Hello! Thank you for being here! Honestly, I had a rough week, but the sun is shining today and I am looking forward to this Memorial Day weekend.

When trying to write this blog, I struggled with where to start. The advice I received was to just jump in, so I did! I have a lot that I want to share and at first I ended up writing a massive post. After taking a step back, I decided to break it up into more manageable pieces and thought that toward the beginning I should share a little about myself…

My name is Sandra Kirpalani and I most often go by Sandie. I am married and currently living in Des Moines, Iowa with my husband and our 11 year old dachshund Dutchboy. We have a 1950’s California ranch, in the middle of the midwest, that we have been restoring for the past 3 years. I am originally from Omaha, NE, where most of my family still resides. I love being an aunt to my niece and four nephews!

I am an oldest child and a virgo. A lot of my personality and character traits align with both of those classifications (haha). I am a dreamer, a hard worker, driven and a self starter (most of the time). I have too many ideas and creative energy for my own good. I like to be around people more than by myself and I love to meet new people. I love to sew, cook and bake (especially pies and pastry), garden, entertain and thrift. Pickles are my favorite food and green is my favorite color. I collect vintage pyrex, green glass and pitchers. I want to travel more and have a dream of taking a vintage camper across the country. I also dream of owning a Dachshund rescue farm some day.

I am someone who loves to learn and never really stopped going to school. I have more interests than I can pursue. This is a blessing and a curse! It has also led me to work in multiple industries over my career. These include:

• I have a long career in Interior Design. I practiced design full time for over 10 years and now take side projects.

• I am a life-long fiber artist and I work with multiple materials to create a lot of different types of art. I also used to teach art at a community center.

• For much of my career I have been in customer focused positions including: hospitality, administration and sales.

• I also have a culinary background, focused on baking and pastry, and have worked in many restaurants. I have also offered year long pie clubs in the past.

• I have studied Horticulture with a focus on growing food and creating edible landscapes. I am a huge proponent of seasonal eating and teaching people easy ways to grow food and how to make their gardens look beautiful.

• I had a business flipping houses with my mom for a few years! (So much harder than we anticipated).

• I have my Real Estate license and have practiced in Commercial and Residential Real Estate in 3 different states. I plan to go back and get my brokers license. I fall in love with properties (which can be dangerous, haha) and have also worked in Property Management.

• And finally, I am a vintage vendor with two Etsy shops. Finding and selling vintage pieces is always something I dreamed of doing. I fell in love with “the hunt” at a young age and have a large personal collection of vintage pieces that I have been collecting for over 20 years. I feel very lucky to be able find and sell vintage pieces to other people who love them much as I do.

My husband helped me to get this site going while we were both working from home this past year. On the Sandrilene site, you will find this blog, pies and pastries available to order (local only at this time), links to both of my etsy shops, information on the design services I offer and how to start a project. I plan to update this blog often and hope that it will be a way for me to connect with people within and outside of my community. I hope that you will find it enjoyable, entertaining and useful. It will probably always be a work in progress for me, but I hope you enjoy reading it and that you will reach out to connect!