Coming Soon . . .

For years now my cousin Joanne and I have wanted to do something together. We've both owned retail stores, love to thrift shop, and we both sew and craft - and now we find ourselves with time on our hands to devote to doing something we love (besides being with our granddaughters!)

We've been busy making items - and like the name "Mimi and Moo" for our ventures. I'm Mimi (my little granddaughter Olive recently out-of-the-blue decided that is what she would call me) and Joanne is Moo (a name her kids have called her for years.) And now that she is a grandmother, it fits perfectly. We'll combine our talents for sewing and crocheting (along with our love of thrift shopping and hunting through vintage markets) to make adorable wearables for infants and toddlers. 

Moo's granddaughter Lily is wearing one of our first combined efforts. A flower made from ribbon (that we made out of a pair of capri pants)  and a crocheted flower. Lily's mommy, Lindsey,  made it into a headband and took this adorable photo.  We also embellished her overalls with vintage lace.

Headbands made with a collection of ribbon flowers, vintage pearl beads and other adornments.
Lily (now older) models several of these headbands in the photos below.
These photos of Lily were taken by her talented mother, Lindsey - an artist and photographer.

 Here's Lily looking adorable in a soft headband made with a ribbon flower and embellished with vintage pearl beads.

A pretty multi-colored ribbon rose on a cream headband.

An over-the-top ribbon rose with vintage beads looks so pretty on Lily!

 A coordinating denim skirt with vintage lace - and a headband that is embellished with a
vintage earring flower in the center that belonged to Lily's great-grandmother.

Another find we discovered when going through a box of treasures that belonged to 

Moo's mother (Lily's great-grandmother) was this red knit flower adorned with sequins. 

It was a pin and now it is part of a very chic red, white, and blue headband.

Lily is so cute in this big floral headband made with a flower (from our hand-crafted ribbon,)

 vintage lace, a crocheted flower  -  and topped off with a vintage button.

The two headbands above are made from vintage yo-yo's and other embellishments.

A fun headband made from reconstructing silk gerbera daisy's and adding a vintage fabric yo-yo.

One of the skirt / headband combos. Skirt has eyelet trim and headband is big and fun. 

She's ready for the 4th of July in this outfit.

 This combination includes a crocheted flower and another vintage find (a button) from great-grandma's treasure box.

My granddaughter Lulu in a cute crocheted hat made by Moo. I love the colors.

These two outfits for toddlers (above and below) are skirt / headband combos made with
up-cycled clothing items from thrift stores, combined with vintage lace, buttons, and crocheted flowers.

Lulu wearing an upcycled skirt made from a ladies shirt and vintage lace

And since I have not been able to take any photos of my granddaughter Olive wearing our new fashions yet, here is one (above) I'll share that shows her wearing a circle scarf crocheted by her mommy (my daughter, Tracy.) Tracy already has her own Etsy shop set up and you can visit her facebook page (Ollie g) to see more of what she is up to.

Mimi and Moo can stay very busy with this and there is no telling where it may lead. We both have a lot of talent in our families - artists, photographers, and architects.  Perhaps there is no limit to our creative dreams. Starting with an Etsy shop (once we have enough inventory) - we'll go from there - perhaps doing a pop-up shop or two during the next holiday season. 

                                            Stay tuned!!

Pillow Talk

It's almost spring and I felt the need desire for something new for the house. Even though I am an interior designer, I don't spend a lot of money on my own home. I'm not sure why - there is plenty of temptation out there - guess I just have a lot of restraint in this area - and I follow an old saying by William Morris: "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

However . . . the other day I was in the checkout line at Target and the gal behind me started putting these cute pillows on the belt - and the green and yellow colors were so fresh, I fell in love. I could not stop thinking about the cute beetle pillow I saw.

The beetle pillow

So, today I went back to make a return and look at pillows. I even went to a different store in case that gal bought the last two beetle pillows that day.

 In a section of the store with "designer-style-items" a couple of pillows caught my eye. I grabbed the butterfly and yellow flower pillows and a quilted throw, and went to find the beetle in the "pillow section." No beetle pillows there. But, I did like one from that section (the quilted multi-color number.) Then as I was walking around the corner, sad as could be, there was the beetle pillow on the endcap! And, across the aisle from that one was the stripped pillow. Did they make it hard or what? Four different places for 5 pillows. Kind of crazy if you ask me. 

My new pillows and throw - all ready for spring.

I ended up with the cute beetle, a butterfly, a flower, a stripe, and a quilted pillow and throw. 

Pillows are beautiful and functional, so I followed my own advice for 

bringing new items into my home!

My son did the large painting and it works for winter and spring color groupings. 

I feel like I need to explain why my sofa is up against the wall . . . something I really never do in a client's home. Two words explain it all: Olive & Lúthien. The granddaughters needed room to play and their red and orange Ikea tent needed floor space. By the way, that tent from Ikea is a great deal if you have little ones. Anyway, you get the point that my granddaughters are calling the decorating shots (for now.)

A few other pillows in my collection.
The yellow (with red embroidery) and the solid orange are down-filled and very cozy .

In my large pillow collection, I already have an orange, yellow, and several tan colored pillows, so they mixed right in with the new and will play nice together. I have another sofa across the room and I will use a couple of the new pillows on that sofa and by mixing with the ones I already have, it will bring the nice touch of spring throughout the room. Designers love pillows - is there such a thing as too many? My husband would say YES!

My winter look.

Four of the 5 pillows above came from the shop I owned - and they were a lot more expensive than my new Target finds. The one in front is beaded (so no one can really sit against it, but it is so pretty, haha.)

I am now ready to Spring Forward.

Apron for a Friend

I was having breakfast with a good friend, when the topic of aprons came up. She asked if I could make her an apron, and began to describe what she wanted: "simple front and back with ties on the side." I knew just what she wanted and mentioned that it was already made! I had one perfect for her  and delivered it today. I'd like to see a photo of her working with it on. . . 

Front and Back of the apron. Made from a girls thrift store denim jumper and men's dress shirts.

Side View of apron. 

I used several plaid shirts to make pockets on the front and on back.

 I made the ties from the front of the shirts. 

It would be great to get back to making lots of aprons again. There was a time a few years ago when I was making at least one a day. I think a series of Mommy & Me aprons are in my future. And, not one to leave the boys out - perhaps a Daddy & Me group as well. 

Those would be great for Father's Day gifts!! 

The Bride's Bouquet and Wedding Party Florals

The bridal bouquet included roses, succulents, seeded eucalyptus, black berries,
rosemary sprigs, brunia silver pods, small pinecones, feathers, and mini antlers.

One of the many hats I wore for this wedding was that of floral designer. I've never had any real training in floral design, but I know enough about fresh flowers and other materials to be able to do a few things.

We actually went to see a professional floral designer for a bid - but when the bride kept saying "winter white" and soft green (complete with photo examples) and she kept showing us red arrangements, I knew that I might need to step in and take charge of the flowers too.

It was fine with me in the end, because I do like to be in control of all design details, if possible!

The bride's gown was a very unique shade and we noticed right away that many cream roses didn't look good against the fabric. So on my first trip to the floral trade center I had a fabric swatch to shop with.

We found a pink tinged rose called white majolica that looked perfect with the dress. I even made a sample bouquet for the last dress fitting, just to be sure.

The bouquet was hand-tied with ribbon. What a fun bride - she was a dream to work with. 

We created the bouquet on the morning of the wedding and many of the roses opened more than I would have preferred,  but it didn't really matter - it turned out so nice and exceeded my expectations. I think I really lucked out!

A friend of the bride gave her a locket with a photo of her grandmother and
we attached it to the side of the bouquet that faced the bride. She could glance down at it
and feel that her grandmother was with her on this special day.
Photo by Leesa King

The groom's boutonnière included a white majolica rose, a succulent, and seeded eucalyptus. 

Using the same materials, each boutonnière was created a bit different for the seven groomsmen. Two of the bride's aunts arrived in time to help me with the florals on the morning of the wedding. 

They were tied with burlap ribbon and twine.

The bridesmaid's carried lanterns instead of bouquets. We adorned them with 

burlap ribbon, roses, pinecones, pine sprigs, and seeded eucalyptus. We used flameless tea lights so there was no worry about the flame going out as they walked down the pathway.

The maid-of-honor carried a bigger lantern,
but it had the same flowers as the six other lanterns the bridesmaid's held.

The entire wedding party.  Beautiful.

All photos by John Robert Woods Photography in Orange County, CA unless otherwise noted.

Sewing The Bridal Headpiece

The wait is over (and it was worth the wait) for receiving the professional photographs of the early December wedding of  Mike & Lindsey. John Robert Woods did an amazing job shooting the wedding and now I have a lot of new blog material to cover.

The beautiful bride wearing her custom made headpiece
John Robert Woods Photography

I'm starting with one of the last DIY projects we worked on. We created the bride's headpiece and the maid-of-honor's sash just two nights before the wedding. 

The bride's gown had many beautiful flowers made from silk.
John Robert Woods Photography

When we saw the sash below at Jinnys Bridal Center we knew we wanted to use it somehow. The first time they brought it out was to show the maid-of-honor who had brought her dress to try on while the bride was in her gown. It looked amazing with her dress. The bride really liked it too, but her dress had enough details with all of the beautiful flowers. On the next visit to the bridal shop, they brought it out again for us to see. This time the bride was interested again - she wanted to wear it in her hair.  It had too much going on for a headpiece alone, and we decided it could serve double-duty as a sash for the maid-of-honor, with the largest flower removed to use for the bridal headpiece.

The photo we snapped of the sash to "think about it."
We couldn't forget it and the bride purchased it on her next visit.

Here's a photo from the Enzoani website. It's called the Diana Belt.
The sash ribbon is the same color in this pic, but some of the other details may
have a slightly different color way.

The bride ordered black "birdcage" netting online for her headpiece and she had a long black satin ribbon. We went to work.

John Robert Woods Photography

This was an expensive sash, so I was a little worried to begin to  tear  take it apart. But I did, very gently, remove the largest flower and some of the extra silk fabric from the sash. I stitched it onto the black ribbon, along with the netting, and after a few adjustments we had a gorgeous and very unique, one-of-a-kind headpiece.

John Robert Woods Photography

One day while shopping for wedding items, the bride's mother and I found a big rust colored flower pin at a consignment shop in Fallbrook and thought it might work for the sash. I bought the stones for the middle of the flower at the craft store. A few stitches later and the sash was reborn into another unique one-of-a-kind accessory.

The sash really turned a beautiful dress into a stunning gown for the maid-of-honor.  All the girls looked amazing in their own dress selections. I love the look of dresses that are coordinated, but not matching.
John Robert Woods Photography

Beautiful . . .
John Robert Woods Photography

One of the reasons the rusty color worked for the sash was because we were using vintage amber-colored bottles as part of the table decorations. We also used pinecones, feathers and pods that brought the color to the tables. And, of course, the sash already had a rusty-slightly brownish-green color velvet sash. Haha, I can't think of a better way to describe the color of that ribbon, even if it is not very designer-like of me.

The Sweetheart Table
John Robert Woods Photography