Disco's not dead.

It's no secret I love the 70's (although I wasn't even alive, I just know it was an awesome decade - I mean, come on, LED ZEPPELIN).  It's also no secret I could spend all of my free time in a thrift store and not get tired of it.  So when I find treasures so awesome, it just makes thrifting and sifting through millions of ugly stained sweaters and dresses worth it.  When I found this navy blue 70's maxi dress I nearly died.  First, it was nay blue, and I love that color.  Second, it's in perfect, unworn condition.  Third, IT FITS ME!!!!!  I can't wait to wear it, and I thought it would be fun to put together an outfit for my night at the disco including this dress...

Find these beauties here: fur coat, bangles, platforms, bag

So that's it for now, but I'm sure I'll be singing a disco song or two all day.  I'm running behind this morning because I had to finish making and packaging every single last order to get shipped today so people will have their items in time for Christmas.  It's been busy, I've been a little insane, but I always remind myself how lucky I am to be able to do what I love.  I hope you guys have a great Monday!

SHABBY APPLE GIVEAWAY!

I'm so happy to share this giveaway with you from a store with some of the prettiest dresses and friendliest people!  Shabby Apple has generously offered a $50 gift card to one lucky Dinosaur Toes reader to spend on anything they'd like!  And for one month, everyone can get 10% off their order with the coupon code dinosaurtoes10off

This giveaway will run until next Friday (11.23.12) and the winner will be announced the following Monday.  To enter:

-Leave a comment with a link to your favorite item on the Shabby Apple site, as well as your email address.  This is a MANDATORY entry.

For additional entries:

-"Like" Shabby Apple on Facebook and leave a comment letting me know you did.
-Tweet this: I want to win the @dinosaurtoes and @shabbyapple giveaway for a $50 gift card! http://bit.ly/QgQIOK and leave me a comment letting me know you did.
-Blog about this giveaway and leave me a comment with the link.

lately...

lately things have been busy.  i've not given the time to my blog i should, and although part of me wants to because i do enjoy it, the other part of me knows that there are more pressing issues - like getting caught up on orders as well as making triple the amount of items i usually do in preparation for a new store i'll be selling at, and a holiday pop up shop.  when i haven't been working on making more pyrite heart bracelets or pulling more prints, i've been getting used to this new lens and taking pictures of other things i've been doing...

sometimes just taking pictures of simple things around the house can be fun... or maybe i think it's fun because it's my way of putting off work, who knows!  i've re-potted a few succulents, i've cleaned off my dining room table of thrifting finds (the owl lamp and the bride and groom cake topper) so that i have more room to make block prints and paint portraits, and i'd like to say i didn't stop one or ten too many times to eat the pretzels i baked, but i'd be lying.

also, completely random, but do you ever talk to friends, significant others, etc. while they're falling asleep in an effort to get them to talk in their sleep?  i love doing it to chris, because it's usually successful.  the last time he did it i actually wrote down what he said because it was too funny to forget.  here it is:

chris: "WHAT THE F*CK WAS THAT?!"
me: "what?"
chris: "a mouse spider ran from under the sofa and went across the den.  it was like a mouse, and a spider, too."
me: "where were you sitting when you saw it?"
chris: "they're like school chairs with desks."
me: "what?  where are you?"
chris: "at the drugstore.  i bought a cup and saucer for beca and doug."
me: "oh.  what does it look like?"
chris: "it was an eighth.  they measured it before they built it."

how was your weekend?

our weekend was busy but awesome.  a huge, and i mean HUGE, group of people surprised my pop with a retirement party on saturday night.  we ate, we laughed, we talked about him buying a motor home so we can road trip to san francisco, and i dank my new favorite drink - angry orchard traditional dry hard cider.  yum.  but i didn't really take pictures until sunday, and even then i hardly took any.

we started off our morning (really early) with a visit to chris' aunt & uncle's dragonfly ridge and had brunch, art talk, then did some hiking to work it off.  we also had a chipmunk spy watch us eat.  after that we went to the firefish gallery to pick up the watercolor portrait i did of carrie & simon to show in the project perry art show and auction.  it's the first time anything i've painted has been in a gallery, so i was both excited and nervous!  after we picked it up we went to a pretty park to drink coffee (chris) and lemonade (me) and eat snacks, and because it was so pretty, i told chris that i wanted him to take outfit pictures of me.  you won't see those because they never happened.  a local outreach was giving out bowls of chili to the needy and homeless in the park, so obiously i'd feel a little weird standing there like an idiot having my picture taken eleventy billion times.  maybe next time!  then we had dinner and laughs with some of our favorite friends and called it a night.  oh man was it nice to go to bed after such a long day.

i also did the whole messy bun deal and decided that it just didn't work for me.  not even a little bit.

so what did you do over the weekend?

magic arrow

i'm kind of in one of those phases where i'm wondering what i even have to say, what i can possibly blog about, and why i even have a blog at all.  it's weird how that happens, and probably next week i'll have a dozen posts in my head!  anyway, i've had this song in my head for the better part of a week, and it seemed like a good starting point for a post...


do you listen to songs and get pictures in your head of people, landscapes, houses, outfits, or anything else that just seem like they belong with that song?  i do.  so i guess this is a different take on a wish list of sorts, but the movie i have playing in my head when listening to this song looks something like this...

find these babies here: with care goods, southwest vintage, in haus press, pine and main, lost kat photography, sky parlor, amelia mays jewelry

so that's what i've got for now.  do you have songs stuck in your head or new items you've added to your wish list?  i find that my wish lists always grow when it's cold or wet outside because i spend more time at my laptop.  oh well, with new seasons come new habits!

964.8 miles

chris and i are both feeling kinda bummed today.  we had such a fun whirlwind trip visiting beca, doug, sammy and patrick, and seeing tennessee, a peek of georgia, and asheville, north carolina.  we're happy to be back with flojo and kona, but knowing that the tumbleweeds are 7 hours away has us feeling lonesome; it can be bittersweet having such rad friends to hang out with.

i didn't take a ton of pictures at the southern blogger mixer mainly because i was too busy eating plate after plate of delicious hors d'oeuvres, but to see more of the event, the food, the people, and the project, you should peek at beca's blog.  i am super, super shy until i can feel people out and see what they're like, so i was really nervous going to the mixer.  it was a great group of girls though, and it was so nice doing blog talk with people that understood!  i think the smaller group made for better discussion, and it made the event more intimate, like a lunch date with friends.

we decided to go home from tennessee via asheville, north carolina, which wasn't really on the way, but it's somewhere chris and i have wanted to visit.  our friend patrick met us in downtown asheville and gave us a tour and local architecture history lesson before we ate a late lunch/early dinner at a delicious thai restaurant.  i could actually go for another plate of phad pak right now...

964.8 miles later, i'm wishing we could be on our way back with flojo and kona in tow, of course, that way we could stay until we decided to come home.  it must be tennessee wanderlust.

untitled XXII: art and clothes

a few months ago i said that every now and then i wanted to do an outfit post, but rather than just showing you what i wore, show you what i wore and the artwork that inspired it.  oh, and i thought i'd come up with a great idea, but i found out it was already a thing, so i'm just hopping on the art and outfit bandwagon!

denim jacket: american eagle // dress: asos // tights: target // booties: target // bracelet: gift, vintage // bag: gryson // earrings: dinosaur toes

the painting that inspired my outfit, Untitled XXII, was done by one of my very favorite artists - willem de kooning (and his wife elaine is another of my favorites, but she doesn't receive nearly the level of recognition and appreciation she deserves).

travels and cupcakes

i hope today finds you well!  it finds me with orders to fill and packages to ship, and since i've been pretty good at keeping up with orders lately, it doesn't seem nearly as daunting!  i've been working on a few new pieces of art, making some cupcakes even though i know i shouldn't because i can't stop eating them, and getting some things ready for the southern blogger mixer which is this saturday - i can't believe it's almost here!

i made something for the gift bags that will be given out at the mixer, and i'm curious to see what people think.  i would show you here, but you know, the surprise would be ruined.  i have to get my laundry done today so i can start packing, because i pack about eight times as many clothes and shoes as i need in case i change my mind while i'm there (and i always do).  and chris and i also have to make a road trip playlist!  it's his favorite thing to do when we're hitting the road.

the cupcakes are pumpkin spice with cream cheese icing, and they're so moist and delicious.  my mouth is watering just thinking about them, so i think i may go eat one (but probably two) for breakfast.  oh, and they're also the easiest things to make in the history of cooking.  just combine a box of spice cake mix, a can of pumpkin, and a tablespoon of water.  then mix, spoon into cupcake liners, bake according to the cake mix directions, ice, and EAT, EAT, EAT!

don't you just love simple but tasty recipes?  i've actually only ever baked one cake from scratch - a chocolate cake for my pop's birthday - and although it wasn't difficult and it turned out well (i mean, i didn't taste it because i hate chocolate, but it looked nice and i hear it tasted good), i'll still probably reach for the box mix because it's kind of a no-brainer!  have you ever made these pumpkin cupcakes?  do you like to bake things from scratch, or do you use a mix?  just curious!

the goods, the bad, the winner

so where do i start, the good, the bad, or the winner?  whenever i have several things to talk about, i never know where to start, and that goes for blog posts and real life; i'm kind of scatter-brained all the time, and i hope it doesn't get worse with age otherwise i only have a few more good years before i'm crazy.  anyway, first i want to announce the winner of the danielle clubmaster sunglasses from tumbleweeds!  drum roll..... the winner is LIZ!

now, how about some good(s)?  it's been cold and rainy here, so i've been watching old tv shows (the millionaire is one of my favorites) and stockpiling links of all the things i want, want, WANT!  i'm seriously eyeballing the boots, but there's just one thing in the way of me making them mine, and i call him husband.  why must my wants outnumber my dollars?

you can find these beauties here: lulu*s, i miss the sea, raw dezign, honey and bloom, turquoise city, lulu*s, hindsvik, tumbleweeds handcraft

okay, it's time for the bad.  but there is some sliver of good in it., so i won't be a complete negative nancy.  last night beca told me that there was a shop on etsy selling cell phone cases with my elephant painting on them.  it felt like a punch in the gut.  i put so much work into what i do, and i just finished communicating with someone who told me a few months ago that she loved my shop and was inspired by it, and then ended up copying some of my paintings, so the last thing i wanted was to have to deal with it again.  not only did Daddydecor steal my artwork, they also stole artwork from several other artists on etsy, and then used it to make a profit.  this is disgusting and it makes me so fucking mad i could shoot smoke out of my ears.  i'm not sharing this because i'm looking to have my ego stroked, but rather as 1. a warning to artists who share their work on the thief-infested internet - be proactive and STAND UP FOR WHAT'S YOURS, and 2. to hold people like Daddydecor accountable for their actions in hopes that potential customers will see it and not give another cent to sellers who don't think twice about stealing.  this sort of thing runs rampant, and sadly, there's so much of it on etsy it makes me want to cry. the listings have been removed, thanks to another artist (whose art had been stolen) confronting the seller, and that's the good part, but etsy (as usual) refuses to get involved and enforce anything; let a non-vintage item be listed as vintage though and etsy is on it like white on rice, because that's an important issue, right?  geez.  i think beca summed it up pretty well in her last blog post, so i won't continue a rambling tirade, but be sure when buying things - handmade or otherwise - that you're supporting the REAL artist and not a copycat or thief!

what i've been working on...

the word of the day is: earrings.  i've been making earrings like nobody's business lately, and i love that the stud earrings i've been making for my shop allow me to use such a wide variety of stones.  the newest earrings include pyrite, black quartz, and chrysocolla.  and aside from that i've been working on watercolor portraits and a 2013 calendar for my art shop!

maybe the biggest and most exciting bit of news (for me at least) is that two of my prints were featured on design*sponge on monday!  AAAHHHHH!!!!!  so that's about it ;)  what have you been working on?  or do you have plans to start on a special project soon?  i always love to know what other people are working on or have made!

also, don't forget to enter the TUMBLEWEEDS SUNGLASSES GIVEAWAY because a winner will be chosen on monday!  and second, be sure to sign up for the SOUTHERN BLOGGER MIXER happening on october 20th in chattanooga, tn, because i'd love to meet you!