now in an awesome job that he loves, so settling down felt right. Getting a realtor also felt right. The houses we looked at didn’t really. I could see myself making a few of them work, but with hesitation.

I remembered my friend Nikki had told me that her husband’s job was relocating them to North Dakota. I hadn’t been to her house before (what kind of friend am I?), but I was pretty sure it was in Draper. My husband really wanted to live in Draper and I had heard some good things about the neighborhoods there, too.

I visited her and fell in love with her house. Then we bought it.

I’m nothing short of emotional over the fact that Chris and I are at the point where we can settle down and our kids will have solid childhood memories of this place.

Moving in has taken us what feels like a million years, but as we tackle it I’m getting a million ideas for how we will love this space. I can’t wait.

In the mean time, Penelope is enjoying her perfect sandbox.

MIA: Hello San Francisco

June 22nd, 2012
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I’m in San Francisco on a fun trip this weekend! I’ll be telling you more about it in a bit, but you can follow my adventures on Instagram: @melissapher.

It’s the first time I’ve been in the city since we’ve moved away from the bay area, and walking around this area brings back so many awesome memories. Oh how I’ve missed this place!

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