Under Construction

Expensive yarn

I stopped by the thrift store for some 25c skeins of yarn for this project and ended up spending $19.75. Oops. In addition to the typewriter and a few textiles splurges (hand stitched apron and vintage pillow cases) I had a really cool find!

I picked up this photo album because the size is so perfect for recipes and I am on a constant quest to organize my haphazard recipe pile. $1 was fine for the album...but check out what I found inside when I got home!

Five old (but undated) postcards written in German! It appears that family member Wilhelm Rehm is from Stuttgart but traveled (moved?) to, of all places, Madison, California (which is a very small town about an hour from where I work).

These have obviously been through an antique stall (all are priced in pencil) and, unfortunately, the stamps are removed (so I can't date them) but the penmanship on this card alone was totally worth it! (sorry for the shadowy photo)

If someone can translate I'd be happy to get you a better image. Sonja?

I was thinking one of these card images might look cool enlarged to poster size and used as wall art but our overly windowed home doesn't leave a ton of wall space. Then I saw this image over at Doe-c-Doe  (scroll down 4 images) from a magazine that is, ironically, sitting beside my bed right now. Now I'm thinking maybe put the images onto fabric and make pillows? Let me know if this is full of German swear words before I do either one!

I did get the yarn. All 75c worth ;)

Just like "Murder She Wrote*"

Forgive the shaky camera action--I was holding the camera between my knees!

*For those of you who didn't grow up loving Angela Lansbury

3 for 25 cents in coins

I found a 1959 pack of phonics flash cards at a garage sale a few years ago and just rediscovered them in my craft pit room. I particularly love the test sheet and it has been perfect for a project I wanted to do requiring line drawings that are well beyond my drawing ability.

The funniest part is some of the images/words they use. I don't think you see pipe (as in the smoking kind) or gun as words on 2009 phonics quizzes.

And what is that thing to the left of the word "keep"? I was seriously stumped by the test.

Stay tuned tomorrow for what I did with the images (I gotta drag it out since I really am trying to post every day and all I did today was clean and cook--nothing especially blogworthy. Although, that reminds me that I am enjoying Swistle's cleaning posts and tweets. Maybe I can blog about my laundry pile or dustbunnies).

P.S. Where is the symbol for cents found? Why isn't it on my keyboard somewhere?

Ups and downs

What a weird day.

It started with Mr. H rolling over and asking "Did you put the chickens away last night?" and my replying, "oh crap" and then rolling over into Biscuit who was in our bed, in underwear (not a diaper) after a 5 am accident (in her own bed, fortunately) and going back to sleep. Fortunately Biscuit did not pee in our bed. Unfortunately I went outside and counted 6 chickens and my favorite, Apollo, was not among them. She wasn't in the yard and tufts of gray feathers scattered on the lawn seemed to be evidence of foul (fowl?) play.

(Apollo's baby portrait)

So, for lack of a better plan I went in and reheated yesterday's undrunk coffee and poured in extra cream. Which turned out to be lumpy. I gave up, put the coffee in the sink and left for work.

Then things looked up. Short line at Starbucks and Apollo miraculously returned (after Mr. H had explained her death to Biscuit who will clearly never understand death. Sidebar: her friends seem to be talking about death an awful lot at school and she frequently makes up stories featuring people dying. But then they come back to life. Just like Apollo. I try to just let the stories go--she doesn't get it yet--fortunately. I don't think Apollo's resurrection is going to clarify anything).

 

(more recent portrait of Apollo)

Then Mr. H and Biscuit came to my work to have lunch with me and I found out he drank the coffee I had set in the sink. Oops.

Meanwhile, in Southern California, my best friend had a baby girl! Much more interesting/exciting/important than chicken/coffee drama. I was obsessively checking email/her blog/Twitter etc looking for updates completely spacing on the fact that she's a Facebook gal. And she had called my cell phone hours before I got the message. Duh!

But all that obsessive internet checking for baby news led me to be very caught up on the crazy news of the day via Twitter. Farrah! That scumbag governor guy! Michael Jackson! Since I was so up on the news I was able to tell two folks about MJ's death. The first and last time I was the first to know anything remotely newsworthy.

We wrapped up today with swim lessons, a quick visit to the annual neighborhood ice cream social, dinner made by Mr. H who is, unfortunately, sick, and Biscuit refusing to go to sleep until 10 p.m. These late bedtimes are going to be the death of me. Or at least the death of my productivity.

The end.

Smiling thrifting gods

I've been a bit blue this weekend and not very productive. But at least the thrifting gods were smiling yesterday when I went out for some cheap retail therapy. I totally blew my $7 budget but it was worth it!

A $3 music box. Perfect! We took a family vacation to the Swiss Alps when Biscuit was a baby so this is a perfect fake souvenir.

And it plays Edelweiss, a song that is currently in heavy bedtime song rotation right now. The fact that Biscuit didn't recognize the tune says a lot about my singing ability.

This ugly owl. $2 was a bit steep but I have been looking for some time for a cool shaped, ugly painted ceramics piece. To do this:

I think I stole that idea from Bitter Betty. I still need to darken in the words "Be wise, save." A good sentiment these days and since this is a piggy owly  bank, it's perfect.

I was about to escape with these two items plus a $2 glass butter dish (sorely needed) and two wide mouth canning jars ($.25 each) for the tomatoes I just planted when...I came across a dumpster full of upholstery fabric samples. 10 pieces about 15x18" for $1. It was a fabric lover feeding frenzy but everyone diving into the dumpster was very kind and we all helped one another find just the right pieces. I was on the hunt for yellow/gold.

_{I spent um, $18.} Totally worth it but I'm trying to put the fabric to immediate use patchwork re-upholstering Mr. H's ugly/comfy chair.

I may have bitten off more than I can chew on this project.

Hope ya'll had a good weekend. I'll try to be around more next week but life seems a bit wacky lately. Thank goodness for cheap crap to keep me busy.
 

Lickety split

Best $5 I've spent in a long time.

Mr H. has been somewhat interested in getting an ice cream maker for a few years, ever since he bought one for his sister for her birthday. They are so pricey at the store I've been keeping an eye out at the thrift store and look what the thrifting fairies brought me!

I'm guessing it's 20 years old but it had clearly never been taken out of the box! It makes TWO flavors at a time, one quart each. Just the perfect amount for our family. I gave it to Mr. H and Biscuit as an early Valentine's Day present and they were out to door to the store for cream within the hour.

We were eating it less than an hour after that (it really is lickety split).

I made orange ice cream using basic vanilla with the addition of OJ concentrate and some fresh orange zest. Mr. H (predictably) made chocolate chocolate chip with Hershey syrup and chopped milk chocolate chips. Mine was better ;)

And, the best part, the leftovers seem to be staying soft in the freezer (rather than turning into a homemade ice cream brick as I am used to).

Next up: strawberry, lemon, coffee and peanut butter ice cream. Thanks for the ice cream inspiration, Adventures in SF.

Who needs thrift stores anyway?

or garage sales for that matter when you can "shop" at the Brown's house.

I should have captured a picture of their "free" sale at the end of the driveway this weekend including three chairs from Mr. Brown's grandfather. And a vintage Levi's jacket (that I didn't take, and now regret).

The Browns finally decided that recapturing their extra room for their kids to play was more important even than grandpa's chairs or jacket. Or the highchair long outgrown. Or any of the other odds and ends left for free at the end of the drive.

Thinking about the stacks of junk precious items I own, I tried to restrain myself and only rescued this one chair.

I actually do need a chair as I've been using a folding chair in my sewing room for ages.  Turns out this chair is a touch higher and just perfect--why didn't I do this earlier?

I had grand plans of refinishing and fancy upholstery.  But then I realized that putting the chair into use was a much better plan.  So one trip to JoAnns for foam, one treasured pillow case cut up and my "new" chair is ready to go.