inspired by love.

I've been following Love's blog for awhile (years! in fact, she was one of my first customers on etsy!) and am in awe of her sweet spirit.

Reading her blog makes me want to be a better mom :)

Her recent adoption story has been a must read for me and very inspirational. After 4 girls they have adopted an adorable little boy! I couldn't resist sending her a necklace with her new little one's name on it...



The outside ring says "my hands are almost as full as my heart", which was inspired by this post, and her kids' names are on the inside ring.

Grab a cup of coffee and read through Love's blog, you are sure to be touched :)

relaxing and sprucing...

We had an amazing snow on Christmas Eve that left us with a very white Christmas! We've been sledding, making snowmen, having snowball fights, and then warming up with lots of hot chocolate!

Eden loved opening presents- she caught on quickly :)

My parents gift to Ryan and I was a night out, and we already redeemed it! We saw "The Blindside" (really good, true story, a must see!), dinner at IHOP (the only restaurant open) and stayed at The Renaissance hotel. So relaxing and much needed alone time, thank you Mom and Dad!

We had friends over, played spades, Pit and farkle, shopped with gift cards, watched movies with the kids... had a very relaxing weekend :)

Now we are sprucing up the house a bit... it needs new paint!


Ryan has been asking me to pick out backsplash tile and paint colors for our house for months, but I was just so busy I couldn't find what I was looking for. I promised him that over the Christmas break I would get some decisions made...

so does anyone know of a nice, warm brownish taupe color?

merry Christmas Eve.

spent the morning with Ryan's family,

did some last minute shopping,

stocked up on groceries, which is a really good thing since

we have been snowed in!

Enjoying a houseful of family (love that they are stuck here!)

playing with the cousins,

homemade chili,

cupcakes (for Jesus, it's His birthday afterall!),

hot chocolate with extra marshmallows,

snuggling for a good movie (I admit, I fell asleep!)

playing spades,

and just relaxing :)

not in "the mood".

the kids are dressed up

in their cute Christmas outfits,

hair is fixed,

teeth are brushed,

weather is perfect.

feeling like I've really accomplished something at this point.

then as soon as they sat on the steps

and I drew the camera to my face,

eden decided to be in the

"but I don't wanna take a picture!!!!" mood.


*sigh*

I'm tempted to send it!

:)

thank you secret santa...

Last week a package from Amazon arrived in the mail.

The card read "a surprise for you! Merry Christmas Ryan!" And inside was a huge nerf gun. I thought "guys really never grow up", wondering which of his friends sent it.

Then the next day we recieved another package from Amazon. This one had 2 huge nerf guns, and the card read "a surprise for you! Merry Christmas Erin and Caleb!"

And the next day yet another package arrived with 2 more guns, and a card that read (I'm sure you can guess) "a surprise for you! Merry Christmas Jonah and Tessa!"

We now have quite the collection...



We have interrogated our close friends and family and no one is fessing up.

I'm hoping our Secret Santa is a blog reader so we can tell them THANK YOU!

(and maybe they will tell us who they are because we are dying to know!!!)

We have really enjoyed the nerf guns...









even Eden tries to get in on the action...



Thank you Secret Santa (whoever you are!)

whimsy winners!

The randomly chosen winners of anything "whimsy" are:
Whitney
who said: "L.O.V.E. the new font! I just adore all y'all's stuff. I have the dainty names necklace already; it's definitely my favorite piece of jewelery. If I were to be so lucky as to win, I'd want your Hope bracelet. So, so simple and beautiful. I've had my eye on it ever since I saw y'all at Affair of the Heart last (I think) summer."

and

Tali who said "This is my favorite font of yours! Love it. What I would love, if I were so lucky as to be chosen, would be a names necklace very similar to yours but with squares instead of circles - with my trio's names on it - Ella, Jacob and Boden. Gotta have the pearl in there as well!"

and

Lissa who said "I would choose the flower and circle w/my children's names!

LOVE the new "whimsy"!"

Email me ladies! thevintagepearlinfo@gmail.com

shipped!

As of yesterday, all orders from November 24th and before have shipped!

WHEW!

Everything is shipping priority so you will have in just a few days! Most orders can be tracked from our website (just click on the "orders" button to login), but please know that usps.com does not track along the way, is basically just tells you when the label prints and when the package has been delivered.

Thanks to everyone that ordered from us this Christmas season, we sincerely hope the recipients love their gift from us!!!

We are taking a few days to be home with our families, so if email reply is a bit slow it's because we are

baking cookies
or
looking at Chritmas lights
or
drinking hot chocolate
or
snuggling
or
watching movies
or
wrapping presents
or
making gingerbread houses

with our families :)


We will be back in the studio full time right after Christmas!

Don't forget about gift certificates, they make a fabulous last minute gift!

we've been elf'ed...

thanks to Ryan.

See us dance here, it's pretty funny :)

Make one for your family, your kids will crack up!!!

silliness.

A direct result

from lots of late nights

some chocolate

and way too much coffee.

we get a little silly

and make stuff like this:


I think they are pretty cute :)

The middle one is "George" (he reminds us of George Costanza!)

What should we name the other 2?

whimsy {a giveaway!}

We have a new font.

It's fun and playful.

We call it "whimsy".

It's my favorite!

Within minutes of it's arrival last friday I made myself a dainty names necklace...



We are giving away your choice of any piece hand stamped in "whimsy"!

Just leave us a comment, what piece would you choose?

Blog it and tweet it for extra entries.

*we do not have "whimsy" added to the site as an option yet, so if you would like to choose it as your font please type "WHIMSY" in the extra notes box!

Have a fab monday!

yum & yawn.

My good friend Jessica (who helps me a ton with the biz!) loves to cook and keeps us well fed while we work! Last night she brought this layered Mexican Bake Casserole and Amanda brought chips and salsa, so good!



I'll be working all weekend, getting Christmas orders out! It's my busiest time of year, I'm exhausted but love it at the same time!

Christmas orders (ordered before November 25th) will ship Priority by Decemeber 18th... and then I am taking a nap :)

a gift FROM you = a gift FOR you!

Merry Christmas!

note to self:

Hang the candy canes up high.

Otherwise the little person will get ahold of them...



and then gorge on peppermint...



Can't you just see how upset she is that she's been caught?

:)

a sale and a few winners!

My friend Timi (who designed my website!) is having a blog makeover sale! Start 2010 with a new beauti-fied blog here!

**********

The winners of a $50 gift certificate are Shana, who said:

Oh, that's easy. I would give it to my best friend, Allison. I want something special for her for Christmas and think she would LOVE your stuff. This is her 2nd Christmas without her mom, but her 1st Christmas with her new little daughter -- so it will be one of mixed feelings.
Thanks for the chance to win!
Blessings,
Shana
and

Jenn who said:

I REALLY wanted a necklace for xmas, but with the hubby out of work we have to focus on making the holidays special for the kids. So if I won the certificate, I would be a teeny bit selfish and keep it for myself.
Congrats! Email me ladies!

And the winners of the Mickey ornaments are:

Bean, who said:

My husband and I love all things Disney...I'm even sitting here in Mickey Mouse pj's right now! I'd have our last name stamped on it, or even our wedding date-we went to Disneyland for our honeymoon!
and

Deanne, who said:

how awesome! we are telling the kids on Christmas that we are taking them to Disney in Feb! What a great way to tell them ...with an ornament on the tree!!

Email me ladies!

disneyworld (and another giveaway!)

We rode all of the roller coasters
met all of the princesses
had a dance party with Mickey and all of his friends
drank free hot chocolate
ate free sugar cookies
rode Splash Mountain at least 5 times
shopped
went to wonderworks dinner show (a tradition!)

and even snuck over to Cocoa Beach for a day...



While shopping I found these adorable Mickey Mouse ornaments and immediately thought they would be cute with a stamped disc on them! LOVE it on my tree, I just stamped a simple E for our last name, a great momento from our trip!


Would you like one?

I grabbed extras to giveaway! They were too cute not to share :)

Just leave a comment, what would you want stamped on yours? An initial, last name, a date, or ???

Such a sweet gift for any Disney fan :)

Winners for this and that will be picked tomorrow!

i melted.

The kids helped me make cookies... these simple but oh-so delicious sugar cookies that lasted about 15 minutes in our house...


I let the kids measure and pour and mix and roll and cut out the stars and put them on the cookie sheet... they pretty much made the cookies on their own with my guidance of how much and when.

They were so excited.

They made a huge mess.

They loved it.

In the midst of cookie making, one kid leans to the other and whipers, "this is the best day of my whole life!"

I think I melted into a big pile of mommy mush right there on the kitchen floor.

We will be making lots of cookies this year :)

gift certificates { win one! }

We are home. Catching up on laundry. And emails. And editing pictures (coming soon).

And feeling so thankful for the crew that has been working all week long in the vintage pearl studio!!! They are a.ma.zing!

So... I am incredibly bummed we had to cut-off Christmas orders so early this year! We were blessed with thousands of orders, and we just physically could not take anymore orders and guarantee delivery by Christmas!

But we DO have gift certificates!

>

The next best thing... let them pick out what they want :) Every woman loves to shop!

And since we feel so bad about the cut-off (I'm talking IMMENSELY bad here people!), let's giveaway a $50 gift certificate (or 2!)

Just leave a comment with WHO you would give it to or WHAT you would buy (if keeping it for yourself!)

Blog it, tweet it for extra entries... but be sure to let us know!

ps... we have something really fun coming monday!!!!

Happy Friday!!!