DIY and Indie Gifting, 1st Birthday Edition

Know what gives me cold sweats? The prospect of waking up one day to realize we haven't saved a penny for our son's college education.

 
Thanks to this piggy bank Aaron and I have spent three weekend afternoons at Purple Glaze painting and perfecting and casting fertility spells over, we worry no more. 

Figuratively speaking, that is. This little guy doesn't even take quarters.

 But, I'm pretty sure he's the cutest college savings plan ever.

This piggy bank, made by his father and me with love and striving for a hard-working, frugally minded child, is a gift for our not-so-baby man for his first birthday. May he never bust it open to buy dirty magazines or cigarettes or...or...ugh, I'm ready to stop thinking about this. 

We were hardly done birthday shopping for the evening, so we headed downtown to:

Dwelling Spaces, our shrine of all that is local and handmade and just plain cool stuff. It's no secret that Dwelling Spaces, at 119 S. Detroit downtown, ranks in the upper echelon of hip Tulsa retailers. Even so, and somehow, it was Aaron's first time in. 

I love to just be in this store. The lighting and all the colors give me that happy, I-want-to-buy-everything-in-this-ever-loving-place feeling. 

For all you dudes and dudettes who need a little help with Valentine's Day gifting, Dwelling Spaces has made it easy. Just visit the table of red and pink stuff at the front of the store. 

While we wanted to blow a couple of Benjamins on some of the Okie Grown and Alessi stuff (total stock 20 percent off right now!) we saw on this table, we settled on Ice Bat, the doll from the Uglydoll collection we've been meaning to snag for our little one for quite some time now.

Think he likes it? Maybe just a little. He's been dragging Ice Bat (In Baby Man language: "AAAYYYEEEE!") all over the house since we got home with it. 

See, we're in this bad habit of trying to be in the good habit of shopping early for his presents and then buying everything so early that we can't wait until whatever holiday we're supposed to be stashing for to give them to him. Such is what happened with Ice Bat.

I wish someone would go to Dwelling Spaces and buy this early as a Valentine's Day present for me and then not be able to wait to give it to me, like, right now: 

Not that this is a hint for a certain someone or anything. Did I mention it's 20 percent off? I did? Okay. Just making sure. 

While at Dwelling Spaces, I also managed to procure my first-ever I Heart Tulsa shirt. I know! How the heck have I gotten by without one? Rather than bother ourselves with that little quandary, let's ask, "Why hasn't anyone gifted me one?" Punks. 

Oh, I know you love me. If you didn't, then why would this blog have been nominated again this year for an Okie Blog Award? TDT is in the Best Culture Blog category again (we won it last year), as is my other blog, My Life As Told By Food, which I started just before Christmas. 

We here at TDT and MLaTbF know you have a choice when you're looking to distract yourself at work, home and in the car (shout out to the RSS subscribers on iPhone!), so thanks to all for choosing to distracting yourselves with these blogs. Congratulations to every Okie blogger out there nominated for an award this year!