Friday, April 26, 2019

shopping

Saturday night I wanted to create a card according to a card sketch, unfortunately when I was about to add it to the facebook page, I realized I was supposed to use yellows and oranges. I was going to make another one, but it was already late and I gave up.
Here's what I made, thought:
 Sunday: was Easter, here's what I gave myself:
 chocolate, marshmallow, bunny and a blind bag.
I've learned years ago, if I want something good for any holiday, I need to make it myself. So I created my own Easter basket. The bunny, and Whitman's were from Dollar Tree, the lemon bunny, Pacman blind bag and Mario egg were from Walmart, the minion marshmallow and Reese's egg were from Target, The Reese's eggs were from Fareway, the Dove bunny and egg were from HyVee Drug, the Oreo egg is from the British Foods store.
Went over to my parents, where we had some of her family over for an Easter dinner and egg hunt. It was pretty fun.
Monday: turned in my application at Hobby Lobby, and chose to shop a bit before gaining the courage to hand it in.
Easter was 50% off, sadly, I was hoping it would be more, though as you can see, it did not stop me from picking some stuff up. Paper studio was also 50% off. I picked up some card blanks, some coffee cup stickers, some bee stickers and some Happy Birthday tags. The Easter stuff I picked up was the bunny rice krispies, and the Emoji egg. I spent about $20, though I realized the cashier charged me twice for the birthday tags. I decided not to worry, because it was only 50 cents.
The manager came up and I turned in my application, he looked it over said he'd been interviewing all day, and would get back to me about time later in the week.
Found some mail when I got home, a llama card:
 Basically all we had to do was used a llama die cut on a card.
Some sticker flakes:
 Love these, and I will totally keep wishing for them.
A pen pal letter:
 She included some fun stickers with the letter.
My secret sister:
 I feel a lot of these items were childish and not geared to my favs. I feel a couple of them, like the round stickers and the cowboy die cuts and the washi and the buttons were from a clearance aisle. I found the color your own shrink plastic and color your own windchime were childish. But, I like how they put in a lot of mermaid stuff and a couple unicorn things.
I went with the secret sister swap in a different group than normal. I feel like I liked this one more, but I'm not sure if I'll continue with these swaps.
Tuesday: I had planned to go After Easter shopping, but I don't need anything, and knew I needed to get some swaps ready to mail.
A Little Bit of Everything:
 We had to include seven different packages of crafting items. I went with sequins, doilies, stamps, bling, foam flowers, chipboard stickers, brads, washi and ribbon.
Sloth tag:
 I really wanted to send something flat, but I couldn't find the cards I wanted to send, so went with this spiral bound index card set.
This or that: 2 cards and envelopes:
 Thought I'd crack open a set of llama cards I bought last month.
wish of stickers sheets and something panda
 wish of shaped paper clips:
 I have a TON of shaped paper clips, but I wanted to make sure I could send them on one stamp. Arrow, duck, bow, heart, dog and martini glass.
wish of stickers and cancelled postage:
 This person likes minions as do I, so I sent one of each of my minion sheets.
Favorite color: purple
 Thought it would be fun to include a variety, so went with the weekly planner, some sticky notes, a notebook, some eggs, a pencil pouch, some colored pencils and some markers.
Wednesday: I went to a local store that was having a spring sale on the way home.
 frog, bird and star.
I totally wanted the frog last time I was in there, but didn't want to spent $5 on it, picked up the bird for a friend, and I couldn't pass up the star for 20 cents.
Found some mail when I got home, flip book:
 embroidered stickers:
 OMG, these are so cute!!
floral washi:
 Thursday: I was very lazy, I was going to go shopping, but just didn't feel like it. Basically watched movies I needed to get back to the library, I didn't even walk 1000 steps.
I did get a sloth tag in the mail:
 It's cute but I'll never use it. It's an iron-on.
Friday: made myself get out of the house and went shopping, I went backwards this time and started at Dollar Tree:
 pillow, foam shapes, smelly thing, labels, stickers, notepad.
The pillow is one of those sequin reversible things, the other color is purple. I just thought the foam foot shapes were cool, I needed the shipping labels. I certainly don't need more notepads, but I couldn't pass up this owl one. And then there are the stickers.
As I was unpacking, I realized the ones in the top right corner, I shouldn't have picked up, I don't like those as much. I usually set a limit of $20, because I have cash, I didn't have cash today, but I still didn't spend more than $20.
Next up was Walmart, It was funny to find hedgehogs
 And sloths and llamas
 embracing the graduation theme.
What I bought:
 envelopes($6), sign($2), Twix($2), shower pouf ($2), tape ($6), stickers ($1), gummies ($1).
I needed the bubble envelopes and I always pick up the double-sided tape (mostly so I don't run out, I keep having the tape break on me lately and I can't figure out how to fix it). I really like white Twix. I needed a shower pouf, should have picked up more as this was an "Easter" one. I just liked the stickers and I was hungry so I picked up the gummies.
 toys.
I really like toys lately, particularly blind bags, but anything $3 and under is working for me. My Little Pony twice ($3, $2), elephant ($3), trolls twice ($1, $3), Fingerlings ($3), a poufy keychain ($1).
Other stuff:
 Walmart is definitely stepping up their planner game. The sticky notes were in a different aisle, but these were all 97 cents. In the planner aisle, I found this cute washi tape ($3), plus numerous other sets, some multiples, some in tape dispensers and some like these petal ones. They also had some cool sticker books, and some stencil sets. I wonder if they're trying to compare themselves to other planner makers. I spent about $42 here.
Last stop was Target, I wasn't going to go there, I didn't need anything, and I found a lot of cute blind bags/toys at Walmart, but I had to walk right by to go home.
 tights ($8), chocolate ($2)
I needed tights, these are high waisted and control top, hopefully that will stop them from rolling down when I try to wear them. I liked the Cadbury mini eggs because they are Cadbury chocolate, but not the filling that's in a normal Cadbury egg.
 erasers ($1), care bear ($2), mystery acorns ($2 each), My Little Pony blind bag ($3), squishy keychains ($3 each).
I'm not supposed to be buying more erasers, but these were octopuses, not passing those up, plus one dollar. When I got to the Easter section, there wasn't a ton left, though more chocolate than I expected (at Walmart, too), I really wanted the mystery stuff they had before Easter, I didn't find those, but I found these acorn things. I admit, I don't even know what's in them.
I found some mail when I got home.
A bunny swap:
 I hate that it seems like my partner waited until after Easter to go shopping for things. Which would be fine if I thought she had spent $5, which was the requirement and they didn't say Easter on them. My favorite is the dog. I can still use the stickers, but seriously. There are some people in all my groups that aren't such great swappers.
She also sent me a Send Me Something cuddly:
 Though I don't particularly think socks are cuddly. I usually have ok success with SMS unique, but lately I've skewed off with other descriptive words and that's not working out so well. Of course the last SMS unique, someone sent me a minion magnet, which I liked because it was minion, but I didn't find it particularly unique.
Sometimes I think if I'm going to be shopping then I shouldn't be swapping. I can usually get what I want shopping, it's hit or miss with swaps and tags. But, I love mail, so...
A wish of tea:
I'm excited to try these.

Saturday, April 20, 2019

Apple tart

Sunday: I had to make a piece of art out of fabric, I totally thought I had something around to send, but realized I didn't, so looked through my fabric, and put some pieces together, and this is what I came up with.
 put together a few tags,
an Igrab tag of two cards and envelopes:
 I always include an extra, just for fun, but I'm thinking I shouldn't do that, as when I mailed it, it needed another stamp to go out.
A SMS panda:
 I was originally going to send some panda stickers, but I decided to send these instead.
A SMS Kawaii:
 And this one I was going to send something else, but chose to go with a one stamp item for this tag.
Bunny tag:
 Totally picked these up at the Dollar Tree for this tag.
Bunny swap:
 I had a hard time with this one, I may have signed up just to do a swap in this group. I had this Easter basket from a Hollar haul from last year, that I will not use, so I tucked everything in it and sent it on it's way.
I really wanted to go to an international food fair, but all my friends had plans or were busy, which put me in a really grumpy mood. I know I could have gone by myself (and have in the past), but I just didn't feel like dealing with people.
Monday: found these cute flowers in the yard on my way to work:
I was so annoyed with the world when I got up, so when I found these goodies on my desk
 It totally helped my mood. I had bought a tiny sewing machine at Aldi's in December, but when I opened it, I found someone else's work in it, and when I started using it, it didn't work so great and finally started smoking. I think the other person had the same issue and returned it to the store without telling anyone it was defective, as their work looked like mine on the underside. And of course I had misplaced my receipt so I couldn't use the 3 yr warranty that came with it.
Found a spring tag when I got home:
 LOVE THIS!!! and it's in my favorite colors.
National Old Stuff day tag:
 She looked and saw I liked trims and buttons, so she sent me some vintage ones.
Some uplifting mail:
 Though I'm a little tired of minion stickers.
Scavenger hunt:
 we had to send something shiny (gem stones), round (washi), flat (joke book), green (bottle opener) and fuzzy (stuffed monkey). Weird that we both sent gem stones as shiny, I don't like glittery washi, and the joke book is a bit vulgar, but I like what she sent. I think it's the first time I got a scavenger hunt swap that I liked everything in it, granted it's from a different group than regular.
Tuesday: I decided I needed to go shopping. When I was putting together my fabric piece I realized I needed fabric scissors.
First up was JoAnn's:
 I usually don't find a ton of stuff at JoAnn's, but I thought I'd see what they had for scissors and if they had some of the new stuff I had seen in someone's video, and they did. They even had some of the new paper pads from Park Lane, though nothing I was interested in. I basically just got a bunch of the Ms. Sparkle and company stuff. When I got up to the register, everything was on sale.
Next up was Salvation Army:
 I'm not really sure why I picked up the donut, but I couldn't leave it there and the minion was marked down.
My last stop was Hobby Lobby, but I walked out without buying anything, I'm sure if I went last week like I wanted to, that would not be the case. All the paper studio stuff was 50% off last week, this week the stickers were 40% off and I had a sticker book I wanted to get, but I just didn't feel like spending the money. I noticed on the door when I went in that they were hiring, I've been thinking I should apply there lately. Though my friends just tell me I will probably spend my whole paycheck there, which could be possible, but I'm tired of all my jobs, I was thinking if I just had two part-time jobs, it would be easier. I'm not sure.
Granted a wish of something cats:
 It's a tiny book
A wish of die cuts:
 Orange happy mail:
 I had these from the color swap from another group, so I had a bit of orange stuff.
a wish of uplifting mail:
 A wish of a birthday surprise:
 she also liked Tim Holtz stuff.
Another birthday surprise:
 she said she liked die cuts.
a wish for seeds:
I had another pack I was going to send, but it was too thick.
Nothing interesting happened Wednesday.
Thursday: I took a class for work, I didn't get a lot from it. I was going to go on a walk after that, but it was chilly so I talked myself out of it.
Friday: Got up and created a few things for some swaps that are going to be mailed next Wednesday.
Vintage library card pockets with tags:
 Llama card:
 Work was slow for a Friday, but we got some cool new puppets in:
 chipmunk in a watermelon, mole, narwhal, and a buffalo.
Monday was the last day I received happy mail, that totally affected my mood every day. Mail changes my attitude, usually for the better, but sometimes for the worse.
Saturday, I finally got up the courage to go to Hobby Lobby to apply and found out I just needed to fill out an application and bring it back. I should have found a place to fill it out and taken it back, but I just couldn't, figured I'd take it back on Monday after work.
After getting home, thought I'd go shopping for some chocolate. First stop was HyVee Drug:
 Everything was basically on sale and I only spent about $5, I lost the receipt, so I'm not entirely sure. I believe the pancakes and syrup peeps was $1.50, the others were $0.50, the dove bunny was $1, I'm not sure what the rest were. I bought the peeps for my friends to try.
Next up was the British foods store:
 Got my chocolate, the Cadbury were $7.50, the Bueno were $1.75, ugh I just realized the Oreo egg was also $1.75, that was not worth it.
Every time I go in there I'm disappointed, they have a ton of tea and tea sets. I really want more British foods, not other things.
Next up was Worldly Goods, a fair trade store:
 The bird was $7 and the butterfly was $5. I like this store, you can always find something unique there, but because it's fair trade things are a bit pricey.
Last stop was Fareway,
 Because I needed cereal, I had enough to get through Sunday, but not Monday. Picked up a Mountain Dew for Easter, but decided to drink it when i got home.
Finally received some mail.
A wish of tea:
 I'm excited about the raspberry one, but not the orange.
Spring tag:
 She drew the ladies and added the pressed flowers. I had to coat them with mod podge because they were flaking off.
Pocket letter:
 I've been waiting on this for 2 months, it's pretty neat.
Bunny tag:
 I'm tired of people sending me flat stuff. Apparently I need to buy more flat stuff to send to people.
Easter card:
 This is from one of the YouTube channels I watch. It was very touching.
Went to Target for chocolate:
 It was also BOGO 50% off on shoes, but I couldn't find another pair of shoes I wanted. I really want something a little more dressy for work. I picked up the Duck Tales toy for my brother and had a cartwheel on the Oreos. The shoes were $40, the total only $50.
Picked up some food with my mom for our Easter get together.  As she was parking at both Target and the food place, she took up two spaces. Kinda ironic because she complains about other people doing the same thing.
Made an apple tart for our Easter get together:
 I hope it's good. I had an apple tart at the library's volunteer luncheon last week and googled the ingredients (basically it's apples, pie crust and almond paste). This is the first time in at least 3 years, probably more since I've actually baked something.
When I got home I put together some fun gifts for the ladies coming tomorrow. Maybe it's stupid, but I wanted to put something together.