Paper Dolls for Boys

Uh…

paperdollsforboys — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:59:02 +0000

so, remember me blathering on about being too busy? Well I didn’t. My friend Hannah and I just went in together on a booth at a local antiques cooperative. Zoinks. It’s a good outlet, right?!!! Like my etsy shop without all the annoying shipping hassle.

So if you are a MA person and want to check out our wares, drop by the Massachusetts Antiques Cooperative, 100 Felton Street, Waltham and go to town. We’re the cool booth (at least that’s what our mothers think).

Update: Here are new photos of our space. We will eventually have vintage Valentines and other bits and bobs on that divider screen but for now it’s covering up the neighboring stall’s grungy screen. One of the guys that works there walked by and said, “It looks like somebody lives there.” We were pumped as that was what we were going for. Second only to, “It looks like somebody shops there.”!

Short of buying it, we still can’t figure out how to cover up the neighbors art work on the other side.

The beginnings of our booth.

It’s not that fuzzy in real life. We have work to do to make it more cozy and inviting but we’re proud of our start!

Went to the last flea market of the year in Rowley this morning. SUPER SCORES.

Close up of the crazy divine fabric.

Salty wants you to SHOP.

These are rusted to perfection.

A pair of these for a ridiculous price. They are NOT leaving my house though. Not for a good long while.

Close up of one side of our “booth”. We are working on some partition ideas. Anyone out there who has a booth, we’d love any tips you had to offer!

Cheers and goodnight!

This Post Brought to You from a (temporary) Resident of Sickville

paperdollsforboys — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:26:22 +0000

The quickest path to a blog drying up, imho, is having stuff you want to say but for whatever reasons you feel like you can not. It makes it hard for me to shoot the sh*t. Nothing serious, stop your guessing. Just stuff to process that probably is not best done in a public forum. How’s that for a juicy post? Meh.

I hold out hope that I shall ride again. When I was a stay at home mom, this venue (and the way it connected me to your blogs) was a lifeline. It was a way for me to feel creative, inspired and part of a larger community. I do not want to let that go but the reality is that I have to let some things slide now that I am working outside the home. My friends who read this blog and who started work before me or were always moms with paying jobs are smirking right now (Hi Kath!). It’s okay, I deserve a smirk or two for thinking I could move into a new house, start working after 7 years at home, transition my youngest into daycare for the first time, put my heart and soul into my job (that I love), do wonderous things like cook dinner, keep up my Etsy shop, write a blog, read your blogs and have time to enjoy my amazing (and growing) boys not to mention checking-in with my loving husband who is my partner in this all. One step at I time, right?

I should say that the reason I have time to type this at all is that I am a temporary resident of Sickville. 2 nebulizers, buzzing at full blast. Turkey what?

So I am going to surprise you now with MORE photos. Maybe I should just set up a link to my Flickr account…

On Flickr, I named that last one, “Zipline to Heaven”.

I just reread this and I wanted to say this is NOT my goodbye, just a ramble in the wind.

Over the Thanksgiving break I have some photos of the craft room to finally share!

I Love My Little Boxhead

paperdollsforboys — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:42:29 +0000

He’s got a beard, a shoulder tattoo, a flower tucked in his “hair” and oh so much attitude.

I could not be more proud.

Halloween

paperdollsforboys — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:39:11 +0000

This year we trick or treated in our new neighborhood. It was a totally different Halloween for us. In our old neighborhood, located on a very very steep hill, we got very few trick or treaters. We could leave a bowl out with a sign reading, “take a couple” and it would still be there in the morning. Ok, to jump to new neighborhood in different town. We had truckloads of Trick or Treaters, they just kept coming. We had some smoking teenagers (and that’s not a costume idea) daring us not to give them candy and a grown woman happily thrusting her big a** pillowcase at me (no child in sight)- o k a y, but most were decked out kiddos thrilled to be lugging their humongous bags of candy up and down the street.

The “sparkly dancing shoes” of my little skeleton.

My wee one in a hand me down costume my husband and I freezer paper stenciled back when we had free time.

We ended up not waiting until nightfall.

Potentially my favorite image of the night, boo for blur. Not about to ask this unknown fella for a second shot, in fact I was rather pleased that I summoned the guts to do it a first time.

High five from the netherworld.

These are from my school’s Halloween celebration.

Good old-fashioned balloon shaving fun.

Someone ate the D.

Something tells me that toothpaste might still have been hanging out in the prize bucket at the end of the festival.

And here is my old Alphabet Sunday friend (we have to start something up again Lauren!) showing us all how Halloween can be HEALTHY!!! Orange Carrots for all my friends!

Now on to Thanksgiving, ever marching forward…

Craft Night

paperdollsforboys — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:59:17 +0000

I was finally able to host craft night! Kind of a big deal since our last apartment was too small to host such an event.

I think Trader Joe’s is the new Martha. I hoisted 7 boxes of various fried cheesy bites of goodness from the freezer and my hostessing job was nearly done.

After the “what? I always keep the place this clean” cleaning and the hors d’oeuvre heating up, I was too exhausted to think of a craft so I took photos of the crafts of others in progress plus odds and ins around my kitchen with my iPhone. Is there a crafty app?

This craft night we had a new member join us. We sent emails back and forth suggesting a light hazing might be in order, an excerpt: Maybe the first time she comes, we could all be working on fake projects like an artificial floral arrangement, bedazzling a sweatsuit, and making a toilet paper cozy. We’ll ask her things like, “Do you think this is over bedazzled or just enough?” “Does this floral arrangement look classy, like it would be in a really fancy hotel?”

Yeah, I know, we’re CRAZY.

But despite all our big talk, we welcomed the new member with open arms and she’s great. She is doing this cool project, the pattern of which you see above. She is crocheting the kippot (yarmulkes) for her daughter’s bat mitzvah. ALL of them! I wish I had gotten a photo of one. I imagine she’ll be working on them next craft night as well!

Another crafter made a lovely necklace from these beads. I set the bowl on top of my lame attempt to craft.

What I love the most about the Polaroid app is there is no cropping. It is what it is.

Scarf on chair. After this I gave up “crafting” for the night and focused on the aforementioned TJ bites of goodness (and badness).

And I don’t know if any of you are still with me because I have become sporadic because life has become more hectic (in a good way) but here is a teaser.

Our attic is FINISHED! I will do a before and after post this weekend. Total transformation of the space and how our family will use it. Woot!

Laboratory

paperdollsforboys — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:46:13 +0000

Front yard, spooky make-over. Former owners dug out tree, makes for good loose soil to stick scary styrofoam in!

We made these specimen jars last year, remember?

We’re in a new house & there is no window to put them in so we’ve made the mantle our haunted lab.

Full view of mantle. Still have not set up the haunted dollhouse. Link here.

Thanks to Kate for helping me style the mantle.

Bird’s eye view of the bird.

Scary dude from last year, story here.

Still have not replaced keyboard. Working too much! Miss you madly.

Happy Halloween!

boo.

Classroom

paperdollsforboys — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:12:07 +0000

I have been remiss in posting.

Going back to work after 7 years at home will do that to a blogger. That and the fact my keyboard has decided it will no longer put out the letters ‘h’ or ‘y’ so every time you see them, know that I cut and pasted each badboy . Not fun. And not to sound like a complete whining baby but something is seriously wrong with WP and/or my computer because it took 13 minutes to post each photo. And now to rapidly move from whining to bragging, photos taken on my new iphone (using the Polaroid app). Woot!!!

Sharing of a bit of what has kept me from you:

My teaching partner (love love her) and I worked really hard to set up the classroom this summer. She has taught in the room for a long time so even though we made some changes, I am not taking even half the credit!

Art area.

Wall in the math area.

Monarchs!

The building area.

I particularly love the chalk board where kiddos can plan a building, make a representational drawing of their structure, or just doodle!

Dramatic play after some serious work of play.

There were more photos but due to the crazy time thing, I’m holding at 5.

The transition from stay at home mom to a working outside the home one has been a relatively smooth transition. Ok, the first week we did leave the house at 7:30am, both of us thinking the other had locked up. I came home with the boys after school, errands and dinner out at 7:00pm to find our door WIDE open. Two nice police officers walked through the house to confirm that yes, we were at once the flakiest and luckiest residents in town that day.

So schedules will evolve but the good news is that I was ready to go back to work, I got my dream job at a school of amazing teachers, I highly respect the game of my teaching partner, I love our sweet little class of kiddos, and I still GOT IT (it just moves a little slower)!

So just a check in to say that I miss your blogs, I miss VPF (keep ‘er strong), I miss blogging and I miss you but I will ride again!