fresh picked whimsy

Under the Sea Valentines to You, Love Me

Hi Friends! I appreciate all of you so much. Please enjoy and share these FREE printable Valentines and know that they came straight from my heart! xo 

2015 Yummy October Pop-Up Shop was magical!

Dreamy, Lovely, Cozy, Octobery

Yes, yes, I just made up that word.  But, it describes our weekend sale perfectly! The weather on Friday was grey and chilly, which made our pop up shop so inviting! But then on Saturday, the weather was crisp and bright and the sky was a vivid blue...which also felt like autumn perfection!  Everyone who came seemed to be ready for the change of season.  We're definitely feelin' all the good feels after a very successful and fun Yummy October Pop Up Shop!

My parents lovingly made all of the paper chains we had hung up on the studio ceiling! Definitely added to the festivity of the room! I had a lot of fun making the glittered magic wands...they came from a magical place...the back yard! They were a fun addition to our tablescape!

Had so much fun doing this with my friends Jenny and Stacey.  Our artsy stuff seems to really complement one another...my art, Jenny's art and Stacey's antiques, furniture and upcycled home goods.  We work really well together.

Come in, grab a hot cup of coffee or some cider and a few sweet nibbles and take your time browsing...oh how I wish all of my sweet friends from the blogosphere could have come...

Stacey made fun Halloween garlands from vintage bingo cards, I sold quite a few of those dotty horseshoe door hangers and how cute is that skull canvas from Jenny?

Stacey found me some really great old books and I hand painted over the covers and spines to turn them into spooky spell books...

I kept Mark busy once again, in the workshop making these fun hats...

 

and these sweet ghosts... {that's a brand new print, too! You can find it in our shop}

Jenny made these amazing witches' brooms...so creative!

 

and some really fun hand painted pillows, too.  I had to add this one to the McDonough family Halloween décor collection...

Just like last year, I painted tons and tons of these striped monogram pumpkins, too.  This year I had more orders for the faux pumpkins than real ones!

 
these tall signs were a hit, too.  I should have taken a pic of them before the sale day...there were lots of them in lots of colors.  This is all I had left at the end of the day!

and finally, probably my favorite new item from the Pop Up Shop is our Family Rules sign.  This is something that I've had many requests for over the years.  I've seen them all over the place, but I wanted to make it my own in my own style.  It's also available in our etsy shop and I'm taking orders for them until Dec. 1st for Christmas delivery.  It's totally personalized and I will help you compose your family rules...

and, I had to do it, friends...a Halloween version of our Daydreaming Yard Signs!

 I am jumping right into Christmas making this week.  I'm not ready to transform the studio into a winter wonderland yet, but I do have the Christmas music playing! I'll be announcing the date for my Christmas Open Studio very soon.  In the meantime, thank you to everyone who stopped by this weekend and for all of the supportive messages and comments from those who couldn't!  I got to meet so many new friends and some who have been long time facebook and instagram followers! That was awesome! Thanks to Stacey and Jenny, too...same time next year?! xo  

Enjoy this beautiful season, friends!

{Stacey supplied the bushel baskets and I painted them!  Mums by Costco!}

summer blurrrrrr

Well, that went fast. Summer, what was your hurry? I thought we were having fun and stuff and then you had to go and run off...

there was a brand new firepit to enjoy...

and family fun at an Indians game...

a cousins visit to Indy...

and my first time meeting up with The Peach Truck...

the time we spent under water...

 and by the sea...

and swung by Georgia on our way home for brief, but quality time with my sister and brother in-law and nephews...

stopping to smell the flowers...

and getting up earrrrrrrrrrrly to watch the hot air balloon race out at the State Fair with my Katie...

a friend spied us on someone else's instagram feed {who I don't know!} that day, which was super funny!...

we loved the race so much, we decided to go back that night for the "glow"...

loved watching the balloons and loved watching sweet, young love grow between Riley and his girlfriend, Jen over the summer, too...

 we love you, summer! 

 Why can't winter go by that quickly?

Macaroni and Meatballs

This is the meal that we had every single Sunday night when I was growing up. {minus the wine} Yes, we call it macaroni and meatballs. We call all pasta 'macaroni'. We also call the tomato sauce 'gravy'. Most Italian families are divided on this.  They're either sauce people or gravy people.  And they're adamant about it.  It's not an east coast thing or a New York thing...it's a family thing.  It's how you were raised. And, I was raised on this gravy. And it's amazing.

My Mom is not Italian, but her Italian cooking is perfection.  Truly, everything she cooks is perfection. My grandmother taught her how to cook Italian when she married my Dad. 

I don't love to cook. It's not my favorite thing to do. But, I have always wanted to learn how to make my Mom's gravy.  It's the key to so many of our family favorites like lasagna, chicken parm, stuffed shells, etc...  Truth is I've always been intimidated by this dish, because it's made in a pressure cooker.  I mean, just the name "pressure cooker" makes me nervous.

But, finally, after all these years...I spent the day with my Mom and she taught me her ways.  Sorry, this isn't a DIY, step-by-step recipe blog post...there is NO recipe.  It's a lot of "a little of this" and "a little of that" and "stir it, watch it, taste it". 

She was super patient with me...I wrote everything she said and did down...and took a lot of pictures.  It's a process...a labor of love.  There's a few hours of prep work that goes into this.  She makes her meatballs from scratch first...they're heavenly!

The meatballs, along with sausages are the base of the gravy.

 But the real magic is in my mom. ♥

It was a fun and delicious day.  Then came the real challenge: to make it at my house, by myself, the next week.

I carefully followed all of her directions...

and made a few {okay, a lot} of phone calls to Mom.  I faced my fears of the dreaded pressure cooker...

and, success!

Mangia!

So, I won't be making it every Sunday, but it will definitely be on the menu at least once a month.

Thanks, Mom for helping me continue the tradition!  Love you! 

Vitamin Sea

 It's the fastest week of the year.  We count down the days leading up to it...and they go by at a snail's pace.  And then, BOOM! It's over. Gah! Take me back!!!! 

We spent last week in our happy place, Gulf Shores, Alabama. 

I've blogged about it many times before: like here, here and here.

This year we rented the most adorable beach house...the Lucky Dog

It was a dog-friendly rental and we would give it 2 paws up if you are looking for a place to take your family and pups to the beach!  It was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house and it was perfect!  There was a little fenced in backyard full of fun toys for them and less stress for us having to take them out to potty.

A little inside tour...

We had some stormy weather off and on during the week.  It would be super sunny with blue skies and then all of a sudden a wall of black clouds would swoop in. 

So, we would head back to the house for a little break and hang out on the screened porch and just watch the storm until it passed.  Griffin loved this hanging swing on the porch...

We all worked on this fun jigsaw puzzle and Sudoku, too...

The owners of this house have thought of everything.  There are games, cards, the kitchen is fully equipped with everything you could want and the drawer in the cocktail table in the family room was totally full of tons of issues of eye candy magazines.  I LOVED thumbing through them and daydreaming about our SOMEDAY beach house...

It was our first vacation with our brand new 21 year old.  She played bartender a lot. We brought our Nutri Bullet from home and it made fantastic frozen cocktails...

She was trying to style a pretty photo of her concoction...

I can't tell you how many photobomb shots she got before getting that one above...

Which takes us to the photos...oh, the photos.  We brought a selfie stick with us to GS.  Before we left on vacay, I posted our family beach portrait from our very first year that we stayed in Gulf Shores {2001}.  Griffin was just one year old!

We used the selfie stick and recreated this memorable picture...14 years later:

Of course, I'm trying to get our Christmas card photo and they are all a bunch of goofballs...

Me:  "can I get a nice shot of you kids with Daddy?"...

my turn...and I love it.

 Katie tried to get us to take a special family selfie of a selfie.  It was a #selfiefail...

then she took one with her brothers on the beach and it was awesome...

We loved bringing the dogs down to the beach at the end of the day each night, when it had cooled off and the sand wasn't so hot.  They loved it too...

the ocean turned pink from this delicious sunset...

On Thursday evening, we saw something we had never seen before in all our years going to the beach.

A shark!

He popped up right in front of us...thankfully we were not in the water! He was about 5 feet long and swimming in knee deep water.  KNEE DEEP!  Katie snapped those pictures.  I don't know how she did it...we were all so rattled by it.  Riley ran down the beach to some folks who were in the water in the shark's path to warn them.  The next day was our last beach day and sadly, we stayed out of the water all day.  But, we sure counted our blessings. 

 Yet another fabulous beach week is in the books.  We're already daydreaming about next year!  

staying in is the new going out

{print available in the shop}

Maybe I'm showing my age, but i love to stay home.  Yup, that's right, i'm a homebody.  Although i might have to make another print; only this time it would be a wine glass instead of a cocoa mug.  just sayin'...

Tis the season to snuggle, right?  Me and the Mr. are pros.

Snuggle on, my friends.

xo

This message is for you...

i think everyone needs to be reassured from time to time.  This new print is available in the shop now, and it will remain at a lower price than my other prints, to make it a little easier for you to share with others. 

Be at peace, my friends. ♥

Back to school lunchbox notes free printable

And just like that...summer is over.  Okay, i know...on the calendar there are still weeks to go before the first official day of fall.  But, when my kiddos go back to school...for me...it's over.  We're getting ready to send our oldest two away to college in just 3 days and our youngest started 8th grade today. 

{Deep breath.  Sniffle.  Holding back the tears}

They may all be too old for lunchbox notes, but i will keep making them for others to enjoy because i know how much my babies loved them when they were littles. 

So please, download yours here  for FREE and tuck one in your child's lunchbox or bag. 

Feel free to share them {as always, a link back is always appreciated}.  You can also find more of my illustrated lunchbox notes from years past and lots of other free printables here and by clicking on the free stuff for you button on the left column.

 

a dreamy country wedding

Last weekend we drove down to Georgia to attend the wedding of my sister's stepson Nathan and his lovely girlfriend, Audrey.  I was honored to make their invitations at their request...

It was held on a beautiful farm deep in the country, and every detail was Pinterest perfect! 

The only flaw in the day is that it was hotter than the surface of the sun.  Thankfully, it was an evening wedding and we didn't have long to wait before the sun to set.  They gave us fans which doubled as their programs...

The bride's uncle fabricated the iron around these doors for her grand entrance.  I know, right?

She arrived in a convertible vintage car driving slowly down that hill behind the doors.

Mr. & Mrs. Urquhart!

Time to party!

The barn held the food, bar, lounge, cake and photo booth...

i didn't make it over to the cake until the topper was all that was left! A friend made it for them.  It was key lime cake...so yummy!

the kids loved being with their cousins...

selfie with my sister and my katie...

My sweet parents...

and me and my love...

 Congrats, Nate & Audrey!  Thank you for sharing your day with us!

Love wins!!! 

 

This is what it's all about

Growing up, my parents worked hard and made sacrifices throughout the year so that we could go on our vacation to the Cape every summer.  It was very important to them that we would have those two weeks of uninterrupted family time each year.  It was a priority. 

Because this is what it's all about...family.

{MawMaw & PawPaw with all of their grandkids}

I'll admit we wondered what it might be like to all live together for a week.  Eight adults, eight kids...4 families... 

But, it really worked.  And we really loved hard for that week. 

We kicked it off with Father's Day! 

We celebrated by heading to the fish market and buying lobsters.  We brought them home alive and cooked them.  None of the kids had ever experienced that.  We ate on the deck as the sun set.

I hope the kids will always remember it.  I hope one day Griff will say to his cousins, "remember that time we were eating lobster on the Cape..."

"and i broke the wooden mallot trying to crack the claw..."

good times...good times.

These cousins have been raised more like siblings than cousins...

these two were born 9 days apart and they've been partners in crime ever since...

 
they're all goofballs

the littles had no trouble hanging ten with the bigs...

love is sharing your earbuds with your cousin...

enjoying sundaes and cones on the porch of The Ice Cream Sandwich...

and midnight games of spoons...

One of our vacay highlights was the mini family reunion we had with our Massachusetts family while we were there...

Lots of love, laughter

 

 and lobster!

It's serious business learning how to eat steamers (steamed clams)...

like this...

 

it was a night we'll never forget.

This week was precious time with sisters...

and re-living cherished memories at the penny candy store in Hyannis we adored as little girls.

there was quality family time in the sun during the day...

and around the beach fire by night...

 

We made s'mores and sang sitcom theme songs and laughed so hard!

   

Do you like pina coladas?...

or can i interest you in something else?

Our accomodations were ahhh-mazing. 

And, staying together there was a wicked pissah.  (We all had fun trying to talk with a Boston accent)

We even threw in an extra little adventure on our journey home.  We stayed overnight in Buffalo, NY and made a late night run to see Niagara Falls.  The kids had never seen it before.

This entire trip was a big family fest with a heaping side of nostalgia most especially for my parents, sisters and I.  The Cape is magical for us.  Nothing but happy, lovely memories...going all the way back to my parent's honeymoon here and then years and years of family summers together here. 

The original 5, back at the Cape...

We are so blessed!  Thanks, Mom & Dad!