Lunch and Shopping in Tville

When I saw the Facebook post for the Cyclone Shrimp Wrap, it was all I needed to schedule a lunch date with my favorite 3 year old and his mother. Our local Jonah's Restaurant here is Thomasville, Georgia has a fabulous menu! An afternoon of eating and shopping sounded perfect for a hot Friday afternoon. Take a look at my delicious lunch.

Now, doesn't that just make your mouth water! It was as good as it looks. Also, their hush puppies are the absolute best I have ever tasted.

Since there was a line outside the restaurant, I couldn't get a picture of the front of the place without someone being in the picture. Here is the best I could do.

If you visit Thomasville, you must try Jonah's Fish and Grits. It is located at 109 East Jackson Street, Thomasville, Georgia. This is a link to their website .
And, here is a link to their Facebook page .

After lunch we were ready for some shopping. I had heard about a new shop called The Pale Moon. Off we went to go check it out. Oh my goodness, they had some cute things. Tons of tops, pants, purses, and jewelry. It is an adorable shop. Here are so pictures of the inside:

Before we went home, we stopped at a place called Hawaii Snow and had a nice refreshing snow cone. I think we deserved it after all that hard shopping!

Any hoo, after that delightful experience, it was time to go home to do some work.

For great baby gifts, remember to visit The Polka Dot Store .

Summer Monograms

School is out in south Georgia and it is beach time. We are headed to Jamaica this week for a short vacation. Along with getting orders processed and shipped, I've been doing some monogramming for myself. This is highly usual for me!

Since my first name initial is a "d", it is hard for me to find fonts where I am satisfied with the capital d. For the monograms in the picture, I selected the Victor font.

The straw hat is from last year but I included it in the picture anyway. I love the colors this season. The tropical blues and greens are such happy colors. They remind me of beach breezes and cool sand. The font used on the hat is one of the Arabesque fonts in my collection.

If you look closely on the white terry zip bag, you will see I stitched buttonholes and added ribbon. Pretty cute, right?

Now back to customer orders. I had lots of fun monogramming beach towels for a customer to give for graduation presents. Here is a pic.

Selby is stitched in black thread using the Sweet Script font. I just love it! The rest of the names are stitched using the Diary font. Pretty cute, don't you think?

Enjoy summer!

Shop for all your baby gifts at The Polka Dot Store

Grassroots Coffee Thomasville, Georgia

 One morning when I was in downtown Thomasville, I was hungry and    wanted a cup of coffee. GRASSROOTS COFFEE was the first place that  came to mind! This coffee shop is not only a cool place but it has great  coffee. They feature local art on the wall and the decor is comfortable yet  very chic. You can sit at a table or lounge on comfortable furniture. It is  the best place in town to have a cup of coffee or beverage of choice and  use the wi-fi to catch up on my latest blog post or see what your friends  are doing on Facebook. Some college students even work on their  assignments!

The employees always seem happy so it must be a great place to work.

Grassroots Coffee is a busy place in the middle of downtown Thomasville on Broad Street. It offers the expected coffees and teas plus delicious food. After looking over the menu, I ordered a regular coffee and an egg biscuit. Since it was a lovely morning, I took my biscuit and coffee to a table outside.

Doesn't that look scumptious!

Here is the link to their website  http://www.grassrootscoffee.com/ . 

If you visit Thomasville, make sure to grab a cup of coffee and something to eat at Grassroots Coffee. It is well worth the trip!

Pinterest New BUY Button

I am so excited about an email I just read from Soldsie! Pinterest has been working on a new BUY button for their website. What fun! You will now be able to purchase items you pin on Pinterest right from Pinterest. How cool will that be! If you want to read more about it, here is the link to their blog post.

https://blog.pinterest.com/en/buyable-pins

Unfortunately, at first, the BUY button will only be available for to use with Apple Pay.so you Apple users will be able to use it in the beginning. I hear Android users will have to wait a while for the BUY button to be available for use.

Since a blog post just isn't special without a picture, here we go!

This is a picture of one of my daylilies called Emerald Bay. Isn't it gorgeous? It is a large full bloom and the front three petals have ruffle edges. Love it!

Easter In Thomasville

How was your Easter weekend? We had a great one! The weather was beautiful, church service was good, and all my children were at home. Smiles all around! My grandson wore a very special outfit first worn by my son when he was about the same age. Here is a picture my husband took before church.

Don't you must love that sweet face! Can you believe that outfit is over 25 years old? The shirt is made from white linen and the pants are a blue cotton fabric.

A friends granddaughter wore one of my girls pink dresses from when they were little. It looked just as good this Easter as it did over 20 years ago. The reason we call it heirloom sewing is simple. If the outfits are taken care of, they will last for generations!

How about some pictures of my Easter decorations? Here goes............

Finally, I asked my husband to take a picture of my children and me. I decided to show you a fun one!

Thanks for joining me at Behind The Monogram!

My New Favorite Cookie Recipe

Normally, all my posts are sewing related or show products from  The Polka Dot Store. Today I have something different for you....my new favorite cookie recipe.

Don't they look good! Well they taste as good as they look. It started with a recipe by Paula Deen and I tweaked it to fit my taste bubs. Here is the recipe:

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Raisin Cookies

•  1 1/2 cups butter, softened
•  1 1/2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
•  3/4 cup sugar
•  3 large eggs
•  1 tablespoon vanilla
•  3 1/2 cups flour
•  1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
•  1/2 salt
•  3 cups oatmeal
•  12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
•  1/2 cup white raisins (optional)
•  1/2 cup toffee chips (approximately) (optional)
•  1 cup chopped pecans (approximately) (optional)

Place ice cream scoop size mounds on a lightly greased cookie sheet. You can also use a piece of parchment paper  or a Silicone mat instead of greasing the cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 14 minutes.

*Note: you can mix and match the ingredients marked "optional" or leave them off. Personally, I like to use all of them if I happen to have them in my pantry! Yummy deliciousness! This makes a LARGE amount of cookies.

Here is another picture of the cookies:

Enjoy!

Heirloom Sewing - My First Love

Welcome to Behind The  Monogram! I know many of you are snowbound, but earlier today in south Georgia the temperature was 87 degrees. Yes, shorts weather! Now it is raining and getting cold. Two exciting things are happening to Thomasville, Georgia this week. We have what is called "First Friday Night" here in Thomasville. It is just as it sounds, there is a celebration, street dance (Swinging Medallions this week), and shopping at our participating downtown shops on the first Friday night of each month. Thomasville is really lovely at night. Here is a picture I took a few weeks ago outside Sweet Grass Dairy while downtown at a meeting with friends:

This is the store front at Sweet Grass Dairy.

The second really exciting thing happening is that HGTV is in town shooting an episode of "Restore America". One of the old homes on Monroe street is getting a makeover. Since I drive within a block of it every day, I shot a picture from the car to show you. These guys are hard at work and it is lunch time!

The HGTV crew has been seen at different locations doing interviews, eating lunch, and taking on location shots. Pretty cool!

O.K., enough rambling and onto the blog topic. Since the first of the year, I have been trying to make time for one of my passions, Smocking and Heirloom Sewing. If you have read the "about me" section of the blog, you know I have been doing smocking and heirloom sewing for over 30 years. I've taught it and done custom sewing using the techniques. Life and has been crazy the past few years (can we say 5 - 10 years) and I haven't been able to find time for it. I am so excited to be enjoying it again! Here are a few of my latest projects hoping to make an appearance soon on the website:

Smocked Imperial Batiste Baby Dress with Scalloped Hem

Smocked Roses Daygown with Tatting

Smocked Heirloom Daygown made with Imperial Batiste and French Lace

There are more projects planned and I look forward to sharing them with you later! Until next time, remember to shop at The Polka Dot Store for the finest quality baby gifts and accessories.

Shopping Online

Hi, everyone! It is a beautiful day here in south Georgia. The temperature is a little cool but the sun is out in all its glory. I took a picture of my view as I sit here writing this post.

I think a lot about my customers experience on my website. Ease in navigation (founding your way around), page load time, and checkout experience are all very important. Here is another discussion I have in my head; How can my customers easily put together outfits with items selected from different pages? O.k., so I haven't figured out how to have multiple or coordinating items grouped together. I do my own layout and coding so it takes me a little while to out how to do something new and different. :)

Here are some pictures of outfits I put together and took pictures of for you.

This red gown, polka dot cap, and velvet bow socks would make a great Valentine Outfit. You could add a monogram, name, applique or saying on the gown.

                                          Boy "Take Me Home" outfit.

Blue dot onesie with pale blue cap, pants, and socks.

Dinosaur Set and Socks

Dinosaur knit top, pant, and socks by Mud Pie.

   Cute "Take Me Hone" Outfit.                        Pink Lamb Outfit by 3 Marthas

Little Pink Lamb appliqued Onesie, burp cloth,
and panty. The panty has the same appliqued
lamb on the back seat as the onesie and burp.

Pink gown, paci clip, cap, and booties.



 Adventure on the wild side

Pink polka dot onesie, pink knit
pant, elephant paci clip, adorable
socks.

              Only the outfits by 3 Marthas and Mud Pie are from the same manufacturers. The rest of the pictures show a combination of items from different manufacturers and how easy it is to coordinate them together.

I hope this post helps get you thinking about how to pair up different items to make an adorable baby gift. As always, if I can help in any way, please let me know. You can find all these items here .

January 2015

Hi, ya'll! Nope I have not disappeared. I am still here. Just haven't posted in a while. It is on my list to post more this year. "What have I been up to?", you ask. Bookkeeping, bookkeeping, and more bookkeeping. I have to admit, I put off doing my books until the last minute. Even with all the b.....keeping, there has been time for some fun "stuff". One of my favorite things about having The Polka Dot Store.com is getting to build the designs and run the monogram machine. I am still mesmerized by the monogram machine, a.k.a. "Big Bertha".

Blankets have been the top sellers this past week. As you may know, Little Giraffe blankets are top of the line luxurious blankets for your special baby. Toddlers and grown up alike cherish these soft touchable products. The first picture is the Blue Moroccan Chenille Blanket stitched in medium blue thread with Arial font.

This is the gorgeous Pink Moroccan Chenille Blanket stitched in Sea Green Thread using the Jester font.

Creme Faux Fur Blanket by Pickles Journey (Scene Weaver) looks great monogrammed in Steel Gray thread and the Jester font. This blanket is temporarily out of stock but will be available soon.

There are so many different weights for blankets. One of the most useful is a single layer flannel blanket. This one by Swaddle Designs can be used for swaddling, sun cover, stroller cover, tummy time, or a light weight summer blanket. Moms also use it as a nursing cover. The monogram is Elegant stitched in light pink thread.

All three of the blankets featured above can be found here .

One of our all time best sellers has been the Waggles Lovie by Bearington Baby shown here monogrammed in the Blackboard font in Pecan color thread. Yep, he is adorable! 

                            

I hope you have enjoyed seeing of the recently personalized items available at The Polka Dot Store.com. See you again soon! I promise it won't be as long between posts. wink, wink.

Great Gifts For Babies

This week I am getting ready to participate in The Merry Marketplace event put on by the Junior Service League of Valdosta, Georgia. Can you say "Wow, that must be a lot of work!"? Yep, it is but these shows are so much fun and I get to meet great people. Anyway, while I was deciding what to take, I got to thinking about displaying my merchandise. One thing I find hard to do with an online store is show how different items can come together and make a great gift. That got me to thinking...................Blog Post!

I didn't take pictures of all the items together because,
1. It was too dark when I thought of the idea. And
2. I like how the individual pictures can bring together a "whole" picture.

For example, look at this series of pictures: O.K., so you want a cute outfit for Christmas morning. First, take a red gown..........

Then add some adorable socks.........

Next add a big flower headbandor

maybe a polka dot cap. You could finish the outfit with a smocked Christmas bib............

or how about pearls!

Just think, it all started with a simple little red knit gown.

We can do the same kind of thing for a little boy whose daddy loves to hunt.

First take this cute convertible romper...........

add a matching cap (the two really do match in real life)

add a cute little bib to clean up drools and you are set!

It can be a daunting task trying to put together outfits when shopping online but that is where great customer service come into play. Shoot me an email, letting me know what you are thinking about, a price range, and I will gladly put together some suggestions for you!