Thrifty Finds

A lot of this weekend was spent costume planning and shopping. We have an event coming up in a month which has a theme, A night at the Oscars, so we have to either go as a movie character or dress for the red carpet. Well, I don’t own anything remotely  suitable for wearing on the red carpet, and I’ve always been a fan of playing dress-ups, so we had to come up with movie characters we could pull off.We decided on some characters, went through what we already have around the house, then decided a thrift store search was in order to find the rest of what we needed. Of course I can’t visit thrift stores without coming home with things other than what we went for in the first place, so here are some of the things I came home with.

A fantastic black and white crochet blanket. I can’t believe that someone would just get rid of this, it obviously has hours and hours of work put in to it, not to mention a lot of wool! And I paid $6.99 for it, scandalous.

More vintage buttons, all very big. A bag of 36 for $1.49. Little princess called them treasures, which is a very accurate description if you ask me.

  I think this little ironing board is so nifty, it has a hook for hanging in a wardrobe, and little fold out legs so you can put it on the table or something. I also now have a brand new iron, the first iron I have ever owned. Obviously, ironing is not on my usual housework schedule, nor will it be, ever. This is purely for my new sewing addiction, because some things are just easier to sew when you have an iron.

Yummy vintage red leather suitcase, random bag of wool, random bag of doilies, a doily-like collar (I think), wreath, and a sheet to use as backing for my quilt.

Some goodies for little princess. She got some more books but wouldn’t let me take a photo because she was “busy”. I got a few vintage books too, but I think some of them will be sent to Kelly as part of the vintage baby swap.

As well as all this we did find a few items to add to our costumes, and we are still missing a few things. Where on earth will I find an old fashioned straight razor? And I still need to find a corset, and a wig for hubby…..

Want to know who we are going as?

  Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett

Head over to Sophies to see more delicious Flea Market Finds. Also linking up to Thrifty Treasures over at Southern Hospitality.

Thrifty Finds…

Another trip to my local thrift store this week was unavoidable, because I had mail to post, and the post box just happens to be about 5 meters past the thrift store. Who can walk past a thrift store without going in? Certainly not me. And I most definitely can not go into a thrift store and not buy anything. nope. it’s impossible.

It was really hard to get a decent photo of these plates, but in reality they are gorgeous. They have a texture/pattern on them that is very hard to photograph. They will not be eaten off, but will be great for display.

The rest of my finds: A glass apothecary jar probably destined to be a button display or maybe a little moss terrarium like this. A smurfs mug ( just about squealed when I saw it, and I think the lady at the counter was a bit miffed that it was prices so low at $1.00 because she made a point of telling me how valuable those things are now). A tiny little blue & white china plant pot. A few vintage pattern/craft books. An embroidery hoop. A bag of random bits of wool, for making granny squares or other little crochet goodies. A few doilies. And a couple of fairly big bits of fabric.

I also got this great knitted cardigan for little princess, but the buttons on it are hideous. The are slightly tarnished gold tinted metal buttons, yuck! I don’t often see a button I don’t like but these ones have to go. I haven’t decided what I will replace them with yet, I’ll have to go through my stash and see what I can find, or more button shopping may be in order :)

I also have some great funky junk finds, but I haven’t had a chance to take photos yet, because the last couple of days have been all about getting the house clean and tidy and on it’s best behaviour for viewing this weekend by a very promising potential buyer (keep all fingers and toes crossed for us please). I’ve been dying to get onto my sewing machine to get a few things done, but I had to pack it away so my dining table resembles a functional dining table. It’s funny how happy a clean house makes me feel, but I can never keep it clean for long because housework is not even close to the top of my priorities list.

Linking to Sophie’s Flea Market Finds.

My Precious…..

This is my precious (ignore the mess around her, in my excitement I didn’t really bother to tidy up, I just pushed everything aside to clear a space).

Isn’t she beautiful. She has been living on my dining table since coming home with me on Wednesday. She has helped me make a few things so far.

Like this dress for the little princess, which is still in need of some embellishment, so we are going button shopping this afternoon (yippy yay button shopping!!!).

  And this little taggie blankie for little man (munch, drool, suck, he seems to enjoy it).

It also made a balloon ball, but I couldn’t take a photo because it was made by request at 11pm last night and taken to work first thing this morning. I will be required to make more of these in the near future. Many more. (they are pretty cool though).

I have cut out a whole lot of softies ready to be sewed (?? sewn ??), when I get a few moments of peace and quiet from my two sick children. And fish for three fishing sets, or maybe just one fishing set with lots of fish…..we will see.

Who knew sewing could be joyful (or maybe that's an exaggeration, maybe “less stressful” is a better description). I’m excited about all the possibilities now that I have a decent sewing machine.

By the way, in case you care, I just want to put it out there that this machine did not come from Spotlight, as it was supposed to. It had been almost three weeks, I had heard nothing about my online order, I emailed to enquire, still heard nothing, then hubby saw this great special in the Noel Leeming catalogue, I could get the same machine, plus a bonus label maker, for less than the one I had ordered through spotlight, and I could get it immediately! So I picked it up on Wednesday, sent spotlight an email to cancel my order and what do you know, later that day I get an email from spotlight to say they had allocated my order to the hamilton store and someone would be in contact with me soon. Well of course the next day someone rang to say they were ready to ship my order, and I said too late, and they didn’t seem to care so my opinion of spotlight has lessened considerably and I now understand why people refuse to shop there. I’m just putting it out there, so you know, for future reference.

Thrifty Thursday, Latest Creations & My Giveaway Revealed

There will be no Funky Junk for me this week, so instead I have some thrift store finds.

The revolving spice rack will be great when I have a craft room, for keeping jars of buttons or beads within easy access. I found a set of double vintage sheets, that came with 3 pillow cases for some reason. I finally found a decent sized crochet hook, and I got it free! Also free was a bottle, and the scrabble tile, I think the woman just couldn’t be bothered adding amounts that were under $1. Also got a couple of things for the tea party, a couple of little bags full of random bits of lace and ribbon, and a vintage table cloth/runner. There’s a couple of things missing from the photo: underneath all that stuff is a cool vintage suitcase, not in the best condition, but great for holding some craft stuff for my crafting weekend away, also got a huge ziplock bag full of broken bits of jewellery, artificial pearls, beads etc.

These are the only crafty things I have had time to work on this week, with hospital visits and getting ready for the big weekend. My daughter helped me paint the piggies, then I stamped some words and images on them. Some of them are stuck onto pegs, some are on magnets. The two tiles at the bottom got the same treatment, but they will be made into pendants.

And now for the GIVEAWAY!!! I heard about Giveaway Day on Kelly’s blog Reclaiming Me, and I thought, why wait until I have 18 followers when I can do it this way. I had all the stuff already (except the fudge), all I had to do was put it all together, and this is what I got.

The package will include: A set of 4 gift cards and envelopes in a pouch, a mini crayon roll which holds 4 jumbo crayons, a magnetic notepad & matching pen, a little notebooks set which comes with pencils & erasers, a gift card with gumball machine (sentiment reads “wishing you the sweetest day ever”), a vintage pillow case, a necklace with bird design, red glass bead memory wire bracelet, six little pegs (3 yellow ladybug & 3 yellow bird), two small doilies, a packet of chocolate fudge (YUM!! That is if I can resist the urge to eat it!!), and the best part…..

BUTTONS!!!! I don’t know about you, but I LOVE me some buttons!!! I think it’s a pretty common love among crafters, you either have, or dream about having a HUGE collection of every button imaginable. I have a pretty big collection, because I have been collecting buttons FOREVER! I remember when I was a kid, only about 6 or 7, being taken to an op shop and given a couple of dollars to spend and buying jars full of buttons….ah the good old days. Anyway, somehow over the years of moving a trillion times I managed to keep (or hoard) m0st of my buttons, while still adding to the collection. In my fantasy world buttons are the currency, the more beautiful they are the more they are worth. So I am parting with a (relatively) small part of my button collection, in the name of love, because I love my followers, those wonderful people who stop by, see things they like and leave lovely comments. You are worth so much more than 60 beautiful buttons, but that’s all I could bring myself to part with on this occasion. These 60 buttons are in sets, some are only pairs, some are triplets, and there are even a few quadruplets and quintuplets. They are wrapped up securely in a little purse.

So, to be in for a chance to win, all you have to do is be a follower. I’m going to leave this open for international followers too, but if you win and you live outside of NZ, I may not be able to package it all nicely in the basket due to the cost. So if you are already a follower, leave a comment to let me know, and if you become a follower leave a comment. That’s it. I don’t have a facebook page, I don’t do twitter, and as of yet I don’t have anything listed in my felt shop, so I don’t have any other way for you to get extra entries. Maybe if you leave me a super uber nice comment, or tell me about your button fantasies, I will slip in an extra entry for you. Giveaway is open until 20th May. Good luck, may the force be with you.

Wondering why this is the longest post ever and why I’ve jammed a whole weeks worth of stuff into one post??? Because I am going away for the WHOLE WEEKEND, on a child free, girly craft weekend. How lucky am I?!?!?! But I have changed my mind about going so many times these last couple of weeks, because it’s the first time I’ll be away from my little man, and I’m going to miss him like crazy! Of course I will miss the hubby and my daughter as well, but they don’t need me as much as this cutie does. I wish I could smuggle him in, but that would defeat the purpose of a child free weekend. So when I get home on Sunday the house will be a mess, there will be piles of laundry and dishes all over the place and I will have some serious recon to do, so blogging will have to be put off until I can see the floor.

Latest Creations

Things have been pretty chaotic lately, with the long weekend and then having no power in our house for 3 days, so there hasn’t been a lot of crafting time. But I have managed to make a few things, and I have decided I really like hand sewing, it’s easy to do in front of the TV, and its therapeutic.

These are the completed placemats and coasters that I was altering last week. None of them sold at the market, but that's ok, because I plan to try to sell them on Felt when I get around to joining.

These are a couple of sock softies I made, the stripy one is a chicken and the other one was meant to be a cat or a rabbit, but my daughter thinks it looks like Totoro (a character in one of her movies) so that’s what she calls it.

This is another chicken, which hasn’t got a face yet because I haven’t got another triangle button so I am still trying to figure out how to make a beak.

  These are “tattered fabric roses” made using the tutorial here. The ones in the bottom corner have been glued to pegs and will be made into magnetic note holders for the fridge. The rest are probably destined to be brooches and embellishments for clothes.

This is the shelf in our lounge, which I have been trying to redecorate for a while now. So yesterday I finally finished it and we are pretty happy with how it looks. The background for the top 2 shelves are canvas boards that I “painted” with a teabag then glued on some images that I printed from the computer. Most of the images I used were from The Graphics Fairy.

This is a close-up of the top shelves. As you can see I LOVE buttons. They make a great “filler” in decorating just about anything.

Last night I bought home more junque to be transformed, so will be posting about that soon, watch this space……