Parsnip's Icky Sticky Day

Seriously, Dog, WHO STEPS IN GUM?!

Parsnip and I brought lunch to the Hubs today and hung around the Irvine Spectrum to do some shopping. After I toted her around Forever 21 trying to decide which tank tops to buy, I figured it was Parsnip's turn to do some browsing of her own. She chose to check out the fire hydrants outside the store, and next thing I know, there's this big blue wad of gum on her paw! We headed over to the pet store and a nice lady wiped off the majority of it before we headed home.


She's smiling because her gum-stint cut our shopping spree short and she didn't have to go to Old Navy.

OC Doxies event at Muttropolis Fashion Island

Parsnip and I belong to a Dachshund meetup group called OC Doxies. My super talented pet photographer friend, Lou of Scratch and Sniff Photo is the organizer (more on her later, she deserves her own post!). All the cool dachshunds in Orange County come to our events! This month's event was at Muttropolis at Fashion Island. Naturally, we had to wear new outfits for such a fancy venue!

On our way to Muttropolis, we stopped by the Apple store to see if we could get our free bumpers. We left empty handed, but not without a photo op of Parsnip in front of a ridiculously large netflix envelope!

Muttropolis was SUPER accommodating. They had treat bags for every dachshund and cocktail weiners and wine for the 2-legged guests.

Parsnip had a great time meeting up with her doxie friends, and I had a wonderful time catching up with my pal Lou! (I was too busy pulling Parsnip out from under displays where she was eating falling snacks that I didn't have time to take any pics. Both of the pics from Muttropolis are courtesy of her!)

We love the OC Doxies group! If you have a dachshund and live in Orange County, you should DEFINITELY check it out!

(you can see my dachshund clip!)

The Reason for my Absence

Oh em gee has it really been over a week since my last post? Let this picture explain:
Parsnip has 2 yorkie cousins, Rocky and Wolfgang. My sister and brother-in-law decided to high-tail it to Mexico, so we got the luxury of yorkie-sitting! Parsnip really enjoys having her cousins here. She lets them sleep on her couch and play with her toy. She even shares her mommy and daddy with them!

The only problem is that the yorkies don't play back.

Long story short, I took the week off to tend to the furry beasts in our apartment. But back to our regularly scheduled ramblings...

Parsnip Gets Mail!

Parsnip never gets mail! I wonder what it could be!

It's from Aimee of Metamorph Designs! About a week ago, Parsnip lost her tag in the ocean. If you missed that story, you can read about it here.

As soon as she opened it, she gave her new tag a big kiss! (Notice the fabric scraps on the ground? Yeah, welcome to my world)

Here's our favorite part...the parsnip on the back!


Thank you so much, Aimee! We love it!

Matching Yellow Stripe Outfits

This skirt was supposed to be a really cute sundress. I spent all afternoon cutting, ruffling, measuring, and it looked like a prairie dress that I would use to churn butter. I even had bright ideas to turn it into some type of strapless dress, but I finally came to the realization that the most flattering outfit for my body are skirt and tank separates. At least I made a sad attempt to tie the two together by tying a scrap of material to my shoulder!



When I was taking these pictures, Parsnip looked at the dress, looked at the fabric scraps, then looked back at me. 10 minutes later, this is what happened:

Thanks to the freakish July gloom socal has been experiencing, Parsnip has been moping on the couch all week long. Despite wearing her sunny new yellow striped dress, she has taken back her throne and is currently watching reruns of Whose Wedding is it Anyway.

Rollerblading in Balboa

The Hubs works for a private company that gives all floating holidays, so he wasn't originally planning on taking today off. After waking up at 6:30, getting dressed, driving all the way to his office, only to find NO ONE there, he came back and we made plans to do something completely crazy. It was the perfect day to take Parsnip rollerblading at the beach.

Our original plan was to rollerblade from Venice to Santa Monica, but since it took us 2 hours to drive back to the OC from Pasadena last night, we opted to the much closer Balboa Island. I'm really glad we decided on the closer venture because 2 minutes into our adventure, this happened:
That's right. The Hubs snapped off my rollerblade strap. It was so loud that a passerby even let out an audible, "Oh no!" But since my dad gifted me with his humongo large calves, I was able to rollerblade without closing the top strap.



Parsnip and I sported our matching striped dresses and we turned many-a-head as we zoomed by. She even got to ride on the ferry to Balboa Peninsula! Parsnip was a trooper and didn't even laugh when I totally ate it coming off a curb. The Hubs bought me not one, not two, but three desserts to mend my wounds.

Happy 4th of July!

Here's what Parsnip and I are sporting today. I whipped these up yesterday after holding onto the fabric for at least a month.

I got the flower fabric at Joann's because I just had to have it, despite it being $5/yard. It reminded me so much of Liberty of London and it was just the right amount of patriotism for our Fourth of July outfits.

Here's a better picture of Parsnip's dress. I'm thinking about putting it in the etsy shop because I have leftover material.

See Parsnip's tongue action? She's excited to go over to her Auntie's house to play with her Yorkie Cousins! We're off to see the Rose Bowl Fireworks in Pasadena and eat our fill of hot dogs and corn bread!

Matching Zebra Outfits

Remember the Zebra Twirly I made here? Parsnip decided that she needed her own zebra dress.

It's been awhile since I created something new for the etsy shop, but you can find the zebra dress here! Blog and facebook fans get FREE SHIPPING on this introductory listing! Just let me know you're a fan in the message to seller!

Parsnip loves modeling...

...especially when treatsies are involved! If you look closely, you can actually see the remnants of one in her mouth. How ladylike!

A Sad Day at the Beach

Remember Parsnip's tag from Metamorph Designs that I was raving about just a couple of posts ago? Parsnip lost it somewhere in the Pacific Ocean today.

She was playing fetch with her Daddy before the incident happened. She also got picked on by a much larger dog named Duke, but that's another story.

She looked in the rocks...

She looked in the ocean...

...but to no avail :( Looks like we'll have to get a new one from Metamorph Designs!

Dollar Store T-Shirt Matching Dresses

I will fully own that this is crazy-dog lady status. But I turned this:into...
this!

This was a relatively easy refashion made from 2 dollar store XL tee shirts. I cut a ruffle from one shirt and added it to the bottom of one shirt (or else this would so not be pre-school appropriate). I cut off the sleeves and neck, folded over the top, and essentially sewed up the sides to make a tube dress. I cut some more strips from the ruffle shirt and sewed them on where my undergarment straps tend to fall. Super easy-peasy and I didn't even have to hem anything under!

Since I found another shirt, Parsnip also got this:

I think her hair rosette is rather Aretha of her. Right after I snapped this picture, the Hubs came in the back gate and she promptly peed all over the back patio.

Here's an insider look on how the Hubs managed to get a decent picture of us in our matching outifts:
Treatsies!

We Love Metamorph Designs!

I don't know where or when Parsnip started doing this looking straight into the camera look, but I think it's so funny. I didn't want to put her in an outfit because I didn't want to distract from her tag! (so I promptly tied a silly bow around her head and called it a day.)

Aimee from Metamorph Designs made this custom tag for Parsnip over on etsy.Now there's a few reasons I love this design:
1) She let me pick everything from the text to the colors to match Parsnip's harness and leash
2) There was room enough to put all the information we needed, shy of Parsnip's social security number and her mother's maiden name
3) Let this next picture speak for itself:
THERE'S A PARSNIP ON THE BACK. How cool is that!

We love you, Metamorph Designs! Check out Aimee on her blog, on facebook, and in her etsy store!

Hey Guys, What's New!

When I started this blog, I had all good intentions of updating every single day with fun new pictures of Parsnip.

That lasted all of one week.

As an apology, here's a sneak peek of a brand new design!



Welcome Princess Daisy! Princess Daisy is a lesser known Princess in the world of Mario. She is sometimes romantically linked to Luigi and likes the colors yellow and orange.





This also rounds out the Mario Set in the shop:

I also found some time to make something for myself! For awhile, I was making things for myself every night, but I recently had a week and a half dry spell! Here's what I came up with tonight:It's the same general idea as the elephant skirt, but I tweaked the measurements so it wouldn't be so ghastly long and loose. I looooooove these skirts and automatically start twirling every time I put one on!


And because every post isn't completely without a Daily Parsnip:We decided that Parsnip has been such a good girl that we would get her her own iphone! Juuuuuust kidding :)

Quick Birthday Update

Not only was it my birthday this past Sunday (Father's Day), but it was also my sewing machine's birthday! I got my sewing machine as a birthday present last year from my awesome in-laws.

I'm still recovering from a no-sew/no-blog/no-etsy weekend, so here's a couple of quick pictures:

This was my birthday elephant skirt I made in honor of going to the Wild Animal Park.

and yes, we did see elephants :)

I had a great time with my sister and the Hubs!

Parting (with fabric) is Such Sweet Sorrow

I think this is a common feeling among crafters. You go to the fabric store, find the fabric, and then it sits in your fabric box just waiting for the right occasion. I get this feeling big time. On top of that, whenever I have to use the fabric to fulfill an order, a little piece inside of me balls up as I package it in brown paper and send it to its new owner. And its not like I don't have enough fabric (believe me, I do). But I searched for this fabric, and fell in love with this fabric, and brought it home with me to make it into something someone would love.

This was my first fabric haul right after I discovered M&L Fabricsin Anaheim. I went every weekend for an entire month after that.

This was my second haul when I discovered the Goldenwest Swap Meet, another place that has become so familiar that the sellers are beginning to expect us every weekend. My sister and I love this place so much that this ends up happening:
We leave with BAGFULS of material and the Hubs has to help us lug it to the car.

As I started to get more comfortable buying fabric in bulk, my hauls started to get larger:
It gets to the point where I start flinging fabric every left and right saying, "I'll take this one! And this one! AND THIS ONE!" But the question is, when does it get out of hand?

This was my fabric haul of last weekend. But even with buying up to 5 yards of fabric in each color, I still find myself wishing I bought more.

I think I'm going to have to make my minimum 7 yards per design.

...the Hubs is going to be maaaaad...