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Welcome! I'm Victoria. This blog is filled with my love for the art of merrymaking, pretty things to craft and one festive magazine. Here's more about me...
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Nuzzling sweetness for the day.

12.09.10 Posted in design, twins by Victoria

Today my babies turn two! Playing hooky for the rest of the day to nuzzle into their sweetness and celebrate their wonderful little lives, see you tomorrow…

PS. Here’s the first sneak peak at the party we held for them last weekend, it was wonderful… Expect the rest of the vintage storybook celebration to pop up after the holidays.

Photo by Carly Taylor

blessings


A well spent Mother’s Day

05.09.10 Posted in Momhood, twins by Victoria

I am spent after enjoying a weekend of dirty bottoms, messy faces, tackle kisses & my first ever back-rub given by a baby. Being a mother is by far the sweetest blessing allowed.

Here’s to a day of celebration spent well!

Join me @ Tuesday’s Unwrapped.

blessings.

PS. Mom- xoxoxo. Thanks for always cleaning up our messes.


Celebrate today: Bling… bling… sippy cup

02.17.10 Posted in Momhood, party, twins by Victoria

Here is a little insight into my brain for all of you: I accidentally say something aloud (ie. etching would look great on baby bottles) then I get so excited I cannot even stop to go pee before needing to make it happen.

As, it turns out…

Etching does, in fact, look quite fabulous on sippy cups (the toddler bottle form). This would be cute for a party or to simply celebrate snack time today.

Make it yourself:

Follow the how-to for wine glasses, using the word “milk”. I found cinnamon to be the best spice at sticking to the plastic sippy cups. Oh, and be extra careful to wipe off any remaining corn-syrup around the stencil or you will find it in your little ones hair later on;)

Adding in a little sparkle from cake sprinkles is lovely as well.

Bling… bling… bling…

PS. I told you the babies would still be loitering around here;)

blessings.


Lovely weekend

02.12.10 Posted in Momhood, twins by Victoria

This weekend we are having a housewarming party complete with raspberry truffle smores (I think they sound heavenly). Next week, full on melted chocolate, I will share all the details with you. After the party, I’ll be snuggling up to my sweet Valentines both big and small. Hope you have a very lovely long weekend.

(He just melts my heart- gush…gush…gush…)

A few links of love for your weekend:

A big list of DIY wall art ideas.

Have you seen this site yet? My brother alerted me to it and I cannot figure out if they are joking or not. Either way, yikes.

The most adorable little 4-wheeler around + it has a matching toilet!

A baby mantel portrait I would actually enjoy,

I feel in love with Vladimir Kush’s art on my honeymoon in Maui, have you seen it? Amazing. Last weekend we glimpsed at his newest painting The Last Supper which may be his best work yet.

We are in the market for a few new coffee cups, this adorable owl mug grabbed my notice.

A onesie with a donkey is so fun for spring.

I’m super honored that Roeshel featured the love bottle vases this week @ DIY showoff- thanks
& I’m also grateful to Cat from Designing Moms for featuring me again- you girls rock:)

* Psst… A state of the blog address coming Monday- less depressing than Obama’s, I promise.

blessings.


Lovely weekend.

02.05.10 Posted in Momhood, twins by Victoria

This weekend I am finishing off an incredible week where I have given myself extra time to rest and process some major upcoming decisions. I am feeling exceptionally grateful for our wonderful family and all of our lovely new San Diego friends. This weekend I will also be sneaking away with the hubby- enjoying a few of the “perks” of his new job.

PS. Instead of a picture I leave you for your weekend with one little gremlin and one very delirious laughing baby.

(Let me apologize in advance for the blinding light, un-cut clip, and the poor video quality. This was shot with the hubby’s phone and I cannot edit it. I decided to share it anyway because the laughing was just too awesome to keep to myself. Imperfection, right?!?)

Plus, a few links for you-

An online listing of where your kids can eat for free.

The most adorable outside table I have ever seen, ever.

A whole month devoted to boys- I am totally making these pirate lounge pants.

Cross stitching is a craft I have yet to take up, but this collection is putting it on my someday soon list- amazing.

Buy a cookie cutter that says something sweet this week.

A beautiful owl necklace for under $5, how could I not?!?

The 5 o’clock club, brings a dose of necessary support for my early morning risings.

Lastly, Amy is my new hero… I love every event design she creates and one day I plan to show up in NY on her doorstep begging to be tutored.

blessings.


Painted Beauty

01.10.10 Posted in Celebrate at home, Momhood, twins by Victoria

The answer to our neighborhood trivia last week was…. The paint chipped beauty of age.

Your comments were so fun for me to read and I certainly agree that I would love the very cool knocker, or the sprite tree to be mine, yum! What I do have instead is a lovely house surrounded by beautiful wood and brick- covered in old chipped paint. To some this might be an area to improve on but for me the chipping is beauty, it is history, it is life lived out and I love it.

Without further ado I give you the contest winner. # Five-

True Random Number
Generator

Min:
1
Max:
49
Generate
Result:
5
Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Congrats to Missy, who actually got the answer right and even had a very logical reason why, “I bet its the paint chipped white gate? Looks like the same tall trees as your sunset picture!” Way to think it through friend, I hope the covers will make you smile. For everyone else thanks for guessing and humoring me with the “why” behind your ideas they were all lovely.

Old chipped paint also serves as a great picture backdrop for a special occasion kind of day-


Today is a special occasion indeed: These shirts were given to us by our fertility doctor after the babies were born. It was Two years ago this week that we had our initial appointment- two years ago we walked into his office, scared but hopeful, trembling with anticipation.

Two years ago we began one of the most life altering experiences we would ever know, carried through it all by the loving hands of our God who brought us into a new way of life, into love deeper than we could have even imagined. A life of chipped paint, loud noises and messy toys. Beautiful to me.

blessings.


One big balloon (Incoporating technology)

12.10.09 Posted in Momhood, party, twins by Victoria

One of my favorite aspects about the twin’s birthday party was how we managed to incorporate technology into the day. Technology, specifically our computer & camera have been such a big part of this year it seemed only appropriate to highlight their features during the celebration.

Here are two fun ways we were able to use technology-

Surrounding all the guests, on multiple walls streamed our homemade twitter banner.

birthday tech 5

Throughout this first year with the babies both Matt and I have recorded many milestones, feelings and thoughts with our twitter accounts. Using 140 characters or less many of you have been able to be a part of this journey with us reading about the ups and downs, the amazing moments and the crazy awful ones. It gave me great joy to share these special tweets with our party guests, plus it gave me a chance for a therapeutic sappy evening at home compiling it beforehand.

It was made from simple circular banner bunting that I cut out of paper using a bowl and a cup as my templates. The banner was connected with string laced behind each dot. I scrolled back through our twitter accounts for this year and printed out 30 tweets that were special, or funny, or really huge milestones that we had recorded. Those were then cut into the same circles and simply places throughout the banner.

birthday tech 6

Next to the banner was a printed sign explaining the concept for our grandparents and others who are not up on twitter technology. One of the babies great grandparents (who does not own or use a computer) just walked around reading all the tweets commenting about how special recording those moments is for us, I completely agree.

birthday tech 4

The second way we incorporated technology was to do a spin off of the ever popular party photo booth by twisting it into a party video booth. It was lovely to catch many of our family and friends saying happy birthday and I am imagining this will be a fun tradition continue on down throughout the birthday party years.

birthday tech video re

Using a simple curtain, homemade fabric flags, an old camera tri-pod, and a few props we produced an area where willing guests could come and record a short message to the babies. The booth was originally meant to be outside, which I would advise for good lighting, ours was moved indoors to low but flattering light because of heavy winds hitting the yard.

birthday tech1

Here is a small sampling of what we caught:

PS. Do-it-yourself video booth tip, make sure you have multiple memory cards on hand. We sadly lost quite a bit of footage because of a full one.

blessings.


One big balloon (cupcakes + a giveaway)

12.09.09 Posted in Momhood, twins by Victoria

Everyone sang one happy birthday song to my two little babies. I felt a tear well up in my eye and pushed it aside allowing myself to enjoy this moment with them.

abirthday-cupcake-10

He loved the singing, the attention and the cupcakes- eating it all up as if he was famished. She on the other hand screamed at the candle flame (can you see her look of horror above, “Mom, not a step closer”)! She warmed up quickly though as the sugar from the cupcake entered her mouth.

birthday-cupcake-ollie

birthday-cupcake-lor

The cupcakes were honestly some of the best I have had in my life. A Barefoot Contessa recipe and a grandma with mad baking skills made for a well feed party. They were topped with love…

birthday cupcakes 9

They were also topped with a nice collection of orange fuzzy balloon picks that will soon be available in my new etsy shop, but we will save the talk about that exciting news for another day soon- stay tuned…

I hope you enjoy hearing about the twins birthday festivities. It was so fun to create and I am loving the chance to share it with you all.

birthday cupcake 1

As a special treat I have a giveaway today- a Sprinkles Mixture of cupcakes, your choice of flavor, thanks to Williams-Sonoma.

To enter you just have to tell me what is your favorite cupcake to eat? Mine is either the Chocolate-Orange at Heavenly Cupcakes in San Diego or the carrot-cupcake pictured above, yum! I will be closing the comment section Friday night at midnight and will choose a winner at random.

BLESSINGS