What's new?

When you're a hardheaded person like me

You have to learn so many lessons the hard way. Looking back, it would seem a lot easier to just listen to people. Like the time we bought the black mazda fresh off the lot. Everyone I knew (and strangers alike) told me you DON'T want to mess with keeping a black car clean and you DON'T want to lose thousands of dollars in equity the moment you drive it off the lot. I know how frustrated they must have been when I ignored them because now no one listens to me when I try to pass on the same advice! I often wonder, mostly when dealing with our kids, "Why on earth did I have to go through that if my own kids can't even learn from it!?" Well, (the universe answers) we are all here to learn our own lessons for ourselves. A lot of people tried to talk me out of white carpet when we built the family room 5 years ago. Well, it's basically white. It may as well be white, for all the dirt hiding it does. (That was sarcasm. Funny enough; the colors black and white serve opposite purposes in cars and carpets when it comes to hiding dirt. And the learning continues.) It looks SO PRETTY when no one walks or eats or plays on it. But we pretty much live in that room so I have to call the carpet cleaner once or twice a year. Every time John and I are hauling the behemoth tables out the side door to spend the day on the patio I swear THIS IS THE LAST TIME! We are going to install hardwood or replace this carpet! hmm. Maybe having typed that just now I'll save my breath today. Speaking of these behemoth tables. You know how good the furniture looks when it is in Costco? Maybe it's the prices that make it look so good. A couple years ago we got a coffee table with two drawers, each the size of a deluxe Japanese hotel room. A sofa table and an end table. All for $500. Now, did I question that? Knowing full well the coffee table alone, if it was made of anything close to real wood, would cost at least twice that? No, we don't question it. We buy it. And within 2 months the first whack of a toy on the table reveals that it is really just paper coated pressed board. Board that is pressed with iron I think because I've never tried to lift anything so heavy in my life. And uuuuggggllly?! Oh man, I can just hardly stand to walk in to that room anymore. Those tables look like crap in a box. And now they sit next to brown Costco 'leather' sofas. Yes, dear hubby thought "What a deal!" when he walked in to Costco to pick up a prescription one day; they had a matching couch and love seat AND ALL FOUR ENDS RECLINE! OH. That did it for him. I cannot begin to explain how heavy a couch becomes with all that reclining mechanism built into each side. Somehow he conned a friend into helping him drag these monsters home and I just didn't have the heart to make him take them back so now I refer to our family room as the big brown blob and only go in there out of necessity. And by the way, the leather is pretty much just spray-on. Every time a cat walks by it a scratch shows up. I've hated our living room for a while now, and after reading the description above you probably would, too! But with a big Christmas coming up I have to make it look nice somehow. I've started by painting the tables off-white. Did that yesterday. I hope to have decent pics to share soon. For now I've got to go help John drag the tables outside. While emptying the coffee table drawers I realized that a) I'm a magazine junkie and b) I know what our next Dollar Days offering is!

Most of those Legacy's look new...but I can't make the time to go through them all. Just wanna move 'em out! So leave a comment here, and you can have them all for a dollar plus $4 shipping.

Martha, Martha, Martha....

Thanks to you, I fear I must add K-Mart to my list of regular stops. Now who'd have ever guessed? First the towels, and now the holiday decor!

SugarPlum Dreams and Festive Confections she calls them. I'll say! If you don't have a K-Mart you can find most of it online, but their pics are rather lacking in my humble opinion. Ooh, I can just hardly wait til the carpet cleaner comes this Friday so I can start putting the tree up! After 13 years of a themed and artificial tree I'm getting a fresh cut tree and goin' kinda all out with the vintage and new decor. So excited!

Am already thinkin' on what to offer next for December Dollar Days. Banners/buntings are going out to CaroleR and MichelleInfantino. Thanks! I'll be back tomorrow.

Thanks!

Thanks to those of you who left a comment for my first December Dollar Days and THANKS to those of you who have shopped in my etsy store recently. I was pleased to sew up those custom monogrammed towels for a select few of you, but that particular gingham style has run dry.  I do think I came up with a sweet alternative, however. Here's a sample set I made today

You can find them listed here. I'm currently averaging a less than 24 hour turnaround time, but can't guarantee how long that'll last! I put together a few more sweet treats pedestal plates as well.

Great Christmas gifts, eh?  Thanks again for your support. It means a lot to me!

OH. And keep commenting on the post below. I'll draw a couple names tomorrow afternoon and post here.

Mural Monday ~ Week 20

Well folks, this is the last one I know of, but rest assured; I will ask around this week for any I may have missed ;-) This is the side of a snow/surf board shop. Those wave bubbles turning into skeleton heads are pretty ominous looking, huh?

I've had a few questions as to what does Madison look like? Other than a blanket bundle? Here's a sweet pic I snapped of them this past Saturday at five days old.

Yes, I know; that's probably not a 'real' smile, but it looks pretty sweet to me.

SO.

I was just visiting over at turkey feathers and I'm joining in with her fab idea of Dollar Days in December. Routinely from now til the end of the year I will offer something for sale for one dollar plus actual shipping. It may be something I made. It may be fabric or other supplies. It may be on my etsy site or here on the blog, in which case I will pick randomly from those who leave a comment. Just for fun and to keep you interested.  I'll start with this little five foot bunting/banner made from all vintage fabrics.

I started making these when my friend Bonnie brought a whole box of vintage (I'd say 60s for the most part) triangles from her 87yo mom's sewing room. Here's how the box looks AFTER I've made several buntings already!

So I just kept mindlessly sewing them into five foot lengths of bunting. Hung some in the craft corner

and now, well; you'd think I'd quit making them, huh? Nah. Then I'd have to do something yucky like clean a bathroom. So I've got a few. If you think you'd like one, maybe to hang across the back porch or something? Let me know by leaving a post here. A dollar for the bunting and a dollar to mail. Paypal and US residents only, please.  (Knowing me, I'll pick more than one person.)

So much to be thankful for

Health, happiness, good friends, wonderful family, enough money, Marie Callender's restaurant-style Thanksgiving dinner in a box . Almost seems unfair to feel so blessed. But today, I have to say I feel most thankful for this:

It's been a really long time, maybe even never, that I wasn't worried to some degree about these kids. But now I honestly think they are going to be a-ok. Hard to believe a little 6 pound bundle could cause such a change but she certainly seems to have. Thank you little Madison. And welcome to our world! As Travis said (about a hundred times today) this is the best Thanksgiving ever!

This gave me a good laugh today;

I peeked in to their bedroom in the midst of heating all that pre-cooked yumminess and the contrast between these two girls was astonishing to me...I think because normally we all think they are so much alike (that's our Kate, in case you didn't know). One texting and one nursing. Well, they both look pretty happy at doing what they're doing, and that's a good thing. Cheers!

Monday ~ no mural, but something a lot better!

 

Grandbaby #3. Madison Kathleen. Born at 2pm today and weighs 6 lb 12 oz. 19.5 inches long. Set of lungs like I've never heard on a newborn. I hardly got to see her mama at all, as she was hung up in recovery with a new nurse they were training. You can see by the bubbles Miss Madison is workin' up that she was getting hungry by the time Melissa was wheeled into their room, so I had John snap this pic of us before I passed her on to Melissa and we all left them in privacy to give a go at nursing. I'll take more pics and share again soon. I knew we had well-wishers here in blogland so thought I'd share the news asap. I'll post again soon.                        

Etsy Holiday update and the Friday Fiver

At long last, I got a few minutes between watching grandkids today and I made a much needed update to my etsy shop. 

Stockings, a wreath, special treats pedestal plates

I have a couple more ideas for things I'd like to make but just can't keep waitin' around to find that extra time, ya know what I mean?

Here's my answers to today's Friday Fiver:

Falling out of a world of lies (I wonder what this means?)

1. What's the last thing you threw away?  I had to go lift the trash can lid and look: a Capri Sun drink bag from my granddaughter earlier today.

2. Have you ever been to Paris? YES! In 1979. I'll go scare up a pic and attach it here for fun.

by the way, even tho I'm about 40 pounds heavier now, my hair today is cut almost exactly like that! Too funny.

3. What do you stare at? My grandkids. They are utterly beautiful to me.

4. What do you hurry for? I hurry (if necessary) to be punctual. That's a 'thing' with me.

5. Friday fill-in:
I could have been ___ A Contender! (Now I have to go check the website and see how many other people wrote that!)

Okay folks. Hope to see you at the etsy shop. Next time I come back here to post it'll be to show a picture of the new granddaughter who is slated to enter our world this Monday at 1pm. Now THAT'S exciting!!

Mural Monday ~ Week 19

Yeah yeah. I'm a day late. But week 19! Hey, ya gotta give me a little prop for that, huh? Well, we plum ran out of cat food this past Sunday. Our regular pet store was closed. The mall pet store didn't carry our brand, but someone there was kind enough to direct us out to The Farm Store, where we scored the cat food AND found this mural! A good day in my book! :-)

On Saturday we had THE Fall Dinner at Caleb's school. The big fundraiser of the year. We hosted a table again. I'd show pics but it was pretty much a rerun of last year's table except I changed the place cards.

Amongst the overglittered and inexpensive holiday picks at Michael's they have these mini-beaded fruit pics. I bought all the golden colored pears and just pulled the picks out. They sit nice and flat. I printed the names on an old journal page and used a tag punch. Thought I'd share the idea as someone might like it for their Thanksgiving table. Anyway, it was a fun evening. They served a full-on turkey dinner, for which I was grateful because we're not having Thanksgiving dinner here. I've told John to go to Oregon to visit his folks, suggested Melissa allow Travis to go eat with his family, and she and I will be spending what will probably be her last day in the hospital with Caleb and our NEW BABY MADISON! Here's a pic I snapped of Melissa Saturday night next to a lovely quilt that my mother kindly donated for the silent auction.

Let me tell you, that belly is just about ALL baby. You can just watch the waves as she rolls around and around in there! Well, my girlfriend Karen won mom's quilt, as well as the toddler quilt that I donated. I think the only reason she didn't bid highest on the cookie sheet calendar I donated is because she's bought four already and has run out of people to gift them to! Here's what I won for John:

No, not the precious two-year old. :-) As soon as we walked in to the silent auction area John took one look at this fire truck and said, "That's exactly like the one I used to ride up and down the driveway in singing Old MacDonald!" Well, of course I had to get it for him, so I did. The sweet part of the story is that unbeknownst to me, he made sure he was high bidder on the only item in the place that I had expressed interest in. Kinda romantic, huh? Yeah, guess we still have a little twinkle left for each other. ;-) By the way, here's the picture to prove little Johnny's memory is accurate

I'll have to retake a pic of Kadence in it out in our driveway from the same angle...that'd be neat to have her and papa's pics framed side by side. Well, now that the little darlin' lives back here in Eureka and I'm babysitting while her mama works, getting that pic probably won't be a hard thing to do. Which reminds me, I have her tomorrow at 5:30am so I better sign off for now!

And in case I don't get to say it on many blogs; WELCOME BACK SILVER BELLAS! By what little I've seen you had a  most splendiferous time! It looked so fun,  I just may even think about joining you next year!

Ebay listings

There's a few things that one needs to list on ebay instead of etsy, although I really do prefer etsy. Anyway, thought some of you may be interested in this sweet tea set

or maybe this cute wall pocket

or even some vintage Christmas ornaments

maybe some full rolls of vintage wallpaper like this

or this?

I'm going to try very hard to list stuff every week for the next little while...my collecting has gotten quite out of control! Here's the listings which start tonight and will run for 5 days.

Mural Monday ~ Week 18

Hello friends. I'd forgotten how much work toddlers are. You just can't take your eye off them for a minute! I'm really enjoying getting to know Kadence, our two year old granddaughter, who has moved back to Eureka with her mommy who now has to work full time, so I won't complain too much. Suffice it to say my hat is off to those of you who do it 24/7.

Well, Here's a little paint job that would wake anyone up:

This is down on the waterfront, not too far from where the homeless hang out. I've wondered if maybe they all got some free paint and just went for it one day.

I like how the sign says "Ignore the paint job and come on in". Some day we should do that.

Saturday was my only non-babysitting day and it was packed full. I took an all day quilting class with Cathryn Zeleny, which only served as yet another reminder of why I don't normally go to classes. Either I know the topic too well to really justify taking a class, or it's so far out of my comfort zone that I completely suck at the technique and between not producing good work and dozens of strange women looking over my shoulder I'm just uncomfortable all day (such was the case on Saturday). It's really more of a social opportunity, and I suppose those are things I should do more often. Later that evening we went to Old Town for the monthly Arts Alive. Larissa had asked me to be her featured 'artist' this month. We decided to showcase the perpetual calendars since I've been cranking out a few and because I thought they'd be a good choice to highlight her vintage crafter's corner.

I saw these metal decorative things at Michaels' earlier this year and bought all 8 that they had on clearance.

Wasn't even sure at the time I was going to use them for calendars, but I do like it as an alternative to the cookie sheets. I've already made (and sold) all 8 of them. Wish I had more!

I think Larissa did a real nice job highlighting my work and my supplies. She's a dear sweet girl who is very supportive of me and I appreciate her very much. Here's something that made me do a double-take on our way out the door

That John Duncan! You can't take your eye off him for a minute, either!

Well, there's 20 updated blogs showing in my Google Reader and I feel bad already knowing I probably won't get to go leave comments on them all. I've got to go tackle the ironing pile before Kadence comes back at 6:30 in the morning. I swear I'll catch up soon!