Things Making Me Happy

Just thought I'd share :)

I'm glad it knows who it is.

This makes me think of my kitchen :)

And these make me think of my dream vacation.

Waaaaaant!

Yes, please :)

Thats all for now :)  Thanks for reading!  I'll be in Chicago from tomorrow until Sunday morning for my cousin's wedding (yay!) and probably won't have internet access, so I guess that means I'll see you on Sunday!  Keep smiling :)

xoxo Alyssa

Best Day in Recorded History

Don't you just love it when things work out your way?  I got a text message this morning from a great friend of mine, who lives far, far away, saying that she was going to be visiting a town near my parents house in a few weeks.  Just a few minutes later I got a facebook message from my soon-to-be-sister-in-law (who you can find here) asking me if I could meet her at my parents house that SAME WEEK to help her work on her crafty-filled wedding to-do list!  I was elated!  

I can help Trinity with wedding tasks during the day while Courtney is in job training, and then spend the evenings with Courtney!  AND get to see my parents and their adorable new puppy!

     

Isn't she the cutest?! Her name is Daisy May and I can't wait to meet her! :)

In addition to all of this exciting news, I made a new discovery via Wild Olive, the embroidery/graphic design blog of Miss Mollie Johanson.  Did you know there's an image pool on Flickr that is ALL vintage embroidery patterns?!  It's my new favourite thing.  I downloaded literally hundreds of patterns and I CANNOT WAIT to use them :)  Here are some of my favorites.

       

Haha.  You know, just a few of my favorites ;)  I cannot wait to stitch these AWESOME little illustrations :)  Particularly the last two. hehe.  Expect to see that victrola very soon ;)

Thanks so much for reading! I'll be back sometime this weekend (probably) with pictures of some quilts I just finished and the fabric for the next one!  Keep smiling!  And if you forget, just take a look at this cutie, who is also from the Flickr pool :)

xoxo 

Alyssa

Home Sweet Home

I've finally done it!  I finally got the apartment in decent enough shape to share with the world!  So, here goes . . .

The bed! With a quilt made by Indonesian women and an afghan made my my roommate from DC, Mary, who was mentioned in a previous post :)

Directly across form the bed is the sitting area/library :)  Our apartment is small, only a main room, a kitchen, and a bathroom, so everything sort of runs into everything else :P

Kitchen! Repainted :)

Kitchenaid and Thermos collection :)

My favorite wall in the entire apartment :)

Josh's new teapot :)

Photos of the bathroom are coming (hopefully) soon.  We have a bit of a hole-in-the-wall problem that is prohibiting us from painting. Hopefully that gets cleaned up soon . . . 

Thanks for joining me!

Keep Smiling :)

Alyssa

Make Over!

My background mysteriously disappeared, so I declared it a good time for a blog make over, and renaming :)  I hope you all like it as much as I do.

Here are some things that have been inspiring me lately.

source

source

I can haz?

source

source

Thanks for joining me today!  Keep smiling :)

Alyssa

I'M SO EXCITED

Guess what I get to do?!

source

I had written off getting to take this class because of the cost, but when I brought it up to Joshua he encouraged me to take it because it would be an "investment" :)  I have a pretty cool husband.  I'll be sure to keep you all updated on all of the cool stuff I get to make! OMGICAN'TWAIT.  Check out this post and this post to see if you might be interested as well :)

XOXO

Alyssa

Czech this out

I follow this design blog called BOOOOOOOM!.  They post some pretty spectacular stuff, so I thought I'd share it with you.  All images were found on BOOOOOOOM!'s website where they are linked to the individual artists' websites.

Photographer Michael Schmelling

Photographer Naomi Goudal

Installations by Guerra De La Paz

Photographer Tang Chan

Painter Yosakay Yamamoto

Installations by Anouk Kruithof

Lovely, aren't they?  Be back later tonight (hopefully) with the apartment pictures after a never ending quest for a functioning laundry. BUH.

Keep Smiling,

Alyssa

I'm such a good wife.

While Joshua has been away this week counseling a church camp, I worked on these for him.  

He's been wanting a sleeve for his laptop and I found this black one for a decent price but wanted to snazz it up a bit :)  The patch is for his new guitar strap which was a similar situation--just a black strap with nothing on it, so I made this patch that I'm going to stitch on when he gets to come home for the weekend between the two weeks of camp.  He comes home tomorrow and I can't wait to see him!

It's been a lovely week and I've had a wonderful time.  I got my lip re-pierced today, pictures of that as soon as the swelling goes down a little :)    

I plan on spending the afternoon and evening watching these and taking pictures of the apartment to share with you all:

Quite the combination, right?  An Education was suggested by Miss Hannah and I've never seen The Matrix, so I figured it was about time.  The apartment pictures will FINALLY be posted tomorrow! Woo Hoo!  I know . . . you're all on pins and needles, right? Right.  That's what I thought. ;)

I hope you all are having as great a time as I am :)  Thanks for reading! 

Keep Smiling,

Alyssa

Crazytown

is what these last two weeks have been (credit for that word goes to this lovely lady).  Absolute insanity--but such wonderful insanity :)  Two weeks ago Joshua, Nathan, and I had the pleasure of traveling to Charlotte, NC in a van (yes, we drove from Saint Louis to North Carolina).  We spent the week attending various aspects of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly, which was generally, pretty great :)  In other news, I got to see this pretty lady:

My roomie from DC, Miss Mary (pronounced Miss Murr-ee, thanks to a little nine-year-old Rihanna look alike that we had the pleasure of caring for last summer).  She is truly one of my best friends and it was so wonderful to spend some time with her :)  She lives in NC, so we don't get together very often, but when we do, the universe explodes with awesome.  Joshua and I already decided that when we have kids (a zillion years from now) she will be known as Aunt Mary.  And they will have to learn to pronounce it correctly.

We returned from Charlotte on Saturday, did laundry, attended church, packed up again, and headed to Marietta, IL to attend Cornerstone, a week-long music festival.  We camped out with Nathan and his girlfriend Laura and had a wonderful time.  There were some days when we stumbled upon some theologically and politically questionable stuff, but it seemed that for every frustrating encounter we had, there was something awesome that outweighed it.

Like them.

(mewithoutYou)

source

source

source

and them.

(The Illalogical Spoon)

source for all images

and them.

(Jon Felton and his Soul Mobile)

source

source

Please listen to this.  It is marvelous.

Now I am home for a week, without Joshua, while he is working at Blue Mountain Camp.  I have oh so many plans for the week like:

-shipping an Etsy order! My first one who does not know me personally :)
-cleaning the apartment
-crafting and *possibly* adding some things to the shop?
-finishing up a few baby gifts for some lovely ladies who are just about ready to pop
-go to the new waterpark with my WONDERFUL friend Aaron, who I have not spent nearly enough time with, lately.  I am quite excited.
-take pictures of the apartment so I can FINALLY share them
-take pictures in general
-make homemade ice cream according to this DIY.  I'll let you know how it turns out.
-get pierced with my sister-in-law! So. Pumped.

Oh my.  That's not even all of it.  I can't wait.  Hopefully with my immense amount of free time this week I will be more diligent about posting.  We shall see ;)  I'm thinking of adding a new feature to my posts: movie reviews.  I L.O.V.E movies and watch a TON of them, so I figure it's only natural, right?  Right.

Thanks for joining me, today!  Keep smiling :)

Alyssa