Some soul (and sole) lovin'

Two weekends ago, Noah and I had the chance to get away for the weekend and since it was exactly a year since he had proposed, we decided to go back to the scene of the crime :) . If you have not read our engagement story, I would highly recommend you do because he did an incredible job planning it and making it such a special time. Read the story here.

This time we went up as a married couple and got to enjoy all the memories that Oregon and Lithia park hold for us. We stayed in our favorite little place, Jacksonville. We stayed in the most precious little B&B called the Magnolia Inn and had such a great experience there. This was a much needed soul lovin' trip. The hustle and bustle of where we live can get to me sometimes so it was so nice to have the chance to go and rest. Coming back home was pretty rough I must admit. I had a pretty sad car ride home. However, on a happy note it was a fantastic trip. Lots of antique stores around and I was able to pick up a pretty awesome old suit case.

Just a couple pictures of our trip for you to enjoy :)

this is the Inn. The summer time is beautiful with all the flower beds in bloom but even in February it was a wonderfully charming place :)

As the title of this blog entry suggests, there was both soul lovin' and sole lovin'. So, with that said I would like to introduce my latest DIY project!

I would like to appologize now for the lack of 'how to' pictures as well as the poor quality of the ones I have. I have no control over when inspiration strikes and night time in our apartment is very yellow from the lights. So, sorry! but I think you will get the idea pretty quickly :)

Here is what you will need:

- 1 pair of TOMS (or other canvas shoe that you can embroider)
- Embroidery floss (I used 3 colors)
- A needle
- scissors

Pick what color you want to be the out side of the triangle and cut a long piece of the embroidery floss. I am not sure how long I cut mine, I always just eyeball it...but writing this I wish I would have measured :) thread your needle and tie a knot at the other end and start on the inside of the shoe. You can start on either side of the shoe, it doesn't really matter.
stitch from the inside to the outside and then down at a diagonal to create one side of the triangle. This is the hard part to explain but your needle and thread should now be on the inside of the shoe, so take the needle and go back through to the outside at almost the same point that you went in. Once your needle is back on the outside, you will again stitch at a diagonal and slip it through the top of the shoe like this

continue repeating this pattern and you should start to see something like this

once you go all the way around start in with the second color on the inside of the triangles you just made using the same method

And again you will continue all the way around with that color and then do the third color. In the end it should come out looking something like this

You will notice in pictures that I also did a little simple stitching on the 'toes' of my TOMS. There are not any pictures of this as half of the things you do take place on the inside of the shoe. However, it is just a simple stitch following the diagonal seam already on the TOMS. I will give this suggestion, always start your stitching on the end of the diagonal that is closer to the toes of the shoe. It is incredibly hard to tie off your thread when it is that far in the shoe. I only made that mistake once ha!

And again, here is the finished product!

If you give your sole's some love I would be thrilled to see what you come up with!

I hope that your soul has had some lovin' lately. It is refreshing and a much needed part of life. And if not, go do something or go somewhere that fills you with joy and refreshes your soul.

with love from a girl with the day off,

Whitney