03-06-08

You know, I'm sick of trying to come up with clever titles for my blog posts. I think I may steal a page from this blogger and just start dating things.

Thanks for sharing my excitement about my Jadeite find! Here's what I've done with it:


There is a shelf over the pantry door in my kitchen so I put most of the pieces up there along with a few of another collection, my sunburst Ovenex pans. I like it, but it's a little boring, right? It needs some red but I'm not sure how to add that in. What I had up there before was a row of old blue glass canning jars and then I folded some old printed dishcloths into points and had those hanging over the edge, overlapping. Maybe I could do something similar with squares of fabric? Red gingham, maybe? I'd love to hear your suggestions!

I've been on an eBay binge now for a few weeks. Unfortunately it's a buying binge, not a selling binge, which is the kind of binging I really need to do. It was love at first sight when I found this cute sign:

It's a reproduction, but cute nonetheless. It's red, has a heart, looks old and mentions cupcakes so that meant I pretty much HAD to buy it, right? (And let's not even mention my secret shame LOVE for Hostess snack cakes.) I rearranged my kitchen counters so now it lives next to Ruby the red KitchenAid and they make a cute couple. Unfortunately, the eBay seller was lousy and the sign arrived 1) very late and 2) slightly bent due to his poor packing job, so if any of you are looking to buy one of these, contact me and I'll tell you who NOT to buy from.

Who watched the Project Runway finale last night? I knew Christian would win based on his work for the whole season and I think he's incredibly talented and he deserved it, even if he is an arrogant little twerp. I did like Rami's runway collection the best out of the three and I think he'll have a successful career dressing movie stars for red-carpet events. His gowns were gorgeous! Jillian's collection was such a letdown for me--I loved her work all season long, but I thought her stuff last night was ugly and just totally blah. Too bad. Tonight I have a busy evening of "LOST" watching scheduled because I have to catch up on last week's show as well.

Tomorrow I have a few crafty projects to share!

While I was visiting my folks last week I thought it might be fun for my dad and me to hit an estate sale (or perhaps even a garage sale, if the weather held) so I popped on Craigslist to see if any had been listed. Out of curiosity I also checked the 'collectibles' section, to see if anything interesting was posted for sale. I did find a listing for a few days previous for a collection of Jadeite that a woman was asking $125 for. I checked it out, but figured that since it had been a few days it had probably already been spoken for.

On Friday morning I checked again and there was a new listing for the same Jadeite, but this time the seller had brought the price down to $100! The listing was for 20 pieces of Jadeite, so that made each piece $5--a bargain, considering the prices I'd seen on the Jadeite items at the antique mall the day before.

However, we had guests coming and I didn't have time to contact the seller until after lunchtime when they'd gone home. I was just sure that someone else had beat me to it but I called the seller anyway to check. To my surprise, it was still available! My mom and I loaded Maren into the car and ran to the ATM to get cash, then headed down to the seller's house.

The seller was a sweet woman named Lynda who lived in the coziest little pink and green apartment. I can see where her Jadeite collection fit right into her decor! She told me that since I had spoken to her, she had found a few more pieces of Jadeite that she would add at no additional cost. In fact, as I was leaving she spied a vase on the table, pulled the flowers out of it, and plopped it into the box in my arms! We visited for a few minutes and I told her how tickled I was to find this collection. She told me that she could tell it would be going to a good home, and I assured her that was definitely the case.

So, do you wanna see what I bought?

And this isn't everything! It's just what I could manage to stuff in a carry-on to bring home with me. There are still 4 or 5 large bowls, a drippings jar and another small covered jar that I had to leave behind at my parents' house until one of us drives to visit the other. I thought I was going to have to leave it all until a few minutes before we had to leave for the airport when I had a flash of inspiration. I dumped all of Maren's clothes into my suitcase so that I could pack hers with my bubble-wrapped treasures, which I then carried on to the plane.

I love, love, LOVE my new collection! I've been looking for Jadeite for a long time but have never found anything. I take that back--I once found a chipped dinner plate at a thrift store but I didn't buy it because of the condition, and even then they wanted several dollars for it. Now I have an instant collection! I love that there are a variety of shapes and sizes of items. I think my favorite is probably the large pitcher--won't it look gorgeous with flowers in it? I also love the shape of the small green vase. Now, I have a suspicion that some of the pieces might be reproductions. I'd have to do some research to find out for sure but even if they are, I don't really care! They're for me to enjoy, not to sell, so market value is irrelevant.

If you want to see some closer photos of the items, you can find them on my Flickr page.

Thrifting on the road

While I was in SLC we found time to do a little thrifting, of course! We stopped at a couple of thrift stores and though the pickings were slim, I found a few items worth making room for in my suitcase.
The glass jars are nothing more fancy than old olive or caper jars, but I think I can gussy them up with ribbons, rub ons and pretty treats and they'll be darn cute. None was more than 50¢. The Martha plate holder was also 50¢; I always pick those up when I find them cheap because I use them in my guest room to hold my souvenir plates. This one actually has some nice little details. The old red-handled ice cream scoop was less than a buck and will go with the rest of my collection of Old Utensils with Painted Handles That I Have No Good Way to Display But Cannot Seem to Pass Up. The neat old number stamp in the front was found by my dad somewhere and has a cool green metal knob on top and will be displayed on my desk.

My dad and I made the ambitious (or foolish, you make the call) choice to attempt the antique mall with Maren in tow. I don't think I've ever said "Hold hands!" and "Only touch with ONE finger!" so often in such a short period of time. Still, in between the frantic admonishing I was able to find a few goodies. I was chiefly looking for aqua-colored things to flesh out my new vision for my front room.On the left is a cream soup dish from the Franciscan Coronado pattern. I love the color and the graceful swirls! On the right is a little planter. It's a bit chippy and has a few pinpricks in the glaze but those imperfections don't bother me one bit, and they brought the price down to $2.00! I love color, the roses, the shape of the handles--it's perfect to me! I wrapped them both up in lots of bubble wrap and tucked them in my carry-on bag and thankfully, they made it safely home! I love thrifting on the road!

In like a Lion

Yesterday, it was 70 degrees here in Denver. Today, it looked like this:


When I got up to let the dog out at 5:45 a.m. I opened the door and was hit by a blast of icy cold wind and snow! It was then that I decided maybe today might be a good day to play hooky from church and stay inside where it is warm and cozy instead. We've had a lazy, snuggly day and we've thoroughly enjoyed it. Today is our 6th wedding anniversary and it's been so nice to just be together.

Maren and I got home last night from our trip to Utah. We had a wonderful time visiting family, shopping, and just hanging out. The change of scenery and time with my parents was just what I needed to feel energized and ready to tackle life again. There was thrifting, an awesome score from Craigslist, and a hilarious Broadway musical. Here's a little taste of the show we saw. I'll be back tomorrow with more from our trip!

Good heavens! I didn't really intend to drop off the face of blogland, but that's what seems to have happened since I haven't posted in almost a week. Yikes.

First, the winner of my little tag giveaway is........ Miss Paula!


I already notified her and a little packet of Happy Mail is winging its way toward Oregon as I type. Thank you all for your comments and your entries! I have another fun giveaway planned for the future.

Many of you commented about the cute pink purse I showed in my last post. My mom bought it here at Bella of Cape Cod online. They have quite a few very inexpensive but very cute purses, bags, and other accessories. If you know someone who needs a sparkly pink purse, you know where to find it!

Last week I had an unexpected free hour and a cooperative child, so we stopped at the thrift shop to see if the Easter goodies have been put out yet. They haven't but I found a few other things that I couldn't leave behind:

This pretty little jar was only 40¢, which is surprisingly cheap for this particular thrift. I think it's new but it definitely looks old and has a pretty pinky-copper metal lid. The Madeline book was $2.42, the Stinky Cheese Man was $1.81 and I think Horton was somewhere in between. They are sitting on this:
My newest vintage tablecloth! It's red, so it will be perfect in my kitchen. Do any of my fellow vintage tablecloth-loving peeps recognize the pattern? It reminds me of a Wilendur and the flowers look like poppies, but the Wilendur poppy tablecloth is different. It had a few yellow spots but I used the bleach pen on them and I think all but one came out. Hooray!

Tomorrow Maren and I headed to visit my folks in SLC for a few days. Maren has been asking all day, every day for a week now if it is time to go to the airport yet! We're both excited. :)

A new favorite blog, Happy Mail & a giveaway!

Today I want to share with you a link to my favorite new blog discovery of 2008. Bakerella has only been blogging for a few months but I can't wait to see what else she has up her sleeve. Her final products look fancy even though her ingredients are all store-bought and her great photography skills make every treat look charming and delicious. She's not doing any really fancy-schmancy baking--she's just doing things in innovative ways. For example, I've been making this same recipe for Oreo truffles for years now but it never once occurred to me to shape them like this or like this! And I've made the cake balls before but I never thought to make them like this or like this, which is seriously the darn cutest thing I've seen in a long time. Wouldn't those make the cutest treats for a shower or a birthday party? I can't wait to try them myself.

Between my three Valentine's swaps, a fun surprise package from Shara, a sweet Valentine package from my mom (including the beloved shirt I left at her house when I was there at Christmas) and the fruits of the online shopping I've been doing lately, the last few weeks have been a veritable extravaganza of Happy Mail here at my house! Would you just look at this darling purse my mom sent?


It's pink and covered with beads and sequins and my inner 6-year-old wants to stuff it with lip gloss and gum and carry it with me wherever I go. It's perfect, and now I need to buy some fun, bright clothes to wear with it. And shoes. Definitely shoes.

I've received so much Happy Mail in the last few weeks that I feel the need to put a little Happy- Mail-karma of my own back into the universe. I was playing around yesterday with a stack of shipping tags and some metallic paints I bought back in my calligraphy days and made a whole pile of pretty pastel-colored tags.


I thought I'd offer up a dozen for a quickie giveaway here on ye olde blogge, so if you're interested in receiving some Happy Mail of your own just leave a comment between now and 5 pm MST on Wednesday and I'll draw a name and pop them into the mail!

Happy Presidents' Day

Happy Presidents Day! In honor of the holiday I wanted to show you some close-ups of the adorable little candy container that Amy Bauer included in my Valentine's Day box.

It's tiny--the whole thing is only about 2.5" tall and I believe it's made out of a toilet paper tube. In case you can't tell from the photo, it's meant to be a little tiny log decorated with faux cherries and a wee axe, all to commemorate the famous story about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. Unfortunately, the axe got a bit mangled in the hands of a curious 2-year-old (seriously, is every toddler as utterly destructive as mine or did I just get lucky?) but you get the idea.

Here's a view of one end of the little container. What's so darn cute about the box is that it looks like a real piece of wood! The ends have tree rings and the middle part looks like bark. Amy even cut the ends of the bark paper with deckled-edge scissors--nice attention to detail.

And the best part? The treats inside! Amy filled mine with chocolate-covered cherries. The box is just big enough for two little chocolates. I absolutely adore it and want to make a whole forest of my own next year. Thanks again, Amy!

Valentine's Day wrap-up

I had such a great Valentine's Day! Maren and I started out the day by making "Balentimes" for Daddy:
We even used glitter glue, at Maren's insistence. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, eh?

Quin brought home this beauty for all of us to enjoy:

It is from Edible Arrangments and it was delish! The chocolate-dipped pineapple in particular was especially yummy. They use dark chocolate to dip the fruit and the contrast between that and the sweetness of the fruit is wonderful. It was a fun alternative to flowers, and something we've all been able to really enjoy.

I attempted to make strawberry blossoms:


They didn't turn out as pretty as I had hoped but they sure do taste good! Between these and the fruit arrangement it's pretty safe to say that we've all met the suggested daily fruit intake for the past two days.

For dinner I attempted Middle Eastern food. Quin traveled to Jordan in December and raved about the food there. I chose a few recipes off the internet and gave them a whirl but I was at a disadvantage since I didn't really know what the food was supposed to taste like! I thought it was okay, but I know I can do better. Time to head to the library and the local middle eastern restaurant (complete with bellydancers!) for a fact-finding mission. Dessert got postponed until tonight, as I read the recipe rather hastily and forgot the vanilla ice cream, a key ingredient. It was no big loss as our bellies were full of chocolate-covered strawberries anyway. If the dessert is good tonight I'll post the recipe tomorrow.

For my RED installment today, I have a photo of some vintage crocheted potholders that I thrifted very recently.

Actually, the basket with the rose is an old find but I thought the photo needed three instead of two. I picked up the two round potholders last week and I love them! I see crocheted potholders all the time in thrifts but I'm very particular about the ones I will buy. Anything red gets tossed into the shopping cart, post haste. The small red one has a tiny circle of the palest spring green in the middle and I really love how it looks with the red; such a great contrast. The larger circle is very nicely done and in perfect condition. I was tickled to add these RED cuties to my kitchen!

It was so nice to have Quin home today. I was able to go to JoAnn's and Target all by myself, which qualifies as a huge thrill for me these days. I'm excited that we get a free day tomorrow too, and I think we'll spend the day getting some of our piles of items ready for listing on eBay. I've also got a few crafting projects that were shoved aside in order to get all my swaps done that I'd like to finish up and get off my desk. I'm sure I'll find plenty of ways to keep busy!

Happy Valentine's Day!

For the last Valentine, I want to show you the one card that might just be my favorite for now.


I love, love, LOVE this sweet girl with her rosy cheeks, bow-shaped mouth, wayward black curls and jaunty red beret. This card is sweet beyond words; I love everything about it! The flowers around the edge, the lace, the bright colors. It's just perfect. And imagine my surprise when I was surfing around Blogland and found someone who bears a striking resemblance to my Valentine girl! This sweet card is the centerpiece of the clothespin garland hanging on my mirror. I love it so much that I thought it deserved the place of honor.

For my RED item today I had to venture into the depths of my closet. I'm not a terribly sentimental person and I don' t tend to keep objects around for sentimental reasons, but this is one thing I just can't let go.

You already know that red is my favorite color, but you combine red with sequins and my inner 6-year-old takes over and I'm powerless to resist. I made these shoes when I was a senior in high school when I dressed up as Dorothy for Halloween. I painted a pair of Keds with red acrylic paint and then used tacky glue and miles of sequined trim and glued it around and around in a circle. I wore the shoes for Halloween but then decided that I loved them so much that I kept wearing them! I'm sure there were kids at school that thought I was a total weirdo but I didn't care. In fact I found out later that year that a boy I had a HUGE crush on liked my style, my red shoes in particular.

The shoes don't fit anymore, and neither does the Dorothy dress--my feet grew a half size bigger when I was pregnant with Maren, and to say that I'm not the same size as I was in high school would be a gross understatement indeed. However, the shoes will stay in the back of my closet, because they're red and sequined and that alone wins them a place in my heart. But even more so because they're a reminder to me to do my own thing and not worry what other people think. There's always someone out there who appreciates me for ME, and they're the ones who really matter.

Tomorrow DH has the day off because of the holiday on Monday, and this is the first weekend in a long time that I don't have a 'deadline' of some sort. I hardly know what to do with myself! Tomorrow I'll have pictures of our Valentine's Day festivities and I think I'll keep up with the RED week celebration, even though the holiday is over. I'm always happy for an excuse to celebrate my favorite color!

Hanging Heart swap, Red Appliance #2 and Vintage Valentine show & tell #7

Today's Valentines are the same style as the ice skaters I showed a few days ago. I love the style of illustration!
I adore the little boy in the sailor suit, although the verse is not exactly what I'd call romantic.

I received my Sweet Goodness Hanging Heart swap package from my partner, Kim, and I couldn't be happier with what she made for me! Kim made me this darling heart wreath by sewing all the individual hearts and attaching them to a grapevine wreath form with a great big bow at the top.
I love it! I love all the different fabrics she chose. The hearts all have cute pinked edges and button embellishments. I was just thinking the other day that I wished I had a Valentine wreath and -poof!- one showed up! Kim also included some of my favorite chocolates and a sweet little treat for Miss Maren. Thanks again, Kim!

And now for my continued celebration of RED week, I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of our family, Ruby:


O Ruby, how I love thee. If I knew how to use Photoshop, I'd have fixed this picture so that a heavenly aura would be encircling my beautiful new KitchenAid, because that's pretty much what I see when I look over in her corner of the kitchen. Wait, wait...what's that I hear? Could that be the heavenly courses of angels singing in praise of my gorgeous mixer? {Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh}

Seriously, I've wanted this mixer for about three years now and finally this past Christmas my wish came true. I've already used it for several batches of cookies and it mixed like a dream. I think it's possible that the cookies actually tasted better because they were made in my snazzy red mixer. If my blender is like the fingernail polish of my kitchen, Ruby is definitely the unapologetically bright red lipstick! Is it wrong to be head-over-heels in love with a kitchen appliance?

Back tomorrow with one last Valentine and more Happy Mail. Don't forget to wear red!

Happy RED week! and Vintage Valentine show & tell #6

Today's Valentine is, well, you guessed it--one of my favorites! LOL It's actually much neater in person, as the scanner didn't pick up the embossing or the bright, glossy color. Somehow I got lucky and I actually have two of this same card!

I thought this week it might be fun to showcase some of my favorite RED things from around my house. Red is my favorite color and so my house has lots of red decor. My kitchen is done in bright red, yellow, aqua and cornflower blue--all colors taken from the vintage printed tablecloths from the 1940s and 50s that I love so much. We recently had the need to purchase a new blender so of course I jumped at the chance to buy something RED.

Oh, isn't she beautiful? She's a classic Osterizer Beehive blender and the base is the most beautiful metallic red! The color combined with the retro styling meant it was pretty much love at first sight for me. And let me tell you--she makes a MEAN smoothie! The motor is very powerful and also very loud; it sounds like you're firing up a 737 when you first hit the switch. There will be no middle-of-the-night milkshake making with this baby, I assure you. The red metallic color reminds me of my favorite OPI nail polish. Do you think it would be too crazy if next time I go for a pedicure, I get my toes done to match my blender? :)

Tomorrow: another Valentine and another red appliance, plus my last Valentine swap package. Tune in for lots of red and lots of hearts!

Vintage Valentine show & tell #5

Today's Valentine is another of my favorites. Okay, I know I keep saying that but I have lots of favorites. :)

I love this sweet, smitten ice skating couple. Do you not love their bright clothes? I love the girl's rosy cheeks and the way her black curls and yellow scarf are blowing in the wind. It's just charming! I have a few more cards that are done in this style that I love so I'll be sharing those in days to come. This Valentine is die-cut around the top--you punch it out and then the outside part folds down to become an easel. Clever!

When I put away my Christmas decorations, I left up the little clothesline & clothespins from this post. I had an inkling I might want to use them in my Valentine's Day decorations. I switched out the green clothespins for red and pink and hung some of my favorite heart-shaped Valentines on the string.
I love the way it looks! I love it so much that I think I might just be doing a variation on this theme for all my holiday decorating in the future. I will probably change out the red & white twine for something more appropriate for Easter, but I like the concept. That wall is very bare except for this mirror which is pretty simple and square itself. I like that the garland adds a little spice. Some more of my favorite Valentines are hanging on the garland so I'll give you a close-up view of those in a few days.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Heart swap #2 and Vintage Valentine show & tell #4

Today's Valentine is one of my very favorites from my collection. My uncle gave me a big frame he'd found somewhere that was full of vintage Valentines that had been glued to the paper backing. I love this Valentine because of the bright colors and the sweet graphics. Doesn't it remind you of Mary Engelbreit? You can tell where she gets her inspiration!
Here's the back. Unfortunately I wasn't able to remove it from the paper it was glued to without doing some damage to the corners.


Oh, how I love that little red and yellow cottage with the smoke curling out of the chimney and the little boy wearing shoes that look like Mary Janes. You know, Valentines aren't nearly as cute these days! Heck, even the inside is charming:
I think you can see why this one is one of my favorites. :)

The mailman has been good to me lately! I participated in ArtsyMama's "For the Love of Supplies" swap and was partnered with the fabulous and charming Dede Warren, who I had the pleasure to meet at Silver Bella last year. I received my swap package from Dede the other day and it is fabulous!Dede went with a very romantic, shabby theme for the box that she decorated. I love the flowered wallpaper, the darling vintage Valentine image, and the big poofy blue flower she used!
The insides were wonderful too:


Dede filled the box with all kinds of wonderful goodies like vintage buttons, ribbons, pompom trim, these amazing feathery wings, gorgeous vintage wallpaper, great chipboard shapes, and much more! What a treat it was to pull each thing out of the box. I can hardly stand to put it all away--it looks so pretty in a pile of goodness on my desk! :) Dede also included a lovely handmade card and this sweet little flowered teacup.


What fun these swaps have been! And now it's back to work for me. I have to speak in church this Sunday as well as prepare a Sunday School lesson for the same day, so I have to get a move on! I've grounded myself from all fun crafty activities until my talk & lesson are done, and I have Valentines to make so I'd best get MOVING!

Heart swap #1 and Vintage Valentine show & tell #3

Today's Valentines are both from the same line, and from the names on the back I think I must have gotten them from the same source. They both feature a gap-toothed boy--one blond, one red-head. I love their outfits: the bellhop uniform with the jaunty cap and the raccoon tail hat and knickers on the other! They both look a little impudent, if you ask me.

I also want to tell you about an amazing swap package I received. I participated in Maria's Sweet Heart Box Swap and my partner was Amy, who unfortunately doesn't have a blog (but she does have some awesome photos of her work up on Flickr!) Amy sent me the most beautiful box decorated in rich pink and brown velvet and glitter. It's so pretty! Rebecca, I know you'll be jealous. ;)
The inside of the box was amazing too!


Amy stuffed the box with all kinds of wonderful treats:

Vintage Valentines for my collection, heart tins filled with gold filigree charms and buttons, cupcake toppers, paper flowers, vintage crepe paper nut cups (how did she know I was just looking at these on eBay last week?)

And a few more of my faves:
Personalized stationery, Almond Roca (yum!), chandelier crystals, little grapevine hearts, ribbons, wee feathered birdies, and more. One item absolutely tickled my fancy: in the bottom center, you can see a little container that looks like a log with a little axe and cherries attached. Inside are cherry chocolates--it's for President's Day! Isn't that the cleverest thing? Now I have a mind to save all my TP tubes and make a whole forest of beribboned stumps. LOL

Tomorrow, yet another lovely swap box and more Valentines!

Vintage Valentine show & tell #2

I'm back with more Valentines from my collection. Some of my favorite cards are those that have moving parts, often attached by a brad. Here are three examples:

This is one of the first vintage Valentines I ever bought, and she's stayed one of my favorites even though my collection has grown. When you move the bottom loop of her blue hair bow she gives you a saucy wink! I just love her beauty mark and the way her hair is colored. The cut at the bottom is a little piece that folds back like an easel so that the card will stand up by itself, a clever feature often found on old Valentines. Note that someone wrote the date on the girl's arm--it looks a little like she has a tattoo!

I can't recall if I got these two cards from the same source, but they are definitely part of the same line. Both of them have moving eyes: for the Indian princess, you move her feather and for the Girl Scout, you move the brim of her hat. Love the Girl Scout's kicky uniform and knee socks.

I'll be back tomorrow with more Valentines and a fabulous swap package that I received!

Vintage Valentine show & tell #1

Well, I did okay on my January Blogging Challenge--up until last week, that is, when I totally pooped out! Oh well, I blogged quite a bit in January and I'm still happy with my progress. It was better than December, that's for sure!

I am just about done with my Valentine's (or Clementine's, as Maren says) decorating and up until the big V-day, I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite vintage Valentines from my collection.
I love vintage 1950s and 60s space-themed stuff! I have no idea why it appeals to me so, but I've always said that if we have a son, I'm doing his bedroom in a vintage space/robot theme. I found this Valentine last summer at an estate sale in a pile of papers. I could see there were Valentines in there and that was enough for me--I grabbed the whole pile! I was thrilled to find this one.

Hope you're having a warm and wonderful weekend, wherever you are. We spent today watching funeral services for this amazing man. Like my little brother said, it's not every day that the world loses the best person in it.

The Aftermath & A Swap

Thank you all for your comments about my video. :) Truly, I laughed and laughed! For those of you who mentioned how calm I sounded, I did my freaking out/swearing before I picked up the video camera. The whole thing went down like this: I discovered Maren, took one glance at her "finger painting" project, grabbed her wrists with my Mommy-death-grip and rushed her to the bathroom to attempt to wash her hands before she could touch anything else. I actually was able to laugh about it when I was scrubbing her hands and they weren't getting any less purple! Once I had scrubbed Maren as best I could, I grabbed the camera! After I captured my blog-worthy footage, I grabbed the rubber gloves and paper towels and went to work. With the exception of the fabric on my chair and Maren's pajamas, the dye came off of every other surface due to the liberal use of a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. I've said it before and I'll say it again--I'd like to find the person who invented those little white miracles and give him a big, sloppy kiss!

My calm in the face of disaster may also have been because this is not the first time she has done this. That's right, folks--this is actually the second food coloring incident this month. The first was far less catastrophic: although another of my chairs got ruined, she didn't get any on her brand-new Gymboree cupcake clothing and the mess was minor. I don't know what possessed Maren to get my food coloring out in the first place, other than her internal radar for finding the things that will cause the biggest mess in the least amount of time. I kept it in the back of a kitchen cabinet, and have no idea how she spotted it. After incident #1, I moved it to the very top shelf of my cabinets. That means on Monday when she got it out, she had to climb from the chair and stand on the countertop in order to reach that top shelf, and even then it must have been a stretch. That alone is enough to give any parent heart palpitations--she is fearless, I tell you! And really, the food-coloring mess pales in comparison to the Great Rit Dye incident of '07, which ruined another chair (that's three, if you're counting), several towels, and left a big green spot on the office carpet.

In other (less destructive) news, my swap partner Amy from the Sweet Heart Box Swap received her package so now I can share it with you. The idea for this swap was to decorate a heart-shaped candy box and fill it with supplies and other goodies. I was lucky and found this really great fabric-covered box at at thrift store, so all I had to do was cover the bottom with pretty paper to disguise the nutritional information and then gussy up the top. I made a ribbon flower with a vintage earring in the middle and used a vintage black rhinestone shoe clip to frame a cute fabric tag phrase. Not sure why I went with the black but I just liked how it looked with the pale pink and red. Here's what the inside looked like:

With the exception of I think three or maybe four of those little cups, everything else was stuff that I had in my stash! I'm currently working on another heart box for a different swap and I have enough to fill that one too. That, my friends, means I have a LOT of stuff squirreled away in my craft room. Yikes! This was such a fun swap and I do hope Amy liked her swap package.

It's back to the craft mines for me--I have to finish heart box #2 to be mailed out by Friday (eek!) and come up with a brilliant idea for the Sweet Goodness Hanging Heart Swap, to be mailed out by Monday (double eek!). Back to the glue & paper I go!

Maren, the artist

Crafting in Blogland

Drats! I missed blogging again yesterday. Oh well, I didn't have anything to say anyway! LOL


Last night I made these cute buckets to take to the ladies I Visit Teach. I bought the buckets on clearance at Michael's after Valentine's Day last year. Would you believe I was able to do the handles of three buckets almost entirely with ribbon scraps from my stash? When I say scraps, they were all pieces less than 18". (If they're longer, they get stored in a different system, but the short scraps go into a vintage aluminum sugar canister for when I just need a little bit of ribbon.) I used pink rub-on letters from my stash for the 'love' and filled the buckets with pink frosted and be-sprinkled sugar cookies. Pretty cute, no? Now I just need to go get the rest of the cookies decorated and taken to the neighbors so I won't be tempted to eat them all myself. Frosted sugar cookies are deadly to my willpower!

There have been such cute, creative crafts popping up in blogland in just the past few days. The bright colors of my friend Shonda's button flowers sure do brighten up these January days, don't they? I'm crazy over this tulle hanger and wreath made by Andrea Singarella; the tulle is so romantic and pretty! I have a few vintage nighties that could use a pretty little hanger. And these darling vintage-inspired bunny carts made by Holly from Hollydoodle Designs make me want to ditch all the red hearts and skip straight to Easter! I love the creative inspiration I get from blogs; no magazine could ever match it! Thank you all for posting your creative endeavors for the world (and me) to see!

And now, maybe just one more cookie before I give them all away...Yum! :)

Fun find

Last night I was at Michael's for a few minutes while DH was in REI looking at guy stuff and I came across these fun little guys in the $1 section. They come in black (two designs), hot pink, bright blue, chartreuse, and orange and they're about 4.5" tall. They are made out of that thick felt stuff. Aren't they great? I love the really graphic silhouette effect, plus I am a big ol' sucker for anything with a chandelier on it so of course I had to buy a few. They can probably be blinged up with some adhesive rhinestones or they can be left as is. I can see a lot of possibilities! So go...run and buy some right now, and then tell me what you make with them!