Let them eat cakes

Thanks to all of you who responded to my previous post about bobbins for my sewing machine! I really appreciate your comments and advice. I ended up calling a Janome dealer in my area and he said that I don't have to use Janome bobbins; I can use class 16 bobbins of any brand. I was so relieved to hear that so I headed over to JoAnn's and...you guessed it....NO class 16 bobbins! Oh brother. I think I am just going to have to head to the sewing machine store and buy a whole mess of Janome bobbins so I don't have this problem again. It's over on the other side of town but maybe there's a thrift store over there so I can make the trip into an outing instead of just a big waste of gas!

We had a good weekend. On Saturday we drove up to Breckenridge (a ski resort town about 2 hours away in the mountains) for a family wedding. The priest who performed the ceremony looked exactly like Alton Brown, down to the mole on his cheek and funky square glasses. It was kind of bizarre to be watching Alton Brown perform a wedding, let me tell you. And for the record--Alton makes a better TV cook than he does a priest!

The reception was held at a lovely lodge hotel, coincidentally the same place we stayed when we visited Breckenridge last summer. The wedding cake was so gorgeous that I had to take a photo to share with you! On the sides of two of the layers the chef used either fondant or white chocolate to make mountain peaks. Then he sprinkled clear sanding sugar atop the 'peaks' to look like snow, and added sprays of berries and mountain flowers. It was just beautiful and it tasted delicious! My cake is my one regret from our wedding reception. It looked perfect but tasted -blech- so it's the one thing I'd do over if I could.

My parents drove over from Salt Lake for the wedding and then drove back down to Denver with us after the reception to spend Sunday at our house. We had our big holiday weekend dinner that night, which included the yummy dessert pictured at left. It's a layered concoction of hot fudge, ice cream sandwiches, Cool Whip, chocolate pudding and chopped Oreos, with chocolate sprinkles on the top for good measure. The recipe is from the Kraft Food & Family magazine that came in the mail last week and Pampered Chef has a version too. Perfect for a summer party!

The Husband left this morning for a few days in South Carolina so we girls are on our own. I've got to get my Junk Swap box out in the mail to Andy today and I'm helping with the Pinewood Derby tonight. I've also made an eBay goal for myself: one item photographed and the description written each day. A small goal, but I've got to break it up into small pieces because otherwise I get overwhelmed and it all sits in a pile, like it has for about 3 months now. Whoops. Wish me luck!

Silly sewing question

Dumb question for those of you out there who sew:

Do you have to use the same brand of bobbins as your machine? What I mean is, I have a Janome machine and I received some bobbins when I got it but they are all full so I need more. JoAnn's doesn't sell Janome products, so can I just buy some plain bobbins to use or do I have to find a place that sells Janome bobbins?

I did take one of my Janome bobbins to JoAnn's to compare and found some Dritz brand that look pretty much identical--but on the back of the package it says "not for Janome machines." Why? Is it just a marketing trick? I don't want to ruin my machine but I can't start any of my new sewing projects until I get some more bobbins, and the only sewing machine shop that is close by doesn't carry Janome. FWIW, my sewing machine manual doesn't mention anything about what type of bobbins to use.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog reading. Thanks!

So You Think You Can....What??

My favorite summertime reality TV show premieres tonight! So You Think You Can Dance starts its third season tonight with a 90-minute audition episode and next Wednesday night there's a 2-hour audition show as well. I was glued to last season (I liked Benji, but I loved cute curly-haired Allison even more!) and I hope this season will be as good! Reality TV....it's like Twinkies for my brain. {drool...Twinkies...}

Been Junkin'

As I said in my previous post, I had a good day yard-saling on Saturday, a welcome change from the crummy weekend before. Here is a photo of a few of my finds; I took it on my back porch and the raindrops were beginning to fall as I snapped this photo so it was the first and the last. Today has been completely rainy as well so I haven't had a chance to photograph anything else. Maybe tomorrow.


In this photo, we have: vintage suitcase, $1.00. It's small, maybe for a child? Great shabby condition. At the same house I found the small blue book, a 1909 edition of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, also $1.00. I also purchased seven back issues of Country Living and a BHG (because I don't have nearly enough magazines cluttering up my house right now {rolls eyes}), bringing my total at that sale to $3.00. The blue glass Ball jar was 50¢ and was found at the same house as the two vintage swimming caps (the weird white item in the center), which were 25¢ each. I bought those for resale, since I figure you can't go too wrong for a quarter. If they don't sell maybe I'll wear them myself! Imagine, if you will, Sideshow Bob stuffing his hair into an old-lady swim cap. On second thought, perhaps I'll just send them to Goodwill.

The vintage muffin tin was 25¢ and is destined to be painted and then stuck into my closet until I need another swap giftie. The vintage glass light fixture was a gamble at $1.00. I had hoped to replace the boring glass ball fixture over my kitchen sink, but alas, the vintage fixture's mouth is too large for the existing fixture. Bummer!

I also hit the FREE boxes after the sales in my neighborhood were over Saturday evening. I ain't too proud to scrounge, nosirree! My appalling lack of dignity netted me an old saucepot to use for melting wax when pouring candles, a new-looking melamine plate and bowl for Maren to use, a pair of Guess shorts and a pair of Levi's shorts, both in child's 6, white Ralph Lauren polo in 3T, Teletubbie Happy Meal Toy (for the resident Tubbies fan) and a stuffed Barney (which will go to the resident Barney fan, if it survives its trip through the washing machine on HOT), and a Fire King tea cup that may end up in a swap package. Tomorrow is trash day so I may just take a little early-morning drive around the neighborhood to see if I missed anything big!

Got Junk?

Sunday is the last day to sign up for Shara's Junk Swap! I know we've all got a lot of junk in our houses, but isn't someone else's junk always more interesting than your own? LOL I will admit it, I am a pack rat; I just hate throwing away something I know is perfectly usable, even if I don't actually have a use for it. So this swap is perfect for me! I have lots of craft junk too, so I'll be taking this opportunity to send some of it on to a new owner who can hopefully use it. So--come and sign up! Sign up by May 20 and mail by May 29. This one's a quickie.

I'm happy to report that this morning's garage saleing adventure was a fruitful one and I found some fun stuff! I'll post tomorrow when I have some photos.

Hope your weekend is going well!

Thrift Thursday

I stopped at a thrift the other day that I haven't visited in a while. The quality and quantity of merchandise has really declined lately, and it seems like the prices have increased, so it got moved off the regular thrift rotation. Despite all of that, I found some fun things, so I may have to reinstate it!

The item on the cake plate is a vintage wedding headpiece, and no, it is not hot pink in real life! That's just my camera being screwy again. It's actually white, with the prettiest velvet ribbon and vintage rhinestones, and it was only 99¢! The cake plate is my favorite item. It's small but I love the scalloped edge and I think I am actually physically incapable of passing up cake plates. It was $3.99. The stuff in the front is a whole bunch of vintage seam binding and lace. I bought two mixed bags of sewing stuff for 99¢ each so I could get the seam binding, and I also ended up with a bunch of single-fold bias tape. The last item in the photo is a vintage Rhode Island souvenir glass. Now, I've never been anywhere near Rhode Island but I collect vintage travel souvenirs and display them in my guest room. I've been looking for glasses like this but this is the first I've ever found! It was a heck of a deal at 69¢.

Not pictured are a darling vintage apron that was $1.99 and a couple of *secret* items for the upcoming Sweet Goodness swap. The apron is blue print, outlined in a lighter blue bias tape. It is a bib apron, which is harder to find but perfect because I have to wear a full apron when I'm cooking. I tend to be messy and those half aprons just don't do it for me. Now I finally have a vintage apron that I can actually wear! I'll try to take a photo later, maybe when I'm wearing it. I love the style!

I have big yardsaling plans for the weekend! Tomorrow and Saturday are my subdivision's community yardsale days, so I'll be hitting the folks in my neighborhood to check out their junk. What's even better is that Saturday evening, lots of people put out the big stuff that doesn't sell with FREE signs, so I'll probably have to take an evening cruise around the 'hood to check out the pickins'. LOL Garbage day next week will be worth a look too. I know a couple of other local subdivisions are doing their sales this weekend as well, so there should be plenty of sales to choose from. Let's hope the junk is better than last week!

Eye candy

I'm moving a little slowly still after being out so late last night at the show. I used to be such a night owl, and now I'm happy when it's time to go to bed! Night-lifers we are not. Anyway, just wanted to post a few little pieces of eye candy that I've been loving lately.

This gorgeous dress. Don't I wish that I had somewhere to wear a dress like that! Wowee. I LOVE the color combination of the fuschia and the turquoise, as well as the juxtaposition of the chunky turquoise and all the frilly ruffles.

These cute button balls from one of my favorite scrapbooking companies, Doodlebug. Doodlebug consistently uses bright, cheery colors, no matter what the trend in the scrapbooking world may be at the time. I think maybe they've just glued the buttons onto the styrofoam balls as I don't see any evidence of pins, ala the infamous button Christmas trees. These just make me happy to look at!

This whole movie. I know I just blogged about this but really, the whole movie was 2 hours of pure eye candy! Such amazing dresses and shoes, ribbons and frills, colors and textures. I wish I had a book of still photos from the movie just so I could look at everything over and over again when I need inspiration.

Cool chandelier stuff from Hambly studios. Rub-ons, transparencies, and cardstock. I am having to restrain myself from ordering one of each color. Don't know what I'd do with them, but I think they are so cool!

Defying Gravity

We're headed to the thea-tah tonight! We're going to see "Wicked" for the second time, and we're excited. It first came here to Denver in September 2005 and we were able to see it then, even though the run was nearly sold out. As soon as that run was over they announced the current dates (for a year and a half later!) and those tickets nearly sold out as well! We have some friends who do a deal with the theater and are able to get really great seats for a great price. We've got tickets to see the premiere of "The Little Mermaid" this summer and hope to get tickets to "Spamalot" when it comes later this year as well.

I love plays and musical theater and have been fortunate to be able to see quite a few great shows. I have seen:
The Phantom of the Opera (3 times, once in San Fran and twice in Salt Lake)
Les Miserables (twice, once in Salt Lake and once in London)
Wicked (will be twice after tonight, both in Denver)
Cats (London)
Starlight Express (London)
Miss Saigon (London)
Tommy (Salt Lake)
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (with Donny Osmond in Salt Lake)
Chess (small regional production)
The Drowsy Chaperone (NYC)
The Lion King (NYC)
Hairspray (NYC)
Beauty and the Beast (Salt Lake)
The King and I (Salt Lake)
Annie (London)
Amadeus (London)
Arcadia (Salt Lake)
Peter Pan (we thought it was a musical but it was just a play--drag! London)
Little Women (Salt Lake)
several Shakespeare plays (London)
I'd love to see: Grey Gardens; Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk; Mary Poppins; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; The Light in the Piazza; Nunsense; The Secret Garden; Thoroughly Modern Millie; and many more!

I think out of all of those, my favorites have been The Drowsy Chaperone, Wicked and Phantom. I didn't like Little Women, Cats or Arcadia. I'd love to see a large-scale production of Chess but I doubt it will ever happen. What shows have you seen? What is your favorite? What would you like to see?

Monday minutia

On Saturday night, the Husband went off to watch some dudes pummel each other into goo at a local Mixed Martial Arts fight event, leaving me with the perfect opportunity to finally watch the ultra-girly "Marie Antoinette" DVD that has been sitting here for more than a month. I know I'm terribly late to the party on this, but can I just tell you that I LOVED it? Okay, so the plot was iffy at best--but I read the book it was based on a couple of months ago, so I knew what was going on and it didn't bother me. It was the visuals that I loved--I just wanted to pause each scene to drink in all the details and colors! Every surface seemed to be positively dripping with ribbons and flowers and trims and feathers of the most gorgeous, rich variety. I know that the costumer for the movie won the Academy Award this year, and I can see why. Wow! The whole thing was very visually inspiring. Just gorgeous.

In a complete 180 stylewise, would you look at these cute camouflage Hershey's Kisses I found at the commissary last week? I'm a sucker for specialty packaging like this and I bought two bags. I'm not sure what I'll do with them yet, but I'll just store them in the freezer until a brilliant idea hits me. Too bad its about a zillion degrees in Iraq right now, as these would be cute to send in a care package to a soldier.

I went thrifting today on the way home from an appointment and found a few fun things so I'll get some pictures up in the next few days! Also, one of my favorite bloggers held a little contest and I am one of her runner-up winners! I never win anything (everyone always says this, so who in the heck is doing all the winning?) and I am just tickled. One of the other winners writes this blog, which I just discovered today and I totally love! Check out all her great vintage finds and you'll be drooling like I was!

Happy Mother's Day

Besides my husband, my mom is my very best friend. I'm so thankful for her! We don't live close right now and I miss her like crazy! We talk on the phone frequently, but it's just not the same as actually being there, know what I mean? Hopefully one day we'll be able to live near each other again.

My mom is my favorite yardsaling partner! We don't get to go together often (because of that whole living 9 hours apart thing) but when we do, we have a great time! It seems like we increase our chances of finding good stuff when we're together, and even when we just find crapola (like we both did yesterday) we still have fun because the company is so good!

My mom is awesome. Seriously, it would take too long to enumerate all the awesome-ness here. You're just going to have to take my word for it! Mom, Happy Mother's Day! I love you!


I'm also thankful for this little sweet thing, and for the opportunity to be her mother. It's a job, I'll tell you, but one I wouldn't trade for anything in the world!

Happy Mother's Day to all those wonderful women out there who "mother" in any way. Whether you have children or not, I believe all women have innate motherly qualities, and you should be celebrated for that!

Yardsales-1, Heidi-0 and Ribbon storage

It's been a couple of weeks with no yardsaling for me and I've been feeling the 'itch' something terrible. The weather here this weekend is fab so I knew there would be tons of sales. I was right! Signs at every corner and every intersection. Quin had to help at a church function this morning so I was on my own with Maren, but I packed her up and we headed out. I don't know what the problem was but the sales, as plentiful as they were, stunk! I realize that yardsaling is, in essence, looking at other people's junk. Sometimes it's good junk--sometimes it's just plain old junky junk. Today it was the latter. If I had been looking for old, over-priced VHS tapes or stuffed animals with matted fur, I would have hit the jackpot.

The only things I ended up buying were a puzzle and three mugs (two hopefully for the upcoming Sweet Goodness swap) for a total of $2.00. Oh well, I'll just save my money. Next weekend is my subdivision's big sale and when I was out today I saw another subdivision sale advertised for next weekend as well. I'll have to take Maren with me again as Quin will be working, but she's getting pretty good about riding in the car with me to go "treasure-hunting" as I tell her. I've learned that if I stock the car with treats and toys and stop about midway through and let her run around at a park for 20 minutes, she hangs in there pretty well.

I know I can't be the only one out there with a ribbon *ahem* problem, so I wanted to show you my storage solution. I'm not the originator of the idea; I found it on Two Peas a couple of years ago but it has been so long that I can't remember who did it first. Most ribbon holders that you find in stores work great if you only have a dozen or so rolls of ribbon to contain. I have, well, a few more than a dozen, so none of those pre-made storage boxes are particularly effective for me.

This is one of my ribbon holders. The back piece is one of those wire grid squares that can be made into cubes. You can buy a big box of them at Target for about $12 on sale and use the rest to actually make into cubes for storage. The plastic baskets on the front are from the Container Store (but you can find them lots of places); you want them to be about the same length as the wire grid. You can fit three baskets on each grid; the baskets are attached to the grid with plastic zip ties along the back and then the ends are clipped off. That's it! Just pop in your rolls of ribbon and hang by two nails on the wall or even by a wreath hanger on the back of a door. I currently have three of the grids with three baskets each but they are full, so I need to hop over to the Container Store and pick up the baskets to make one more. I told you I had a ribbon problem! And that's just my rolled ribbon...you haven't seen my cut ribbon yet! *eek*

Back in the swing of things

Hi everyone! I have returned. We took a week-long trip home to Utah to see our parents and families. It was a good trip and we love seeing our families but I am tired and glad to be home! Time to get back in the swing of things around here, hence my post title. Mostly that involves dealing with mountains of laundry and remedying the empty refrigerator, but also getting back into the blogging and creative groove again.

In my last post I mentioned going thrifting on the road. As it turned out, I didn't do any thrifting at all. The thrift stores in Utah are high-priced and picked over, and the weather last weekend was terrible, so there were no sales. (We woke up to an inch of snow on Saturday morning!) Even if the weather had been nice, we ended up with plans on Saturday morning. We were privileged to attend this sweet boy's funeral service. We know Joey's family from when we lived in Savannah, and they are the best kind of people. It was so great to see them again on Saturday although we all wished it had been under happier conditions, of course. The funeral was beautiful and although it was sad, there was also a wonderful sense of peace and love. We were glad that it worked out that we were able to attend.

I'm getting antsy for the next Sweet Goodness swap! I've been trying so hard to guess what the theme might be for this time around. Rebecca and Lucy have dropped a couple of hints but they've been maddeningly vague so I'm still guessing! I love shopping and planning for swaps so I'm anxious to get started again. Mostly I think I just like shopping, so having a swap to justify it makes it much easier. LOL How long do you think they'll leave us guessing? ;)

I'm glad to be back! :)

Sunday

Ah, the irony. Today it was approximately 82 degrees. In case you missed it, here's what Tuesday looked like. Welcome to springtime in Colorado, folks!

We took advantage of the abundant high altitude sunshine to work on our neglected yard and flowerbeds all day yesterday. We have an itty-bitty yard and I often complain and wish it were larger, but the truth is we can barely manage to take care of the little spot of green we have!

The soil here is naturally very full of clay. Yesterday I dug out a whole section of plants that have taken over; there was so much clay in the dirt it was like digging through Play-Doh. Ugh. I worked some Soil Pep through it to hopefully loosen things up and the next step is going to be a liberal application of fertilizer. I want to plant the hollyhock seeds that Linda sent to me so I need to make sure they will grow! I also have some seeds for the most gorgeous *pink* poppies from my Gram's garden that I'd like to sow. I tried them last year but they never took, which is no wonder considering the condition of that dirt! While digging out those plants yesterday I found tons and tons of worms. I don't know how they managed to dig through all that clay. Super Turbo worms, I guess.

Alas, but I didn't go garage saling yesterday. I woke up at 6:30 a.m. and the weather was gorgeous but I was grounded! The grounding was self-imposed, as I didn't get any of my eBay stuff written up this week and that had been my big goal. I will be out of town this week so I won't get anything done for it until late next week, and with a 7-day auction it will be a while until I can make any money, and that's assuming anything sells. I may give myself a reprieve for next Saturday, however; we'll be out of town and I think on-the-road thrifting is definitely a good enough excuse for un-grounding!

Pink & Green goodies

Thank goodness, the snow has melted! Tuesday's storm dropped about 5 inches of wet, heavy snow but we had lots of sun yesterday so it is all gone. Hopefully all that water will make my grass green!

This week I received my Pink & Green Spring Fling swap package from Risa, The ParTea Planner herself! This was Risa's first blog swap and she completely spoiled me! The first photo is all of the contents of the package, before I opened anything. Everything was wrapped so prettily, with pink and green ribbons and sweet matching labels that Risa created.

Inside all that gorgeous wrapping were the most wonderful goodies! For S she sent pink and green sanding sugars that will be perfect for cupcakes or cookies and a Pyrex Bowl in the Spring Blossom pattern. P was a trio of pampering goodies that Risa made herself! Soap petals (which she's going to share how to make on her blog!) sugar scrub and hand lotion. All nestled in a bed of pink rose petals in the most perfect thrifted pink and green bowl! R was for the vintage recipe book, a cute little recipe holder made from a fork and a handmade paperbag album with some of Risa's favorite recipes inside. Yum!

I is for my first initial, H, tied with bright green polka dot ribbon! N is for Notebook of Goodies. This notebook is amazing and such a clever idea! Risa embellished the front of a pink 3-ring binder (you can see the cover on the left in the picture above) and inside she included several sheets of divided page protectors, the kind you use for holding baseball cards. Each little pocket was filled with a little treat--ribbons, buttons, lip gloss, chandelier crystals, notes, photos, flowers, jewels, etc. What an absolute treat it was to look through all those little pockets and see all the treasures! They will be perfect for art projects. I absolutely love this idea! It is a perfect gift for anyone who loves little bits and bobs and treats!

G was for a pair of fabulous pink rubber gloves that Risa fancied up with lace, trim and a jewel! Perfect for me because I do all my cleaning and dish washing in rubber gloves, and I'm all for adding a little glamour to housekeeping! LOL In addition to all these wonderful things, Risa also included a CD, darling green sparkly slippers, pink and green tea towels, candy, and the most adorable little jar of girly goodies for Maren! Can you see why I was just amazed by this package? Risa absolutely outdid herself! There are a few more close-up pictures on Risa's blog here--check them out! And thanks again, Risa, for being such an amazing partner!

This is getting ridiculous.

Opening Day

At long last, the wait is over--Hurrah! Yard Sale season is officially here, and not a moment too soon. When I picked DH up at the airport on Friday I noticed lots of signs and planned to go out Saturday morning, even though I'd have to tote Maren along as DH had to work. I got up early and we were out the door shortly after 8:00 am. I packed the backseat with lots of toys and books for Maren and she was a surprisingly good sport about staying strapped in her carseat for the better part of 3 hours. About halfway through our trip I stopped at a park and let her run and play for about 25 minutes which made all the difference in having a happy little girl instead of a screaming, crabby banshee in the back seat. I took $20 and just followed the signs around my neighborhood. I think folks have been waiting for a while now to clean out their junk and have just lacked decent weekend weather to do it, so there were tons of sales.

The first place I stopped yielded this Haeger vase for 50¢. I have this weird yardsale hangup and sometimes I have to drive by a few sales before I get up the courage to stop. I hate being the only person at a sale because I feel pressured. At this sale they were still dragging boxes out of the garage but the vase was already on a table. I also found a handful of vintage glass ball Christmas ornaments for 25¢ but I realize now I forgot to photograph those. Nothing fancy, but I'm trying to get enough to make some of those really neat ornament wreaths this year. The large wooden spool was $1 and will go with my two smaller spools, and the red and green fabric in the back is a vintage apron that was 50¢. All are resting on a chenille bedspread that was $5.00. The green vintage ceramic planter was $2.00 and came from the same place as the bedspread. It's not marked but I love the color and the shape.

Three Nancy Drew books were a quarter apiece. The one on the right, The Clue of the Broken Locket, was the first ND book I ever read! If I can find them cheap, I'd like to make a collection for my kids to read someday. The two vintage shaving brushes were 50¢ each and the cute handmade quilted potholder was bought with the apron from the previous picture, also 50¢.


At the same sale where I bought the green planter and the chenille bedspread, I bought these 10 vintage Vera scarves for $1 each. This lady was a Vera collector and she had a huge box of scarves. I bought 5 at first but went back later for 5 more. These are for resale so I tried to pick only the ones in perfect condition that I think are most likely to sell. I'm going to try to get them photographed this week so I can list them soon. I need to get my eBay selling kicked into gear again, and hopefully these scarves will get me off to a good start!

Can't wait for next Saturday!

Thrifty goodies

Warning! Vent ahead: I mentioned last post that I found a bunch of great sewing stuff at the thrift about a week ago. It was obviously all from the same person's collection, but I hate how the sorters/pricers at the thrift put it together. They just throw a few things in a bag, whether they go together or not, and slap a price on it. Most of the baggies had about 5 cards of bias tape or rick rack, but some were a whole card and some partial. I wish they could get their acts together and put all the rick rack in one bag, all the bias tape in one, all the buttons in one, etc. instead of mixing it all up. If I could get a whole bag of rick rack I would buy it in a second, but I'm not going to buy 5 separate baggies at $1.45 each to get 5 partial cards of rick rack, so instead I buy nothing! I'm selective about the baggies I will buy because I don't like getting stuck with a bunch of junk I'll never use (like single fold bias tape), therefore the thrift gets less of my money because of their stupid bagging practices. Oh well, when I went back on Monday morning to see if there was anything left it was all gone, so I guess someone isn't bothered by it!

Anyway, here are some of the treasures I found. Look at all these fabulous buttons! The photo doesn't do them justice, but they're all on OLD cards and they're so pretty! I love the red and blue ones on the top row. That's such a perfect cornflowery blue. The green buttons at the top right are clear and faceted and very pretty as well. My favorite card is this one. Isn't is pretty? Mermaid pearls, how sweet; I love the flourishes around the M. I had to buy several baggies to get all of the buttons but I looked carefully and I think I got the best bags.

I also found these neat old spools of thread. Some of the spools are wooden and some look like some sort of hard cardboard, but they are all old. The colors are so pretty; this is another one where the photo just doesn't show them off as well as I would like. They're so pretty all lined up! I love the old spools. I once came across several bags full of old wooden spools at this thrift. I passed them up! I knew they would be good for something but I thought and thought and just couldn't decide what exactly, so I didn't buy them. Someday I'm going to really regret that, I know! There were a few other assorted sewing notions in the bags of thread and buttons: elastic, buttons to cover, ribbon.

I also found a few other non-sewing related items. This cute little Gymboree poncho/capelet is for Maren next year. It has sweet little crocheted flowers all around the collar in great fall colors. She already tried it on and couldn't figure out where to put her arms, since there is only a neckhole. I think she ended up wearing it more like a skirt.


A whole string of vintage cookie cutters; these were less than $2.00. I love the large scalloped cutters and the red-handled donut cutter! I have lots of the hearts and flowers already; those must have come in every set. I need some more creative ideas on how to display these cutters, as I've amassed quite a few over the last year. I keep thinking I'm going to run across an idea somewhere but so far, no luck. I have given them away in swap packages but I wish I could think of something else to do. Maybe I can save the hearts and put them on a wreath next Valentine's Day or something. In the meantime, if any of you have any clever ideas for them, please let me know!

I am now the proud owner of one of Rebecca's darling teacup pin cushions from The Goodness Shop. I just love it! It was my very favorite from the minute she put it up. There are little pink sequins sewn on the roses and the prettiest blue glass-headed pins on top. When I make Maren's next swap with my blue bias tape and pink and blue thrifted fabric, my pincushion will match, too! Tell me I'm not the only dork out there that gets all jazzed when everything matches, okay?

I went yardsaling yesterday morning. Opening Day of the season! Hooray! Found some fun stuff so I'll get pictures and post those next. Oh, and if you haven't read the Michael Jackson link in the post below, you should do it. I promise it's not anything freaky-deaky, but it will give you a good laugh or at least leave you scratching your head. Sometimes I think the reality I inhabit just does not extend to everyone.

Words fail me.

Bizarre Michael Jackson-related news story.

Last week I went into JoAnn's to get 3/4 yard of fabric to make Maren's smock and some green ribbon for a swap project. I walked out with that and what you see pictured. (Where's that smiley with the sheepish look on its face?) It seems JoAnn's is resetting their ribbon and trim section, specifically the stuff sold by the yard. It was marked way down; most of the ribbon in the photo was 10¢ a yard! I got tiny black and tan rickrack, brown, orange and blue grosgrain, cream and brown velvet ribbon and lots more. The girl at the cutting counter was not too thrilled to see me roll up with my cart full of spools, I can be sure of that!

In my last post about the smocks, I mentioned that I would be watching the thrifts for cheap fabric & bias tape to make more smocks. It would appear that the Thrift Fairy heard me and granted my wish! On Friday while I was waiting for DH's delayed flight to get in and going out of my mind with anxiety, I visited the thrift to calm me down. (Some people drink or smoke to calm their nerves, I buy old junk. We all have our vices.) It was apparent that someone had donated all of their sewing stuff to the thrift. It was all broken up into individual baggies but as with the blankets I bought, I could just tell that it all came from the same source. The baggie with 23(!) yards of the pretty blue bias tape was 50¢ and over in the fabric section I found this cute vintage pink and blue print for just 95¢. As soon as I can get my swap stuff finished, I'll be sewing Miss Maren a new smock! I found a lot of other goodies too, and I'll post those soon.

And last I just wanted to post a picture of something that makes me happy. I found these cute foil-wrapped eggs at Walgreen's before Easter and had to buy them because of their colors! They remind me of little polka-dotted toadstool caps. They look so sweet on my kitchen windowsill and I will be sad when it's time to put away the Easter stuff and throw them away. Maybe I'll hang onto them just a little bit longer. :) They look more springy than Eastery, anyhow.

Smock around the clock

With all the Easter crafting done or given up on, I moved on to the next project piled on my desk: smocks for Miss Maren. I saw this smock on Sarah's blog a while back and thought it would make the perfect bib for Maren. She won't wear a regular bib while eating and I know I've avoided letting her try some healthy foods because of the mess factor involved, which gets my Mommy Guilt going. This smock is perfect because it covers her whole front and ties in the back so she can't get it off! The pattern is Simplicity 8916 and I had to buy it off eBay, as it's older and none of the local fabric stores had it.


Here's the problem: I don't sew. Last time I had any formal instruction in sewing was oh, 7th grade-ish. This little pattern was very simple but it still took me several hours to make the first smock. Most of that was due to the fact that I kept having to rip off the bias tape and redo it; I had a hard time getting the edge of the fabric caught by the thread. If you look close you can see that I used extra-wide bias tape around the neck and regular width everywhere else. The neck was the last piece you put on and for the life of me I couldn't get it to work with the skinny stuff! Luckily I had some of the extra-wide from last year's pillowcase dresses.


Here's my second attempt. I had this cute thrifted strawberry fabric and thrifted red polka dot bias tape in my stash. The bias tape is extra-wide and while I didn't have any more problems with the fabric not staying in the fold, I did have a much more difficult time getting it stretched smoothly around the round seams of the armholes. I'm not sure which width was really better; they both had their difficulties. I do think I like the look of the narrower tape better.

I'd like to make a couple more smocks so I will be looking for more thrifted fabric and bias tape--for each smock you need 2 packages and that stuff gets expensive! I'd also like to experiment with making one out of a vinyl tablecloth so that I could just wipe it off instead of having to toss it in the washer. I bought a tablecloth on clearance at JoAnn's so I can give it a try. Oilcloth would be cute too but I don't think my JoAnn's carries it and I want this project to stay inexpensive.

And from the SUPER EXCITING GOOD NEWS file: My husband comes home tonight! You may recall that he left on President's Day for some training in Missouri, so we haven't seen each other in 8 long weeks. To say that I'm excited to see him would be a slight understatement. :) Thankfully the huge snowstorm that was predicted for today has missed us so we won't have any problems with flight delays. It's actually snowing outside right now but it's nothing major and should be gone by tomorrow. I'll be back Monday, and hope you all have a wonderful weekend!