mark your calendar...

This Saturday, I'll be setting up shop at the Etsy Dallas Spring Bash at South Side on Lamar. And I would love for you to visit me. Mention this blog entry for 20% off your purchase!

Details here.

on the wall...

We're getting the nursery ready for our new addition, so I've picked up some artwork from Etsy to spruce up the walls. I'm so excited about this print from the shop Megan creates, which I thought had the perfect message for the little one!

Image from Megan creates

countdown...

The blogworld is abuzz in anticipation, and I'm counting the days until the Liberty of London for Target line debuts on March 14! There's a fabric store down the street from me that carries Liberty of London, and each time I go in, I longingly touch the fabrics, wishing I could just go ahead and win the lottery and buy a few hundred bolts. It's just so soft!

The line includes home accessories, clothing, and I've even seen pictures of a bicycle! And prices look pretty affordable, starting at $3.99 for a headband. If you love Liberty of London too, there's a fun Facebook quiz here to help you figure out what pattern you are. I was Maddsie Green - Subdued exuberance, like fresh-cut flowers bought at the farmer's market. A little, innocent, but very, very real.

Beautiful Liberty of London fabric image from The Purl Bee.

jingle bash...

Head over to the Sons of Hermann Hall today from 1-7pm for the Etsy Dallas Jingle Bash! We'll be set up downstairs in the bowling alley.

There'll be food, music, cocktails and you can get your Christmas list whittled down buying handmade! See you there!

coming up...

This Saturday from 10am to 6pm, we'll be at the October Market at St. Thomas Aquinas in East Dallas at Mockingbird and Alderson. We're excited to be doing a show close to home after traveling this summer.

Here's the scoop from the October Market:

The October Market is a one of a kind shopping

experience featuring items such as jewelry, home

accessories, art, antiques, personalized gifts, clothing

and more. With over forty new vendors, this year's

October Market is bigger and better than ever!

So, come join us for a day of shopping, lunch at the

Mom’s Café, and photos in the Pumpkin Patch.

Stop by and say hi! If you mention this blog, we'll extend a 20% discount to anything you buy! Hope to see you there!

there goes the neighborhood...

While I was in Los Angeles for Renegade, I met Joshua from Neighborhood Venice in Venice Beach. And I'm excited to let you know that you can now pick up one of our Sea Creature tees there, as well as lots of other super unique stuff for kids and adults. 

Neighborhood Venice

1644 Abbot Kinney Blvd

Venice, CA 90291

happy birthday to me...

I received this little package in the mail:

I opened it up, and here's what was inside:

 

It's a coupon from Anthropologie for 15% off during the month of September, in celebration of my birthday which is next month. And it's packaged in a little sewing kit. A small gesture, but it really made me feel like a special customer. Boy, they've really got my number at that place...

things to do: style stay-cation trunk show

I'll be out of town celebrating somebody's birthday this weekend, but if I wasn't, I'd be headed over to Move Studio to check out the Style Stay-Cation Trunk Show. If you're in the DFW area and want to beat the heat inside while doing a little shopping, check it out on Friday evening, August 21st from 5-9pm and Saturday, August 22nd from 3-7pm. I've never been to a trunk show with this much fun stuff going on. Not only are there great vendors including Harrilu and Tara to the T (who were the other two Dallas artists at Renegade LA), but there are also going to be chair massages, makeup and hair consultations (I could desperately use), and other fun stuff. 

Click here for more information!

walk a mile in my shoes...

I have not been able to stop wearing these shoes, which I won in a silent auction benefitting Friends of TOMS, a non-profit dedicated to mobilizing, connecting, and empowering individuals who want to give further aid to communities served by the TOMS One for One mission. If you haven't heard of TOMS - it's a shoe company founded by native Texan Blake Mycoskie. What separates it from every other shoe company, or any company really, is that for every pair of shoes you buy, TOMS gives a pair of shoes to a child in need. Since they started, they've given away 190,000 pairs of shoes to children in Argentina, Ethiopia, South Africa, and New Orleans. 

Root Fashion in Fredericksburg, Texas held the event and local businesses decorated and embellished pairs of TOMS for auction. Read more about the event here. I loved this pair, decorated by Enid, and they also happened to be my size. It was fate. Now that I know how comfortable TOMS are, I'll be buying more. And now that I know how much I love all the stuff at Root and Enid, I'll be heading to Fredericksburg as soon as I can.

shopping trip: gardens

Last week, I met a friend at a local shopping/dining area for burgers, then took a stroll over to Gardens. 

Gardens carries not only supplies for the urban gardener - pots, seeds, bulbs, tools, gloves and small plants - but also a beautifully curated selection of furniture, pottery, books, artwork, lotions and soaps, and paper goods. As you can see in the above photo, I picked up this piece of wrapping paper to hang up in the small dining area in our kitchen. 

Gardens also offers a service for apartment dwellers where a landscape architect will help you develop a garden plan for your balcony, and even help you with potting. If I didn't have this guy taking care of things around our yard, I would definitely call in the pros! To contact them, go here.

the 3/50 project...

(Click to enlarge)

Thanks to Julie from Make, who let me know about The 3/50 Project. (Make is the brick and mortar location that carries Loop and Lil.)

To support the project, you pick three independently owned businesses, and commit to spending $50 a month in those three businesses (that's just $50 a month total, not $50 in each business). The premise is that if half the employed population spends $50 a month in those businesses, $42.6 Billion dollars of revenue is generated. And that for every $100 dollars spent in those independently owned businesses, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll and other expenditures. To compare, if you spend that same amount in a national chain, only $43 stays in the community.

I'm thinking that we may already do this – we're lucky enough to have a shopping center within walking distance to our house that includes lots of independent retailers – a restaurant, our dry cleaners, a pharmacy. And most of the time we go out to eat it's at an independently owned restaurant. I'm going to start keeping track of our receipts to make sure.

What are the three local businesses you would miss if they disappeared?

what I'm not buying: blame it on mexico

This icy weather has me longing for a Mexico beach vacation. I'm currently taking a break from shopping, but if I was so inclined, this get-up would fit the bill for sun, sand and siesta. The cover-up and accessories are relatively budget friendly, making it a little easier to justify the cost of the suit. Olé!

Cha-Cha Maillot from Anthropologie, Iza Dress Swim Cover-up from Delia's, Straw Beach Bag from J. Crew, Tori Beaded Thong Sandals from Target, Polka dot beach towel from Old Navy, Wooden Tubes Bracelet from Target

shopping trip: legacy books

I'm very behind on my "movies to see" list, so we decided to try to remedy that this afternoon after some house and yard work. We made a pretty far drive to see this, only to be thwarted by a jam packed theater. (When did it start hurting my neck so much to sit in the front row? I know I did this countless times as a teenager?) 

We had already made the longish drive, so in an effort to give our trip some kind of purpose, we headed over to Legacy Books, a somewhat new, independent bookstore that is not your typical independent bookstore. It's a huge space, with over 100,000 volumes and a café that also serves beer and wine. There's also a cooking demonstration area, and the layout is airy and open with tons of natural light. It was perfect - comfortable seats, good music, paintings and sculptures by local artists, a huge selection of different stationery and a well-edited selection of books. Instead of 10 copies of the same mainstream books (I'm not saying I don't read the Oprah Book Club selections too, but why are there always 20 copies of that James Frey book at B&N at all times?!), there were 1 or 2 copies of a bigger selection of authors. There was also a good bargain book section, where I got a new, hardback copy of this for $4.00.

It totally made the drive worthwhile! So now here I sit with my new spy book ready to be read and the cookbook I checked out from the library this morning ready to be browsed through. Bliss....

shopping trip: wisteria outlet

If you don't get the Wisteria catalog, I highly suggest you sign up! It's more like going to a flea market than looking through a catalog - there's a great mix of antiques, reproductions and little accessories from all over the globe. All of their items are so unique and charming. I received the holiday catalog a few weeks ago, and it reminded me I had never made the trip over to the Outlet store. It did not disappoint!

The outlet has lots of overstock, previous season's items, and items that are currently in the catalog at drastically reduced prices – I got the candleabra above for $25 (priced on the website now at $89) because it had a little candle wax on the back! Maybe it was the one used in the photo above??? I also picked up a cool little side table with branches as the base and a glass top for 40 bucks!

Right now, they have a great selection of holiday stockings, tree skirts, and other decorations, as well as larger pieces of furniture. The stock is constantly changing at the outlet, so you never know what you'll find. If you live in the Dallas area, it's certainly worth the trip!