Indirect Thrifting

By indirect, I mean that it wasn't me who scored these great items. My Aunt and Mom had something to do with them!

I have been on the lookout for an ornate frame. I was in funky shop where they had all the art framed with these frames and painted in glossy colours like turquoise, red, black, yellow or white. I wanted one right then and there, but decided to sick my thrifter people on the job. A few months later, the very ticket was in my hot little hands! Auntie Tweedle came to the rescue on this one!

Stay tuned for the "redo" of this beauty.

In other news, I think Mama Tweedle has a bit of a tablecloth obsession. She has a trunk full of Christmas tablecloths and another one full of vintage tablecloths and another one full of embroidered tablecloths. However, I do have to admit that I kinda like them. And by kinda, I mean that she better will me her tablecloth collection OR ELSE. Check out the latest tablecloth thrift store find!

Wedding Wednesday- Save the Date cards and Invitations

There are SO MANY cute ideas for save the date cards that it was hard to decide on what to do. I fell in love with an idea that told the couple's love story with cute fonts and hand drawn clip art and decided I could recreate it somehow.

Photo and idea courtesy of http://blog.lemonlimephoto.com/2009/08/17/more-from-jessica-tad/

Tom and I typed up the story together and searched for appropriate pictures to go with each thing, but nothing had the look I was going for. We went to the local print shop and asked them what they could do for us and again, they didn't have the "vision" that I had for it all, so I decided to draw my own images for the cards. I sketched a bunch of little pictures and the print shop ended up scanning them and resizing them for us. Originally, I wanted the cards to be smaller (they were 6 x 10 inches), but in order to use my diagrams, they had to be a little bigger. I also wanted them to be printed in colour, but we wanted to save most of our stationary budget for the actual invites, so we went with black and white.

Overall I was happy with how they turned out, but I would have liked them to look a little more polished and professional.

The invitations gave me a bit of a headache as well as I wanted something elegant and traditional, but that included our wedding colours- blue and silver. Because our local print shop is a smaller place and does mostly printing for businesses and advertising versus elegant soirees, they just didn't have the paper selection or creative eye I was looking for. The original proof I was given from them wasn't up to my creative standards, so I decided to look elsewhere. Of course, I turned to etsy, where else? And I found these invitations  from a shop called Everlasting Invites which I ordered on the spot. They were PERFECT. Blue and silvery, snowflakes, elegant, wintery... I checked off every detail on my list. I had the shop change the colour of the blue snowflakes to a darker colour and change the paper to something more silver than white. They were very flexible and willing to help me create the invitation I really wanted. The price was right too! They were only $1.75 each, including envelopes. It really didn't get much better than this.

They turned out beautifully. I still LOVE them.

Tweedle Tip, Wedding Edition- Don't settle for anything less that what you are completely happy with. 

There is nothing more annoying than looking back and wishing you would have done it differently, or looked elsewhere before making a decision. I could have easily chosen the least favourable invitation because it was easy and accessible, but I would have been mad at myself had I seen something better for less later. I was sure that stationary would cost me a ton after browsing wedding magazines with expensive and elaborate ads and prices. However, I put the time in and found something beautiful that was within my budget.

Always shop around, do some research and don't stop until you find perfection!

The last bird standing

Our last bird in the four part series: The Owl.

How cute are these??!?! See the other birds we have done here, here and here.

The Giveaway Winner and the first ever Tweedle Tip

It's an exciting day!

I get to announce the winner of the first ever Miss Tweedle giveaway! The blog hit 50 followers over the weekend (thank you for following!) and I used the random number generator on random.org to come up with a number between 1 and 50 to choose a winner of the great coaster giveaway. Number 6 was is the lucky winner. 6 was my 6th follower and it just so happens to be my dear sister Janine!

Janine must claim her prize by leaving a comment below. I will give her 2 days to do this.... Janine are you actually reading?? :))) If not, I just may have to pick a "real" reader!

I also have a delicious recipe to share with you. I made this over the weekend and it was a big hit. It's a great way to use up any leftover fruit you have, or anything that is taking up space in your freezer. I used the last bag of rhubarb I had floating around just in time to be able to harvest some fresh stuff from my garden.

Miss Tweedle's Rhubarb Cake

1. Cream together 1/2 cup of butter at room temperature, 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of baking soda.

2. Add 1 cup of buttermilk and mix until well combined.

3. In a separate bowl, mix together 3 cups of rhubarb with 2 cups of flour. Add this mixture to the cake batter and fold in. If your rhubarb or fruit has been frozen, it will be a little mushy and you don't want it to disintegrate in the cake- you want the fruit to stay in chunks, so folding is the best technique for this!

4. Make the topping: combine 1/4 cup of cold butter, 1 cup of brown sugar and 2 tsp of cinnamon until crumbly.

5. Pour the batter into a greased 9x13 in. pan and sprinkle the topping on top of the wet batter.

6. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

7. Let cool completely before serving and enjoy!

Tweedle Tip- Buying a whole litre of buttermilk is a scam! Don't do it!

The above recipe calls for buttermilk. I always wondered why buttermilk is not sold in smaller containers, because if you have to buy it for a recipe, you never end up using the whole litre.

I am going to let you in on a little secret....I never actually buy buttermilk!

I got sick of dumping it down the drain after it sat in my fridge half empty for weeks, so I did a little research and discovered this handy tip. All you have to do instead of buying buttermilk is make your own!

The ratio is 1 cup of milk to 1 tbsp of vinegar. Just mix it up and dump it in your recipe. Works just the same as buttermilk and it saves you some moolah while you're at it.

I hope you enjoy the cake!

"Kitsch"

It's one of those words that I never quite got. I remember when I first heard the word, I was on holiday with a friend and her parents and her mom kept referring to everything we saw as "kitschy". Finally, and thankfully, my friend said "what is kitschy, anyway MOM?!?!"

She explained it as tacky. 

So all these years I have thought that is what the word meant until recently when I have heard my own mother using this word to describe all these great garage sale and thrift store finds as kitsch. I kept thinking to myself, "why does she want to buy something if she thinks it is tacky?"

This weekend when I was in Qualicum at my parents house (which my mom has furnished entirely from thrift stores and garage sales), I heard my aunt exclaim- "that's so kitsch!" while looking at this lamp in the 70s inspired family room. (Yes, there is a 70's room, and no, it doesn't have orange shag carpet). 

It all came together. 

Kitsch is not a bad thing! It means something that is so bad that it is good. Or something that is so old that it is new again.... or like the infamous kitschy lamp....

I think I like this whole kitsch thing. Don't be surprised if I say it all the time now. 

Coasters!

I spent last night making the coasters for my GIVEAWAY! 

I am so excited that so many of you have become followers in order to read my wonderful blog. The fact that I bribed you with a contest doesn't have anything to do with it, does it??

Whatever works, right. I do it to my students at school too. Bribery. Works wonders. 

Anyway, here's what one of you will WIN. As soon as I hit 50 followers, I'll draw a name and send these little goodies your way. I have to warn you that they aren't perfect, but they have "character". My sewing machine was acting up a little. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

I hope you like them! If you do, enter the giveaway! Sign up and become a follower. Instructions on how to do that HERE. 

Wedding Wednesday- The rings

I have heard many brides complain about the pain of finding the right wedding ring that goes with their engagement ring as well as a band that their hubby-to-be would like to actually wear. For many guys, the thought of having to wear jewelry is a little out of their comfort zone!

The rings were one of those things that we put on the back burner, but that I knew, through the planning that we would have to get to eventually. One unassuming day, we wandered into a jewelry store to browse and ended up walking out with my wedding band. I LOVE my band and the way it looks with and without my engagement ring. I think this may have been the one thing Tom didn't question the price of too, as he understood that I had to like it if I was going to wear it forever. However, we got what we thought was a good deal, considering the fact that I wanted it to be a little blingy!

Tom's band caused us a little more stress. He wanted something different and he didn't fancy anything in the jewelry stores we had looked. I started looking on my favourite site- ETSY :) and came across this shop, Minter and Richter Designs, a place that made custom wedding bands out of buffalo horn and titanium. Being a rugged outdoorsman, I had Tom at buffalo horn. However, we were both nervous to order something as significant as Tom's wedding ring without seeing it in person or having him try it on.

As per some friends that had gotten married the year before us, we ordered him a "fake" band for $6 on ebay which was the same width and size as the real one we were thinking of ordering. (It also had fake diamonds and gothic crosses cut out of it!) When it came, I even drew a fake buffalo horn stripe around it with sharpie so we could see what the black would look like on Tom's hand. We both liked the way it looked and it fit, so we took the plunge and ordered the one from ETSY. It worked out perfectly!

Bt seriously... going to a jewelry store and buying a normal band was just too easy wasn't it?! We still laugh when we find the "fake" ring floating around the house. It's hideous!!!

Here's the "fake" ring- isn't it ugly??!?

Here are the real ones on the wedding day!
Our photographer Claire Dibble did a beautiful job photographing them in the snow. 

And lastly, here they are in the sand on our honeymoon. 

A giveaway coming your way...

Because this is a fairly new blog, I am trying to gain readership. I'm hosting a giveaway to thank all of you who have been reading and as well to encourage people to sign up to be a follower of my site.

One lucky follower will receive a set of handmade (by me!) coasters made out of the scraps from the quilt I have been working on and featuring. 

To enter this giveaway, there are 2 options:

1. If you have a GOOGLE, YAHOO or TWITTER account:

• Under the "Followers" heading on the sidebar of this blog, click the blue button that says "join this site". 
• Choose the account that you would like to use.
• Enter your information
• DONE!

2. If you don't have any of the 3 accounts offered, but have ANY EMAIL ACCOUNT:

• Under the "Followers" heading on the sidebar of this blog, click the blue button that says "join this site". 
• Click the link, underlined in blue that says "sign up for a Google account"
• You will come to a page which asks you to enter your CURRENT EMAIL ADDRESS. This DOES NOT have to be a gmail account. This could be a shaw, telus, hotmail or whatever email provider you use. 
• Enter your email address and create a password to go with it. It doesn't have to be your email password. You create a NEW password just for this site. 
• Enter your birthdate and the other information it asks you for. 
• Click "create account".
• Lastly, it will take you to a page with "Miss Tweedle BLOG" at the top. It gives you the option to "Follow this blog". 
• CLICK and you are now a follower!

Thanks for battling technology to become a follower! It's really very easy if you just follow the instructions carefully!

If you have already done this, you have already automatically entered!

We are only 12 clicks away from a great giveaway! 

My first thrifting post!

I am so excited to have been in second hand heaven this weekend. When I talk to her on the phone, my mom won't stop bragging about all the good finds she gets while out in Qualicum Beach and this weekend I finally got to see it all for myself. Among the family visits and beach walks, we went to some garage sales (22!), thrift stores and antique stores. I came home with two thrifty treasures.

A Charles and Diana tin! How could I resist? This is the picture from their engagement. I must say, old Charles looks rather dashing in his prime, doesn't he?

and... A Vintage Cocktail Shaker! For some reason this spoke to me. I loved the little pictures on the glass as well as the recipes. Tom has been into making summer cocktails lately, so maybe it will get a little use. If not, it will look good sitting in my kitchen.

I have my eye out for some more garage sale treasures, so stay tuned for more goodies in the coming weeks... as long as I can find them! :)

May Long Weekend in Qualicum Beach

This weekend I flew to Qualicum Beach, BC where my parents have a second home. I visited them and we had a lovely time catching up, shopping, hitting garage sales and antique stores, walking on the beach and celebrating my mom's birthday. I didn't want to leave!

Here's a little Instagram glimpse!

Garage Sales Galore! (22, to be exact!)

Stripes and Dots with my Auntie and Grandma

It was a tiny plane :)

Follow me on Instagram- username misstweedle.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

More birds!

Here is the third bird in our series! Bluejays! Too bad we don't actually have bluejays where we live. I was browsing through a book looking for something other than birds when I saw an illustration that I thought was beautiful- a sky filled with many types of birds. One of them was a bluejay done with watercolour so I decided we would recreate it.

I did a directed drawing and showed the kids how things are made up of shapes and when artists draw things, their sketch is a collection of shapes that they work on and change into something more realistic.

After they drew, we went over them in a fine tipped black pen and then painted using watercolour pencils. The kids were really proud of their "real" looking bluejays.

Wedding Wednesday- The flower girls

I had two of the most beautiful young ladies as my flower girls. It was an honour to have them be a part of the big day as I have known both girls since they were just little wee ones! I thought it was nice to have two girls that were a little older. Although toddler flower girls and ring bearers are pretty darn cute, I know my flower girls will be able to remember the experience of dressing up fancy and being at their first real wedding for the rest of their lives.

I knew right away I wanted plaid taffeta for the girls' dresses. I have always loved plaid and I thought it suited the new years eve holiday wedding theme. Originally, I had my heart set on finding navy and white plaid, but searched high and low on every fabric website, ebay, etsy and fabric store and am now convinced that such a thing doesn't exist.

I had to settle for black and white plaid which turned out beautifully in the end anyway. It balanced out the uneven bridesmaid-groomsmen ratio (7:4) and added a little more black and white to the whole ensemble as the groomsmen were dressed only in black and white with no blue. I found the dresses on an online children's dress shop called Wonderful Dresses. The prices were right, the sizing was accurate and the shipping was free!

As a flower girl's gift, my mom sewed them white fur hand muffs to match my fur stole. This accessory finished off the whole look. They looked so sweet and elegant with those muffs! I also wanted them to have a little bit of blue, so I ordered blue beaded bracelets from this shop on etsy. Alison of AIM Designs made custom child sized ones just for me!

The girls looked so grown up and were so proud to be a part of it all. On top of that, they even hit the dance floor with the rest of us until after midnight! What a night for two 8 and 11 year olds :)

In this picture you can see the blue bracelet they got from me as a gift. 

Aren't they gorgeous?