The Life of Me

I'm bored

2012-01-24T07:59:00.002-06:00

Mostly with my life, I think part of it is that it's cold, too cold to walk anywhere. All I do when I get home from work is sit on the couch and watch TV. I have fun when I'm at work. Usually when I'm bored with my life, I get a tattoo, but that's not happening soon.
I had a great post in my head last night, and meant to write it, but my kindle fire decided to be annoying. I turned it on to go onto the web, and all it showed me was a grey screen instead of my browser. I've had this happen once before, I thought maybe it was low on batteries, so I plugged it in and let it sit. This morning I turned it on, and still nothing. The rest of it was working fine, I even purchased/downloaded a free app to see if it was connected to the wireless network. After finding nothing in the settings or help section on it, I turned on my computer and went to amazon. After looking through all the help sections, I finally found the ask in the community section, and then the how to contact amazon. I selected a chat window, and the guy told me to shut it down and restart it. To me, that means, actually shutting down the kindle (holding the power button in, until it asks if I want to shut it down, saying yes, and then pushing the power button again). That worked, and I asked him how to prevent this from happening in the future, he said I had to do a hard reset. I asked if that's what I just did, he said no, I had to hold the power button in for 20 seconds, turn it off and then hold the power button for 2 more seconds and turn it back on.
I'm not an idiot. I told him that's what I just did, and he asked if I held the power button in for 20 seconds. I said yes, and then closed the chat window. If you're going to treat me like an idiot, I'm leaving. I know there are people who have no idea what they're doing on computers, but when I tell you I already did that, maybe you should take my word instead of being an ass.

Anyways, back to the original topic. Winter has finally hit us. We hadn't had any really cold days until a few weeks ago, when we had really windy days and windchills below zero. Then last week we had a day where the high was +9. And it's been probably back in the normal temps of 30s and below since then. My body hasn't exactly switched over to winter temperatures yet because of all our warm days. When it does, I know I won't have a problem walking around when the temps are in the teens.
Last week, I went to Hobby Lobby, Jo Anns and Hy Vee. My original plan was to go to Hobby Lobby to buy some envelopes to go with the thank you cards I was making (to read more about those, go here), but when I looked around, they didn't have what I needed, so I ended up only buying some double stick tape. When I got up to the checkout counter, I gave the lady my gift card. That was fun, it didn't work in the scanner on the counter, it didn't work on her scanner, and the she tried a couple other tricks to scan it. Now, I know with technology and all, you should be able to just swipe it and be on your way, but I've worked in retail and we do use credit cards at the library, with all the time she tried to swipe it, she could have just typed it in, and been done. Finally she said, it must have been next to a magnet, because it was gone. I don't know how that happened. It's been sitting on my desk for awhile and then I put it in my purse. Considering all my other cards work fine, I have a hard time believing it was my fault.
Anyways, I had to go to JoAnns to find the cards. I don't like shopping there anymore. It seems every time I go in there, I either don't find anything worth buying, or they give me dirty looks because I have a Hobby Lobby bag (they're both in a strip, and when I walk in from the north, Hobby Lobby is first on the strip). So, I've just not gone there lately. Since, I needed these envelopes, I went for it. It was a good idea, because I found them and on sale.
The rest of my plan was to go to HyVee for some chocolate eclairs and cream puffs to take to a trivia thing on Sat. I never get only what I plan at HyVee, they just have so many different things than Fareway. I left with $32 worth of stuff, which wasn't even that much.

When it warms up a little (hopefully next week), I plan to walk down to Target. I'm looking for great Valentine's stuff, and since I'm spending only on me, I'm buying whatever I want. Plus, Walmart's right next door, so I'll go there too. I just want some really good chocolate, you know it comes out for Valentine's Day,

And that's all that's been going on lately. Mostly just work, I won't have a day off until Feb 5th. I'm really looking forward to it. One day, would be so nice. Granted I don't work a 40 hour week, but just to wake up and realize I don't have to do anything, that would be great.

Bad Blogger

2012-01-09T09:59:00.004-06:00

I'm sorry, I've been neglecting my blog a lot lately. I blame it on my Kindle Fire. I can't upload pictures on that, and if you looked at my last post, it's a tiny bit hard to type a lot on it. My last post isn't that bad, but it did take forever to write, the kindle likes to guess what word I'm going to type, and if it chooses that one, it just throws it in. I had to go back and correct a lot.

Anyways, here's what I've been doing since my last post. My mother and I went to an antique mall in Story City on New Year's day to look for strike plates for my bathroom door, ok she went to look for those, I went for fun. She didn't find any, if anyone has any strike plates, or knows of where to find any, let me know.
I found a few cool things that if I had the money and places for them I would have bought, like this gorgeous mirror:
And this cute Christmas tree:

I've been reading on people's blogs about cool vintage Christmas trees, and while I loved this one and quite a few other ones, I just don't have the space for them maybe when I have my own house and more space I'll buy one.
Also found this cool thread cabinet:

This next booth was just filled wall to wall with glass:

I'm trying to cut back on spending money on glass or dishes, so I didn't even look.

Also found this cool picture frame:

And this cast iron piece:

And this neat silver vase:

I did end up buying some things, like these buttons:

They were actually in this cool strawberry jar filled with buttons for $12, I've decided to spend my money on vintage buttons lately.
The booth where I found these buttons had boxes full of buttons in bags, jars of buttons, cards of buttons as well as bags of trim. I didn't buy any trim, but I could have spent all day just going through this booth.

I also bought these cool buttons:

And these:

As well as this tiny bank book from my hometown:

It measures 4 inches tall by 2.5 inches wide. There's nothing written in it, but anything vintage from Ames, IA, I'm always game for.

These are my rejects from the strawberry jar, anyone want some buttons? I'm thinking of selling them on my etsy shop, unless someone here wants them.

This last week, I've just been working, and will be working all this week as well, this is pretty much my only free time this week, as it's RUSH at the bookstore again. We lost another person at the library, so I am again working 5 days a week, I'm not complaining, but it's nice to have a weekday off once in awhile.

I've really been neglecting art lately, after finishing my December swaps, I haven't needed to make anything, so I haven't. I cancelled my December CollageATC swap because we had 2 people interested, and since no one's said anything about being interested this year, I haven't bothered setting up swaps. I haven't seen much I want to participate in in my other Yahoo group, I kinda want to do a Valentine's swap, but more of buying for someone else than making something. Anyone heard of any?

And that's all that's been happening here, hopefully something exciting will come up. I do have to get on my desktop because there's a few things I can't do on the kindle online, so I will try to check back in more frequently.

shopping

2011-12-29T15:11:00.000-06:00

So, i got a kindle fire for Christmas. I didn't want it at first, but I love being able to surf the web in front of the TV. Anyways, I got something on the screen today and decided I needed to buy a screen protector. And then when i was on Amazon, I decided to buy some movies that I didn't get for Christmas, and I decided to go shopping for a sleeve for my kindle. I've been perusing etsy, I've also been thinking about making my own. It can't be that hard, right? I'd have to put in some, probably a few layers off quilt batting for protection, and something on the inside that won't scratch the screen. It would be really cool to do something vintge.

What ddo you all think I should do?

Gifts

2011-12-26T09:30:00.002-06:00

Here are the somewhat exciting things I got for Christmas:
A robe and long winter nightgown.

4 shirts to layer in winter months, plus they'd be great for wearing in summer months too.

A bunch of snowmen, electric toothbrush heads, some art tape, a Hobby Lobby gift card, a necklace and earrings to go with it.

Some poinsettias, an owl, another snowman, and a box of Godiva chocolates.

more snowmen, Sandra Lee Bake Sale Cookbook, and a pad of paper.

I also received a Kindle Fire. As much as I appreciate everything I got, it's nothing I need. My family knows I don't have a lot of money, it'd be nice for them to get me something I need some day. I had a strange dream last night, where I sold my Kindle Fire because I needed the money, funny thing is, I could totally do it, cause I don't have a lot of money.

I think next year, everyone's only getting one or two items from me. I need to stop spending so much. I will say, my mom's and my dad's gifts were the only things that were really expensive. I did most of my shopping at garage sales and thrift stores.

Also, my friend Loretta made me some cool hand soaps, gave me some hot chocolate packets and some tins filled with fun goodies.

How was everyone else's Christmas?

It's Christmas

2011-12-24T10:14:00.002-06:00

Almost. My presents are all bought, wrapped, and under the tree:
My cookies are all made:

For recipes, go here for the Revel Bars (top right hand corner), here for Creamy Peanut Butter Bites, (middle right side), here for Chocolate Mint Creams (bottom right corner), here for the Red Velvet (bottom left corner), here for Mint Chocolate Chip (middle left side), and here for Tri Level Brownies (top left side).

My decorations are all up:

To see more, go here.

Tonight is Christmas Eve, here's what I'll be doing:

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

Holiday Tour - The Family Room

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000-06:00

The last room on our tour.
This is the third of our trees. It's slightly considered the ISU tree because of the hat, and the ISU Santas underneath it. It's also got red and gold beads on it.

This is the floor under the tree.

And here's a bookshelf.

I hope you enjoyed my little tour.

Have a good holiday season everyone.

Venting

2011-12-15T19:42:00.004-06:00

So, it's supposed to be the time of giving, and joy and being nice to people right? Someone needs to tell my mother that. She's been on me lately to clean my apartment (it doesn't live up to her standards of clean). I have plenty of walking space (it's actually a lot better lately), and I have lots of piles of stuff everywhere, most likely because I have too much stuff. Anyways, she told me the other day, it was time for me to start keeping it like other people keep their homes. She's saying this having not been in my apartment for a long time, but knowing I'm messy.
I was chatting with some co-workers the other day, and asking why she cared so much. One of my co-workers said it's because I'm her daughter, it sets a bad image for her. We're supposed to be having a carpenter come in and hang a new bathroom door in my apartment (another thing just for her), and she's all about looks and what people think just by looks. This carpenter, has been in my apartment before when it has been much worse, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't really care, and (like my coworker said) has seen a lot worse.
Anywho, I was being nice to my mother tonight (which I should really stop doing, because every time I'm nice to her, she comes back and bites me in the ass), and giving her the movie The Help to borrow, and showing her the cool steampunk charms I got in the mail today (see them here). She brings up the carpenter and how I need to clean my apartment before he comes. I said I cleaned it up for my dad the other day (he's legally blind), and she says that she would gladly come up and take a look at it (this is generally where I get quiet, because no matter what I say, I can never win or get my way in a conversation). Tonight, I said it would never be up to her standards. She asked if it was clean like this pointing to the floor and family room where there are no piles on the floor, because she doesn't buy a lot of stuff or she shoves it all in her craft/junk room and shuts the door, can't even go there in a conversation, she'd have some excuse for that. I of course said no, and again she said I needed to keep my apartment like others do. This morning I was chatting again with coworkers and they said they would take pictures of theirs and send them to me, I told her that and she said bring it on. To which I shut up, took my stuff and left. By the time I got out the door, I was crying, she does such a good job of doing that to me.

I'm not stressed this time of year. I've had all my shopping done and presents wrapped for awhile. I only get stressed when people (like my mom or things at work) happen or say things that I can't control. And, I'm saying to myself now, what I say to myself at work when patrons get too annoying. "And we're smiling, and we're breathing"

Holiday Tour - The Living Room

2011-12-15T08:00:00.000-06:00

Lots of pictures today:
This is our second tree, it's the main tree we put up each year. It's a lighted tree and we decorate it with Santa ornaments, as you can see it already has plenty of presents underneath it.

Here's our fireplace. You can see the stockings that my mom made for us many years ago. Each of the brass stocking holders fit what we collect: Santa for my mom, reindeer for my brother and snowman for me. My dad doesn't collect anything Christmas related, so he has a tree.

Here's the floor under the mantle.

Here's a chair next to the Hoosier, it has a cute Santa pillow, along with some holiday socks.

The wall above the chair. The Santa in the chimney stays up year round.

The Hoosier cabinet (this used to be in the kitchen for a number of years).

The floor under the Hoosier cabinet. There's another Santa spool here, and a rubber duckie Santa.

One of our round tables in the room (the tree is sitting on the other one). There's another nesting Santa here, as well as a driftwood Santa.

Here's the loveseat, with a collection of Santa pins on a pillow.

Another look at the tree.

Another table.

Another table. All the tables match in this room.

Tune in tomorrow for the family room.

Holiday Tour - The Dining Room

2011-12-14T08:00:00.001-06:00

Short post today.
This is our dining room table. You can see Santa S&P shakers, as well as a box train. This is a little desk in the corner, on it are 2 sets of nesting Santas. There's also a Santa on a table underneath it.

Tune in tomorrow for the living room.

Holiday Tour

2011-12-13T13:05:00.002-06:00

I love reading and seeing everyone else's decorated homes, so I decided to show you mine (or my parents, as I've already showed you mine). Here is our house from the outside. Notice no snow, we're in between snow falls right now. I live on the 3rd floor.
You can see our garland on the front porch. My mother collects Santas, so most of the decorations inside will be Santas.

Here is a look in from the front door, there is garland on the staircase and on the French doors to the left. You can also see a big Santa infront of our bench, and the first of the 3 trees we have up.

Here is a table mounted on the wall, to the right of the front door. You can see the Coca Cola Santa music box, and the set of Santa spools.

This is right under the above table. The bear is there all year round, but gets dressed up in the hat and cape for Christmas. The mouse dances and sings when you press his foot.

This is the stairway. Again, you can see the garland, as well as a bunch of paper Santas.

This is the bottom of the tall Santa and his friends.

This is our bench, it's built into the wall. The purple Santa, is a Mardi Gras Santa from New Orleans.

This is a shelf mounted above our radiator.

Tune in tomorrow for the dining room. I will be doing one room a day, so I have 3 more days to do.

Last Week

2011-12-12T08:46:00.003-06:00

I'm not entirely sure I'd make these again. I had a heck of a time with the batter. After I mixed it up, it was not dough, and very dry, so I added and egg, then it became batter and very sticky, so I added flour, that was better, but still sticky, so I added butter (to make it greasy). By that time I was just ready to give up. As you can see in the picture some of the cookies are spiky, because the dough was sticking to my hands.

Red Velvet Cookies
1 pouch Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 cup sour cream
1 Tablespoon red food color
1 egg
3/4 cup to 1 cup Betty Crocker Rich & Creamy cream cheese frosting
1/4 cup chopped nuts.

1. Mix cookie mix, cocoa, butter, sour cream, food color and egg in bowl until soft dough forms.

2. Roll dough into 1-inch balls; place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet

3. Bake at 375 degrees F for 8 to 9 minutes or until set. Cool for 2 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely about 15 minutes.

4. Frost cooled cookies with frosting. Sprinkle with nuts.

I know it says to frost, but I am still freezing mine, so they're not frosted in the picture, but I did frost one to try, it was delicious.

So, that's the end of my Holiday Baking, I will post one last post to show all the cookies/bars together with links to their recipes.

I don't read so well

2011-12-06T10:50:00.002-06:00

Or maybe even not at all. I picked up a copy of Taste of Home magazine in November, and there was this offer to get something for $10, plus a free copy of the magazine. So, I sent my money in and wondered why I kept getting envelopes about renewing my subscription. I ignored them. Today, this was waiting in my mailbox:
I haven't really looked at it, but I'm excited to. I'm not too bummed about not getting a subscription, I really don't like the new look/style of their magazine. I think this was a better deal anyway, I LOVE their books.

This was also waiting in my mailbox today:

Some fun gifts from Donna of Brynwood Needleworks. I sent her a package a few weeks ago, read about it here. I love how she collects acorns, so when I saw an ornament in a shop, I had to get it for her, along with some other things. I love how she addressed my package to The Frog Palace (my other blog and my Etsy shop).

I've always wanted one of her ATC's as well, it's actually kind of funny I got it today (more on that later).

Thank you Donna.

The Charlie Brown Button Christmas Tree

2011-12-05T18:59:00.006-06:00

I put in the top bid for this button tree at a local fundraiser. It's so cute. My boss called it the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, I realized it does kind of look like it, but sparklier and with buttons.
This is the ribbon 'tinsel'

I tried to get some close-ups of some of the ornaments, but they're a little blurry. This one is at the top of the tree, it's layered with a big white button as the background.

This one has a round button/bead on top, and then the others are stacked.

This one has two stacked buttons.

This one has three round buttons/beads shaped kind of like a clump of grapes.

This one has stacked buttons on top, and then a clump underneath.

I love this addition to my home, it might actually stay up all year long.

Week Five

2011-12-04T19:17:00.002-06:00

Chocolate Mint Creams
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
6 Tablespoons butter
1 Tablespoon water
1 cup semisweet chocolate pieces
1 egg, lightly beaten
Pastel cream mint kisses

1. In a small bowl stir together flour and baking soda; set aside. In a medium saucepan combine brown sugar, butter, and water. Cook and stir over low heat until butter is melted. Add chocolate; cook and stir until chocolate is melted. Pour mixture into a large bowl; cool for 10 minutes.

2. Using a wooden spoon, stir the egg into chocolate mixture. Stir in flour mixture until combined. Cover and chill for 1 to 2 hours or until dough is easy to handle.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes. Immediately place a mint kiss on top of each cookie. Bake about 2 minutes more or until edges are set.

5. Transfer cookies to a wire rack; cool until melted mints are firm. Makes about 48 cookies.

I ended up using Hershey's Candy Cane kisses, I also didn't chill my dough, I felt it was easy to handle after mixing everything up.

Next week will be my last week, as I was making these to share with my aunt who I will be seeing on the 17th, and to share with my coworkers at the library, I decided to take them to a holiday party that will be happening on the 13th.

More buttons

2011-12-04T12:18:00.002-06:00

Yesterday and today, the local antique mall is having they're final push to get people to buy things with up to 75% off, I figured I had to see if there were any great deals. Here's what I found:
Lots more buttons.

A bunch of crocheted pieces, some jewelry, a silver spoon and a ceramic lady.

Week 4

2011-11-28T09:50:00.007-06:00

Almost didn't get these done either. Saturday I was shopping all day and had a trivia thing that night. Sunday I had to work, but made myself make these afterward. Only 1 month til Christmas, I have about 3 more recipes.

Tri Level Brownies
1 cup quick cooking rolled oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 Tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. For bottom layer, in a small bowl stir together oats, the 1/2 c flour, brown sugar, and baking soda. Stir in the 1/2 c melted butter. Press evenly into bottom of an ungreased 11x7x1 1/2-inch baking pan. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, for middle layer, in a medium bowl stir together egg, granulated sugar, the 2/3 c flour, milk, the 1/4 c melted butter, the 1 oz melted chocolate, the 1 t vanilla and baking powder until smooth. Fold in walnuts. Spread evenly over bottom layer. Bake about 25 minutes more or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Place pan on a wire rack.

3. For top layer, in a medium saucepan combine the 1 oz chopped chocolate and the 2 T butter. Cook and stir over low heat until melted. Stir in powdered sugar and the 1/2 t vanilla. Stir in enough of the hot water to make a mixture over middle layer. Sprinkle with the 2 oz bittersweet chocolate. Cool completely. Cut into bars. Makes 16 to 24 brownies.

This picture is to show the layers. It's not a great picture, but you can kind of pick out the oat layer, the brownie layer and the chocolate layer.

Ornament Swap

2011-11-28T09:39:00.004-06:00

Remember how I was saying I wanted to join some swaps? Well, I joined 3, two of which I remembered and one I did not. I got an email last Sunday asking for my address so my partner could send me the ornaments. I couldn't remember I'd joined this swap, but after she sent me the link to it, I do remember filling out a form. Anyways, here's what I sent her:
I decided to shop at local shops, I think it's more fun than going to stores everyone has access to. One store I went to is called Worldly Goods, it has handmade ornaments from countries all over the world. It's a fair trade organization (I think that's what it's called), where all the money from the things they sell goes right back to the people who made them. I loved the 2 paper stars, and the "Joy" is actually cut from a coconut shell.

These are from a store called Great Stuff, I got all 16 of these for a great price, and couldn't pass them up, especially since my partner said she liked brown ornaments.

Here's what she sent me:

Lots of blue and silver sparkly ornaments. I love them.

I really love that star one on the top. I told her I was trying to collect more snow items and in blue, pink or purple. I am so sick of dreary and dull lately.
These really brightened up my apartment.

She also included this cute little snowman card. Thank you Sonya.

The other 2 swaps are handmade ones, once I get them mailed and/or receive confirmation that my partners have got them I will post on my other blog.

Blogger annoyances

2011-11-21T08:24:00.001-06:00

Is anyone else having troubles adding blogs to their following on blogger? I added a couple a few weeks ago, and it didn't have them in my list last weekend. And then today, I noticed again, they weren't on my list. So, I added them again.

Any suggestions?

Week Three

2011-11-21T07:30:00.005-06:00

I almost didn't get these done this weekend. I had to work both my jobs on Sat, and didn't have enough time inbetween, by the time I got home Sat night, it was 9PM. Sunday, I had one job and then went shopping with my mother afterward, and completely forgot until I was in the shower.

Creamy Peanut Butter Bites

3/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
21 bite-size chocolate covered peanut butter cups, halved
unsweetened cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl combine butter and peanut butter. Beat with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally. Bead in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour. If necessary, cover and chill about 30 minutes or until dough is easy to handle.

2. Shape dough into 42 balls, each about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Press a halved peanut butter cup into each ball and shape dough aroung peanut butter cup to enclose. Place cookies 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are firm and bottoms are lightly browned. Transfer cookies to a wire rack; cool. If desired, sprinkle cookies with cocoa powder.

I love this recipe, I am not a big fan of peanut butter, but these are great. I didn't get 42 cookies out of it, I got about 28. Maybe I made my dough too big, I don't know.

Winter Decorations

2011-11-19T14:06:00.003-06:00

My partner for the Vintage Stocking Swap asked to see my Christmas decorating style, and I decided to share with the rest of you some pictures as well. She asked what my decorating style is, I really don't have one, I have snowmen. I'm trying to branch out and do snow as well. My style is every shelf and every nail in my apartment has snowmen on it, of course I did decide I had a few too many the other day and had to take some down. This is a very picture heavy post and I apologize if some of the pictures are blurry or dark.
This is one of my 'trees', it's actually part of our Japanese lilac tree, we had to cut it out because it was dead, so I took it and stained it. I think it's pretty cool. I love the Santa troll in this pic. There's also an Italian glass snowman, a Russian snowman, and a cool Christmas palm tree.

Here I have 4 snowmen candle holders with peppermint looking candles. There's also a lighted penguin in there. I've noticed lately, I buy less snowmen (I have over 200), and more wintery items.

I love the black tree in this photo, I found it at Borders a few years ago and loved it. I also love the vintage looking ornaments on it. The crocheted snowflakes I found at a garage sale this year, I had been on the lookout for them for awhile. I also have an Iowa State snowman in there. Iowa State University is located in Ames, and I love snowmen that have the logo, or colors on them.

Here's the other side of the above pic, with more snowflakes and the tree again. The M&M used to have candy in it, but I love him anyway. I also collect fake roses, the ones in this picture are made from wood.

This is my DVD shelf. Again there is the ISU snowman. I've also been on the lookout for things that say "HOPE". Ever since breaking up with my ex, that has kept me going, so I love the word. You can see some glass pieces that I couldn't part with enough to put away for the season. I also am trying to decorate more with pink, purple and blue, just to brighten up my apartment.

Here's my radiator, you can see another fake rose, this one's actually made out of velvet, I have a cool paper one too, but that's been packed away. You can also see some of the rose pins I collect. I bought the sparkly poinsettias last year after Christmas, I've had them out all year. I love flowers, and if they're fake (not so much silk ones), they last forever. Remember, I'm trying to brighten up my apartment.

This table is granite (I think), it's supposed to be an outdoor table. I've been looking forever for some kind of doily, or something to drape over the edge. The edging here is held on with double stick tape, and doesn't even go all the way around. You can see a decorated shoe with some clay ornaments in it, my mom bought these as part of a fundraiser, I think they're cute, and I don't even collect shoes. I love the Christmas nesting dolls.

This is another one of my bookshelves. My faves in this pic are the white containers (I'm drawn to those lately), the snowman in the bathtub, the snowmen stocking holders and the green ornament. The snowman with stars is actually a lamp. I made the cross stitch snowman. There are even more snowment hanging from the stocking holder. You can kinda see my snowman snowglobe. His bottom is filled with confetti, very cute.

This is massively blurry, sorry. There's another cross stitch snowman in there. You can see a Christmas mouse, when I was younger I collected mice, I still have some floating around. I like the garden snowman. You can also see my just finished Halloween piece, yeah I'm a little slow on art making. The snowmen are hiding my shelf of Piers Anthony books, I'm a huge fantasy fan.

I love the blocks in this picture, they spell out "collector", with snowmen as the o's. You can also see the frogs I haven't packed away for the year, and a beautiful pink scarf I got in a swap.

This hanging was a creation from a group I did. I love handmade ornaments/decorations.

This is a little dark. In the middle of this picture, is a ceramic tree that lights up. My grandparents had one of themse when I was a kid, there's holes in the tree where the red and green plastic pieces are and a lightbulb underneath it. Unfortunately I don't have plastic pieces for all my holes.

Here's the top of my refrigerator, the snowmen in my kitchen live there all year long. These are more ISU snowmen. The bookstore at ISU, used to have a snowman every year, but then they stopped making them. The santa and snowmen in the middle is musical.

This is my kitchen radiator. These are mostly ones I picked up at garage sales. There are two cookie jars in there. The one on the left side is musical. I love the Santa frog. The one with the beanie on it, is an artist snowman. There's also a salt and pepper set.

I've been drawn more to different and unique snowmen lately, mostly because I have so many. Like I said, I like mostly winter things, since I collect snowmen. I do have a few just Christmas ornaments in my house, but not many. I like seeing snowmen that are 'artists' or have artsy things with them, I love ones with my name on them.

So, that's my apartment right now. How are your homes decorated? Have you even decorated for Christmas yet?

I'm Tired

2011-11-16T13:11:00.004-06:00

The pictures in this post have nothing to do with it, I just figured you'd want something to look at while I whine. They are some of my favorite finds this summer.
I am so ready for a day off from working. I get next Thursday (Thanksgiving) off. By that time I will have worked every day for a month between my two jobs.

I never realized how very stressful it is to deal with the public all the time. I work at the library, and I take tickets at basketball games. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of nice people in the world, and I get to deal with a lot of them, but I always have at least one rude/annoying/whatever person when I'm working.

And I seem to get so many more at the library, between not reading things, not thinking about other people, and just not paying attention, there's a lot of them.

I would like a day where I can just sit at home and watch TV or read and not be bothered by anyone. I would turn my cell off and unplug my land line, and just ignore the outside world.

I've noticed I get really annoyed and grumpy so much faster lately. More things just get under my skin. This morning I was pissed at my computer for moving so slow, I was so annoyed, I thought about calling in sick. It wasn't even 8AM and I was really angry.

I know I shouldn't be whining because there are plenty of people that work way more hours than I do, and in so many more stressful jobs.

I also have a lot of things to do before the upcoming holiday season. I'm trying to keep up with my baking every weekend, I have 3 swaps I need to make things for and send out.

My initial thought with my baking was that I had more time on the weekends. This weekend, I'm working at the library in the morning of Sat, and then go to my other job that night, and I work a game on Sunday.

I signed up for a Steampunk charm swap through one of my Yahoo groups. I have no idea how to create steampunk charms, but I love swapping charms. I have some green leather I plan to use, I also have some metal number plates that I think are off of church pews or something, but I have no idea what I'm going to do. I have some bullet casings that I'd love to use, but I don't have a drill to use.

I signed up for an ornament swap at Button Floozies. We're supposed to make 3 ornaments where buttons are the main item. I'm planning on making 5 ornaments, one for each person in my group, one for me, and one for a stocking swap I signed up for. I'm thinking about sewing little shapes and adding buttons to them. I haven't started those out, I believe they're supposed to be in the mail in two weeks.

I signed up for a vintage stocking swap where we're supposed to make a vintage stocking and then fill it with gifts for our partner. I'm planning on sewing some of my vintage linens and hankies onto some quilt batting in the shape of a stocking. I went shopping for my partner yesterday at the antique mall that's closing, so I have the gifts for her, now I just need to start the stocking.

I'm wondering if part of the reason I'm so annoyed lately is because I haven't been doing any artwork. I've always said music and my artwork keep me sane, and with the stuff I have due soon, I should do some.

At least I have a bunch of my Christmas shopping done. I have one more thing in the works for my mother, and then I'm done shopping for her. All the presents I have are wrapped and waiting to be put under a tree or in a stocking. I don't have my Christmas list done though. I have 4 things on it, I just don't know what to put on it.

I'm annoyed with the post office, I sent a package to Virginia on the 2nd and it still hasn't arrived yet. It was for a swap that was due on the 10th. I told the hostess if she gets all of them before mine, she can go ahead and swap out. I would love to hang out with friends, and go shopping. I would love to do something fun.

I'm just so ready for a break. Even when I'm in my house, I can't just read in peace because my dad has his stuff up so loud underneath me.

Hurry up and get here, Thanksgiving.

Lots of pictures

2011-11-15T15:20:00.003-06:00

OK, this is gonna be a long post. The antique mall in my town is going out of business and today was the last day they were going to be open, so I had to see if there was anything else I needed. I spent about $36 for everything in this post.
These next 3 pictures are from a bag of linens that I got for $1.06, I would have paid that much for one of the items in it.
I love that blue and white flower

My favorite piece is the one in the lower right hand corner.

The ribbon is more papery than ribbony, the buttons are little tiny green shank ones.

This jar was marked as $10 for a 2 gallon jar of miscellaneous, it was on sale for $5.00, I love things where you don't know exactly what's in it.

And here's what was inside:

I never look at the buttons here, but since they were going out of business, I figured 'why not?'. The two cards are a mottled brown/purple shank, two large black horn ones, white ones, a large green one, and a group of misc buttons.

A boot ornament cut from metal, a Santa ornament, a mirrored tree, and a reindeer.

Some vintage Valentines

A white Czech pot, an Alabaster owl bell carved in Italy, a red and white flower pot, a china doll head. It was there last time I went through, and I kept thinking about it after I got home, I think it will be a good thing to use in my artwork. I also love the Iowa gold wire coin purse.

I just wanted the fish card on the top of this bundle, the pound puppy has a tag that says "1/4 pounder", he was there a few weeks ago when I went through, I'm glad he was still there. The doll's dress says "Lime Parfait", she kinda looks like a Strawberry Shortcake doll.

The lace dress I think has silk on the bottom, a brown hanky, and a crocheted medallion.

I signed up for a vintage stocking swap, so I was really glad we got our partners before the antique mall closed. Some of the items I bought are for that, others are just for me, or Christmas presents

What If....

2011-11-14T09:56:00.004-06:00

I stole this from Nicole, I love meme's and haven't done one in a loooong time.

What if I were to get pregnant?
I would not be happy, I am not a big fan of kids, and would probably have an abortion.

What if I could have any job in the universe?
I would love to get paid for my artwork.

What if I had the day to myself?
I'd probably just go shopping downtown. I have lots of days (well, not the whole day cause I work, but generally afternoons) to myself, and I have so much fun wandering through stores. I would love to just wander through an antique mall, unfortunately, ours is closing tomorrow.

What if I could get married?
I changed this one (it said all over again, I'm not married), I admit it, I never planned my wedding as a kid. I do love checking out the bridal magazines and looking at the dresses. I think it'd be cool to have a handmade wedding, course I'd have to have a boyfriend first.

What if I could live anywhere in the US?
I'd take Okoboji, IA. I love going there on vacation, unfortunately, I think being there all the time would make it less fun.

What if you could have any talent in the world?
I like the talent I have now, my art.

What if you met me in real life?
I'd love to meet some of my followers in real life. I like to think I don't really hold much back, so hopefully, you'd like me.

What if I went back to school?
I would totally take some of those anthropology classes I wanted to take, and maybe some art ones.

What if money weren't an object?
I wish. I could move to my own house, have a room just for my crafting supplies, have a dog, spend as much as I wanted on crafting supplies and clothing.

What if I could meet one celebrity?
I'm not big on meeting celebrities, but I'd love to meet the guys from Supernatural. Of course, I'd probably just grin and blush and not say anything.

What if I could shop at one store for the rest of my life?
Micheals. Hey, it doesn't say what kind of store. I love going to Micheals, they have so many cool things there. Thankfully, the closest one is 45 minutes away, so I don't get there very often.

What if I could choose any pet?
A dog, totally. I love hanging out with my friend when she brings puppies to town. I'd love to have another guinea pig too, maybe some day. I miss my pig.

What if I could go on a trip right now?
If money still weren't an object, Hawaii. I loved it when we were there a few years ago, I would love to explore more of the islands.

What if I had to choose between a house cleaner and professional chef?
Totally take that cleaner. Only thing is, I can find everything in my messy house. Maybe they could just clean up the bathroom and kitchen. I'm trying to get better at cooking/baking, so that would totally kill that.

What if I had the option to get plastic surgery?
Maybe get some of my fat shaved off, course if I exercised more, I wouldn't need that.

Week Two

2011-11-12T22:46:00.004-06:00

This week's cookies, weren't what I had originally planned. My first plan was to make chocolate chip cookies, but then I thought those were boring. My second plan was to make Chai Crescents, but then I realized they are cut out cookies, I don't have a rolling pin, wax paper or cookie cutters. I may borrow those things from my mother and make them later though. So, this is my third plan, Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies. And the picture doesn't do them justice, they are supposed to be (and are in real life), the color of mint ice cream.
Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 pouch Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4-1/2 teaspoon mint extract
6-8 drops green food color
1 egg
1 cup creme de menthe baking chips
1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks

1. Mix cookie mix, butter, extract, food color and egg in bowl, until soft dough forms. Stir in creme de menthe baking chips and chocolate chunks.

2. Using small cookie scoop or teaspoon, drop dough 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

3. Bake at 350 degrees F for 8 to 10 minutes. Cool 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Serve warm or cool completely. Store tightly covered at room temperature.

This is supposed to make 36 cookies, when I mixed up the dough, it looked very small, so I made 2 batches, and now I have tons of cookies. I used 1/2 t mint extract in the first batch and thought it was very minty, but after tasting the cookies when they were done, they weren't overly minty. I used 1/4 t in the second batch, and haven't tasted those yet, but with the creme de menthe chips, I bet they're still fine.
I used the 8 drops of food coloring and liked the color.
I didn't realize that creme de menthe baking chips are actually just Andes mints chopped up, I used a leftover bag of chocolate chips instead of chopping up chocolate.

We Won!!!!

2011-11-08T22:08:00.001-06:00

It's official, the townspeople of Ames have voted to gut and add on to our library. YAY!!!!! HAPPY DANCE!!!!!

Baking Time

2011-11-06T09:45:00.005-06:00

I decided to try and bake some bars/cookies for this holiday season. Every year my aunt has done this for me, so I thought I'd repay her, plus I get more practice baking.
I decided to make a different recipe every weekend (starting the first weekend in November) until Christmas. This week it was Chocolate Revel Bars:
I will post a picture and the recipe here for anyone who reads this to enjoy as well. All my recipes are coming from 100 Best cookies by Better Homes and Gardens. It's a magazine I bought last year.

Chocolate Revel Bars
1 cup butter
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 teaspoons baking soda
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups quick-cooking rolled oats
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate pieces
1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Reserve 2 T of the butter for filling. In a large bowl beat the remaining butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar and baking soda. Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and 2 t vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour. Stir in oats.
2. For filling, in a medium saucepan combine the reserved butter, chocolate pieces, and sweetened condensed milk. Cook over low heat until chocolate is melted, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Stir in nuts and 2 t vanilla.
3. Press two-thirds (about 3 1/3 c) of the oat mixture evenly into bottom of an ungreased 15x10x1-inch baking pan. Spread with filling. Crumble the remaining oat mixture evenly over top.
4. Bake in preheated oven about 25 minutes or until top is lightly browned (filling will still look moist). Cool in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. Makes 60 bars.
To Store: Cover pan and store at room temperature for up to 3 days or freeze up to 3 months.

Basket of Rocks

2011-11-04T16:57:00.003-05:00

The antique mall in Ames is closing. I heard that some of the dealers decided to move to the expanded antique mall in Story City, which is about 30 min north of here and right next to the highway. Anyways, the antique mall had signs saying things were up to 75% off, so I figured I should check it out, especially since I didn't see any ads for garage sales this weekend. Here are my finds:
A rectangular white embroidered piece

2 lace cameos, a pink crocheted teacup, some trim and an embroidered collar. I figured I'd use these in some kind of artwork. I love the lace cameos.

2 doilies with embroidered edges, a white pot, a yellow cup and a cute silver spoon.

My favorite find was a basket full of rocks/minerals. I love cool rocks, I've been collecting them as long as I can remember, that was one of the things my ex loved giving me.

Here's my basket of rocks after I cleaned them. The one on the left with the circles in it, is way cool, it's pretty see through when wet, I'm gonna try and varnish it and see if it keeps the glassy affect. I also love the striped one, that's the main reason I bought the basket. The one on the bottom right that's in pieces, pretty much fell apart when I stuck it in the water to be cleaned.

I got all this stuff for under $20 and found out I save about $20 as well. The owners said they were going to be gone by the 15th. There were a few pieces I was thinking about, so I'll probably go back one more time before they close, though I doubt anything will be marked down further.

I'm pretty bummed about this. I generally go there in the winter when there aren't any garage sales. There are 2 other consignment stores here, but they're not nearly as big, course I could save some money this way.

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T21:48:00.001-05:00

Question

2011-10-31T10:50:00.002-05:00

So, I'm hating blog with embedded comments. You know those ones that when you click on the post, or post a comment, it goes to a page with the post and then the box for the comments at the end. For some reason, when I go to post a comment, after I type in my comment, I've had to copy my comment, because when I click on Google Account, it goes to a page saying my current account is not authorized to view this page, click here to log into another account. So, I log back in with my google account, and then I see my comment with my avatar picture and the word verification. After typing the word verification, and pushing publish I go back to the page about not being authorized to view that page. I log in again with my google account, and finally my comment is published.

Is anyone else having this trouble, and would anyone know how to fix it? It's becoming annoying, and I want to leave comments a little more quicker. Now, I'm not having any problems with the blogs that when you click to post a comment, it takes you to a full page of comments, or the little pop up page.

Any help would be great.

What I'm Reading

2011-10-30T12:03:00.004-05:00

Awhile ago, Bargain Hunter asked what we were reading, and I have meant to do this post ever since.
Here are a few books I've found particularly interesting lately:
Rediscovered Treasures: A New Life for Old Objects by Ellen Dyrop. This book has some great ideas on how to use all that stuff you find at garage sales and antique malls. I find it really cool, because sometimes I don't just want to display my finds, but I'd like to use them for things.

I liked this idea of using an embroidered tablecloth to make a change purse. There's also instructions for some of their ideas in the back. I used a vintage scarf to make some pennants for a swap, if you'd like to see them, go here. Everything I used in making them is vintage.

Another cool book I've found is Beautiful Button Jewelry by Susan Davis. She shows you how to use vintage buttons to make jewelry. She also gives a little bit of history on groups of buttons.

My favorite buttons in the book are the Antique Porcelain and China Buttons. I actually found a button I have on one of the pages in this section.

As I'm trying to branch out and bake more, this book has been wonderful. It's the Bake Sale Cookbook by Sandra Lee. What I love about this book is she tells you to start with a box/bag mix you find at the store and then go from there. I really don't like to make everything from scratch, and it saves time.

One of my favorite recipes was the Pecan-Coconut Cookie Cups, even though I didn't actually follow a lot of the recipe for this one. Mine still came out great.

And this last book keeps my criminal justice background interested. It's The Boy in the Box: The Case of America's Unknown Child by David Stout. I only started reading it yesterday, but it totally pulled me in and I'm interested in reading the rest of it.

Since I work at the library, that's where I got all these, but I've made the titles of the books links to Amazon if you're interested in purchasing any of them. The Bake Sale Cookbook is at the top of my Christmas list this year.

On another note, as the holidays are approaching, I really want to do a gift swap. I started doing some Christmas gift swaps last year, and I really want to do more this year, or even making something for someone. Anyone have any ideas of where I can find these kind of swaps? I am following Swapbot, and all the blogs where I found the swaps last year. I may be a little bit early on these, but I love seeing how other people interpret my interests, and when is it not fun to send something to someone else?

Great finds

2011-10-29T11:18:00.002-05:00

I didn't find any garage sales in my area this week, but I did find a rummage sale and 3 craft sales. Here's what I got: a purple square vase, a cute top, and a math workbook. The spiky things I bought at a local store, they had them listed as goblin eggs, I really don't know what they are.
Apple zuchini bread, puppy chow and a ceramic bird.

More puppy chow, seasoned crackers and some dutch letters

Hearty Lasagna soup mix, a cute pumpkin cup with sunflowers, santa brush, snowman bell, and an angel

Jumbo fun activity book and 4 Christmas rubber ducks

3 yorkie charms, a frog charm, and a die charm. The rest of these items were in a free grab bag

I also bought some dinner rolls, dried papaya, and dried mango, but blogger deleted my picture.

I'm A Winner

2011-10-15T13:16:00.002-05:00

I entered a giveaway on Brynwood Needleworks last week, and I won this gorgeous tote bag. It's actually bigger than I thought it would be. It measures about 12" square with an additional inch for the top border.
I also got all this fun stuff in my package, a picture of her dog Tag, a planner for 2012/2013, a pink bracelet for breast cancer, and a tiny bag of candy corn. It was wrapped in the green tissue paper with the creamish seam binding.

I don't have any pictures of the cute bundle it was when wrapped. I had just come home from garage saleing this morning, and saw the bundle poking out of my mailbox, so I sat down on the porch and opened it.

Thank you so much Donna, I can't wait to use it.

Check out Donna's blog, she has all of her adventures with her dogs, and her great quilting work on it.

This week's Finds

2011-10-15T12:36:00.002-05:00

Not too many sales this week, I think they're finally winding down. I went to 3 planned sales and 2 not planned and bought at only 3 sales.
This one had antiques, salvage, and jewelry in their ad.
I found a cute pig bib, a pineapple crocheted doily, and the cute rectangle piece.

I also found two pins, and a necklace.

These were from a sale that benefit a girls' scholarship fund. I couldn't resist the Care Bear, the figure at the bottom says Turtle Tots Tutu, anyone know anything about these?

I also found the 2 candles and the bouquet of roses pin at that sale. The two stick pins and bag of buttons were from another sale.

I ended up spending under $15 this weekend.

What exciting finds did you all get this weekend?

Time to get things done

2011-10-09T11:06:00.002-05:00

I finally decided I needed to stop procrastinating and finish some things up. These are in no particular order:
I need to mail the fairy card along with a couple other items to a friend for a long overdue thank you for hosting a swap.

I need to finish these cards and put together Fall packets for this month's swap.

I need to finish these and get them mailed off.

I need to mail this off with a card for my partner.

I also need to make a birthday gift for a friend who's birthday is today, and a card.

I need to make a card for my grandma, her birthday is next Sat, she'll be 95.

I need to get started on my moos for a swap.

I need to get started on my fall cards for a swap.

I need to get a piece framed for my mother for Christmas.

OK, a few of those can wait a bit, what I really need to do right now, is get dressed, eat lunch and get ready for work. I'm supposed to be there in less than an hour.

Adrenaline Rush

2011-10-05T21:24:00.006-05:00

I got to work a concert tonight, and I have forgotton how much I LOVE to work concerts. This was a rap concert.
It was totally busy for the first 30 minutes. After we got the giant rush in, I was left to help out at that door. I got to bar a patron for coming in because he was soo drunk. I heard he had to be dragged out because he had passed out by the time the cops took him out. We had to fill out an incident report and everything, I sure don't want to do that again.
My hands were shaking after that with the adrenaline rush. The rest of the night was pretty slow. I did get to see a ton of chicks in mini dresses/skirts that I did not want to see bend over.

New stuff

2011-10-03T08:36:00.002-05:00

I don't have any new pictures, because I didn't go garage saleing this weekend, but these pictures are some interesting things I bought on Etsy this weekend. I do have other things to share with you, so please enjoy the pictures as well.
I don't have anything exciting/interesting going on in my life, I've actually noticed I'm more tired and irritable lately, I don't know exactly why. I have been working more at work, more than 20 hours, sometimes close to 30, which I know is not a ton, but more than I'm used to working constantly.
A very cool heart necklace

The assistant director at the library told me the other day, that she can see me making a career at the library. She says she doesn't say this very often, so it means a ton, and it's totally helping me when I have troubles with my lead workers.
This is the first time I've told anyone, since talking to her last Tuesday. I feel I really can't tell my co-workers, as I felt they might not be too happy hearing about it. I'm not really interested in telling my parents, because they will push me to have more hours (even though I'm past the limit right now), and berate me about other stuff.

Cute peacock earrings.

Like I said I've been more irritable and crankly lately. When I've been buying stuff it's totally been for me. I like that I'm not really spending money on someone else (meaning I like not having a boyfriend and spending money on him). The past few purchases I've made, I smile every time I look at them, and that makes a huge difference. I've been buying junky food for me, maybe not the best choice, but I enjoy and I think that matters a ton.

A cute blue necklace.

I'm dressing up for Halloween, and have bought myself a cute costume. I'm actually working on Halloween, so I figured, why not. I haven't dressed up for Halloween in years, so I'm really giddy about that. Plus, most of the Monday night crew at the library is going to dress up, so I think it will be really cool.

And an alien pocketwatch.

I honestly keep wishing/hoping that something exciting comes along, or happens to me. But, since I don't know exactly what that means, I think I'll be waiting awhile.

I've been chatting to a few guys online through the OKCupid website. I find one of them particularly weird/strange. We were chatting on Yahoo messenger, and then through the emails on the site, and he gives me his phone number and then pretty much ignores me. I find it kinda ironic because he was telling me how my ex was a dick, and then he pretty much says, 'Unless you call/text me, I'm not gonna chat with you anymore.' Now who's being a dick? I'm not ready to give out my phone number to anyone, and I'm certainly not going to give it to someone being an ass.

I went to my cousin's baby shower yesterday. It was fun to listen to the stories from my other cousins and aunts about babies and them growing up, but I'm not at all interested in having one. I thought it was particularly amusing, how bored my mother was when we were chatting.

That's all that's been happening lately. If I'm not working, I'm either relaxing (off my feet), or working on my art projects with upcoming deadlines. Check out my post about them here. I am a little bummed today, because I heard I didn't win a giveaway, that I really wanted, but I'm used to that, I rarely win anything.

What's been going on in your lives?

Fun Finds

2011-09-26T07:44:00.007-05:00

This picture belongs at the end, so imagine it's there. These are the last books I bought at the library book sale. Again, a couple math books, a Cricket magazine (love these), a word search book, and a Look for Laura book.

OK, so they're a little late. I apologize. I've been pushing 30 hours at my job for the past 3 weeks or so, so I'm just so tired everyday. I know I shouldn't complain because there's people out there working so many more hours than me, but I'm not used to so many hours (it's a part-time job, and I'm technically not supposed to have more than 20 hours a week), and I'm not complaining about the hours (especially when I get that paycheck), but my feet aren't that happy.

Anyways, here are my cool finds from yesterday:

I love this artist, Lisa Victoria, I bought some of her stuff last year, and decided I was buying more this year. I also learned that she had her artwork at a local cafe, and had a poster up at the library, I saved the poster because it was so cute. The print at the top is what was on the poster, I was telling her the story, so she gave me a free print of it. I'm sending the grouchy looking fairy to a friend. She had the Fairy Monster in a frame and it was $40, I really wanted a magnet of it, but I'll settle for the card, she said she may make him into a magnet in the future. And I just love the multi-colored angel magnet.

This was such a cute elephant container that I couldn't pass it up for $10

The booth I bought these at had handmade books, and then these collage packs for $2.00 or 3 for $5.00, I think they are just her leftovers from the books.

So, I spent about $30 at the art festival. After getting home last night (and it was over), I wished I had bought a pink plastic fish, but oh well, maybe next year.

I also stopped at the library book sale, Sunday is half price day, I always try to go on Sunday.

The Law and Order book has pictures of their crime scenes and explains what they did to create them. The Iowa book has such great pictures of Iowa. I just found You won't believe your eyes interesting. I have been reading in random places about how cool the Rachel Ashwell book was, and at a price of 50 cents, who could resist?

I once again couldn't resist the holiday activity books, and the postcard books I figured I could use the images in art.

I didn't realize that said Mensa IQ, but I thought it would be a fun book to look at. I love the weather magazine, and the two books on the bottom looked cute too.

Because I suck at math, I've been trying to buy cheap math workbooks, so I grabbed those two up, the Women book looked fun to read (I took a couple women's studies classes in college), and the Christmas book just looked interesting. It actually does have some pretty cool things in it and I think I will try some of the recipes.

This book, I saw laying on a table and didn't know what it was, so I opened it up and saw this:

It's got a lot of great pictures in it, I thought they'd be great backgrounds for my art work.

So, that's 22 books for about $12, pretty good deal, I think. Of course I had to carry them all home, I never think about that when I'm loading them up.

Now, I totally don't want to spend money for awhile, though I bet that won't last long. I do have to find a birthday present for my brother for this week.

I totally just failed on that, I went to Lisa's site and bought more stuff. Someday, my fridge is gonna be covered in her magnets.

Any good finds for you all out there?

Garage Sales

2011-09-24T12:10:00.003-05:00

I went to an estate sale today, that was mostly fabric. In the picture below you can see tables filled with boxes of quilting magazines and books. There's also two rows of tables covered in fabric.
And behind those, a row of tables next to the house covered in sewing notions, bits of lace and quilts

This was a table full of glassware and religious items

The table in the front of the picture was covered in yarns, afghans, and sewing notions. The table behind it was mostly kids stuff, and the table behind that was a TV and some movies

These were the cutting tables they had set up, just like a fabric store

And here's what I bought from my sales:

This first picture is from the estate sale, the big piece in the background, my mother hinted at it being a great present, the pink piece and butterfly were already pieced together waiting for something. At the bottom is the pile of lace and trims I bought along with a doily and a cute red cow. You can't see the afghan I purchased, it's being washed.

These were from another house sale. The couple had already moved out and the house was filled with everything they didn't want to take with them. There's a cute angel for my mother, two vases, some Christmas ornaments and a couple bunny rabbits.

Here is a mug, a vintage fork, a cute glass whale, and a container of fabric leaves

I spent just over $20 at the 3 sales I went to this weekend, I think I got a good haul from them.

What did you all find?

Also tune in tomorrow for my finds at a local art festival and half price day at the library book sale.

Would You Buy It Wednesday

2011-09-24T12:03:00.004-05:00

I saw this old typewriter at a sale today.
Would you buy it? I always see all this cool stuff made out of typewriter keys, and would love to have one, but the price was a bit high for me.

Linking to Would You Buy It Wednesday, here. Go see what others may or may not have bought.

Something new and exciting

2011-09-12T08:49:00.005-05:00

This is all Carrie's fault. I updated my OKCupid profile a few months or so ago, with no intention of becoming interested in anyone. I originally put this picture, and didn't get anyone interested in me.
So, I changed my profile picture to this one:

And now I've got more people interested in me. I've been chatting in Yahoo messenger last week with one of them, who just sent me a message yesterday that I should text him, I'm not completely sure I'm up to that point of him knowing my phone number yet, but I'm giddy about it. I got another message from a guy yesterday interested in chatting with me. And I messaged two guys today. I get sent 'matches' every day by a program on this site, and I decided to look at them today (I generally delete them), and messaged two of the guys. I'm giddy about that too. I'm really excited that guys are interested in me (even if it's just through a website), because I've never gotten much interest from guys before. And everything in my profile is all me, I didn't type anything in because I thought it might interest a guy. I've said how I love action/violent movies, that I read true crime books, that I love muscle cars and shooting.

Thanks a lot Carrie.

I'm also massively nervous about posting this, I don't know why.

More Stuff

2011-09-10T11:01:00.003-05:00

I spent less than $25 this weekend. I started late Friday afternoon this time, there were 2 sales that didn't start until 4, and I wanted to get to those as well as a couple that ended at 5 and 6.
My first stop I picked up a bunch of stuffed animals and some grab bags of stuff. Both of the cats, I had versions of when I was growing up in the 80s, this sale had a ton of stuffed animals from the 80s, she even had a set of the Berenstein Bears with all but Sister bear.
The book is called "What Puppies Do", I couldn't pass up the title. It's a bunch of cute puppy pictures. The beads and bunny were in one of the grab bags from the first sale I went to. The snail stick pin was at a sale at a house I had visited earlier in the summer.

These are all from one of those grab bags at the first sale, I love the stone items.

I thought I had the exact green cup in another color, but when I got home, I realized, they're a little different. The 12 ball I found in the grass as I was going to a sale. I decided today that I didn't need anymore books, and then I bought the dictionary on my way home. I have a tendency to pick up dictionaries if they are under $1 (I use them in my artwork), I have eight dictionaries from the 1950's or earlier.

I loved the turtle/frog figurine, the yellow and white crocheted thing is to cover a round table I have (I never measured it, but this one was finally the perfect size), the cup is part of a Christmas present I'm putting together, I gave the butterfly piece to my mother, and I couldn't pass up the embroidered lady.

I picked up some yarn for a friend, and this cute little frog can come out of his snowsuit and has a cute pair of striped underwear underneath.

And, my personal favorite, jewelry, I can never pass this stuff up. I believe I spent $8 on the jewelry, my grand highest for a sale this weekend. I swear I'm like a magpie, I can't resist the old sparkly ones.

What exciting things did you all find?

New Things

2011-09-04T09:45:00.003-05:00

Wow! It's been awhile since I posted. I guess life's just been busy. Let's see, the week of August 22nd, I was working at the bookstore again for 3 days. I ended up with 2 eleven hour days between my two jobs, that wasn't fun. On the 25th, I got to play with my friend's puppies, that was a great deal of fun. On August 27th, I had a booth at the Lincoln Highway Days flea market. I didn't sell much, I think I made about $20, and that was all on jewelry or buttons. I had a whole bunch of jewelry and glassware and vintage handkerchiefs from my garage sale finds, but it seemed people didn't really want to buy much. I even walked around and all I bought was food and a couple of tries with a game.
It was a fun experience, and I'd do it again, just not too soon. Course now I don't know what to do with my things I was ready to part with. Maybe I'll list some of the buttons and jewelry on Etsy.
August 28th, I had a city picnic to go to, and then it's this past week, which was just work. I caught some kind of flu/cold this week and for the past few days I have been feeling pretty crappy. Then on Friday, I worked until about 3, so I didn't have a lot of time to hit sales before they closed for the day. I did get to one.
Yesterday, I decided to brave the weather and head out to some more. That was a bad idea, when I left it was sprinkling kinda hard, after getting to 2 sales it started pouring, and I got drenched. I got halfway to the third sale and decided to look at the time, and I found my phone in a puddle in my bag. I decided to go buy some rice and go home. Next time, I will head to the sale I want to go to first and then to the others.
Here's what I got this weekend:
This is the third one of these sugar bowls I have, I love the heavy glass look. The first one I bought has an etching in the front. But, I love these.

This bunch of jewelry I picked up on Friday, my favorite is the lion 'door knocker' earring. I plan to do something with it in my art.

I also picked up 3 movies: Desperado, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Fight Club.

The weather has finally cooled off a little, it's only 59 right now. I told my mother I would mow the lawn today, but I really don't want to. My nose is still plugged up from this cold thing. My phone is still taking a rice nap, I couldn't remember if it was 12 or 24 hours I was supposed to leave it in. I love the quietness here. I did tell my parents it was out of order, but I don't think I hear the buzz when it rings, and I don't check it all the time, I think I'm a little more mellow without it. I am a little worried though, when I checked it yesterday (after picking it out of the puddle), the front screen was not working, and some of the buttons weren't working. Course, we're out of our plan, and my dad keeps saying he's gonna sign a new plan, maybe this will get them going.

What's been going on in your lives?

This weekend's finds

2011-08-20T11:22:00.003-05:00

I was not very interested in garage saleing this weekend, but a friend talked me into one sale, and I decided since a few more were close, I'd check them out. And then I went to our farmer's market.
At the farmer's market I bought 3 cake pops (one strawberry, once carrot cake, and one funfetti). I love cake pops, I only wish people would put less of the candy coating on the outside. I also bought a bag of snickerdoodles.
These are all from the sale, my friend talked me into, I actually walked right by it and had to go back. I'm keeping a few of these pins and selling the rest next weekend.

This bunch of stuff was in a bag, that I only wanted for the button collection at the top. There's doilies, fabric roses and some hearts

I think this cute pig was my find for the weekend, he's just so cute. Speaking of pigs I've started a collection, I have 3, there may be more coming.

I also bought some greeting cards, a bag of beads and a couple more pins

What did you guys find this weekend?

My purchases.

2011-08-18T07:54:00.002-05:00

I didn't plan to spend so much money, but since I hadn't gotten the job/promotion I applied for at the library, I did decide I was spending money on myself and I wasn't going to worry about it.
Here are the two notecards I bought at the art gallery ($7 total), the bag of buttons ($7), for a closer look at them, check out my art blog, the egg fabric ($2)
Here are the two linen pieces I found ($6 total) and the flower frog ($5)

Here's the two shirts I got at the consignment store ($13 total). I had found quite a few cute shirts, but these two fit the best

And two Okoboji shirts, because you have to buy some of those while you're there ($26 total)

Now, you can't see the bag of candy I bought at the sugar shack ($7) total, because that's gone.

I think I bought some great things, I just wish the weekend lasted longer, or that I got to have more time up there. I felt like we pushed a lot into the weekend and it would have been nice to spread it out and relax more. But, that seems to be the norm when I go up there lately. When I went with my ex three or four years ago, we had to be back by Tuesday afternoon, last year I had to be back by Monday afternoon and this year by Tuesday night.

Day three

2011-08-18T07:44:00.002-05:00

All the pictures in this post are of chalk drawings from a contest in Spirit Lake, it had actually happened during the weekend, and we got to see these beautiful drawings when we were there on Monday.
It was a very relaxing morning on Monday, we all got up when we felt like it and just lounged around the condo.

At about 10AM we went mini golfing at Treasure Village, my mother felt sorry that my brother wasn't up there yet, so she decided to play a round with me (she never does that). We decided not to keep score and it was pretty fun. By the time we finished it was lunch time.

We went to a close town, Spirit Lake, and drove through looking for a place to eat. We decided to got to a little bistro called Rebab's. It was pretty good, I tried a pesto chicken sandwich, and it was great.

After lunch we went to another art gallery and were blown away by the gorgeous photographs. Mom and I loved them so much we bought some notecards.

We then went to a quilting shop, where my mom had tons of fun. I found a cute egg fabric to go with some bird images I had at home.

We then went to a consignment store where mom and I found a couple pieces of clothing. I also found a few linen pieces that I couldn't pass up.

After that, we went back to the condo and proceeded to pack up for the next day.

And that is the end of our short exciting weekend. Tuesday, we got up, packed the rest of our items and left.

I had taken over $100 with me and spent about $80. Between the sugar shack, the flea market, a t-shirt store, the art gallery, the quilting store, and the consignment shop, I spent that much money. You will get to see my purchases in the next post.

I was kinda disappointed that my brother couldn't make it up to spend some time with us, but we all know how work goes. He is up there now, and will be there til the end of the week.

My trip, Day one and two

2011-08-17T07:09:00.004-05:00

I went on vacation this past weekend. My parents and I went up to Lake Okoboji, in Iowa. We have a timeshare there, and we decided we could take a long weekend. We left shortly before noon on Saturday and arrived there shortly after 3:30PM.
Our first stop was to go to a consignment store we'd been going to for 27 years, only to find out it had closed. Next we went to the mall that's right next door to our condo (we had time to kill as we couldn't check in until after 4PM), and had to stop at the Sugar Shack. It's a store that's all candy. I only bought somewhat healthy things this year (chocolate covered nuts are healthy, right?). We traveled down to the amusement park and past some cool cars. By the time we got back it was time to check in. Here's part of the view from our deck:
We decided to go to a local ribs joint across the street for supper. My mother was not impressed with it. When we got there, there were only 3 seats at the bar and it was sit yourself place. So, we're all crammed into the bar, with a big gap between the bar and us, it was a perfect setup to spill all over yourself.
I'm trying to be more healthy lately and drink only water, milk and the occasional adult beverage, but I almost stopped that night. A root beer float just sounded so great, fortunately for me, they were out of root beer. After supper we traveled back to the condo and relaxed for the night. It was pretty hard for me to sleep. I was in the smaller room with 2 single beds, I hadn't been in that room since I was there with my ex.

The next day, we got up early and went to our favorite place for breakfast, The Koffee Kup. Then we decided to walk off the calories we'd eaten (I don't think we even got close). The original plan was that my brother would be coming up on Sunday and we'd have a few days with him and his girlfriend, but work got in the way, and he wouldn't be arriving until Tuesday, the day we were leaving.

We weren't really sure what would be open on a Sunday, but we had seen an ad for a flea market on Tv on Sat night, so we went out to that. There was a lady selling buttons, both mom and I had a blast picking throught them. I also bought a flower frog, I've been wanting one of those for awhile. You'll see all my purchases in a later post.
This is a weird backpack I found in one of the stores. It wasn't much more bigger than a basketball, but cost over $30.

By the time we were done with the flea market, it was lunchtime, so we went to a local park and had a picnic. Afterward we went to an art gallery and then to the Barn Swallow for shopping.

After shopping, we decided to take an evening cruise on the Queen II, we got there a little early, so had to get some ice cream to pass the time. After the cruise we were all tired and went to bed.

My apartment smells so yummy

2011-08-11T14:31:00.002-05:00

And this is why:
I tried out a new recipe from The Best of Taste Of Home magazine I picked up at the grocery store the other day.
It's called a Chocolate Chai loaf. It used chai tea latte mix with chocolate and sour cream. My apartment smells like chai, yummy. The frosting (which makes me wonder if it's really a bread, because you don't frost bread) has the chai tea latte mix in it as well.

I also bought some Do Biz cookie dough at the store the other day and made these Garbage Great cookies.

I originally bought the dough just to eat it. Since, we are going to Okoboji this weekend and I wasn't sure how much longer it could sit open in the fridge, I used the rest of the dough to actually make cookies.

I originally planned to take the bigger chai bread to work, but I'm leaning toward taking the small loaf and taking the big loaf with us this weekend.

Job things

2011-08-08T18:05:00.004-05:00

So, I learned some good news today. As you know I work at the public library here in my town. My boss created another job higher than my level but under my lead workers levels (they're basically my supervisors), that gives us some more responsibility plus benefits and a salary. I applied for it, I've only been there almost two years (will be two in Oct), but I have worked in a library in college, and I volunteered at the library for maybe a couple years before I started working here. I also do things when they need to be done, and volunteer when other people don't. Plus I love the job, and the people I get to work with.
Anywho, I applied for the job, and was asked to sign up for an interview time today. I signed up for the first one which happens to be tomorrow morning (Tues). Now, I'm kinda nervous, I have no idea what they will ask at the interview, plus I'm not really sure what to wear. I'm thinking maybe khaki pants and a nice shirt, but I really don't know. A friend said I should wear one of my nice skirts, but since I always seem to be wearing a skirt to work, I thought maybe something different.

Anyone have any encouraging comments, or suggestions on what I should wear? They would be very much appreciated.

And, no, the picture has nothing to do with this post, it's one of the Chinese paper cuts I bought last weekend, I just figured you might need something to look at.

Thanks All

My Finds This Weekend

2011-08-07T09:09:00.004-05:00

This weekend was tax free day on clothes here in Iowa. My aunt mentioned it after we went to lunch Friday, so dad decided he needed some shorts and I thought I'd see if there was any cute skirts on sale. I got a couple great bargains:
This one was originally marked at $48, and I got it for $9, it's marked as a small, but it sure feels larger.
This one was originally marked at $79, I wasn't sure what it would be, because there was no markdown on the tag, but it was so cute, and such a beautiful color, that I figured I'd see what it rung up as. It rang up as $17.70, the salesperson was also very surprised.

Then, my aunt and I went to a church sale, and I found a few cool buys, I found this cute sugar pitcher. I've noticed I love these heavier glass pieces, I have a few sugar bowls and a creamer. In fact, I have this same sugar bowl, only there's an etching in the side of it.

And even though I keep telling myself I'm not buying craft supplies, I did buy these flowers, and some punched paper. My justification is that the flowers are always so expensive in the stores, and I would love to have punches, but just to amass even a few is pretty expensive.

I went to quite a few sales on Saturday, one decided not to be open, and a few weren't very exciting, but I did find some things to buy. I bought a few crafty magazines at one and some Chinese papercuts, to see more about these, visit my other blog.

I also found this great bowl and doily

And a cute bear, more punched paper, and some birds

What exciting things did you guys find this weekend?

This week's finds

2011-07-30T10:53:00.001-05:00

Not any massively exciting sales this week, but here's what I did find:
A Susan Branch cookbook, another book, a tiny popple, a small care bears, 2 pot holders and a cute mice figurine.
a box of foam stickers, a Making Memories Tool kit, and 9 matboard frames

Here's what was in the Making Memories toolkit: an eyelet punch with 6 different heads, a hammer, some glue, a dry embossing tool, an x-acto knife, a pair of tweezers, some scissors, a cutting mat, a ruler and some kind of sanding tool
another book, some tiny fans, a couple puzzle postcards, and a cute ornament
a pair of angel earrings, a turtle pin, some very dangly earrings, 3 charms, and a pair of white earrings

In other news, my cousin asked if I wanted to sell some of my finds at a flea market at the Lincoln Highway days, that sounds great, so I said yes.

And Jessica G sent me a nice little surprise necklace in the mail. Thanks Jessica

Great sale this week

2011-07-23T10:10:00.003-05:00

This weekend started out depressing with garage sales, a friend from work went with me to this one at a church that was supposed to be huge, which it was, but not much exciting. I did end up buying this book and tiny vase.
This morning I have 4 sales on my list, and then ended up only going to 3 of them and one I happened by. I went to my first estate sale today(though I didn't realize that's what it was until I walked past a sign on my way home). It was tons of stuff. There were holiday things in the garage, then you passed free stuff on the back porch, dishes in the kitchen, lots of glassware and some misc in the living/dining area, toys and guy stuff in the basement and jewelry/linens in a bedroom. I ended up spending almost $10 at this sale, I would have bought more if prices were lower (I think I've become more of a cheapskate with frequenting garage sales). It seemed like a couple was selling their house (ok, there was a sold sign outside), and the children were helping with the sale. You could totally tell in the kids were pricing things to get rid of and the parents wanted money. There was a guy (I'm guessing one of the kids) in the basement, and I had a few items that weren't priced, so he prices them (all under $1.00), but when I went to check out, the mother misread his handwriting and thought they were more expensive. I didn't let her get away with it though, I did say I just talked to the guy and that he priced them for me.
I walked away with: the tiny frog, bag of jewelry(just for the butterfly pin), pom pom bunny, tiny salt and pepper set, and the 3 gold colored bunnies.

I also bought a lion bank, a strange red bug candle, an old bunny, a cute hankie, and a reindeer (I'm always on the lookout for good reindeer, my brother collects them).

This picture was my best buy at the sale. I saw it sitting in the basement and figured it would be too expensive for me. It measures 22 inches long by 13 inches tall. It's one of those painted on velvet pieces. I got one last year, but the colors are much brighter. Anyways, I figured it would be pretty expensive considering prices on other things, but I asked the guy and he said "a quarter" SOLD.

Would you have bought it? I was thinking I would pay up to $3.00 for it, so the price was perfect.

The rabbit in the next pic is also from this sale, I thought it would look great covered in dress pattern paper or book pages.

Now, the snowman, teacup and saucer were from a pretty gross sale. It was an indoor moving sale, as you walk up to the house, the door to the porch is open and there is paper (magazine pages, junk mail and other things) all over the porch floor, you get inside and there is just stuff piled everywhere, this lady didn't even vacuum the floor for the sale. It kinda looked like she was somewhat of a hoarder, there were multiples of the same thing, and just tons of clothes and Christmas stuff among other things. It was pretty gross, but I figured I was already inside might as well look. So, I picked out my items and she asks me how much they are worth to me(because nothing is priced), and I didn't want to say too low of a price, but I didn't want to pay too much for them, so I said a couple of dollars and she said ok. Then, I left pretty quickly, it was so nasty looking.

This next items were at the sale I wandered past. I had started at one street with a planned sale where they had pretty high prices, and then saw the sign for this one. I got to the sale and it looked like mostly kids stuff, but then I saw a table at the end that looked interesting. I very rarely buy clothes at sales, I do expect they're washed, but it stills feel weird, anyways, I found the cute Betty Boop shirt and then couldn't pass up the red bucket on the table. I think I can use the bucket for a Christmas present, ya know like hot chocolate, a mug, some marshmallows.

So, that's my interesting Saturday garage saleing. It turned out pretty good considering there weren't very many sales. I think the heat turned them away. It's been in the upper 90's lately with heat indexes above 100. I was watching the news last night and they said we were getting a cold front...temps are supposed to be in the 80s, that's a sad cold front.

Find anything exciting in your neck of the woods?

I'm gonna link up with Would You Buy It Wednesday on Junker Newbie.

Thursday Five

2011-07-21T15:42:00.002-05:00

It's time for another Thursday Five.

This weeks words are:
1. Cheerful
2. Adventurous
3. Warm
4. Lovely
5. Delicious

1. I bought some really cute and CHEERFUL stickers yesterday at Hobby Lobby.

2. I'm not feeling very ADVENTUROUS in my garage saleing hunt this week. There are very few to pick from.

3. It's been extremely WARM in my area this week. Monday and Tuesday we had a heat advisory with temps in the high 90's and the heat index well over 100 degrees.

4. I wonder if I have any LOVELY mail today, I've been very slackerish and sitting on my butt in front of the computer all day.

5. I made a DELICIOUS supper last night of mac and cheese with corn and tuna.

Head over to Nicole's for more Thursday Five.

Interesting finds

2011-07-16T13:50:00.002-05:00

Went to some interesting sales this weekend, though it was hard to convince myself to go out as the temperatures have been in the upper 80's and around 70% humidity. I'm glad I went though. Here's what I found:
It says it's a taper tipper. The instructions say it's to make it so your tapered candles fit in your candleholders. I had no idea what it was, it's just incredibly cute, and I can add it to my silver collection.

a couple bandanas to use when I dress up for my other job, a book that will be great for an altered book, it's got a great cover, plus the pages are gilded. A round doily, I bought it to put on a table, but it turned out too small (i really should measure that table), and didn't look good anyway, I will find somewhere else to put it. A cute piggy bank, it sorta matches the piggy planter I bought here.

A Haeger bowl, my mom said it was a really good bowl, so I got it.

A wooden seahorse, I'm planning on decorating it. A sci fi book, a bug bag(too cute!), a stuffed frog, an old time elf on a mushoorm, some millinery flowers, and a pink tree.

2 children's chapter books, I found out that our youth program doesn't have a budget for these kinds of prizes, so I figured I'd buy them when I saw good ones. A pink brooch, and 3 cute little bears.

I didn't realize I hadn't posted on here since last weekend. I have been working a ton this week, I even dreamt about work 3 nights in a row(that's when you need a break, right?). I was waiting for the Thursday Five on Flip Flops and Combat Boots, but it didn't come up this week. I hope to post more next week.

More Great Finds

2011-07-09T10:27:00.004-05:00

Went to a few exciting sales yesterday and today, found a great find today. Here's what I bought:
A yummy cinnamon roll, a pair of fish squirters, a tiny black cup, a "let it snow" sign, and an embroidered hanky. Found all these in the free boxes: a cute doll, a tiny tiger, green plastic beads, pom pom man, crocheted (?) turtle (it's actually some kind of holder), an angel made from a tiny shaker, and a butterfly pin.
The butterfly pin was bought from a new store in our downtown, I got to talking with the owner, she has her artwork and a few other artists in the community, she let me leave some business cards and said if I wanted I could bring some art to sell.

A stuffed puppy, frog, and bunny, a care bears bank.

A couple kids sunglasses, an activity book, a cute pink bag, and two Sesame Street characters.

Here's my great find: a bag full of jewelry. I found it at an unplanned stop, I saw a couple signs as I was heading to another, and stopped at this one on the way back. There was a plastic container filled with all the jewelry in the picture, priced as 10 cents each. As I started looking through, I kept finding all this cool stuff. So, I asked if I could buy the whole thing, and the lady gave it to me for $3.00, I also found the pair of frogs and elephant at that sale. Any ideas what I should do with the lot of jewelry pieces I'm not interested in?

A post secret book. I've always wanted one of these cause they're so fun to look at, but I don't see the point of paying upwards of $14.00 for basically a picture book, but for 50 cents, I'll take it.

I thought it was a pretty good weekend, but I've decided I need to start taking a larger bag to carry things, I keep ending up with either my bag full, or another plastic bag with it.

On another note, I joined Match.com and OKcupid, and told people that my screenname on yahoo, and MSN is weinkermeyer. I got my first person chatting with me today. After saying hi and what are you doing, he asks if I want to do a video chat (no), and then says he looks pretty good and has a nice body. I really don't care. Most of my reasoning for adding my screenname is so I can learn about a person before I see them. I do judge a lot on appearance, even though I try not to, so I was hoping to learn more about the person before seeing them. And then he says "are you always this boring?" because I was ignoring his comments about his body, and actually doing other things online.

Guess I'll have to wait a bit longer for the intellectual ones to contact me.

I also learned (after filling out my profile) that match.com makes you subscribe to message people. I'm not doing that, I don't really trust online dating sites that much, and I'm pretty happy with my life right now, but I was taking Carrie's advice to put myself out there. But, I'm sure not paying for it, maybe some day when I'm more into dating (and have more extra $$), maybe, but not now.

Did you guys find anything cool this week?

A new Year

2011-07-05T09:11:00.003-05:00

It was another birthday, just like every other year, get all excited and then it's not.
My mother and I went to a couple antique stores on Friday, the 1st. The original plan was to go to Sister Act in Ellsworth and then the antique store in Jewell, but when I talked to her on Thurs night, she conveniently forgot about the Jewell store (I swear as much as she forgets what she says, I'm gonna start taping her). Lucky for her, it was closed when we drove through anyway. We then went to Antique Iowa in Story City, and my pictures are a little backwards, so here's what I bought in Story City:
A couple hankerchiefs, a cute embroidered hot pad, a fire king measuring cup, a silver pitcher and an A&W hamburger man.
And here's what I bought in Ellsworth:

2 glass creamers, and a silver toothpick holder.

I enjoyed our trip, but we left after I came home from work, so I was already tired from working and being on my feet for 5 hours, and my mother also decided to forget that we weren't doing lunch (because that would put us back more on time), and got a little annoyed that I had already had lunch when I came home. Plus, I think I was hoping to have a day, like we did last year.

And on my actual birthday, I got to go grocery shopping and make cupcakes for the family get-together on the 3rd. My mother came upstairs around 11 to give me this skirt that she had made.

after that I watched a movie and made the cupcakes. It wasn't until about 5, that I went down to meet my brother and his girlfriend, who drove from Chicago, and my mom and dad, to go to Texas Roadhouse for supper. We get there and they tell us 35 to 45 minutes, and of course my mother and brother got a little annoyed, I warned mom about it. Then they sat us in a booth for 4 and had a chair on the end, and my mother and brother complained more. I will say the waiter was a little off and I wouldn't have given him as much of a tip as my parents did. I did get to drink a nice margarita and get a good burger and fries. But, like every time when we try something new, my mother and brother had to complain and I was reminded why we never try anything new.

After we got home, I got more presents from my parents and brother:

An M&M t-shirt, a spatula, a cooking spoon, a kitchen towel, and gift cards for Fareway and Nature's Touch (a local jewelry store) from my parents. OOPS forgot the toothbrush heads that are in the bathroom.

A grater, a microplane, a paring knife, Turner and Hooch movie and a Target gift card.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm happy with my presents, but I didn't want all that boring stuff, I did mention to my parents that I needed a paring knife, a grater, and spoons, but who actually wants that for their birthday presents, course I can't guarantee I'd use the Target gift card to buy those things, I definitely want to use it for something fun.

I just feel it was kind of a let-down, of course lately I don't know what would be really fun.

Winners

2011-07-03T14:52:00.004-05:00

Unfortunately I only had 2 people enter this, I pulled Kimberly's name out as the winner for this bag filled with products you can pamper yourself with.
And because I only had 2 people, I'm going to send Jessica a fun gift too.

Please email me ladies with your addresses.

New Finds

2011-07-01T18:29:00.002-05:00

No garage saleing for me this weekend, but my mother and I did go visit a couple antique stores today. We went to The Sister Act in Ellsworth and Antique Iowa (I think that's what it's called?) in Story City, here's what I found:
Two creamers and what was labeled as a silver vase, I think it was a toothpick holder, but cute either way. These were found at The Sister Act.
Two hankies, a Fire King measuring cup (it's blue glass), a sterling silver tiny pitcher, an A&W hamburger man, and my favorite find, the walking pot on the pot holder.

Don't forget to enter my birthday giveaway here, you have until midnight tonight Central Standard Time.

Thursday Five

2011-06-30T09:59:00.003-05:00

It's time for Thursday Five again. Here's this week's words:

Fabulous
Satisfying
Amazing
Sweet
Jubilant

1. I received my True Colors swap package yesterday. It was FABULOUS and totally worth the wait.

2. My birthday is Saturday, I will be making my own cake, but I know it will be very SATISFYING.

3. My guinea pig died yesterday, and my friends, here and on facebook, are being AMAZING and leaving me some nice heartfelt comments.

4. I got 2 colors of nail polish in my True Colors swap, pink and purple, and they are so SWEET! I'm planning on wearing them both today.

5. My mother and I are planning a little trip to some antique stores in the area tomorrow for our birthday celebrations (hers is on the 3rd), and I bet it will be JUBILANT.

To read more Thursday Five's head on over to Nicole's blog.

And don't forget to sign up for my birthday giveaway, here.

True Colors Swap

2011-06-29T15:33:00.003-05:00

I received my True Colors Swap package. It majorly brightened up my day (see previous post). Here's what I saw when I opened the box:
Ironically, the card says "Sending loving thoughts your way. Hope tomorrow's a better day."

And here's all the packages waiting to be unwrapped.

There were a bunch of pom pom bugs (great minds must think alike, check out my other blog, here.), scented shower cream, body lotion, bug stickers, some candles a couple wooden bugs (I do have the butterfly already, but they're so cute!), scented kitchen bags, a candle holder, shoelaces, plastic bracelets, a homemade bracelet, and post it notes.

As well as 2 shower poufs, an eye mask, 2 scarves, 2 tall candle holders, pink and purple nail polish and a pedicure set.

I know there's only one tall candle holder in the picture, the other one didn't quite make it in one piece, so it'd being mended.

I'm so glad I choose to switch from my usual green/blue to pink/purple as my favorite color. After arranging my stuff in my apartment, it definitely helped brighten the place up.

Emily, this was totally worth the wait for. Thank you soo much.

Also, don't forget to sign up for my birthday giveaway, here.

2011-06-29T07:52:00.000-05:00

My pig died.

Garage Saleing this week

2011-06-26T22:18:00.003-05:00

It rained on Saturday, so I got to one sale before the rain started and then ended up going to a new farmer's market downtown.
Here's what I got:
A stuffed frog, a stuffed dragon, a white plastic table cloth, a tiny red dragon, 2 bags of pom poms and a cute little butterfly pin.
I also got a quart of peas at the farmer's market.

And I bought a couple cake pops, this one's carrot cake.

I ended spending about $6 at the farmer's market, and it was all on yummy stuff to eat, so it wasn't a total loss, plus I got a free bag.

It seemed like slim pickings for garage sales this week anyway, so it wasn't that bad.

Don't forget to sign up for my birthday giveaway here. I've only had one comment, so it looks like Kimberly's in the running to win already. I'm also adding some cute little plastic flower rings that I blinged out to the package. I had this great idea to add gems to the centers of them for party favors, until I realized I didn't really have a party and didn't have anyone to give them to. They are pretty cute though.

Birthday Giveaway

2011-06-23T21:29:00.002-05:00

I changed my mind (I do that). I've decided to have a different giveaway for you guys for my birthday.

Remember this bag?
Anyways, I'm going to fill it with ways to pamper yourself for my giveaway.

Any comments on this post until my birthday (next Saturday) will be entered. I would love it if you blogged about this, if you leave a comment that you did, I will enter your name twice.

Good luck all!

Thursday Five

2011-06-23T11:18:00.002-05:00

Today's words are:
1. Nice
2. Ideal
3. Enjoyable
4. Outrageous
5. Loveable

1. I received my Summer Essentials swap package today (see previous post), it was NICE.

2. It would have been IDEAL to see the box for my True Colors swap as well, but I can wait.

3. I watched The Black Swan last night, it was ENJOYABLE and weird, which way more than I can say about Somewhere, that movie, I felt like I wasted an hour and a half of my life on.

4. I had a dr's appointment this morning at 8:50, I thought it was OUTRAGEOUS that I was scheduled at that time, even though the clinic didn't open until 9, when I was helped, but then I also wasn't seen until 9:30. I told them all that on the survey they asked me to fill out afterwards.

5. My guinea pig will be so much more LOVEABLE when I clean her house today.

To see what other people wrote for the Thursday Five, go here.

Summer Essentials Swap

2011-06-23T11:02:00.002-05:00

I joined Nicole's Summer Essentials Swap and received my swap package today from Jackie:
I received matching oven mitt, hand towel, and hot pad.

A shower pouf, shower gel, body lotion, fragrance mist, shea butter and foot salt.

A candle, Imagine hanging, and an Iris picture frame.

To see what other people got in the swap, go here. To see what I sent Jackie, go here.

My Birthday Plans

2011-06-21T19:58:00.001-05:00

So, it looks like my mother and I are going to go to some antique shops around Ames for my birthday. So far, we're planning on going to the one in Story City, one in Ellsworth and one in Jewel.

Anyone know of any other exciting ones to visit?

True Colors Swap

2011-06-21T11:00:00.001-05:00

I signed up for a true colors swap, and my partner's favorite color was dark green, here's what I got for her.

A cute asian bag, some beads (she likes beading and jewelry making), some candle holders, a couple candles, a cute bear, a wolf pin (her favorite animal is a wolf), a buffalo key chain (she likes Native American items).
Cat coasters, and a glass cat (she likes cats), a frame I decorated.

And this way cool Captured Dragon.

For a more detailed description on this, head over here, to my art blog.

An elephant

2011-06-18T07:58:00.003-05:00

My coolest buy at garage sales yesterday was this bronze elephant. I saw it as I was walking up to the sale, and knew I had to buy it. I don't collect elephants, so I don't know why, but I thought it was a great bargain for $5.00
At my first sale I picked up a Taste of Home magazine, three tiny birds, a cute glass leaf, a tiny jar, cute brass cup and a tiny charm all for under $2.00

At the secon sale I picked up a cute plate, a bag of heart confetti, a Santa bag (so much for not buying my mother more Santas), a bunch of little plastic animals, a bag of jewelry (some pairs of earrings, a cute heart necklace, and a tiny bluebird), and a very cute stress dude for about $4.00

At that second sale, I saw brushes with hair still in them, gross!

And at my last sale I picked up this box of Easter eggs for $1.00, I admit I only bought it for the prize egg, unfortunately, that just turned out to be a silver egg with a sticker.

I got a couple more to go to today. Let's see what I find at those.

Thursday Five

2011-06-17T13:28:00.002-05:00

Or Friday Five, as I am late.
This week's words are:
Memorable
Healthy
Grand
Impressive
Lucky

1. I bet my parents are having a MEMORABLE trip. They're in DC until Sat on a battlefield tour.

2. I'm trying so hard to eat HEALTHY. I haven't had a frozen meal in awhile and I have been making my meals a lot lately. Though I did end up drinking a mountain dew last night.

3. I made this cool thing for my True Colors swap. I think it's pretty GRAND. I'll blog about it when I know my partner has received it. I mailed it today, so probably next week some time.

4. So, Wednesday, I got my swap package for the BEACH Swap. I thought it was pretty IMPRESSIVE that I received that one, which was mailed on the 9th from Australia before I received my package for my Summer Essentials swap, which was supposed to be mailed on June 4th. I still haven't received that package, last I heard, I got an email on June 6th saying she was finishing something and would have it in the mail that week. I'm beginning to wonder.

5. I hope I can be LUCKY and find something good at the garage sales this afternoon. Only problem, I'm having a hard time talking myself into going. I do have to go back to work tonight, so that's totally not motivating me to get all sweaty on my walk.

Head on over to Nicole's to read more Thursday Five.

BEACH swap

2011-06-16T08:10:00.003-05:00

I found this cute box waiting for me when I got home from work yesterday.
And even though I had to be back at work in less than an hour, change my clothes and eat lunch before then, I decided I needed to open it.
It was my BEACH swap from Ngaire in Australia

B: Something to take your things to the beach in:

Bag

E: To wear after a day at the beach.
Earrings, I think they need a little sparkle, so I might add some glitter glue to them

A: Little something so you don't loose your keys at the beach
Adorable key chain? I can't think of what else it would be. I've already added it to my backpack.

C: To shew on at the beach
Chocolate, have already opened it and munched on some of them, very good.

H: To soothe your hands after a day at the beach.
Hand lotion.

Thank you so much Ngaire, I love all the items.

I'm still waiting on my Summer Essentials swap from Jackie. I'm also finishing up a True Colors swap, have to pack and mail my package. And the gift swap in my collageATCs group.

Garage Sales and other stuff

2011-06-11T11:36:00.003-05:00

I went to a couple garage sales this weekend, here's what I picked up:
2 stuffed animals for $.50 each, a wolf for $1.00, and a pig planter for $1.00
Funny thing about the wolf, I saw it on the payment table when I was paying, and asked if it was for sale, the lady said it was but someone had broken off it's toe. I asked if I could still have it (along with the piece of toe), she gave it to me for $1.00, when I got home I noticed it was orginally marked $5.00. There's no way I would have paid $5 for it. Also at the sale where I got the wolf, I had a bunch of tags maybe 5 inches tall, the lady said those were not for sale, they were in their box of labeling stuff. That box was under a table (where other marked things were), so I figured it was ok to dig through, plus I remember her watching me dig through it, why not move the box, or tell me when I'm digging through it?
I got a couple Pillsbury doughboy beanie babies for $.50 each. The jewelry was $1.00 altogether. She had that unmarked and said to give her a price, I should have started at $.25 instead of $.50

A cute purse for $.50, a dictionary for $.50 (I'm getting quite a collection of these, I've noticed I can't pass them up if they are $1.00 or less, I actually bought 2 this weekend). The kids books were $1.00 altogether.

These two cute garden stakes were $1.00 altogether.

I have a few ideas for some of the items I picked up today. I figured the purse can go in a giveaway, the Curious George and Arthur books I'm taking to the library, one of my coworkers uses good kids books for projects, and the lawn stakes my mother is getting for her birthday.

Nothing in the mail today, I'm still waiting to receive my Summer Essentials swap and my BEACH swap. My summer essentials partner emailed me on Monday saying she had to finish a homemade gift, but that it would be in the mail this week (mail by date was 6/4). My BEACH swap partner emailed me Thursday saying she had received my package and hers was now in the mail (mail by date was 6/1).

I'm a little annoyed with that. I've decided I'm not participating in any more swaps where you buy stuff and send a package. With the 2 above and the one I never got in December (it was a Christmas swap, my partner never mailed me a package, so the hostess had to spend more money and send me one), and the cost I've decided it's too much. I will finish the 2 swaps I'm in now, but won't sign up for more. Between garage saleing and buying for these swaps, my money has been really cut into, and since I don't spend near as much on garage sales, I'm keeping that. I figure I've spent most likely close to $100 on swaps since last fall, between getting things to send to my partner and postage, it does add up.

Thursday Five

2011-06-09T08:46:00.004-05:00

It's that time of week again. Time for the Thursday Five. This week's words are:
Happy
Giddy
Joyful
Excited
Appreciative

1. I'm so HAPPY it's the end of the week and time for garage sales again.

2. I'm really GIDDY about next week and getting to put the suit on, my first appearance is on Monday, I'm also a little nervous.

3. Hopefully soon, I have a JOYFUL mail day, I'm waiting on packages from 2 swaps.

4. I'm really EXCITED about Karla's Birdsong Tag Swap, though after seeing some other blog writer's tags, I'm not sure if my idea will be as neat.

5. I'm very APPRECIATIVE to my coworkers for helping me out with things next week. I hope they will go smoothly and I can count on them in the future.

Head on over to Nicole's for more Thursday Five.

True Colors

2011-06-05T13:57:00.004-05:00

I joined the True Colors Swap, and said my favorite colors were pink and purple. I figured I'd give my partner a couple examples of the range of those two colors I have in my apartment, and of course show some of the things I like as well:
This is a foam pink heart that's hanging with some felt flowers.
This is a pinwheel

Here's a vintage hankie I picked up

And some water squirters, I love anything to do with water.

A glass and a creamer, I'm big into vintage glassware

A daisy with a jewel center, I love fake cool looking flowers because they last forever

A string of felt flowers

a flower candle holder (can we see a pattern on the flowers here?)

A stuffed lion, I love stuffed animals

And a teacup I picked up at a garage sale yesterday

I really wish I had more purple items (and of course I thought of that later), in either deep purple (like the candle holder), or light purple (like the pinwheel). I'm sure you can also see a pattern with my vintage finds, I love glass ware, but I'm trying to collect more teacups, they're so cute.

I'm also into cartoony looking bugs, so if you find anything cool like that.

Otherwise, you can just peruse the rest of my blog and older posts, it's all about me.

Swaps

2011-06-04T08:29:00.002-05:00

I signed up for a couple swaps, and I never take pictures of what I send people. I'ved decided to start doing that. Bear with me through the next 2 pictures, not everything in them is for the swaps.
My first summer swap is the Beach swap. We had to come up with something for every letter in the word beach. And these pictures are a little backwards.
Hibiscus plate
Here we have
Bird and Butterfly sticky notes
Exciting napkins
Adorable animal stickers
Card game
Happy bug

These were mailed to Australia on Tuesday, I have no idea how long it takes to get to Australia, but I bet it's not there yet.

My next swap was a summer essentials swap. We were supposed to decide what was essential for summer and send it to our partner.
I sent her a bag, a pair of flip flops, a bottle of hand sanitizer, some cute ladybug clips, a summery tablecloth, some water squirters, some bubbles, a beach ball, a couple bottles of nail polish, some emery boards, a sewing kit, and some hawaiian punch drink mixes.

So, everyone needs a bag to carry their stuff in (I actually got everything but the table cloth in it), you always need a pair of flip flops (unless you're me and have weird feet), hand sanitizer for all the things you touch in the summer, I just thought the clips were cute, tablecloth for picnics, water squirters because my partner said she loved the water, bubbles to play with, beach ball for the water, nail polish to decorate your nails, emery boards to keep nails pretty, sewing kit because she likes to sew, and hawaiian drink mix to help keep you hydrated.

I sent this package on Thursday, I had gotten home from shopping and decided I had everything I needed, so I sent it, the estimated get there date is today.

I hope she likes it.

I also signed up for a True Colors swap, but I'm not sure about that, I haven't heard back from the hostess yet, and today we're supposed to get our partners.

Friday Garage Sales

2011-06-03T16:29:00.003-05:00

My computer says it's 92 degrees outside and with the humidity is feels a heck of a lot warmer, but that didn't stop me from walking almost 4 miles to do some garage saleing. Here's what I got:
A Pyrex mixing bowl for $.50
A cute little doll's dress for $2.00 I don't know what I'm going to do with this, but I couldn't pass it up.

A spoon for $.25, a fork for $.25, a pin missing some of it's rhinestones for $.25, a tiny glass for $.10, a ring with a green stone for $1.00, and a cute little stick pin for $1.00

And a pink teacup for $1.00

Oh, and a nice sunburned face for free, anyone wanna buy it off me?

It looks really bad in that pic, I didn't realize it was that red. Oh well, what are you gonna do, other than make sure I put on sunscreen next time.

Thursday Five

2011-06-02T21:44:00.003-05:00

This weeks words for Thursday Five are:
Fascinating
Pleasant
Sweet
Sensational
Heartwarming

1. Monday was such a nice day, my family went to see the gian bug exhibit at Reiman Gardens. They were FASCINATING.
2. I got a couple PLEASANT t-shirts at Walmart today, one of them has a fluffy dandelion with a couple fluffs blowing away and underneath it says "Make a wish", the other one has a bee next to a flower, it says "Bee Happy".

3. My mother took a SWEET picture of me with the giant daddy long legs spider on Memorial day.

4. I joined another swap today, True Colors, it looks to be SENSATIONAL. You can still sign up until June 3rd (that's tomorrow).

5. A co-worker of mine said she would help me out with a couple projects at work, it was totally HEARTWARMING to not have to worry about them.

Head over to Nicole's to read more Thursday Fives.

Random stuff

2011-05-30T22:04:00.002-05:00

Do you all remember when I got the bracelet in the picture below?
Well, anyways, I had taken to wearing it mostly everyday recently. I've found that dainty little bracelets look good on my wrist, plus they don't get caught on things at work.
Well, I lost it on Sunday. I'm kinda bummed, a bit more than I should be. I got it for a quarter and didn't know what to do with it. The clasp had a tendency to come open because it was old, so I'm guessing that's what happened to it. It was perfect because it was dainty, and pretty much went with everything.
I'm hoping to find a new one sometime this summer, but there's no guarantee.

So, I won't be going to DC next week. It ended up that my aunt decided not to go, and I really don't want to go on another vacation with my parents. I see how irritated my mom gets with my dad, plus she'll be driving to the battlefields, and she gets annoyed about that, and I just don't need it.
I might be going to Okoboji for a few days at the end of the summer, so that will be nice. I have to see if anyone will work for me for 2 of those days, but I think (cross your fingers), they will.

I joined 2 summer swaps recently. One is a BEACH swap, where we have to come up with items that start with the letters in beach. My partner is in Australia, I'm pretty psyched about that. I decided I should say yes I would do the swap with someone outside the US, just for a little change.
The other one is a summer essentials swap. We have to spend $20 on summer essentials, I have a couple things and will hopefully get in touch with my partner to see what she's interested.

My birthday's coming. In a little over a month, July 2nd, I will be 28 (UGH!). I have decided to do a giveaway again, so any comments on this post until July 2nd will count. They will be items from garage saleing, I don't guarantee to remember to mark them, but they'll be cool (I hope).

I hope everyone spent at least a few minutes thinking about how our soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines have given their all for us. Not just today, but everyday, I do it everyday, so I don't see the need to broadcast it out there on one day.
My parents and I ended up going to our local gardens for the giant bugs exhibit, I will put up pictures tomorrow, they were pretty cool. But no caterpiller, caterpillers are my favorite bugs. I did get a pretty cool picture with a daddy long legs spider.

What did you do today?

A bouquet of roses

2011-05-27T11:35:00.002-05:00

And other things. I went to 3 garage sales today, one turned out to be a bust.
This first one was advertised as 49 years worth of stuff, if that was the truth, they didn't collect much. I found (another) dictionary for free, a pack of folders for $.25, a Hello Kitty keychain for $.50, and a snowman (so much for not buying snowmen) for $1.00
The next sale boasted having lots of homeschool stuff, they did but they were also bundled into $7 bundles, they also said books, they had books, but they were old and $10 each.
I found the giraffe for $.25, the muffin for $.50, and the cookies for $1.00. The ribbon was free.

The last sale, I went to last year, should've advertised as everything's a $1.00. I found the stuffed hedgehog, the very cool pitcher, and the 3 pins.

Here's a close-up on the pins, there's a bouquet of roses, a blue bug, and a butterfly.

I always think it's interesting what we gravitate towards at sales, like I always go to jewelery, linens, and glassware. I found a box of pen nibs today, and remembered a blog I read where she collected pin nibs.

I'm sure there's some of you reading this thinking "Why did she buy those?" on some of my items, I know I think that some times, but it's so cool to see everyone's diversified tastes.

Thursday Five

2011-05-26T09:51:00.003-05:00

It's Thursday again, and that means time for another Thursday Five. Here's this week's list:

Great
Incredible
Inspired
Rewarding
Swell

1. My lunch and shopping day with my friend yesterday was GREAT. I finally got up the courage to ask if she wanted to go to lunch, and then we kind of bounced around to a few places afterwards and picked up some cool stuff.

2. I picked up an INCREDIBLE book at the library the other day, The Best of PaperCrafts Magazine. It has a whole bunch of amazing cards and paper crafts in it. Maybe this time I can get through it all.

3. I haven't been very INSPIRED to create anything lately. I've been in a bad slump. I did finish a few things last week for my art showing.

4. I have an additional position at the library, it should be very REWARDING, I can't wait until my first performance.

5. I hope to pick up some SWELL items at garage sales tomorrow. According to their ads, they look pretty promising.

Disappointing

2011-05-26T09:43:00.003-05:00

I went to a garage sale today, that I went to last year, it was pretty disappointing today.
The green bowl was $.50, and the bracelets were $.25 each, the bag of beads and tiny fork were both free.
Now, I don't know if my looking is more refined, or what. But to go from $32 to $1, is a pretty big jump. Maybe I wasn't looking for the same things. I do have a Summer Essentials swap that I signed up for that I have no idea what I'm going to send for that. Last year I picked out a lot of things for my treasured tin swap. I was also very eager to go garage saleing, I just started last year, and this was one of the first few I went to. Course I am trying to spend less now, oh well, who knows.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

Lunch and shopping

2011-05-25T16:15:00.002-05:00

Today, I went to Younkers, JCPenney, and Walmart to see if they had any cute dresses or skirts, and maybe pick up a new pair of pants. I wound up spending a little over $80, which as you will remember I spent on this day, for more than 2 dresses.
I bought this cute (cheap) bandana for $1.29. I need something to keep my hair out of my eyes when I'm working, since it's not quite long enough for a pony tail.
I bought this really cute nightgown for $5.97 I think that's a grand price especially since it was originally $30.00

And I bought this outfit (see the bandana?) as well. The shirt was originally $30, but was on sale for $11.99, and the skirt was originally$42, but was on sale for $25.20

I also bought a pair of jeans that was originally $36, but was on sale for $19.99, and a new bra for $11. Like I said I spent about $80, is it just me or do you think that $80 is a bit much for two dresses.

I also went to lunch with a new friend from work, we ended up going to Walmart, a bookstore, Kmart and Borders. I'm so excited I found someone outside of work that I agree a lot with on things. It's so fun to spend time with people outside of work too.

Tomorrow, I have a garage sale I'm going to, and then 4 I might go to on Friday, I'm excited about those, I will share with you what I got.

Yesterday

2011-05-22T10:37:00.000-05:00

Go here to see what I did yesterday.

Thursday Five

2011-05-19T11:28:00.002-05:00

I was planning on doing last week's Thursday Five, but I forgot and when I remembered it was already Saturday. So, here's this week:
Irresistible
Positive
Successful
Vibrant
Glorious

1. The backpack I bought yesterday was just IRRESTIBLE. Between the color and needing a nice summer bag, I couldn't help myself.

2. The guy I helped in the library gave me such POSITIVE feedback, he said I should get a raise for helping him out.

3. I was SUCCESSFUL in curbing the urge to go to Jo Ann's yesterday. I have a tendency to go to Hobby Lobby and Jo Ann's at the same time, since they're both in the same strip.

4. The purple irises I took to the library looked so VIBRANT with the fuschia peonies. They got lots of compliments too.

5. I had a GLORIOUS walk to the garage sales this morning, it was in the 50's but humid so it felt great.

Head on over to Flip Flops and Combat Boots for more Thursday Five

Shopping

2011-05-19T10:16:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I realized I needed to go to Hobby Lobby because I needed more cheap paintbrushes and some new blades for my paper cutter.
Here's what I ended up buying:
2 picture holders for $2.99 each, a pair of blades for my paper cutter for $4.99, a glue stick for $2.99, a cute cupcake magnet for $.68, a paper craft grab bag for $5.99, a tiny measuring tape for $.99, and a cute backpack for $9.99
I did put back the cute stickers, and the cute stuffed bird and the cute butterfly decorative piece and the decorate a monster, and the wind-up bug. I decided I didn't need those items, cute as they were.
I picked up the picture holders to display some of my artwork this weekend. I am showing some of my artwork at the library for a display. My paper cutter kept leaving fuzzy edges, so I decided it was finally time to pick up some new blades. I've been looking for alternatives to my mod podge, double stick tape and hot glue gun, figured I'd try a glue stick. The cupcake magnet was just too cute to pass up and especially for only $.68. I bought the paper grab bag because there was a cute set of rub-ons, so I figured that was worth the money alone. I don't have a measuring tape and I seem to need one a lot lately, so why not. And the backpack was too cute. I've been meaning to switch to a summer bag, I usually use my Tinkerbell messenger bag, but last year the straps came off, now I did fix them, but how long til it happens again.

And then today, there were some garage sales, so I decided to go to them. One was a bust, the other two I found a few things.
This is from the first one, the pair of leaves were $.50, the donkey and stick pin were $.25 each and the frog was $.25 as well.
I have a huge collection of 3 stick pins now, but they are extremely cute.

And the last sale, I picked up a stuffed pig for $.50, a stuffed guinea pig for $.25, a Silly Snacks cookbook for $.50, and the movie Jumanji on DVD for $2.00

Not that I need more stuffed animals, but these two were way cute and for a great price. I love the cookbook, and I've always wished I had Jumanji on DVD.

This neighborhood I went to today was supposed to have sales today, Friday and Saturday. I don't think I'll get much done on Sat, I have the art thing from 11-4, I have to set up before then. I figured I might go to a few sales that open at 8, but I'm not walking all the way up there. I might go back tomorrow and see if there's anymore sales, I'm already going to one 10 blocks away, and it didn't take me near as long to walk up there as I thought it would. I was back by 10 and I left at 8:30, so that's pretty good.

Garage sale and other stuff

2011-05-13T18:49:00.003-05:00

So, last weekend was ok.
We headed out to Waterloo around 1PM, we let the GPS direct us, so it was a new way and we got to go through some cute little towns.
We got to Waterloo a little after 3, lounged in the hotel room until about 5, then went to the Brown Bottle for supper, I tried to get something new, but seems with my family, we're all about going somewhere where the food is not exciting and new. I ended up getting some garlic chicken and found out that pine nuts are yummy. Some high school must have been having their prom that night because we got to see tons of kids in their dresses. It was pretty cool.
After supper, we headed over to the art center where the ceremony was taking place. It was pretty cool with a very short ceremony (maybe 15 min), and ending with a silent movie. The reception was just down the hall and it was also around movies, so there were silent movie star tables we were assigned to, there was a candy bar and they had cupcakes instead of cake.
Sunday, we got up and went to the restaurant for breakfast. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet for $7.95, only everything on the buffet was obviously bought somewhere else and heated up. The muffins and bread were cold in the middle, the bagel I had was very hard as if it had sat out a while.
We left around 10:30, stopping off at the super Walmart to pick up some pine bedding for my pig, since the small Walmart in Ames doesn't carry the really big bags anymore. I am very unhappy with that. We arrived in La Porte City shortly after 11 to pick up my grandma, and arrived at my aunt's house shortly after 11:30.
The day was fun, we had a pinata, and it was very entertaining to see my cousin's son, hit it so hard the head came off.
Monday was fun too, got to spend about 3 hours with Loretta and her Bichon Frise puppies. She still has 5 left if you need a puppy.

Today, I squeezed in one garage sale. I had to work this afternoon 1-6, and then tomorrow 8-1, so that pretty much means no garage saleing.
Here's what I got: a giant copper colored pillow for $.25, a set of snowmen salt and pepper shakers for $.50, a cute little white bowl for $.25, and 4 notebooks for $1.00.
I love notebooks and find many uses for them, but you can never find them cheaply anymore, unless you stock up at back to school time. And I had to get the black one for my garage sale adventures. I usually go through the online ads and craigslist, write down the addresses and times, and what interests me. Then I figure out my itenerary and schedule, and write addresses and times in the order I'll go to them.
That way I can always have the addresses with me while I'm out and about.
What was your week like?

Venting

2011-05-05T09:50:00.002-05:00

I don't understand why my parents are paying to make sure my plumbing works. It does. They never used to have a plumber come in and look at stuff, only after we redid my bathroom do they do that. Wouldn't you think if my plumbing didn't work I'd tell them?
I just got yelled at by my dad because I didn't get my dishes done, and I had a sink full of dishes when the plumbing guy came in today, that I knew for awhile, and why hadn't I done my dishes.
I swear, my parents pay for the stupidest things these days.
They pay for the pest control to come through twice a year, to spray for bugs, that we don't have. We had an infestation of carpenter ants when I was a kid, and when you live in an old house that's mostly made out of wood, that's really bad. So, ever since we had that happen, the pest control guy comes twice a year.
They pay to have random shit done throughout that house, that really doesn't need to be done. Like carpentry stuff, my mom decided a few years ago that I needed a bedroom door, there's never been a bedroom door up here, and it's open 90% of the time, but she paid our (now, we have a single carpenter that we go to, that takes way too much time to get things done) carpenter to put the door in. All that entials is drilling holes for the hinges and attaching the door to the wall, oh and putting a doorknob in it, and of course we need a lock in that door, and it needs to look old, cause we live in an old house.
Now, she's hired him to replace my bathroom door. So, it's crappy and looks like someone punched it once, and now that the trim is squared up, it doesn't close properly. She found an old door and we leaned it up against the other one, and it looked fine. It needs to be stripped and painted (can't just paint it cause we have to have it done the right way, even though I'll end up doing it and I don't want the damn thing), before the carpenter can put it in, which just means add hinges and a handle again. And since he didn't do it right away, the damn thing has been sitting in my bedroom, leaned up against my mirror, which I can't use, in the way. It's too big for one person (me) to move back down the stairs to the garage, I finally stuck it under my bed the other day.

OK, so I'm really just annoyed about the plumbing thing. It's interesting how my parents complain about money and then spend it on stupid ways.

Thursday 5

2011-05-05T09:29:00.002-05:00

I thought I'd join the Thursday 5 on Flip Flops and Combat Boots:
Fun
Amazing
Relaxing
Fabulous
Interesting.

1. I had great FUN on Saturday going to the Gilbert city wide garage sales. I got to have a girl's day with my aunts.

2. Saturday afternoon was AMAZING. The weather was in the 60's, the sun was shinning, there was little to no wind. I got my lawn mowed without getting too sweaty, and then my guinea pig and I enjoyed a nice snack on the grass.

3. Today should be pretty RELAXING. All I have to do is my laundry, I'm thinking of doing dishes as well, the sink is overflowing and the water smells kinda funny. I wish the plumbing guy would hurry up and get here so I can start those things.

4. The two dresses I bought yesterday are FABULOUS. I love the green one, it kinda makes me feel like a greek goddess, and I have the cutest sandals to wear with it. The blue one is very cute as well, I realized, while I was looking at it today, it's the same style as the one I wore to my high school graduation.

5. The stores at the outlet center were INTERESTING, other than clothing, they had a couple food stores and a book store. I spent a little more than I planned, but I will enjoy everything I bought.

Well, I hope I did ok. I don't have that great of stuff to write about, I don't have a very exciting life. Next week, I may have more to write about, especially after the weekend I'm looking forward too.

Fun Day today

2011-05-04T18:52:00.003-05:00

So, today, my aunt, dad and I went to the Tanger outlet center. My goal was to buy some shirts, skirts and dresses. I ended up with 2 dresses, some books, and some chocolate.
I had gone to the websites of some of the stores in the outlet center, and decided Dressbarn had more of what I wanted (mainly skirts/dresses that hit at knee or longer length).
I saw this one in the store, it hit about calf length, but it seemed way too clingy when I walked.
I saw this one on the website, but when I asked if they had any denim skirts, the saleslady said no.

And, I saw this one in the store, but it was dry clean only.

I ended up with these two dresses:
This one is rayon, a nice stretchy fabric, in a nice kelly green. My only problem is, no matter what bra I try on, I can see the top seam through the fabric on the dress. I think I'll end up wearing a black cami underneath so you can't see it. Anyone have any suggestions for a bra I could wear under it. And it's not just that I can see it, it's a definite line where a bra seam would be. I tried it without a bra, but then you can see my nipples, and I sure don't want that. I'm planning on wearing this to wedding on Saturday.

I also ended up with this dress. I love how it comes in at my waist even though it looks pretty straight on the hanger. It's more of a darker cerulean blue, more bright than in the picture. I think this will be a perfect dress to wear to work, or more casual places.

Both of these dresses were $39.99 (to me that's a bit much for a dress, but my aunt assured me, it's pretty normal), they had a special, buy 2 dresses get $10 off, so I spent a little over $70.00
Am I cheap, or is around $30 to $40 normal for dresses/skirts? I found a cute skirt at Old Navy, but it was $32, I decided after spending so much on dresses, I wasn't spending that much on a skirt.

Most of the time, I buy my clothes at Walmart. I plan on going to the big one soon and see what they have for t-shirts/summer shirts. I need some more of those, they might have a nice bright skirt too.

We went to the Book Warehouse, where they had a special of buy 2 children's books, get a 3rd free. I wasn't planning on doing that, but then I found a math book and since I'm trying to get better at math, I picked that up, I found 2 more nice activity books and ended up spending about $8 there. Not so bad for 3 books. I loved the prices there, they ranged from $.99 to $12.99.

The last place we visited was the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, where I spent way too much. I bought 3 truffles, and then realized they were $2.25 each, but they're huge and extremely rich, I bought a 1/3 pound of grasshopper bark, and a bag of chocolate covered bridge mix. I hate how everything was not priced (that's probably how they get you), my grasshopper bark was $19/lb, I didn't realize that, if I did, I would have asked for the smallest piece, but it's really good. The bridge mix was $8, but I love bridge mix. I've decided to adopt what I told myself for garage sale season, if I find something yummy at a sale, I'm going to buy it and not feel guilty. Plus, we all need chocolate right?

I've been feeling bored with my life lately. I don't know if it's because I'm single, or I'm sick of the dull colors, or I just feel stuck in a rut, or all of the above. I have been really sick of pants lately, that was part of the reason I wanted a new skirt. I have 5 that I wear, which are cute, but they are the same 5. Plus, they're not really bright colors. I have decided I like and want more brightness in my life, whether that is clothing, or decorations, or whatever, I want it. I really feel good in skirts. I had a patron at the library comment the other day, that I'm the person with the really cool skirts, and she said it again last night when she saw me, so that definitely bumped up my self esteem.

I'm really excited to wear my new dress on Sat for a wedding. We're traveling to Waterloo for the wedding, staying overnight and then going to my mom's side of the family (I haven't discovered whose house yet) for Mother's Day on Sunday. And then Monday, I get to see puppies! I'm really excited about that. Course I still have 2 days of work before then. Hopefully they'll go by fast.

What did you do today?

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

2011-05-03T07:34:00.002-05:00

It's interesting from who I've have talked to, and read, which people are happy bin Laden in dead and who think it's bad to celebrate the loss of someone.
From the limited experience I've had with people between yesterday morning (when I read the news on Matt's blog at Better and Better) to now.
People who are in law enforcement, the military or just know a lot about it are very happy he's dead (and for good reason), mostly everyone else either just doesn't care, or is not happy that people are celebrating his death.
I haven't talked to many people about it, but Matt's happy (law enforcement), one of my co-workers is happy, very much so (he's in the Army Reserves), and I'm pretty happy about it (love the military, studied criminal justice in school).
One less scumbag on Earth, who chose his fate, and ruined parts of our country and bombed numerous places killing thousands of people, what's not to be happy about?

More Garage Sale Finds

2011-04-30T13:40:00.003-05:00

I went to a citywide garage sale today with my aunts, it wasn't as exciting as I thought. My aunt said there were quite a few less houses doing sales, and a lot of the houses this year were mostly baby clothes and toys.
Here's what I got:
a 1950's dictionary for $.25, two hankies the one with pink flowers and the one with blue flowers and tatted edges for $.25, an altoids tin with the paint already burned off for $.25, a tiny sun stamp for $.50 and a dragon pendant for $.50

I was really excited about the Altoids tin because the paint was burned off. It was in a tub with a ton of other tins, that still had paint on them. I like decorating them for art, and I don't have a gas stove to burn the paint off anymore.

A heavy glass sugar bowl for $.50, a pair of pink clip-on earrings for $1.81, and underneath everything, there are 2 scarves which were $.10 each.

I'm looking for good clip-on earrings this year. I bought a pair of black flats from Wal-mart and have decided to spice them up with clip on earrings. Unfortunatly I don't think there are really big gaudy ones, I put the pink ones on my flats today, and they're a little small. They do look cute though.
I got really excited when I saw the hankies, the one with the blue tatting was really cute, though I think I like the one with the pink flowers better. They were bundled together with a tag that said $.25 for both.
The dragon pendant has a broken tail, but I still think it's cute.

I was soo excited for today. We hit quite a few garage sales, but like I said, they were mostly kids clothes and toys. I think I was really excited because I read of other people that go to these events and come out with such cool things, but I don't seem to be finding anything really cool. Maybe what other people find are just cooler because it's not what I find.
I also decided, it's fun to go with other people. I wish I had a garage sale buddy. Course, like I found out today, they don't always want to go where you want to go. One of the schools in my area was having a sale last night and today, and we got back to town before they were done, and I asked if my aunts wanted to hit that one real quick, but they said they wanted to grab something to eat and go home. I think we spent more time eating than it would have to go to the sale. I guess I should have gone to it last night.

Wednesday, we're going to an outlet center where I'm looking for some cute shirts and a nice summer dress. I hope to hit some sales next Sat morning, but we're leaving for a wedding shortly after lunch, so they'll have to be close.

Any good finds in your neck of the woods?

Saddening News

2011-04-29T18:36:00.002-05:00

I read quite a few blogs. One of them, Brynwood Needleworks is about Donna, her family, her two dogs, and her quilting.
Today, she lost one of her dogs from complications in a surgery.
I feel very sorry for her, and hope you all could give her a little blog love.

Farewell Fezzik, we'll miss you.

First Garage Sale Today

2011-04-29T09:06:00.002-05:00

I'm going to a neighboring city's garage sale day tomorrow, so I was hoping I could visit a few here today. This one started at 8AM today. Here are my great finds:
A couple crocheted(?) items one was free, the other $.10, a cute embroidered piece that was free, the saucer was $.25 as well as the tea cup.
I have put the big piece under my silver items, the snowflake has been put in with Christmas stuff, not sure what to do with the embroidered piece, it looks like it needs some color. The teacup and saucer have been filled up with leftover Easter candy.

A Smurfette doll for $.25, and a two headed dragon for $.50, anyone know what it's from?

I picked up the Smurfette and had to have it, even though there wasn't a price on it.

I picked up this box for $2.00

And inside was a variety of crocheted(?) snowflakes and a couple decorated Christmas balls.

They have all been put into my closet until next year.

My grand total at this sale was $3.40. I loved the prices at this sale, there were a lot of 5 and 10 cent items. And lots of cute stuff.

I'm planning on going to another sale after work tonight, but that will all depend on how tired I am from work. Stay tuned for another post if I do go, if not I'm sure I'll have one up tomorrow with the sales I visit.

Yummies and plans

2011-04-29T08:58:00.002-05:00

Tonight, I made these:
Stuffed Jumbo Pasta shells. I followed the recipe and then added my own stuff, so there's ricotta, spinich, chicken, parmesan, and mushrooms in them.
Here's what they're supposed to look like:

I thought they turned out pretty well.

Today, I've already visited a garage sale (post to follow), I'm going to work, and then planning on visiting another sale tonight.

Tomorrow, my aunt and I are planning on going to a neighboring town's garage sale day. Of course I found some more sales here in Ames, so we'll see how many we visit.

Next Wednesday, my aunt, dad and I are going to the Tanger outlet stores in Williamsburg, IA. I'm hoping to find some cute shirts and maybe a dress or two for the summer. I'm also trying to find something to wear to a wedding next Saturday.

And then that weekend, I have a wedding of my brother's best friend when he was a kid on Saturday, we'll be staying overnight and then on Mother's Day, traveling to my mom's side of the family for our celebration.

And on May 9th, I get to play with these cuties. I can't wait.

So, quite a few fun times coming up, what's going on in your life?

Happy Easter!!!

2011-04-24T07:34:00.003-05:00

So, I took Carrie's advice from my Brightening up post, and opened the Christmas presents for my Ex that I wanted:
It's a bunch of Hotwheels cars, no big surprise there. The other presents are some magazines, that will be going to the magazine exchange at the library, and some Oreo cookies that I will also take to the library.
Here's the Easter basket I put together for myself:

There was chocolate, some Peeps, some bubbles, a foam stamp set, a chick bank, an angry looking chick keychain, and a blue monster.

I plan to use the same Easter basket next year.

Have a good Easter everyone!!!

Easter Candy Swap

2011-04-23T11:39:00.004-05:00

My last Easter swap came, and it was so worth the wait, thank you Kim.
This beautifully wrapped basket was in the box.

Here's the basket without the polka dots:

And here's my great haul:

A notepad, lots of chocolate including Snickers, Milky Ways, 3 Musketeers, crunchy eggs, colored balls, and some cute candy bracelets, rings and lipsticks, there was also a cupcake looking container of lip gloss.

And the Reece's Pieces, how could I forget about those.

I have quite enough chocolate to last me for awhile. Thanks again Kim.

Garage Sale Finds

2011-04-23T09:29:00.004-05:00

I didn't find the sales too exciting this week. Here's what I got:
This is from the last sale, the plate is more of a celery green, that was $.50, and the bear was just cute for $.25
This sale, I thought a lot of the prices were a little high, but I did find this cute set of cut metal egg ornaments for $2.00, and a pack of mini Winnie the Pooh cards for $.25. For not decorating for Easter, I sure am getting a lot of decorations this year.

This was from the first sale, it was advertised as a bake sale and HUGE sale. I didn't find it that big, it was mostly clothing. The bake sale was just cookies and cupcakes, and I wasn't really interested in them, so I didn't buy any.
What I did get was a small vase for $.25, an old first aid ki for $1.00, this game maker for $.25. I'm not really sure why I picked it up, I was thinking the clay would be fun to create with, but I do have a bunch of clay in my art closet. Anyone want some clay?

Here's the inside of the first aid kit. It was pretty cute, I'm not sure what I'll do with it either.

And then I got these 4 bags which were in the bag in the next picture all for $.25, I didn't realize there were so many bags in the first one, I doubt the people selling them knew.

Anyone need some cute bags? I'll probably use them in either giveaways or swaps.

Here's the cute bag they were in, I was thinking of making it my new purse.

My grand total for the day was $4.75, I didn't even break my $10 or my $5 bills. I just took out all the ones I've been saving, and spent those.

Tomorrow's Easter and I will show you what I bought for myself for my Easter basket.

Brightening Up

2011-04-22T09:51:00.003-05:00

So, I've been doing a little redecorating with springy and eastery stuff including some of the stuff I've gotten in swaps.
This is a picture of one of my bookshelves: You can see the Easter basket from Michelle, the stone easter egg, the pink bunny and the bunny in the striped sweater I bought at the estate sale last week, There's also the captured chick from Kim, my easter basket for me shaped like a bug, a white 'lantern' and a blue egg I bought years ago in high school. They were bought when I was in an anthropology class in high school and a few of my friends and I for a project had to go to a town that was x miles away with x many people living there. And since I always love to buy things, and I figured it was a good way to see how they treated outsiders, I bought those as well as a porcelain rose. There's also another blue egg with legs in there, that I'm planning on decorating for a hostess gift for my aunt who's hosting Easter on Sunday.
There's my Easter basket again, a green bunny rabbit I bought on clearance, a blue flower candle holder from Hobby Lobby, two pink candles (one from a swap), A smiley face creature (I bought it for a swap, and then decided the items I had put together were enough), an egg with Godiva truffles in it, those are also supposed to be in my Easter basket, and the matching bunny with a sweater to the one in the last photo. OOOPS, almost forgot the sheet of stickers that are for a future swap in my collage ATCs group.

Here are a couple bunnies sitting on my kitchen window sill.

Here is my shelving unit that you see when you come up the stairs. It's got a bottle I recently covered with dictionary pages with a Hawaiian looking flower sitting in it. There's the lamp finial that I bought at a garage sale last year, a frog, an angel from my friend, Karli. The plate I got in a swap is there, as well as a little red bear, another frog and a piece of rock with fool's gold on it. The sailboat is made out of forgeign Coke cans, I bought it in D.C. years ago. Behind it, you can see a feather, it's a pen, that my friend Kim made. There are two wooden roses that my Ex bought for me at the State Fair a few years back. There's also a metal platter with a ship on it (can you tell I like old sailboats?). And behind the bottle, there is another bottle with fabric roses, a couple metal roses, the porcelain rose I mentioned above and a purple pinwheel I got in a swap.

I collect roses that last forever, so I'm hoping to add quite a few more to my collection in the coming years.

This is the top of my old entertainment center, since I got my new flat screen TV, it doesn't fit in it anymore, so it's become another piece of furniture to decorate.

The green cup, and blue bowl I bought at the antique mall along with the two doilies underneath them. The white bowl I bought at the Octagon Art Festival last year. The bottle was from a garage sale, the bird from a local store. You can see the crocheted flower and card I got Sarah. There's also a pom pom caterpiller in there.

And here's where my TV would sit. The dog, ladybug, leopard, monster, and lion are all things I bought for Valentine's Day this year. The piece of rock is from Hawaii. The purple guinea pig, I bought here on Etsy. The picture frame is from one of my last swaps. The seahorse is also from Hawaii. The charm bracelets and necklace are from swaps in a Yahoo! group called the Sum of All ATCs. And the branch was cut off of one of our trees in the yard quite a few years ago, I grabbed it and varnished it, and it has been a nice decorating piece since.

Here are a few more shelves in the entertainment center. There is a cute flower candle holder from Hobby Lobby, the butterfly card from Whitney, a felt turtle from Jo-Anns, the white dish is also from Jo-Anns, and the bunny rabbit from the estate sale last weekend.

This is the top of my radiator. You can see a scarf I bought last year at a garage sale. The clover pin, green sundae dish, sugar bowl, pink depression glass glass, pink creamer, tiny bottle, and the pins on top of the clock were also bought at garage sales last year. The egg in the sugar bowl is from Sarah in a swap, the brown/gray bird is from a Christmas Swap, the mouse behind it as well as the bunny on the clock, the baseball bunny, and the bunny in front of the clock I bought at the estate sale last weekend. The little silver box I've had for years.

These little guys, I bought myself for Easter, they're called Squinkies. They came in little plastic eggs (you can see them in the blue bowl in one of the previous pictures), they are little tiny rubber animals, not more than an inch in height. I had wrapped them for Day 7 of the Easter swap I participated in, as Day 7 got sick, but I couldn't wait and opened them yesterday. I am having way too much fun with them.

And here's the rest, there were 16 in the container. I had thought they were $5, that was part of the reason I bought them, they were actually $10, but I thought they were way too cute by the time I was paying for them. I have no idea what I'll actually do with them, but who cares?

I was hoping to post my last Easter swap gift package today, but I got an email last night saying she mailed it yesterday and hopefully it will be here tomorrow. Now, don't get me wrong, I love doing these, but we were supposed to have them mailed by last Sunday (4/17), and she waited until the last possible minute to mail the package. I do appreciate that she told me, then I won't be wondering where it is, but I'll be really annoyed if it's not in tomorrow's mail.

In other news, I'm going to my aunt's for Easter on Sunday, I have filled some plastic eggs to hide, I've never done that before, so I'm really excited to see if the little kids are excited when they find them. I'm also thinking of taking a few plastic frogs to hide for them to find as well.

I'm trying out a new recipe to take (I always have troubles spelling recipe, it never looks right to me), it's essentially a green bean casserole with mushrooms and a bread crumb topping, I got it out of a diabetes cookbook from the library. Most of the time I check out cookbooks just to look at the pictures, so no I don't have diabetes, the chocolate cake on the cover looked yummy.

I'm also planning on making lemon bars and putting them on a cute Easter-y plate to take.

I'm also planning on going to a couple garage sales tomorrow, one started their ad with bakesale, so that's a definite way to get my attention.

I applied for a position at the library that will definitely pay more but be less hours. I was informed yesterday that they're doing interviews soon. It will be a position that won't interfere with my hourly work there, but like I said I'll get more $$$. I'm hoping to get it, I know I wasn't the only one that applied and there will be more than one person in this position, but I'm a little worried about the interview. Cross your fingers.

I've been a little depressed lately, I'm not sure exactly why, but I think because next weekend would have been my 4th anniversary with my Ex. I signed up to work on May 1st so I won't be at home by myself all depressed. I do remember thinking this year that May 1st would be on a Sunday, and my Ex would be able to spend the day with me. So much for that idea.

I'm wondering how long I should keep his Christmas presents, before opening some and keeping them for myself. There are a few hunting magazines that I will definitely be throwing away (or just taking back to the library where I picked them up), but there are a few things in there that I would have loved to keep for myself. There are some boxes of Oreos that will go bad some day and I'm planning on taking those to the library, so I don't have to eat them.

I've never been in this kind of situation, so I don't know how long you wait. I haven't heard from my Ex since he sent the text message over a month ago. I don't plan on calling him, his number's still in my phone only so I can ignore him if he plans to call me. I'm pretty sure I won't be getting any stuff back from him, and I'm ok with that, there was one thing, but I don't need it back. I'm also wondering how long before I can get rid of the TV he left here. I would love to stick it out on the side of the road, because it's taking up space in my closet, but I don't know if I'm allowed to. I figure I can wait until fall, if he doesn't express any interest in stuff by then, I can get rid of it.

Let's end on a happy note. Only 2 more days til Easter, I can't wait to get my last swap package, finish the 9 days of Easter, open my Easter basket, hang out with family and hide plastic eggs.

Have a good weekend everyone.

I tried

2011-04-18T13:33:00.004-05:00

My plan was to open my Easter swap packages on Easter. I really tried to stick to that plan, a package was sitting under my mailbox today. But, when I also got the rest of the statements from my insurance company from when I had my pink eye, and found out it will cost me more than when I had my finger sliced open, I decided I needed to open it. On top of the package was a nice card from Sarah:

And this was under the tissue paper:

Here's what was in the package, a crocheted (?) flower hair pin, a plastic egg full of chocolate M&M's, 4 glass (?) eggs in a nice variety of colors and a package of Lindt bugs and bees.

Thank you to Samantha for hosting this swap.

I also figured since I have an Easter basket, the last gift in the 9 Days of Easter swap, maybe the other gift from the Candy Easter Swap, and maybe something from my parents to open on Easter, as well as going to my aunt's for Easter, I had enough things to open on Easter.

I had another surprise for me today:

This is the zinnia plant that Whitney gave me in the spring swap. I can't believe it's actually starting to grow. I'm not good at growing things, that means I already jinxed it and it will now die.

Estate Sale

2011-04-15T10:10:00.002-05:00

I had a hard time deciding whether or not to go to this sale today. The apartment building just had a sale last week, and from what I had heard, it was going to be a lot of Christmas stuff, I finally figured I'd never know if there was a great thing unless I went. Here's what I got: A salted nut bar for $1.00, a cute vinyl bag for $.10, and a stuffed bunny I was thinking about last week for $.25 An Amber Hocking Fireking dish for $.40, a triangular dish for $.75, a porcelain bunny for $.50, and a tiny glass swan for $.75

Today's grand total was $3.75

There's another sale in my block tomorrow, that I figured I'd stop by before work. There was one last week as well, but because they had put their sign up where it wasn't supposed to be, I decided not to go to it. Do any of you do things like that? I've also noticed that if a place has quite a few sales a year (one place last year seemed to have one every weekend), I won't go to it either. Plus, if it was a bad first sale I went to, I mark it in my head not to go back to that address. I'm ok with 2 sales (or three like the apartment building I went to today) a year, but more than that, I just get annoyed. I don't know why, it just bothers me.

I've also noticed most things I buy are $1.00 or under. Almost like it's better that way, though if I stopped to think about it, I probably buy more because I think I'm getting a deal. Who knows? I have been known to buy stuff that's priced more if I think it's worth it.

And I did bypass a few things I could have used in my art. So, I'm sorta sticking to my rules. I found a cute double deck of cards with 1950's art on them, that probably would have looked really cute on something, but I do have other 1950's art and cards here that I don't use. I also found a little cardboard box that I could alter, but I do have a whole suitcase full of alterable things.

I have found myself buying more decorative things, especially springy things. I'm drawn to those more this year.

Also, looks like there will be a lot more garage sale posts on here, now that garage sale season has started.

Spring is in the Air Swap

2011-04-14T08:30:00.002-05:00

I received my packaged for the Spring is in the Air Swap, hosted by Nicole at Flip Flops and Combat Boots. My swap partner was Whitney at Everything Happens for a Reason. Here's what she got me: A cute butterfly card,

A zinnia growing kit, a 3pack of bubbles (I bought one of these for myself for Easter), A lindt ladybug full of chocolate bugs, a butterfly shaped sprayer, and a cug kit for Easter eggs.

And a picture frame

I am totally loving everything in this box. I put the picture frame up on a shelf and wish I had a great picture to put in it. I've already had one of the chocolate bugs, but am going to put them with the rest of my Easter stuff. Plus, I've made a bug, with a plastic egg, but still. I'm actually going to have to get a little creative with the bug kit, as we all know hard-boiled eggs go bad eventually, and I would like my bugs to last, I'm thinking of using rocks, but I also think it would be great to have a whole variety of bugs made out of things.

I also received the gifts below for my 9 days of Easter swap. 9 people joined and made gifts that we are to open the 9 days up to Easter. Unfortunately #1 dropped out and #7 got sick. Our hostess added something for #1, and if #7 gets better she was going to send along her stuff, I added something I bought at Walmart yesterday as #7.

If you want to come along with me on this journey, you'll have to go over to my art blog, The Frog Palace, as these were all supposed to be handmade. I will be doing a post everyday (at least that's my plan, cross your fingers).

I have 2 more Easter swaps I signed up for, that I will be mailing today. I can't wait until I get those packages. I haven't decided if I should wait until Easter to open them or not.

And remember how I said garage sale season opened last week, well I'm thinking of not worrying about it this week. Since for my schedule, I work 1-6 Friday night, plus there's a pizza party and movie night for library employees afterwards, and I work 10-3 Saturday, I think it's just not worth it. Plus, the local newspaper stopped printing The Advertiser (a weekly free paper to non-subscribers that had classifieds in it) sometime during the winter, I would have to scrounge up the actual newspaper to find the sales. And it is VEISHEA weekend, a student run festival on campus, that is generally pretty big, I'd think it'd be kinda silly to have your sale compete with that.

There is an 'estate sale' at the same place I went to last week, that I may check out in the morning tomorrow, we'll see. The lady I talked to last week, said it would be more Christmas items and furniture. Course, I'll never know if there's not something great there if I don't go.

Get anything exciting in your mail?

Book Sale

2011-04-10T10:29:00.003-05:00

So I spent about $10 at the book sale yesterday. Here's what I got: The Penguin Book of Women's Lives for $.50, Helga Hanson's Hotflash Handbook for $.50, A cookie recipe book for $.50. I thought the women's lives book would be interesting, the hotflash book is humor, and do I really need an explanation for the cookie book? A math book for $.50, Mass Murderers for $1.00, Crime and Punishment for $1.00, Dream Cars for $2.00, Hometown Memories for $3.00 and The College Humor Guide to College for $1.00. I've been on the lookout for math books to help me be better at math, I love adding to my true crime bookshelf, there were a lot of great cars in the Dream Cars book including a 70's Challenger, the Hometown book just looked cute, and I love a good humor book.

I also bought quite a few good things at the bake sale Friday and Sat, but I've eaten them now, so I can't show them to you.

I was trying to look up garage sales the other day, except I was informed there is no longer an Advertiser with all the classified sections anymore. The Tribune's online garage sale page only has address and date, so I guess I'll be looking through their regular in print classified sections. I also realized, maybe I shouldn't bother so much as I work Friday afternoons 1-6 until June 1st. But I don't always work Saturdays, plus some people do theirs on Thursday afternoons as well. I guess it just means I won't be spending near as much money, which isn't a bad thing.

Any good sales in your area?