Mother's Day gifts: antique canning jar soap pumps

Now that I'm sure that my mom and MIL have received their gifts, I wanted to share with you what I did for Mother's Day for them this year. A few months ago I came across this pin on Pinterest (do you Pin? That needs to be another post entirely) and was determined to make one for myself.

http://theblissfullycontentlife.blogspot.com/2010/08/homemade-christmas-canning-jar-soap.html

I realized that they would make fun Mother's Day gifts, so I've been on the hunt for antique pint-sized blue glass canning jars. I know that the quart-size jars are usually pretty plentiful at antique stores, and I figured that the smaller ones would be easy to find as well. Boy, was I wrong! I went to one antique mall, one consignment store, and about six other antique stores with ZERO luck before I threw in the towel and went to my go-to giant antique mall on the other side of town. Even there, I really had to search for them, and they were more expensive than the larger quart jars!

For the pump portion, I purchased two bottles of Suave lotion because although they have a plastic pump, it's a nice matte silver color and I like how it looks with the zinc lid. I did look at Michael's to see if they sold pumps with the soap-making supplies, but they didn't have anything. I imagine you could also purchase a soap container from a thrift store or yard sale and just harvest the pump mechanism, but I was in a hurry so I went with what I knew would be easily available.

From there, it was easy! I traced the top of the lid on paper and cut out the circle, then folded it into fourths to determine the center. Using a hammer, I tapped a nail into the top of the lid to make a mark for the center.

The zinc lids for these old jars have a white glass insert that you have to remove so you can put the pump through. I flipped the lid so the inside was facing up, then put a paper napkin over the glass insert and gave it a gentle tap with my hammer. The insert broke, and I used a pair of needle-nose pliers to pull out the pieces and discard them.

I enlarged my pilot hole from the nail by using a Philips head screwdriver and my hammer; I just tapped the screwdriver gently until it went all the way through. I thought that would be big enough to slip the pump through, but then I looked closer at the pump and realized that the portion that needs to fit through the lid is wider than the stem. It's the part the pencil is pointing to in this photo:

To make the hole bigger, I used my needle-nose pliers again and basically jammed them through the hole and twisted. I don't have a photo of this very scientific and precise maneuver because I needed both hands to perform it, but it was easy. The metal lids are really soft and it only took a few twists to make the hole just big enough to fit the pump through. I wanted a snug fit so it would stand up straight, but I'm sure you could use some glue to stabilize the whole thing as well.


The last step was that I needed to trim the plastic stem, because the pint jars were shorter than the original lotion bottles. I just eyeballed the length and cut them with a regular pair of scissors. And then I was done! It honestly took me maybe 20 minutes, and that was because I had to figure out how to do it. I could make one in about 5 minutes now that I know what I'm doing. The hardest thing about the whole project was finding the darn jars!

To complete the gift, I used a pair of darling embroidered vintage flour sack towels that I found at an estate sale last summer. I rolled up each towel so that the embroidered picture was showing and tied it with pretty ribbon.  I searched and found this cute little poem called My Mother's Hands (which I admit I altered very slightly to make it more appropriate from a grown child's perspective). I printed it out on colored cardstock and slipped it around the dishtowel under the ribbon, and tied matching ribbons around the jar lids. I'm very happy with how they turned out; I know it's a gift I'd be tickled to receive!

I definitely want to make one (or more) of these for my own home, so I'll either have to get lucky and find more pint jars or break down and use the quart size. If you want to purchase your soap dispenser lid instead of MacGyvering one like I did, both Post Road Vintage and Midwest Finds are Etsy sellers who carry them. Now, wish me luck finding those pint jars!

Overstock Script chair round 2

Back at the end of March I posted about the cute Signature Tan Linen Slipper chair I ordered from Overstock.com:

I'm still really happy with it! I also still need to spray it with Scotch Guard, but I need help because it's almost too big to fit through the door without bumping it on the doorjamb and I don't want to get it dirty. Back when I first received the chair, I showed it to a friend and mentioned it was so big that I wasn't sure where I would use it in my house. She knew I was also looking for a love seat, and she very wisely suggested that I purchase another chair and use them together in place of a love seat. Brilliant! I'm so glad I have such smart friends. :)

Today I finally got around to ordering a second chair and was tickled to find that the price has dropped even further from when I originally ordered it! I did a little digging and found a coupon code that took off another $12 and even though I had to pay $2.95 for shipping (as opposed to the $1 last time) I still think I got a great deal!

While I was ordering, I noticed that Overstock has added a few new chairs with a similar look:

This is the Tapered Signature Chair which comes with a black accent pillow. This one looks a little more like the original Ballard Designs Brockton chair:

And there's also the Script Bouquet Arm Chair:

Which is a pretty shape and has lovely blue upholstery and floral script phrases.

I can't wait for my second chair to get here so I can get it put together and really get started on redecorating my front room. The next item I'll be hunting for is a large area rug, and if the weather ever cooperates I have a refinishing project on the horizon as well!

Florida vacation highs and lows

We're back from our vacation to Florida and I'll tell you, I think I need a vacation to recover from my vacation! We returned on Tuesday and on Monday morning as I was dragging the kids out of bed at 7:00 am for Day #4 of our Assault on Disney World, I was never so thankful that my vacation was coming to an end. I don't think we could have lived through another day of fun at that point. We were all exhausted!

You all know by now that the chief reason we went to Florida ended up being a bust. We were literally on the bus headed out to the VIP viewing area on Friday morning when our friend called and broke the news (before it even hit the wires--the NASA employee on our bus had no idea) that the launch had been scrubbed. We all returned to Kennedy Space Center and golly, that must be what it feels like in the stadium after your team has lost the Super Bowl. What had been a festive atmosphere totally tanked and the mood was pretty low after that.

See, this is exactly why I don't gamble--I hate to lose! We knew going into it that we were taking a gamble that the Shuttle would even launch; we knew not to get our hopes up because launches get scrubbed all the time--and I truly tried to not get my hopes up, I really did. But my heart won out over my brain and as the launch time grew closer and it looked more and more like it would be a GO--well, I got excited. We all did, can you blame us? So even though we knew that we shouldn't be surprised, it was still bitterly disappointing to hear that the launch was not going to happen, and that the chances of it happening on Monday were slim to none as well.

We were lucky--we still had three more days of Disney to take the sting out of the launch scrub. My poor mom and dad had to go home early the next morning, so that meant their trip ended on a bummer. I wish our schedules had worked out differently so they could have stayed. Four days at Disney World is a pretty good consolation prize, you have to admit.

I will say that if we ever do Disney World again, I'm going in January because that's the only time of year that I can guarantee it won't be ridiculously hot! The previous two times we visited WDW were in June and July and you can imagine how unpleasant the weather conditions are in those months. I thought for sure that April would be lovely--not too hot, but a nice warm change from springtime in Colorado--and I was dead wrong. The first day we spent at Animal Kingdom was around 93 degrees and subsequent days were in the mid- to upper-80s with intense sunshine and high humidity. We went through an entire bottle of sunscreen in less than a week!

My kids, bless their hearts, were troupers. We broke our cardinal rule for Disney parks and neglected to go back to the hotel for a break during the day, so Porter was accordingly cranky due to missing his naps for seven days in a row. We went from early morning until late at night every single day, and my sweet kids kept up pretty darn well under the circumstances. We tried to go at their speed in the parks and to do the things that they would enjoy, even if that meant standing in line for Princess autographs or letting Porter strip nearly naked and play in the water fountains at Animal Kingdom like a street urchin. I'm pretty sure it was the most fun he had all week.

In all, it was a wonderful trip and I'm so thankful that we had the opportunity to go and especially to share part of it with my parents. We never thought we'd be able to afford to take our kids to Disney World without years of saving up, but the stars just aligned for this trip so we couldn't pass it up. I won't lie--it would have been even better if we had been able to view the Space Shuttle launch, and whenever it finally does launch I'm not sure if I can stand to watch knowing how close I was to seeing it in person.

On the upside, Porter got to stick his toes in the ocean for the first time,

The Mister got to have a Dole Whip float and too many Mickey Premium ice cream bars to count,

Maren got to meet Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen,

and I enjoyed photographing the amazing topiaries and displays at the Flower & Garden show at Epcot:

Oh, and the humidity brought more curl to my hair and gave me hope that pregnancy hasn't ruined my curls completely.

And now it's back to real life!

Why today is the most important day of the year

Easy sweater refashion for spring

Last fall I purchased three plain 3/4-sleeve cardigans on clearance from Target with the idea that I would use stuff in my stash to refashion them. Here's what I did with the turquoise and the light green cardigans, which left the white one. I purchased the white one because I wanted to recreate this cardigan from White House Black Market:

and although I love it, I've never gotten around to it and at this point I know it's just not going to happen. So in the interest of just getting it done, I turned to another tutorial I have in my files that used a white cardigan: this 20-minute Spring sweater re-do from Jen at Tatertots and Jello.

I loved the way the bright colors of the buttons and the rickrack pop against the white sweater in Jen's version, but the only fat rickrack I had on hand was black, so I decided to go with it anyway. I followed Jen's tutorial and first removed the existing buttons, then pinned on the rickrack and sewed down the length of it.

 

I turned it under at the top and bottom but if I were doing it again, I wouldn't trim the end of the rickrack so close. Jumbo rickrack is woven and thus unravels badly and at the bottom you can see it peeking out. I attempted a fix with some Fray Check and fabric glue, but I wish I'd just left it longer to begin with.

I didn't have enough of the same size of covered button blanks, so I couldn't make cute covered buttons like Jen did. I do not have a shortage of buttons, however,

so I dug out a few of my favorite vintage plastic buttons and sewed those on instead. They were larger than the original buttons so they do not fit through the buttonholes, and I had to sew the sweater shut. That was a pain, but the cute buttons are worth it!

Sewing on all eight buttons took me longer than 20 minutes, but the rickrack part was a breeze. I wore my new sweater yesterday and the rainbow of vintage buttons made me so happy!

And if I ever get tired of the sweater or need to throw it away, I'll most definitely be removing those buttons to use again!

In which thrifting patience pays off

I mentioned yesterday that this weekend I finally thrifted an item for which I have been searching for five years. Are you curious what it is?

Blue ice skates! I do love to skate, but they're not for me (in fact, I haven't even looked at the size). I've been looking for a pair of these blue leather skates with the gray fur trim ever since this magazine came out back in 2006.

This was a special issue from back in the days of Country Home magazine, may it rest in peace. (sob!) One of the first few pages featured this image

and once I saw it, I was on the hunt! Several pair have come up for auction on eBay and I even bid on a few, but the prices always went over my limit because the shipping costs were always so high. I knew if i was patient I would come across a pair sooner or later. It took almost five years, but my patience paid off and I found not one, but TWO pair of these skates at an estate sale on Saturday! I literally squealed out loud when I found them in the basement and the other shoppers looked at me funny. I can't wait to decorate with them this winter.

I found some other goodies as well. There were three estate sales being held within blocks of one another, an extremely rare occurrence around here. In addition to the skates I bought some pretty china saucers (I have a project planned for these), a vintage plastic tree topper (wreath fodder), a pair of earrings and a packet of darling little woven flag picks. These were fun finds, but if I hadn't found anything other than those blue skates, I still would have been thrilled! Have you had an experience where thrifting patience paid off?

Field trip to the Butterfly Pavilion

This past weekend I found something at an estate sale for which I've been searching for FIVE years! But that will have to wait because it's rainy and gloomy today so I can't get good photos. In the meantime, I do have some pretty photos to share.

Last week Maren's class went on a field trip to the Butterfly Pavilion. It's way across town so we've never been before, and I wasn't sure what to expect. The highlight of the facility is the tropical room, which is full of amazing tropical flora and butterflies everywhere! I've never been anywhere like it; there were huge butterflies on every surface and even more flapping above our heads.

It was a great place to try out the macro settings on my camera! The butterflies were nice and big and most were very cooperative and held still while I was trying to photograph them. :)

Porter went with us. The humidity in the tropical conservatory made his frowsy, no-bath hair curl right up and gave me a reminder of what we'll be dealing with in Florida next week!

I'm planning like a madwoman for our trip. The last time we went to Disney World was in 2004 and we didn't have kids, so this is almost like going again for the first time because we have a whole new set of considerations. One week from right now, we'll be on the plane headed to sunny Florida!

Spark No. 3

Last September, my mom and I got Sparked:

Which sounds like a possibly illicit activity, but really was two days of friendship, creative inspiration, eye candy, real candy, and fun.

So it's no surprise that we're doing it again this year! A few things have changed (the date, the organizers, the number of attendees) but I'm confident that it will be just as invigorating and uplifting as Spark No. 2.

There's still room if you want to come too! This year's Spark 3 will be held October 21-22 in Lindon, Utah, which is a town just south of Salt Lake City. The Wasatch Front is simply gorgeous that time of year (amazing fall colors, warm days and cool nights) and I'm thrilled to have a good excuse to visit and spend time with my mom.

Won't you join us?

NASA & WDW: Two of my favorite acronyms

If everything goes right and the weather and technology cooperate, two weeks from tomorrow I will get to witness this with my own two eyes:

A Space Shuttle launch! And I'm so excited I could probably wet my pants a little bit!

My mom has a friend who was able to get us VIP tickets for the launch. That means that we get to view the launch from inside Kennedy Space Center, and attend a special briefing on the launch the day before. We actually had tickets to go a year ago but decided not to make the trip because it was right during Spring Break, so hotels and flights were either full or outrageously expensive. We crossed our fingers that we'd get another chance, and it looks like we have it!

The original launch was set to take place on April 19th but was postponed to the 29th because of a conflict with another launch. Launches get scrubbed all the time if the weather doesn't behave or if there's any kind of technical glitch, so we're FAR from being in the clear. It stinks, but it's a very real possibility, so I'd appreciate it if you'd all just keep your fingers and toes crossed for us that the launch goes off without a hitch!

We do have a Plan B if the launch gets scrubbed:

Hello, House of Mouse! The fine folks at Disney are running a deal for military families in which we could purchase 4-day tickets to Walt Disney World for a greatly reduced price. Normally I'd want to wait a few years for a trip like this because dealing with a wild 18-month-old is going to be a challenge, to say the least. But under the circumstances, I think we're going to give it a try and just set our expectations low. The Mister and I have been to WDW a couple of times before and Maren will be thrilled with anything she sees, so there's no reason to feel like we have to do and see every single thing in this one trip.

And now, I have to plan a major cross-country trip for us in less than two weeks! Heck, I don't even think we have appropriate clothing for the kids--we're still wearing sweaters and jeans around these parts, and we're basically catapulting ourselves ahead one full season so I'm going to have to do some quick shopping for shorts, t-shirts and sandals. I can't wait!

Good junk and cupcakes

As I last posted, I was headed out the door to an estate sale for the first time in months and months. Both sales I visited were on their final days so things were really picked over, but what remained was 50% off so I managed to find a few things. On Friday morning, I stopped at a garage sale up the street and found a few items as well, so although I didn't hit the mother lode this weekend, I found enough to satisfy my jones for junk:

The folding yardstick & clip earrings were from the first estate sale. The two empty vintage frames, cute framed motto and antique flocked Christmas postcard were from the garage sale, which is a reminder to me that I should always just get out of the car and have a look, even at sales in young suburban neighborhoods like mine! From the street, this one looked like your standard baby clothes, toys & misc. household junk sale, but it turned out that one of the ladies holding the sale loved vintage and shabby stuff and was off-loading a few things. Score!

The chippy piece of wood trim was also from the garage sale. Don't know what I'll do with it yet, but I'm hoping to channel Jane from Mamie Jane's and make it into something fabulous! I picked up the tart tins and cookie cutters at the first estate sale; I'm already stocking up so I can make more of these this Christmas. The vintage ornies were from the second estate sale and aren't anything amazing but they were cheap and make good wreath fodder. The cute red, yellow and blue letters were also from the second estate sale--they're made of flexible plastic and they snap together so you can make little phrases. They're just darling, but I laid them all out and there's only one R, so that may limit my spelling choices.

The rest of Saturday I spent working on these:

I made 12 dozen cupcakes for a wedding on Saturday night. Thankfully I had helpers to do the baking for me, but I made all the frosting and did all of the decorating. The bride's main colors were yellow, orange, and chocolate brown, so I chose to make chocolate orange cupcakes with chocolate orange buttercream, and lemon cupcakes with citrus cream cheese frosting.

They really did look pretty cute. My forearms are still sore from squeezing my big piping bag full of frosting!

Did you find any good junk this weekend?

I found it!

I found Flea Market Style! I checked Home Depot (nope) and Walgreens (nada) and finally got lucky at Safeway, so thanks to Heidi Ann for her suggestion!

Today I'm overseeing/decorating of 12 dozen cupcakes for a friend's wedding reception this evening. Yesterday I made 9 batches of homemade frosting, and went through 6 bags of powdered sugar in the process. What a mess! Hopefully I can get photos of all 144 little yummies lined up and looking fabulous. For now, I'm off estate sale shopping for the first time in months! Hooray!

I'm on the hunt for...

...the Spring 2011 issue of Flea Market Style Magazine! Last night I checked at JoAnn's, Barnes & Noble, Michael's and Wal-Mart with no luck. The Flea Market Style blog says I have a few more options, so I'm not going to give up on finding a copy just yet. If you've already purchased the newest Flea Market Style magazine, will you leave a comment telling me where you found it? I'd like to increase my odds of success and decrease the amount of places I have to drag my kids with me. ;)

Remade vintage curtain valances

I mentioned yesterday that I'm in the process of decorating my office. I can't really call it REdecorating, since it wasn't decorated to begin with! In fact, it was the only room in the entire house that still sported the original builder's paint. This is significant because the previous owner was very much into decorative painting, and when we moved in, there were all manner of murals and faux finishes adorning every single wall of this house. I have to wonder if perhaps the husband told the wife that she could have free reign over the rest of the house, as long as she left his office alone!

I got the harebrained brilliant idea to paint the room the day before the carpet was to be delivered--we had to pull out all the furniture anyway, and we didn't have to worry about getting paint on the carpet so it seemed like an ideal opportunity! My long-suffering husband went along with me and although painting in the semi-darkness at 10 pm on a Sunday night is not his idea of a good time, I think he'd agree that it looks much better now. We used the only nearly-full can of paint I had, which just happened to be the ever-popular Sherwin-Williams Rice Grain.

Now that we have new paint and new carpet, I've been inspired to actually decorate the room and make it look pleasant, instead of the stuffed-to-the-gills catchall room it had been previously. The large window in the room provides lots of light but it was bare, so I wanted to add a curtain valance just to soften the edges and add some color. I purchased the curtain rod on clearance and with a coupon from Bed, Bath & Beyond, and I knew exactly what curtains I wanted to use:

I bought this set of four vintage curtain panels back in 2007 at a thrift store. I absolutely adore the red, yellow and gray print of windmills, tulips and little Dutch girls! I've never used them because they were too long to be used as valances but too short for any of the windows in my house, so I've kept them tucked away in a dresser for nearly four years.

For my office window, I started out thinking I could just shorten each panel and call it good, but the more I looked at them I realized that I was going to have to completely start over. Whoever sewed them originally did a really poor job, and that's coming from someone who can barely sew a straight line! The seams were all in different places, the lining was sewn differently in each panel, the selvage edges were (unnecessarily) hemmed--it was bad. Armed with my trusty seam ripper, I laboriously removed all of the original stitching until I was basically left with raw fabric once again.

Stitching up the valances was unfortunately not as easy as I had expected, and I have a bit more compassion for the original seamstress now that I've fought with the fabric myself! The side edges of the fabric are selvage but when you fold them to meet, the fabric is not even and the pattern doesn't line up. That created significant difficulties in measuring and sewing to keep the pattern straight and trying to make all four panels uniform.

Even though they're not perfect, I like them--I'm happy that they finally get to see the light of day after four years! They liven up the office and add softness and color around the window, so I'm going to call this project a success--just don't measure the hems. :)

March Tension Tamer challenge update & thrift store jewelry

Way back on February 21, I posted that I was going to set a challenge for myself for the month of March to tackle my out-of-control piles of stuff to be sold on Etsy & eBay. My challenge was taken from Peter Walsh's book Lighten up, and was to last from February 21 until March 31. My goal was to spend that time listing like crazy on Etsy/eBay/Craigslist and whatever hadn't been listed by March 31 had to be donated.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I didn't do so hot! I did have some obstacles during the month of March: I spent 11 days out of town plus a day on either side of that for prep/cleanup. Two additional weeks after that, Maren was out of school for her break, meaning that during those days I got zero hours of kid-free work time. Also, we decided to repaint and recarpet our office and family room, which meant we had to spend several days moving every single item out of those rooms and then back in, and the office is where the computer lives so it's where I do all listing, shipping, etc. And then we had Maren's birthday party to plan and execute as well. I'm just full of excuses, aren't I? But truly, I don't feel that I had a fair amount of time to work on my listings. I did get some things listed and sold and that felt great, but I know that I could have done more if I'd had more time to devote.

Because of that, I've decided to extend my challenge a bit longer. I'm still in the process of redoing the office, where all of my inventory had been 'stored' in big plastic tubs sitting in the middle of the floor. When we pulled everything out so we could do the paint/carpet, it was so refreshing to have all the junk *gone* that I've been loath to bring it all back in. Having a new, pretty space definitely motivates me to keep things cleaner, and the way for me to keep things clean is to sell my stuff!

Another part of my challenge was that I would not bring in any new inventory during that time--which meant NO junking! I adhered to that rule until March 26, when Maren's birthday party was over and I needed to relax a bit. I hit the thrift and found a few fun sparkly things:

The cute vintage poodle brooch has green sparkly eyes, and he's for sale in my Etsy shop. Also for sale in the shop is the cool vintage Chicago souvenir brooch--the round bit is really a tiny perfume bottle! I'd keep it but I've never been to Chicago, so it holds no sentiment for me and it has to find a new home. My other finds are a big sparkly aurora borealis brooch, a tiny vintage bunny pin with sparkly red eyes, a homemade pin made with antique buttons, and an antique bullion piece that has been made into a brooch. Not a bad haul to end my thrift store diet and get me back on the wagon for a little while more!