Let Freedom Ring

Have a wonderful and safe Independence day!

A great day for some Urban Mining and Good JuJu~Wyandotte County Photographer~

I had a great day shopping with my good friend and yoga buddy Michelle. Our first stop was Urban Mining Homewares. We found some great items and inspiration for our studios.Saw the mayor again..of course I was a complete dork and had to have a pic with him!The best part was the lovely women I met that day. I happen to be in Kathy's space, I sure thought she looked familiar. I was just sure that I knew her from Vintiques, then she mentioned this...This artical had been in yesterday morning's paper.

We even got a little history lesson about Good JuJU and the orginal Vintiques from sweet Ro.You must check out her space. She has some great finds. What I love most about going to these stores are the displays these ladies put together. I am such a visual person and it is fun to see how others put things together. It really is eye candy for me!

After we had browsed and oooed and awwed over everything we made our way back to the very first space that we had stopped at. We first stopped here because we were drawn to this darling drawer filled with great little goodies. She also had packs of vintage images! It was definately the booth for us. I was so happy when Kathy spotted us going through the drawer. She was such a delight to meet.
This is me, Ro, and Kathy. Shame on us for not getting Michelle in this picture!! Kathy is the co-designer with her sister Susie of Vimsey(vintage whimsey, love the name!!). When Vintiques was still open they had their art displayed for purchase. They have the coolest ideas for using found objects to put together their art, I just love the creativity.

I was on the hunt for jars and some things for organizing my supplies better in my studio. I had been purchasing jars to create "craft jars" for my Etsy shop. However, I decided to use them to store my many small obejects that I have so much of, clips(I have a thing for clips), buttons (gotta real bad thing for buttons), beads, knobs and so on. I thought jars would be great! I can see them, I can easily dump and sort them. Well I cam across several jars, most wer missing lids or the necks were to small. I did manage to find one..well Michelle found it for me. I was having a hard time concentrating. I had a venti coffee and I felt like I was bouncing off the walls. I had cut out a lot of caffeine so it really had been a while since I had some. I am surprised that I did not get a headache!! Along with the jar I got a 1974(the year I was born) calendar towel, , a cute vintage craft book that I cannot wait to make a journal out of, and this darling shelf. My sweet friend Kara has a fantastic shelf in her studio that I just love and it reminds me of hers..that I would love to have. This one will do just fine!

I am also always on the lookout for fantastic props to use with my clients. I have been looking for a small childs chair and I found the perfect one in Kathy's(Vimsey)space. It is perfect..
it actually looks a lot like one I had when I was little..except this one is red.

After Urban Mining we stopped off at Good JuJu to peruse their spaces. Michell again found me a great find..
this fab suitcase, this will also be used for my photography. I have one already but I love the color of this one, and it was a steal at five bucks!

I had oodles and oodles of fun! Can't wait until next month!
Have a great weekend!!

Please try this at home!

I just had to share what I made my kiddos for din din before I dragged them off to a practice shoot last night with my fabulous new chair prop!! (will show some of those pics later) I saw this on some website a while back..please forgive me as I have lost the addy when my computer crashed recently. This is so super easy to make!Kellee, Michelle and Kara..I bet Mr. W, Mr J and Mr. S would love these!! Miss S sure did!!Start with a package of hotdogs, and spaghetti(i used fettucini cause I was out of spaghetti and it worked great.
Cut the hotdogs into one inch chunks and then slide the dry pasta through the center of the dog!This is what they should look similar to when you are done.
While you are cutting the dogs have your water on the stove with a fire under it and bring it to a boil like you normally would. Once you have the water boiling put in the noodles and dogs. Tonight I only used three hotdogs..was not completely sure my kiddos would dig this. So I had part hotdogs with noodles coming out and the rest was just noodles and I cooked it all the same as it says on the package of noodles. When they are done they should look something like this! Here is a close up!!
Yummerific! You will have to be sure and tell me what you think when you try them!!

Don't try this at home!!

Wow what a blog-cation! Glad to be back..been busy around the Gripp household! Things have settled down and are in a good summer groove right now! I have lots to fill all of you in on.

The following pics are of my kiddos, Mr. N, Miss S and friend at a local park. I have wanted a picture like this of them for a while. Boy was I sick after it was all over. I am going to try again though because most of them turned out pretty blurry or I was looking up at them and the background is mostly sky so it is hard to see the blur effect that I was after.

We were at Wyandotte County Lake Park on the merry go round. I was sitting in the center and there are several other kiddos on here with mine..hence why I chopped Mr. N's hands off in this pic. Kind of hard to tell a bunch of kids to take a hike..I want to take some pics of my kids only please! Ha!
Here is Miss S with her friend Miss PMy suggestion is if you decide to try this..take some dramamine. LOL actually I might have been fine if I had not just eaten before we left.
Enjoy!

Happy May Day!!

Have a great weekend!!