tweeze? wax? or threading?

Have you tried threading?

That was the highlight of my weekend. Yeah ... not much going on over here, can you tell? Although I did manage to finish up a few craft projects I had lingering around. (Pictures to come later)

I LOVE threading! A friend of mine converted me to this amazing technique and I have never looked back. It is quick, painless and they do a fantastic job.
Here is where you say: "Wait - did she just say painless?"
Now I am going to tell you: Really, it does not hurt one bit. I have a very low pain tolerance so take my word for it.

Look at how pretty the brows are! (I know - kinda scary!! It looks like I am staring you down.)

I would show you a before picture, but it had been like 3 months since my last threading and believe me - that is even more scary than the picture above!!

OK - I'll admit ... the first time I had it done, it was a little painful ... but after that first visit it didn't hurt at all.

If you've never been threaded, this explanation may help.

Fabulous Find Friday

I have found my new bag! Yes, I am a self-admitted bag whore and probably need counseling. I love, love, love, (love, love) handbags. Even more, I love finding fresh young (and local) talent. Handbag + Fresh Young Talent = Pure Bliss. The lovely Lesa Wallace is my pure bliss right now. Well, her handbags are at least.


I love her story too. Based in Huntington Beach, Lesa Wallace built her company with an idea and a dream. I know, most of us entrepreneurs do, but how many of us really make it big?! After carrying her bags in 200 boutiques across the country, the big players are now placing orders. Lesa Wallace Handbags are coming to store near you if they are not already there. Norstrom will start to carry her bags in 10 of their stores this spring and they are sure to go nationwide once these beauties start flying off the shelves. You can get yours here.
Some of my favorites include:

I love this vintage inspired clutch

Fabulous and large enough for all my daily needs

Who knew cork could look so fantastic?

all images were taken from the Lesa Wallace website

outdoor play

With a home remodel in the very initial planning stages we are also contemplating what to do with the backyard. Hubs just finished building an amazing shed ... many have referred to it as "The Condo" (pictures will come later) ... so we are planning some fruit trees and shrubs and using paving stones for a porch and entrance to the shed ...er...I mean the condo. So while hubs is planning which fruit trees to plant, I am on the prowl for some patio furniture - no, not for the condo, for our house. And I really should clarify that I am just dreaming of patio furniture for the moment.
I found this over at cb2 and I am loving it ...

wouldn't this be lovely for entertaining?!

toltec wisdom

I just finished reading one of my favorite books - again. It is called The Four Agreements and written by Don Miguel Ruiz. It was on the New York Times Best Seller list for almost a year - if that means anything ;) The basic premise behind this book is that by following four very simple rules you will experience personal freedom. I am not one to spill the beans and give away a plot line but since this is not a writing of fiction and there not much in the way to spoil a plot....and since this is MY blog...

Here are The Four Agreements :

BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstances, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self -abuse, and regret.

My favorite quote from the book is in the 5th chapter The Fourth Agreement; Always Do Your Best:

"If you live in a past dream, you don't enjoy what is happening right now because you will always wish it to be different than it is. This is no time to miss anyone or anything because you are alive...

"We don't need to know or prove anything. Just to be, to take a risk and enjoy your life, is all that matters."

spring is in the air...

...or is that pine sol and window cleaner?


We are in the middle of spring cleaning. I got the itch to just get it done. I started yesterday morning. I didn't get very far. Although I managed to clean up my son's room and organize his bookshelf and go through his toys. Then when the kids went to bed - no computer, no tv, no trashy magazines - hubs and I powered through a few hours of cleaning. We got those hard to reach places where the dust bunnies had been forming a rather large community of their own. I finally cleaned windows (inside and out). Have you ever know anyone to clean windows at night? Well now you do! I went ahead and tackled the bathrooms and vacuuming too - it had been a few days!


It is not over yet! We still have a list of chores to tackle before I will feel like it's clean. On the list today - my "office" I use quotations because it is not really an office but rather a corner niche in the dining room that I commandeered when we gave up our real office for a kid's room. Oh how I look forward to the day that we remodel and add on to our incredible shrinking house.

image via flickr

the writings on the wall

I like to write. Somewhere along the way of my post college years I stopped writing. Who really wants to write a 30 page paper on the Life of the Piedmont Farmer during the Civil War, or the Intellectual Foundations of China? (Can you guess? I majored in History) Writing was always easy for me and I seemed to do very well under pressure. Excuse me while I brag for a moment, but I wrote some pretty kick-ass papers. I combined a lot of good-hearty material with just enough BS to score well.
Now I am many years post college and writing has all but dwindled to a love note for Hubs here and there, sending notes to friends (in the mail of course) and here on the blog – If one calls it writing! I suppose now, with somewhat little effort, I could whip out a 30 page paper on “The Mind of a Toddler: driven by curiosity and a desire to push the limits.” After all, I have the perfect case study to write on. It would consist of short sentences and elementary vocabulary. This is what I have become!
They say that when women have children they lose their memory. I am still not sure who “they” are … but “they” are right. I am vowing to improve my memory, my vocabulary and my writing skills.
I need to wrap this up. I am starting to feel like an over achiever with using slightly higher vocabulary than what is deemed elementary. And I have exhausted myself with all this writing. In the fine words of Bill Murray “baby steps, baby steps.”

HAPPY EASTER

all dressed up in our Sunday best!

new arrivals

look what was just added to the swanky shop ... take a looksie at my fun and completely unique moving announcements.

are you moving? do you know of anyone moving? do you know someone who has recently moved but did not send out moving announcements? drop a hint and send them a link to my shop.

I finally updated it

Ok, so I fully admit that I am a procrastinator...well sort of. My plate has been too full lately to actually work on updating my website. I know, there really should be no excuse for this... it's bad for business. But thank you for being patient.

Well folks! I have finally updated the shop and have added my new spring collection. YIPPEE!!! I love these cards and hope that you will too! I went ahead and changed a few of the web pages - I thought it looked a bit too stale. When you get a chance take a look at the updated SWANKY PAPER website.

Thanks for the love

I just have to say that you guys (all my devoted fans and customers) are truly fantastic. Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! I would not have the confidence to continue without all your support and orders! Thanks for being the best customers ever! I wonder sometimes how you guys even find my website with so many others fantastic ones out there who offer personalized note cards. I am truly honored to serve you.

Bubble Art

Yesterday, and thanks to my lovely neighbor, we got tickets to Bubblefest XII. It is quite a spectacular event if you like bubbles ... and if you are 5. Really though, it was fun to take the kids and see what Fan Yang does with bubbles. Apparently he holds a bunch of world records with bubbles...who knew you could do so much with bubbles. If you have not heard of him or seen his show, here is a video of what he does. Anyway, watching the show was pretty amazing. He is truly talented, and can create really cool stuff with bubbles. We were more intrigued to go because of all the controversy surrounding Fan Yang's visit. You can read about it HERE. Basically, he was going to envelope an elephant in a bubble. Pretty amazing right? I'd like to see that!! Well, he cancelled the elephant because all the animal rights activists out there protested that it is inhumane and demeaning to do this.... but it is OK to envelope children in a huge bubble??? Come on...its a bubble! That is one of his trademarks, he take a child or two from the audience and puts a bubble around one or both. The kids love it and it is pretty cool to watch.

So... I tried to take a couple of pictures and was told to put my camera away (twice) ...I am just not sneaky enough. So I found these online.

a little coffee with your fashion

I have a lot of catching up to do on blogs lately. I found this little gem on craftzine.

Mr. Jerry Seguin has a fantastic eye for fashion and I love his work. This one in particular is pretty cool, if I do say so myself. Using coffee as paint...very clever.

I think this is my favorite...she is beautiful and has a vintage flair to her. AND she reminds me of a friend of mine.

And how about this...he has an etsy shop . Check out more of Jerry Seguin's work here.

oragami...or is it?

You all know that I have a love affair with paper. I found this while catching up on the craftzine blog. Look how cool this is...





I would love to be able to fold paper this cool...my cranes are a sad story compared to these.


All images were found via polyscene

Happy St. Patrick's Day

image via flickr

I'm dreaming of...

I live in an "established" neighborhood, and to be perfectly honest, saying that sounds much better than saying I live in an old home. Built in the late 50's, it has a lot of character and some of the workmanship is quite remarkable (plus a huge yard!). But onward we move to the purpose of this post... we (hubs, myself, Thing 1 & Thing 2) are rapidly growing out of our house and have been making plans to re-model. So naturally I am on the look out for some fantastic designs to get inspiration from...

here is a stellar kitchen I am dreaming about. I think I'll print it out and put it on the fridge...hubs will certainly get the not-so-subtle hint! Looking at this kitchen and layout I think I could easily just drop it in the current location of mine... but I'm dreaming big (after all this IS my dream) I want a little larger kitchen.

What do you think? I love it!! An all white kitchen is timeless. I love the marble counter top and all the white dishes. My favorite bit about an all white kitchen is that you can accent it with any color. So when the white becomes too sterile I can easily accent it with red one year, maybe green the next, and so on...the possibilities are endless.

Let's Party!

I've joined the 2008 Blog Party hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom check it out and join the party. There are some fabulous bloggers out there just waiting to meet you!

Come on over and enter my blog. I am serving delicious cupcakes and milk...however if you are anything like me I am also serving diet dr. peppers! And this being the easter season I also have massive amounts of Cadbury's mini eggs for each of you...MMmmmm!
I am a 30-something wife of 6 years to my best friend (hubs). He is seriously the best husband ever! We have 2 delightful little boys and I enjoy being a SAHM/WAHM with a fun stationery business I can do at home, and through local printers. I design personalized note cards that are truly fantastic! Check them out here.
I live in beautiful southern California where the weather is always 70 outside (or at least 98% of the year). I admit, I am a SoCal transplant. I have to be true to my roots ;-) I grew up in NorCal and as much as I loved it, I prefer the weather here.
My favorite pastime is wrestling my boys. They have been the best blessing in my life and I am lucky enough to be able to stay home with them. In whatever spare time I have left, I find fun crafts to work on...sometimes I sew, practice knitting, or any other craft that suits my fancy.

Welcome to my party! I hope you can stay a while.

XOXO

i'm crafting

look at what i've been up to....

these are so cute and so very simple to make. I simply used ribbon, silk flowers, alligator clips and viola! an adorable little girls hair clip. I got carried away the other night and made several of these....and since I don't have any girls of my own, it is likely that these will make it into the hands of some of my friends with little girls.

i'm listening

The hubs updated his ipod not too long ago. And while we share USB ports, we don't share taste in music. No, that is not true... there are quite a few bands and even some genres that we both like. So, the other day I went to charge mine up and it wiped all of my music off and put on his. I guess I am not as computer savvy as I thought!! I enjoy a good Metallica song every now and again, but I am not a big fan of what we call "big brother" music. You know, the music your big brother listened to when you were growing up. I did not have a big brother (hubs had several), so I never got into that genre. Last night I was scouring the itunes store for a few new ones and here are a few from my new play list I LOVE!!

This gal is too cute and I love this song by her. I added this one thanks to Kelly! Stumbled upon this one and now it is a fav. Heather introduced me to this the other day and I had to add it. I've listened to these guys for a few years now and I never get tired of them. I still love this, this and this from them. I can't get enough of these guys either. I LOVE this, this, this and this. And these guys are my new fav, this song in particular. The first time I heard this was on SNL and I had to get their music.

So now that my ipod is updated...time to rock out!

that time already?

We are headed to the pool today and I am conveniently reminded that it is bathing suit season! One more excuse to go shopping, right?

members only

You know it is time to get back to the gym when you can't remember where you left your gym membership card! This happened today!

I love getting out in the morning and taking the boys for long brisk walks in the jogger, but this afternoon I decided to get back into resistance training. Lifting the babes is just not enough anymore. Small problem...I could not find my card! I am sure the ever-so-helpful-and-friendly folks at the gym would let me in with my photo i.d., but I began to be more bothered by the fact that it had been long enough to the point where did not recall where I put it! After 10 minutes of searching I found it and off I went.

I felt so good afterwards. I think I'll go again tomorrow.

7 deadly sins minus 1

Doesn't this make sin look good? I saw this image over at design*sponge the other day and I realized that my week has already been filled with sin.

1. Gluttony - Brownies and Cadbury's mini eggs (dark chocolate) for breakfast today...

2. Greed. I am in a funk where I just want to go shopping for me. Nothing for the boys - just me. I know... selfish, huh?

3. Sloth. My house has been a disaster! My floors need attention and surface areas need some organizing. I must admit that I am atoning for this sin today. I swept and vacuumed the floors. Surface areas still need some more work.

4. Pride. So at a baby shower I attened last night, I was chatting amongst the ladies and I caught myself blurting out that I don't like to be taught. (BTW - It was in complete context of the conversation) It is true. Depending on the circumstance to subject matter my pride will sometimes get in the way. I tend to want to figure things out on my own, or simply do it my way.

5. Lust. I saw these in the display case at Nordstrom and I am still coveting them. How cute are they?? I want them, but can't justify spending the money right now on shoes that I'd wear once in a blue moon. You can get them here.

6. Envy. Then I saw a sales gal upstairs in the intimates section wearing them in white! If a sales gal is wearing them, they must be comfortable right? All the more reason to get them!

7. Wrath. Like the title said. 7 sins minus 1. This is the one.

It is only Wednesday and I am well on my way to finishing off a sinful week. With those plates, sin never looked so good!

Handbag + Bargain = TROUBLE

Not so much trouble for me, but trouble for my checkbook!


Gryson bags are coming to Target for a limited time. Click HERE for the press release.
Joy Gryson has worked for Calvin Klein, Coach and Marc Jacobs before launching her own line. Take a look at some of my favorites.

I am loving this one in slate.

You won't lose anything in this see through tote:

How cute are these patent leather bags?

For more pictures of Gryson's bags click HERE.

Feeling Lucky?

So...I am feeling really generous this morning!! I think it is because I slept really well last night (none of my babes woke up in the middle of the night!!).

Because I am feeling generous all your chances of winning drastically got better!

we've got 4 winners - that's right FOUR!!

I randomly pulled names out of my Lucky hat (it's not really a lucky hat, just Lucky Brand!)

and our first winner is

ikkinlala

You are getting a set of my large size note card pack
You can have one or two designs or the same design in two colors !

Then I pulled 3 more winners!

odessa mae

sherri

&

lesha

You three are getting one of my small note card packs

email me what design you like along with the colorway. I'll also need the name(s) you want on the cards. Don't forget your mailing address so I know where to send it.

Thanks to everyone who played along!!!

And if you did not win, but are still drooling over my cards and can't live without a set for yourself, all my new cards will up up on the website before the weekend is over...or there are a few over at my etsy shop right now!

Thanks again and congratulations to our winners!!!