Weekend Junk Finds: Christmas in July

I haven't been doing much thrifting this summer, which is sad because it's prime garage sale season. Things just haven't lined up right to do it and truthfully, I just haven't had the desire. I did read last weekend that the local Goodwill Outlet stores were doing a Christmas in July promotion and offering 10% off any Christmas goodies you manage to dig intact out of the bins. Well, the prospect of finding even a little bit of my beloved vintage Christmas was enough to make me willing to drag my kids all the way to two different Goodwill Outlets--twice in one week, even!

I only had any luck on the first trip, making the other ones a total waste of time and gas money but this was enough to make me happy! I tried to show Maren what I was looking for and she worked hard to find me more vintage ornaments. She's still learning how to tell the difference between the new and old, but I'll turn that girl into a vintage Christmas spotter yet! She was excited to help me shop. Both kids were really well-behaved and I had no problem rewarding them with some books from the bins--at 30¢ each, that was a bribe I could handle!

The Goodwill Outlet is tricky--they roll out the huge bins and leave them on the floor for some predetermined amount of time. Then throughout the day, they take rows of bins to the back and bring out new ones. The 'inventory' is rotating but not quick enough for me. Only a small fraction of the bins on the floor even had Christmas stuff in them, so waiting around and hoping those would be replaced was just not going to happen. I'm lucky to have even found these goodies!

In other junk news, my favorite local thrift store is making major changes and I really hate it. :( It was a small chain that was apparently bought by Savers/Value Village sometime in the last year. The last time I visited a few weeks ago, I noticed that they had changed the pricing structure and brought in new tags that look like the ones they use at Savers.

When I stopped in the other day, I found the entire store had been rearranged and reorganized. This thrift is housed in a former grocery store space so it is HUGE but for some reason they squished all of the clothing racks together. Now you literally cannot pass two carts down an aisle. Heck, even if you don't have a cart yourself, if somebody is standing there in the aisle with their cart, you have to ask to squeeze by them and run into the clothes on the racks to do so. For all the bric-a-brac stuff, they went from having 4 rows of shelves with LONG, wide aisles to turning the shelves perpendicular and creating about 20 short rows with narrow aisles. It's a total pain in the bum and will be even worse if you're trying to use a cart. It's all just so squished together and I can't figure out why because there is a ton of empty, wasted space all over the store now, except for where the actual merchandise is.

That thrift was my favorite--it was also the closest to my house, the cleanest, and had the most selection because it was so large. I'm so disappointed in the changes they made because they most certainly weren't improvements! I almost never go to the local Savers anymore because the prices are high and the selection is poor, and I'm bummed that my favorite store looks to be headed that direction if the Savers corporate offices have anything to do with it. :(

American Girl Crafts House Party

Maren and I were chosen to host an American Girl Crafts House Party and this morning was our event. House Party is a website that partners with different companies to get the word out about their products by introducing them at parties. Anybody can apply to be a host and it's completely free! Depending on what demographic the sponsor is looking for, you may be chosen to host a party and you receive a fun Party Pack with all kinds of goodies to share with your friends. This particular party was sponsored by American Girl Crafts and we were thrilled to be chosen as hosts! Maren has an American Girl doll AND she loves to do arts and crafts by herself and with friends, so it was a perfect fit for her.

Our Party Pack was filled with these fantastic My Life Scrap & Stuff books, one for each party guest.

We also received dozens of packages of cute coordinating embellishments for the books: die cuts, chipboard letters, dimensional stickers, cute patterned tapes, and much more!

The table was absolutely full of fun things to use to decorate the books. Each book has a nifty glue pen included but I also supplied extra glue sticks for the girls.

We invited our guests to bring their American Girl dollies with them to the party. Some of the girls brought more than one doll--we had quite the crowd at the doll tea party!

We didn't want the dolls to be left out, so we made tiny doll-sized scrapbooks for the guests to decorate and take home. I simply cut cardstock and colored copy paper to size and stapled them down the spine to make a little booklet.

The girls loved personalizing them with the American Girl historical doll stickers that were included in our Party Pack.

The girls happily created and worked on their books.

The hardest thing was probably to choose which of the fun embellishments to use on each page!

The My Life Scrap & Stuff book is designed to be a project that the girls can add to over time. They can journal, include memorabilia and ephemera from their daily lives, photos, and drawings--the more, the better! After they created for a while, we stopped and took a cute group photo with the girls, their books and their dollies.

The girls enjoyed lunch outside on the patio while I cleaned up the craft mess on the table. Even though they had crafted hard, there were still plenty of embellishments leftover so I divided it all up so that the girls could each take home supplies to work on their books in the future.

For food and decorations, we were inspired by this cute paper tablecloth I had stashed away with my party supplies.

Using the colors of the confetti dots as inspiration, I chose 5 different patterns of washi tape from my craft stash. Maren and I used the washi tape and striped twine to make tiny banners to hang over the table and add to the festive feeling.

I also used strips of washi tape to decorate clear plastic 'milk' bottles, then added a sticker letter with each party guest's first initial. Of course, there had to be stripey straws!

The washi tape make the bottles look so cute, and yet I can easily peel it off so the bottles can be washed and reused.

For food, we stuck with a 'tiny' theme in honor of our dollies. I made tiny sandwiches by cutting peanut butter sandwiches into small triangles and securing them with jeweled toothpicks.

We also had baby carrots and tiny grape tomatoes, blueberries, mini Oreos, mini Nilla Wafers and mini cupcakes. I loved that the confetti sprinkles on the cupcakes looked like the colorful dots on the tablecloth! We had pink lemonade in a fancy dispenser to put into the cute milk bottles.

The food was very simple; the cupcakes were store-bought and even making eight peanut butter sandwiches wasn't difficult at all (I'm a stay-at-home mom--I could make a pbj in my sleep! Probably have at some point. ;) The girls gobbled up nearly everything, so cleanup was a breeze as well.

I'm delighted that we were chosen to host this House Party and to familiarize ourselves more with American Girl Crafts. I know our party guests loved their Scrap & Stuff books and had so much fun working on them today. I love that they're a project the girls can continue to work on and a way for them to explore their creativity!

Another loss

First, thank you all so very much for your kind, sweet words about the loss of our dear Bronco doggie. They were such a comfort and I so appreciate the time you took to leave a comment and let me know that you were thinking of me and my family. In that post, I mentioned that my Father-in-Law had just been diagnosed with cancer. Yesterday afternoon, he passed away.

It all happened so quickly. On June 1, he called to tell us that he had cancer. On June 12, the oncologist confirmed that it was Stage 4 and projected 2-3 months. We thought we had all summer to be with him, but that just wasn't the plan. We went to visit him in Utah on June 21, left on Thursday June 27, and just a few days later, July 1, he was gone. His decline was shockingly fast. When we left last Thursday he could still get around with a walker and although he was under heavy pain medication, he was still lucid and could speak with his old sense of humor. In the mere four days that followed, he was rendered unable to walk or speak and his body shut down until he passed peacefully.

One of my favorites. Baby Porter's legacy of good men. My FIL is top right

I don't know whether to be thankful that he didn't have to suffer long (because he was in extreme pain) or frustrated that we didn't have the summer with him that we expected. Maybe it's both. I absolutely believe that his quick passing was part of God's plan. I don't understand it, but I have faith that there was a reason for it. I also believe wholeheartedly that this was why our sweet Bronco went so quickly too--he needed to be there on the other side when my husband's father got there. I don't think it's a coincidence that my FIL went so soon after we left Utah--I think that he saw us all (especially my children) and though we didn't explicitly say 'good-bye' I believe that he knew that we would all be okay and after we left, he was able to let go of this life and move on. It's funny--we had that trip to Utah previously scheduled, before we knew he was sick. We couldn't have timed it more perfectly. Now I don't believe that was a coincidence either.

Papa and Bronco in 2009

I am sad that he's gone. My husband's father was a man of many talents and abilities and I enjoyed spending time with him. He was an accomplished woodworker and could make amazing things out of wood. The wood he preferred to use looked rough and ugly on the outside and full of imperfections. In his hands, he found the beautiful parts inside that wood and made it into something smooth and polished and lovely. Not unlike what God can do with our lives if we let Him.

Papa meets tiny baby Maren for the first time