Rhymes With Orange featured on A Beautiful Mess!

Our brick-and-mortar shop, Rhymes With Orange, was featured on A Beautiful Mess today in their lovely At Work With... feature! We were so excited when we were contacted by Katie to do the feature right before we left for Thailand and are glad that things have finally settled down so we could participate! In the feature we shared a peek into our daily work lives and what it is like to own your own business.

Hop on over to A Beautiful Mess to take a closer look at our feature and read our full interview. A big thanks to Elsie, Emma, and Katie for supporting our vintage shop! You gals rule. Also a big congrats is in order because these extremely talented ladies just launched their new app which we are totally loving, so if you haven't already, be sure to check out #abeautifulmess on iTunes.

Psst... speaking of Instagram, if you like what you see in our vintage shop but aren't a local we also just re-opened our instagram shop so be sure to check out @thelovelycloset for lots of vintage and vintage-inspired gems! We will also be adding more pieces today!

Lots of love, Stef & Erin
XOXO

2012 in a Nutshell.

Here is a round-up of our favorite posts and highlights from 2012!

JANUARY:

-We celebrated our blog's first birthday! Yay!

-Our vintage boutique Rhymes With Orange also had it's very first press feature! So exciting!

FEBRUARY:

-We shared a cute DIY post on how to make your own scalloped felt iPad case.

-We each gave our tired old dressers a makeover and shared the results in this before & after post.

MARCH:

-We posted a simple tutorial on how to properly set your table with your favorite retro dishes.

-It was Stef's 25th birthday!

APRIL:

-We were lucky enough to go on a month long trip to Thailand, Malyasia, and Bali with our husbands! (photos found here: part 1, 2, 3)

-We also shared a little taste of Thailand with Erin's Tom Yum Soup recipe.

MAY:

-Our little mobile shop got a lot of amazing press in May! We were featured on Conde Nast Traveler as well as the MSN homepage! What an honor!

-We also did a fun spring outfit post with our cute new B.A.I.T. shoes!

JUNE:

-It was Stef's 3 year wedding anniversary in June so in honor of that she shared her 

wedding photos!

-We also made a fun DIY retro wood wall art post.

JULY:

-Our favorite thing to do in summer is eat outside so we shared some tips for hosting outdoor dinner parties.

-On Canada Day we had our first event of the season with our trailer, Olive! It was also one of the hottest days of the year!

AUGUST:

-Erin celebrated her 2 year wedding anniversary in August and shared her wedding photos!

-Stef and Emery went on a little summer trip to New Orleans!

SEPTEMBER:

-Come autumn we decided it was time to give our shop a little facelift so we bought an old hutch and gave it a makeover and we had fun creating back-to-school displays in our front window!

OCTOBER:

-In October we finally opened our vintage kiddo's section! We were so glad to finally check that off our to-do list! Erin's sister Megan also took the cutest promo shots for us featuring our friends' cute little ones!

-After our kid's section was officially launched we went back to Thailand for business/holidays and this time we also made a stop over in Tokyo where we got to visit a Cat Cafe!! (which was a major highlight for us!)

NOVEMBER:

-We were so honored when Elsie asked us to feature our home tours on her blog A Beautiful Mess! (You can check out Erin's home here and Stef's home here.)

-We officially opened our new online shop called 'The Lovely Closet' which you can shop here. Our blog also hit a major milestone during November: we reached one million views! Wow, we are still totally blown away by that!

DECEMBER:

-In December Erin celebrated her 28th birthday and Rhymes With Orange celebrated it's first birthday! Wow, can't believe we have successfully been in business for a year already!

*Whew!* What a year! Time sure flies! So curious to see what this year has in store for us...

Happy 2013!

Love, Stef & Erin

XO

Happy first birthday Rhymes With Orange!

It's hard to believe that only a year ago yesterday we opened the doors to our vintage boutique for the first time! I guess the old saying is true... time sure does fly when you're having fun! We feel truly blessed because our first year of owning and running our own business has gone so incredibly smoothly. That's not to say that we didn't have challenges along the way, but we always managed to overcome them and learn something from them. Running your own shop is a lot of work, but as long as you have a positive attitude and have fun everything seems a lot more manageable (and working with your best friend everyday helps too!)

We just want to take a second to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has helped us out over the past year, especially to our very patient husbands who have supported us in quitting our day jobs to persue our dreams! We couldn't have done it without the unconditonal love and support of our family and friends. You guys are the best!

We thought it would be fun to share a few snapshots from around our shop from the past year...

Awh... we miss summer already!

(all above photos were taken by Simply Rosie.)

We always have so much fun changing up the displays and filling them with new batches of vintage treasures! One of our new years resolutions is to take more photos around the shop to share with you guys, so keep an eye out for more shop updates in the future!

We opened our vintage kiddos section a few months ago which has been a great addition to our shop! We had made it our goal to open this section up before the end of the year and we are so proud to say that we did it with a few months to spare!

This photo was taken a few weeks ago. Doesn't the front window look so pretty surrounded by fresh white snow?

We can't wait to see what the next year has in store for us!

XO, Stef & Erin

Lady Longbodies.

One of the things we love about the new kiddos section is that we get to help promote my talented sister, Megan and her handmade creations! We are now selling her handmade dolls in our kiddos section and will be selling them online in November-just in time for Christmas! She hand-stuffs every limb, dresses them up and even give each doll a name, sewed onto a tiny tag on the leg! Kids love the limb-y creations and they are even machine washable! Keep your eyes peeled for more information about the upcoming online shop, and until then, you can check them out here or come and see them for yourselves in our store Rhymes With Orange!

Megan told me that if I were a dress, this would be it! I love it!

Not only does she create amazing dolls, Megan also screen prints onesies for tots size 0-3 months all the way up to 2T! Here are some of the ones available in the shop. Not to fret, these too will be available in our upcoming online store for custom order in November! You pick the size and the print, and voila!

We love the captain with the cat in his beard!

And this incredible group of sassy swimmers!

We hope you like them! 

Have a happy day!

Presenting... Our Vintage Kiddo's Section!

The time has finally come to unveil our new vintage kiddo's room in our boutique! Yay! We had an amazing grand opening party with our family and close friends at the shop this past Saturday evening. We were so blown away by the incredible turn out and felt so thankful to have so many amazing people in our lives supporting us! (pretty much the best thanksgiving ever!) We love you all to the moon and back!

Alright, time for a bit of history about our shop:

Our boutique is located inside of an old late 1800's heritage building here in downtown Winnipeg and it even comes equipped with a walk-in vault, which is where we decided to build the kids room! We wanted the kiddo stuff to be kept separate from the regular stuff so that it would be easier to keep organized and also felt that it looked more special having a room of it's own. The vault is the perfect size for tiny people and tiny clothes, but the only challenge with building it in there was the fact that all of the walls, the ceiling and even the floor are metal! (meaning that not one nail can be hammered into the wall.. Eep!) After brainstorming for a bit we figured out that magnets are going to be our new best friends! 

We are so very happy with the way that all of the renovations turned out! It looks even better in real life! Curious? Well here is a peek into the newest addition to our shop:

Emery built us one false wall so that we could hang a few cute cloud-shaped book shelves, which he also built for us! Seriously, what a guy. He always has a solution to all of our building dilemmas! Also, that adorble rabbit was hand sewn by Erin's extremely talented sister, Megan! They're called Lady Longbodies and are sold exclusively in our shop! How cute are they?!

Tons of teeny tiny pastel knits! Ooh... aren't they the cutest?! Not gonna lie, we are starting to get a bit of the baby fever over here...

These is an example of how magnets played an important role in our new space. These mini cloud shaped hooks are actually attached to the wall using only heavy duty magnets! They worked like a dream!

We found this vintage kid-size kitchen at the Goodwill and gave it a coat of paint and it now works perfectly as a mini shelving unit for cute toys and tiny shoes!

View into the vault. Since it is such a small space we decided to keep it simple as far as paint goes: white walls, white ceiling, and a little pop of turquoise on the floor! Pretty cute, hey?!

Whew! It's been a very busy couple weeks trying to get everything organized and finished in time before we leave for Asia and we did it! Mission accomplished! Time to start getting into travel mode now...

Hope you enjoyed the peek into our cute new room!

XO, Stef & Erin