Holly Doodle Designs

Hey girlies… with flickr being down, I don’t know if you’ve seen my new flea market friday pics, so here ya go.

Hope to see ya tonight at 7:30 central!

First of all, thank you so much to all you wonderful friends who were praying for my sweet family to get better and those who left such thoughtful comments.  We’re all still kinda weak and not all the way back, but I do believe we’re finally on the mend!  Praise the Lord!  I don’t remember being that sick in a long time, and with two kiddos sick too, whew, I’m glad it’s over!

Ok, moving on to happier things!  The picture above is of a special order tiara I made for a dear friend and client.  I sent her pictures for approval a few hours ago, I so hope she likes it.  She is a very detail oriented gal, which I so relate to because so am I.  Every detail in this crown is one that she requested.  It was fun to work with her because I feel like she gave me all the ingredients and then set me free to bring them together for her.  Among her requests for her dream tiara were bunnies, butterflies, fairy ballerinas, the colors pink, lavender and white (with low contrast between them, no brights), lots of sparkle, tulle, and clear glass glitter.  She wanted a fairy tale feel.  I hope I’ve created something she will enjoy!  What a fun project.  Thank you, dear friend.

OK, here’s a funny story for you.  My little sister’s wedding was this weekend (she was SOOO beautiful, by the way!) and so I was shopping for a decent bra and camisole.  Don’t you HATE bra shopping?!!  I mean come on.  I think I’d rather poke my eyes out.  I had my 2 year old with me too, so I was shakin my money makers in the dressing room while my two year old was yelling things like “Mama! you shake your nurses!” (he calls them that…LOL… his whole life either I or my sister have been nursing a baby, so go figure!).  Ugh.  I have to shake, jump and bounce around.  I wanna make sure the bra can withstand the pressure of chasing 2 boys around a backyard without driving the underwire into my armpits or giving me the oh-so-lovely boob muffin-top look.  ANYWAY…. when I made my selection I went to the front and while writing my check I sort of mused out loud that it was leap year this year.  The girl checking me out said “Oh.  What’s that?”.  I just sorta looked at her funny, thinking maybe she was kidding. nope. not kidding.  I said “Every four years we have 29 days in February” and she said “how many do we usually have?”.  Again, I gave the puzzled look.  I said “28″.  She said “Oh.  I never really paid attention”.  Again, with my look. Then she laughed and went on to say in a weird sort of proud way that she probably looked dumb and I said “well, no…. did they teach you this in school?” she didn’t know. THIS WAS THE MANAGER of the store.  Can you believe that?  *sigh*  I feel like an old gramma here, but kids these days!  I didn’t dare explain to her the REASON we have leap year.  I was worried her brain might explode from the strain.  She was about 19 or so.  I PROMISE you, I’ve known what leap year was since I was in early elementary school!  Whatever!

In other non-boob related news, I’m having Flea Market Friday this Friday.  It’s Leap Year Friday, in case you didn’t know!  LOL…. I’ll have lots of fun things like vintage nut cup party favors, perfect for displaying your Easter eggs, vintage rhinestone jewelry, and some other fun things.  I hope you’ll join me at 7:30 pm central time on this Friday evening.

 OK, I think I may have shared a little TOO much about my bra shopping experience, so I think I’ll stop here!  Have a wonderful day!

I’m so sorry I’ve been so out of the loop lately.  We have had the weirdest couple of weeks!  Both of my sweet boys and I have had that awful throwing up thing TWICE in about a 2 or 3 week period.  It’s terrible, it cycled through us all once, then again!  Also we’ve all had flu like simptoms too, so it’s a coughing, sniffling, achy, yucky mess around here.  I have been spraying every surface with lysol and scrubbing with bleach in an attempt to stave off another round!  It’s so sad to see a little two or five year old with this stuff.

 BUT, all regular orders have been shipped and I am slowly working on my special orders for crowns.  It definitely slowed me down quite a bit, but I’m feeling like we may finally be on the mend now.  Thanks for your patience with my blogging and special orders.

I’ll be back later with some pretty pictures, just wanted to poke my head in and say hi and explain why I’ve been AWOL!

xoxoxo
Holly

My husband picked a number and IRMA A., comment number 45… you are the winner of my blog give-away!  Send me your address so I can send of your goody bag.

Thank you to EVERYONE who left such SWEET comments on my birthday post.  I am overwhelmed by your kindness and encouragment.

I am so grateful for you, my sweet friends.  Thank you for enriching my life.

xo
Holly

Today is my one year blog anniversary.  I truly cannot believe it’s been an entire year!  Time has just flown by, probably because I’ve had so much fun!  It’s been such a blessing, this blogging community.  I’m so thankful to have found you all and so so grateful for the experiences and people and friendships this blog has given me.

To celebrate, I thought I’d put together a few of my favorite things as a giveaway to one of you.  Here is my little goody bag for you.

To enter the give-away, just leave a comment here between now and Monday night when I’ll draw a winning name.  The goodies you’ll receive include:

This FABULOUS pink VINTAGE nut cup party favor.  I LOVE LOVE this.  It even has two tiny little crepe paper flowers on the handle!

You’ll also get this amazing little baby…. This is actually a vintage crepe paper nut cup too!  It’s in the shape of a rose….. here are more pictures so you can see better how it works:

See how the center has a little candy cup liner in it?  So fun!  Here it is loaded with some jelly beans:

If you’re the winner, you’ll also get some fun vintage millinery:

and you’ll also get this fun little cake box filled with yummy mother-of-pearl buttons and some vintage rhinestones:

I hope you like the bundle of goodies I’ve gathered for you!  Thank you so much for making this year so much fun and giving me such joy.

xo

I have had a crazy couple of weeks, let me tell ya!  My littlest one is sick AGAIN and so much has been going on.  Sorry for being AWOL from here lately.  I’ve been wanting to show you this so you could make one too!  Isn’t this just delicious?  I saw something like it in Victoria and wanted to try it myself, so I did.  Of course I couldn’t find the Victoria to get the directions, so I just winged it!

It’s a yummy spring garland I made in all of 20 minutes with my kids underfoot, so you know it ain’t complicated.

Here’s how to do it…. I took a length of seam binding…. oh, maybe 2 yards (I didn’t even measure mine…. ha ha) and just begin tying on bits of seam binding, ribbon and lace along the length of the ribbon.  Then hot-glue on millinery flowers on top of all the tied on places and tiny ones in-between (i used barely any hot glue, in case I wanna use the flowers for something else someday…).  Viola!  That’s IT!  CANNOT be easier.  And you don’t have to use vintage millinery, you could make a gorgeous one with silk flowers too.  I think I may make a couple out of silk flowers to go over my niece’s windows in their bedroom.  Hmmm…. Yep.  Think I will.  You should make one too.  And show me pictures of it! 

Here are some closer shots, but my fave is the one at the top with it all wrapped up together.  It think I need to make a few more for impact.

Ok, I’m off to work on some special orders I have, but I can’t wait to see all the beautiful spring things you gals are creating!  Oh, also…. my one year blog anniversary is Saturday so check in for a giveaway.  And I’ll also be finally listing some of the Easter Parade carts soon, and I’ll let you know when.

I’ve been collecting some beautiful things for some time with the idea to make just a pure luxury embellishment pack.  I finally made up 8 of them, 3 soft pink, one darker pink, 3 blue, one aqua.  I hope you like them!  They’re in the shop now under EMBELLISHMENS over there in the side bar.

You’ll recieve a yard of new old stock vintage velvet ribbon, a rhinestone piece (or pieces), new old stock velvet millinery leaves……dozens of them….attached to a wired backing.  They’re easily removed and I know this because I’ve been using them like crazy lately.  You’ll also recieve 4 vintage mother of pearl buttons.  So beautiful.

I hope you like them!

Oh, I’m SO loving this fun bracelet I made out of vintage rhinestone bits and pieces and old rosary beads.  LOVE LOVE LOVE IT.  It’s actually way cooler in real life, but it’s past midnight and this is the best picture I could get!  I love it so much I’m gifting it to myself!  Remember one of my resolutions was to make more art just to enjoy and use my good stuff, so that’s what I did with this.   I am going to make more bracelets and necklaces like this, and I’ll let you know here when I finish them.

Oh, also, I just noticed that my one year blog anniversary is in one week!  Wow.  I’m sorta shocked that it’s been a year since I started this blog.  I think…. I hope… I’ve grown in so since starting it.  What a beautiful thing the internet can be!  I’ll do a cool giveaway, just give me a few days to think about what I’m gonna give and I’ll get back to you on that here.  The 16th is the anniversary date, which I think is a Saturday.  Be sure to be here that day for some fun.

 In other gifty news, tomorrow is the party celebrating the seventh birthday of my beautiful and OH SO SWEET little niece.  She is such a joy and the sweetest little child you can imagine.  I have loved every minute of knowing this amazing baby and I just cannot believe she is already 7 years old!  She’ll celebrate tomorrow missing her two front teeth, isn’t that fantastic?!  he he…  So, anyhoo, of course I had to make her a birthday crown and here is what I did for her.

So tomorrow I’ll be dancing my cake off to Hannah Montana…. cause it’s the BEST of BOTH WORLDS… la la la

xo

holly

Remember last week when I showed you that I pick up little wedding toppers and other related things now and then when I see them on the cheap?  Well, it was sort of an accidental collection.  Isn’t that the best kind?  You see something you love at a great price and it sort of kicks off a whole collection of pretty little things. 

Anyway, I was cruising around ebay the other day and look what I stumbled on to.  All three of these cost me 9.99 plus shipping… can’t remember what the shipping was, but not much.  I got all three of them in that one price together.  I don’t know ANYTHING about dolls, but they are so sweet, don’t you think?  They have eyes that shut when you lay them down and I love that they’re wedding dolls.  I love the details of the dollies’ dresses and just all the sweet vintagey apeal of them.  I think they’re from maybe the 50’s or so… give or take… and they are possibly called Nancy Ann Storybook Dolls, which means nothing to me, but I think that’s what they are.  Aren’t they darling?

I have two sons, whom I wouldn’t trade for anything, but OH! Wouldn’t it be fun to have a daughter to decorate for!  I would have such a wonderful time foofing up her bedroom.  Since that probably ain’t gonna happen, maybe I should just foof things up for myself!  There’s a thought.

This week has been so tough, that horrible stomache virus has been making the rounds through every member of my little family and we’ve all had a horrible time with it.  My poor little babies.  But, hopefully we’re all starting down the road to recovery now.  That stuff is just the worst, isn’t it?  So funny… today, I went to the post office to mail off some orders and before I left, my 5 year old said “Ok mama… you can go, but tell dad that while I’m throwing up I like to have my back rubbed, OK?”  LOL…. So I did!  So gross.

Forgive the poor lighting on my pictures.  This week our computer also bit the dust and I’m using an old one that my sweet husband rigged up for me until he can get the other repaired (which he’s doing himself… he’s so amazing!).  But, I don’t have ANY photo editing software on this computer and I took these pics at night, so this is straight out of the camera at night… not the best, but you still get the idea!

SO, what collections have you STUMBLED on?  I’d love to hear what you collect and how you got started collecting that thing.

Have a great Day!

***edit 2/6 sold out, thank you!  All orders have shipped 2/6 or will ship 2/7.***

I’ve had several requests for smaller packs of my vintage wallpaper, so I decided to oblige you.  I just listed some grab packs…. You’ll get TEN sheets of random sizes (none smaller than 8×10) and of RANDOM PATTERNS of any of my gorgeous vintage wallpapers.  Most of my papers are from the late 1800s to mid 1900s.  They are all gorgeous colors and patterns, including some flocked patterns.  I can’t take special requests for specific patterns, but rest assured that they are all stunning, no ugly filler stuff here. 

Here are more pictures of some of the papers I have that you will get a random selection.  I have more papers not shown, just as gorgeous.

The packs are ONLY $9.95!  That’s 10 sheets for $9.95.  A fun and inexpensive way to get some really beautiful papers.  More pictures:

You can get the papers in the Vintage Wallpaper section of my shop (in the top right of my sidebar).  Hope you like this fun way to have paper on the cheap!

xo
Holly