A Merry Busy Christmas!

Went a little MIA this christmas season working on this entertainment center turned kitchen. The idea started brewing 3 weeks before Christmas after seeing several in blog land, mostly notably this one from sutton grace.

 So 2.5 weeks before Christmas I went and bought this entertainment center at the thrift store for $10 (talked the guy down from $20 cause I'm cheap like that) and then spent every night (when I usually blog) working on it for several hours.

I added the long side door aka "fridge" and the "oven" door. Found an awesome real faucet with sprayer at the thrift store for $5, modge podged the numbers around the oven knobs (also found at thrift store .25 each). The stove hot plates are black paint (simple, easy and fast), the "rack" stripes in the oven shelf I ended up just drawing on with a wide sharpie marker and a ruler. The phone was also found at the thrift store and hangs on a screw (so it can come off pretty easy), the sink comes out of it's hole and is just a weird bowl I also found at the thrift store and then the curtain at the top is held in place with a small tension rod.

All in all the most time consuming part was the painting, and the waiting for paint to dry, and shopping for all the pieces (because I refused to buy more than I had to at home depot-I bought as much as I could from the thrift store and the Habitat for Humanity ReStore).

 It took the full two weeks finishing up Christmas Eve. It was a fun project to do, albeit a little bit stressful under the time restraints. I love how it turned out, especially the yellow, of course, and the sweetie LOVES it. It was given to both her and the buddy, but it the buddy has been too busy with Captain America, spiderman and remote control cars to have time for the kitchen. Give it a couple weeks . . .

The little sweetie has spent most of yesterday and today playing with it which makes my heart so happy. It definitely makes it all worth it to see her so excited about it!

Hope you had a very merry Christmas too!

Thrift Store Scores

My husband says I'm addicted I'm pretty sure I'm not!  So I've been avoiding the thrift store, trying to save a little you know. But I do have a hard time saying no at the thrift store ;)  But, I have to say these are basically my two scores: a cake stand with that gorgeous scalloped edge ($3) and a square yellow pyrex bowl ($2). Now I need to bake a cake!

Old Stuff

Surprise! I do exist! Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to blogging. The actually moving part was crazy, but unpacking wasn't nearly as bad as I was dreading it to be (last time we moved I felt so overwhelmed I got a dizzy migraine and laid on the couch while my hunny unpacked most of the important stuff. . . I still feel guilty about it). But this time was much much better. Partly because we have a bigger house so we could move the boxes to more rooms. A small pile of boxes in each room is much more doable eh? Anyway, I'm sure you wanted to hear all about that. The real reason I haven't been blogging is that I haven't been doing anything crafty to blog about. Between summer and living close to family again, I really haven't had any time.

BUT, even if when not crafting I'm always up for some old stuff. I've always liked old stuff, but two weeks ago I went to a Relief Society Meeting, our churches women's group, and they were talking about family history and knowing who your ancestors were as people. I've heard it before but it really inspired me to get to know my ancestors as individuals with lives and feelings. One of  the girls talked about how she owns the dining room set that her great grandmother scrimped and saved for over a year to get. I thought it was so cool that it had been handed down to her! SO cool. But alas, I come from a long line of big families and I doubt I'll get anything like that.

 

So fast forward to this weekend we went out to visit my husbands parents and his grandmother. We were sitting there in the assisted living home talking to her and she mentioned this large painting on the wall that a local had painted of the family farm with her husband on his horse. She mentioned she was going to give the painting back to the lady who had painted it because none of her children wanted it (including my husband's mother). I just about jumped out of my seat shouting I wanted it!! Not really, but I was probably a little too eager. I probably came off greedy. Either way she seemed delighted that someone wanted it and I do!

Second cool old thing. I convinced the hunny to stop at the small town thrift store while we were out visiting his grandmother. We were behind schedule and it was exceedingly generous of him to drive around town with the two kids sleeping in the back seat while I ran in to peruse the goods. Not too many, but I did run in to a great stack of old patterns. I don't even usually look for patterns but they practically jumped out at me! So I bought them, and little framed mirror, a ceramic owl (I plan to spray paint black for Halloween) and a vintage sheet. But really I was excited about the patterns. How fun are these?

Thrify Finds

We ventured out Monday for a trip to the thrift store. The little buddy insisted he didn't need to use the bathroom but added, "the frift store has a toilet." I told him I wasn't sure (after all I do my best NOT to find out). Of course we had only been there for 10 minutes when he announces "I have to use the toilet!" Lo and behold they did have a bathroom-through the sorting "back room" up a flight of stairs and at the end of the hall. We finally get there and the buddy says, "Is it scary?" I don't know what prompted that. Other than the bright pink walls it wasn't too scary, it could have been worse.

But the thrifting was pretty good. I got some good vintage sheets, and the gingham yellow on the bottom of the stack is actually a set of curtains. My mom had yellow gingham curtains in her kitchen when I was growing up. I hadn't really planned to do the same, but when I saw those I decided in the first place we move that actually has a window in the kitchen-they're going up! Then we found that awesome mirror for only $2.50! I was pretty excited. The little silver plates I'm debating whether to spray paint them or not. Either way they are fun pretend props. I also got a bunch of books. I'd never realized how cheap the books are at this thrift store: on Mondays (every thing is half off) the hardback are 50 cents and the softbound are 25 cents! And since I've decided to start collecting Nancy Drew and  The Hardy Boys books this is pretty awesome! I can't tell you how much I love thrift stores. Seriously. It's a toss up between that and Target clearance!

Yes, I also have a yellow gingham plastic table cloth. . . . that one was from a different thrift store :)

thrift store rules

So I have loved thrift store shopping since before it was cool. I remember in the fourth grade excitedly telling a friend that I had gotten something from the thrift store (I don't remember what now) and she turned her nose up as fourth graders do and told me she had been there once, and got a booger on her finger! She thought they were gross, I though they were heaven. Still do. You can ask my husband :)

This was my Saturday score: well, some of it. I also got an awesome collection of yellow and blue hardback Nancy Drew novels, some clothes for the kids (among which an awesome vintage dress-which I packed away in the 2T box before I took pictures, alas), and a 1963 Atlas book (same one my parents have-awesome)! I am loving that yellow gingham and navy stripe together. Too bad the yellow is a fuzzy backed plastic tablecloth. I might have to go buy some yellow gingham.I'm also excited about the lamp. I've been wanting a lamp for awhile, but never found anything that I "loved." I love this one, except the brown part. I will spray paint it yellow or white, obviously, do other colors of spray paint exist? Oh, and those boots have never been worn, and for $6 how could I say no? My size? My favorite color? It's like they left them there just for me!OOOOOOoooo I love the thrift store!


Anyway, so I thought I'd share some of my tips on thrift store shopping while I was at it.
1. I always go with some things in mind that I'm looking for: of course cool vintage stuff, but also clothes or shoes or a shelf for that space that needs organizing or whatever. These are what I'm dreaming of finding at a thrift store:

okay, so this one isn't "vintage" it's from anthropologie, but I'm just not willing to spend $200 on a phone . . .

2. I always swing past the sheets/and pillowcases and see what they have there. I use this guide by Candace of Sparkle Power. (She was the one that taught me a love for vintage sheets in real life :).

3. I check the dishes/ kitchen ware for anything yellow or made out of milk glass. One day I will have a beautiful hutch or cabinet to display it in. Someday. But that's just me.

4. **This one I think is especially important.**  Unless you want a hodge podge of vintage-which in and of itself can be cool-try to stick with a theme for your vintage-ness. Of course my theme is yellow. But it could be deers, or flowers, or lace, or of course a color. But it helps tie it all together and make all these found objects more co-hesive. Plus, it will keep you from buying a boat load. I find things all the time that I think are cool, like pyrex, casserole dishes with flowers on the side, but 9 times out of 10 they aren't yellow so I pass them up.

5. Ask yourself several times and in different ways. "Will I really use this?" or even more helpful to me, "Will I think about this for a month and kick myself for not buying it if I pass it up?" That's usually the clincher for me. If I can't stop thinking about it and love it immediately I usually buy it. If I like it, think it might be useful, want to love it, know someone else who will love it, but don't love it, I don't buy it. Usually. Like the bright yellow 60s drop waist pleated skirt dress I found. It was bright, I almost passed it up. But it was yellow. . . and I love pleats. But it was so bright. I went back and forth. Finally I said to myself "will I dare wear this anywhere?" the answer was probably not. So I left it there.

6. Be picky about quality. After I've decided I'm going to purchase something I try and find all the reasons why I shouldn't, is there anything wrong with this?  As in the case of the bright yellow dress (even though it was only five bucks)  the material  had all these little fuzzy pills in the rayon fabric. It bugged me. Alas. So it made me feel better about leaving it be.

7. If at all possible don't bring your kids. Usually I do, usually I don't spend as much time as I'd like either. It's too hard to make decisions.

8. Be prepared to walk out if they don't have anything you want. Don't feel like you have to buy something just because you went in. This is especially true if you go often-which if you really have a "list" of things you are looking for might be a good idea.

Really, just go with a plan, an idea of what you want. they can be overwhelming and they can be time consuming, and they can be a little bit scary dirty but rest assured I've never gotten a booger on my finger.