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.

Funky Junk Friday

I feel like I need to buy Funky Junk a present to say thanks for all the wonderful Junque you keep providing to brighten my dreary winter days. What do you buy a building that holds Junque?? It could do with better lighting, maybe I should buy it some 300 watt light bulbs. But that’s not a very good thank you gift.

Maybe a nice poem….

Funky Junk you are my savoir

You rescue me from boredom

Save me from my over-spending ways

provide me with more fabric

and vintage goodness

than I can ever hope to use

your dark, dusty interior

will never deter me

for I know now of the treasures

hidden within.

What do you think? That was a spur of the moment creation, inspired by these great finds…

Two bags of fabric, some of them BIG pieces, like that brown one is about 6 metres, and the pink is about 3 metres.

One FANTASTIC pattern book and a magazine complete with patterns.

These are some of the projects out of that pattern book, I just have to make a tea cosy and these cute crochet balls.   

Maybe I can use some of this wool to make them. I have no idea if this stuff is actually wool or acrylic, but the label on the pink ones say to handwash only, so that means its wool, right? and the brown feels like wool, but doesn’t have a label.

Some vintage (and maybe not so vintage) linen goodies, like 2 vintage pillow cases, a huge rectangle polka dot table cloth, a table runner, some kind of padded table mat, and some doilies.

And these very nice handmade silky floral scarves.

Plus the 113 squares of fabric I have cut out to make my puff pillow quilt. Yes it’s going to take much longer and be a lot more work, but I have decided that a puff pillow quilt will make me so much happier than just an ordinary quilt. Now I just need to find backing fabric and cut 113 squares (or actually 113 is an odd number so that won’t work, I’ll have to do some maths to work that one out) out of that, then I can start sewing.

Crochet Creations & W.I.P

I think I am getting better at crochet, and being able to follow patterns. Although I still have the problem of not being able to do anything too complicated because if I get distracted in the middle of a row/round, I forget where I’m up to and end up having to undo a whole lot and start again.

Thanks to Megan of Simple Pleasures, who shared some very easy instructions with me, I have finally learnt to crochet flowers. They look cute when you layer a few together like this…

Here is the brown and blue blanket I am making for little man, to go with the colour scheme I am planning to have in his room, when he gets one.

This is the blanket I have been making for little princess. This started off as a little granny square that just kept getting bigger and bigger as I was practicing, so I figured I might as well keep going to make it into a blanket.

A hat I made for myself. It’s not great, but it’s ok for a first attempt (and second and third, because I kept having to undo it and start again when it didn’t work out right), it’s wearable and it keeps my hideous hair covered. It’s embellished with a little crochet heart and a heart button.

A hat I made for little princess. I haven’t even seen it on her yet, because she won’t let me try it on her, but hubby convinced her to try it on while I wasn’t around, and apparently it fits. She has a matching scarf that I finger knitted.

Here it is modelled by little man, so you can see it actually is a hat not just a pile of fluff.

I have so many things I want to try to crochet now, but I figure I should really finish some of the things I have started first. I might sneak in a hat for little man though, because that’s pretty  quick to make, and if I don’t do it soon it will be too late (wishful thinking that winter will be over soon ;-{). I’ve found some blogs (Meet Me At Mikes,  Attic 24, Carina’s Craftblog, Dottie Angel, Do you mind if I knit, just to name a few) with great crochet patterns, including basic ones that are even easy enough for me to follow.

Someone lent me some vintage crochet patterns that I can’t wait to try. It’s amazing what you can do with granny squares :)

Busy as a bee with birthdays

It’s been a WHOLE WEEK since I posted anything on my blog. Every morning I start the day with a plan, what I want to create, what I want to blog about, what I need to do around the house, and anything else that needs to be done. Unfortunately the needs must come before the wants, and there really hasn’t been enough time for the wants lately.

Last weekend the presents were a big hit, with the children and adults (I’m pretty sure the adults spent more time “fishing” than the kids).

Tomorrow my little princess turns THREE! The panic begins because 3 whole years have gone by already since I was just a regular twenty-something girl with no plans to ever have a family. I only have TWO MORE YEARS until my little girl goes to school. That means I have to learn to drive and get my licence within 2 years. Cringe.

So these last few weeks have been all about birthday preparations, and I am so happy that we are nearing the end, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. No more pink cake, discussions on three year old tea party etiquette or hunts across town for tea pots.

Having a little princess who goes to daycare means I am obligated to make 2 cakes (one for daycare, one for home). That could even be extended to 3 cakes, but she will not be having cake at home tomorrow night, because it really can’t be good for kids to eat that much birthday cake in one week, right?? So we created, by request, a pink heart orange cake for daycare (it’s pink on the outside and orange on the inside, with chocolate chips added in just for fun).

I almost like this one better than the one we are having for her party on Saturday, but this took a bit more time and effort, and at this stage I am all about taking the easy option.

So when the little miss wakes up in the morning, this is what she will find.

We wrapped her presents with fabric, because I have LOADS of it, and it is reusable, so it won’t make a heap of rubbish to get rid of. Looks pretty cute too, I think.

Even though I’ve been a busy birthday bee, I have had some time for thrifting and crafting, I just haven’t had time to write about it, so I’ll have to do some catch up after the PARTY!! Still no sewing machine (damn spotlight, why bother having online shopping, it would have been quicker for me to walk there and get it myself, all the way to ROTORUA!!) but when it arrives I will be ready. I am so happy I finally learnt to crochet, it is great to sit in front of the TV occasionally and crochet, so I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time doing nothing because I am still creating.

If you want to do something fun, you should join in on The Envelope Project, I have, and I’m super excited to see what everyone sends in.

Crafty Goodness

I am so proud of myself this week, because I finally crocheted something! I found the greatest instructions here for learning how to crochet a granny square, so yesterday I sat down and watched these videos over and over again until I figured it out, and now I think I can almost do it without the instructions in front of me (almost). The hardest thing I find is keeping track of where I’m up to, with distractions all around constantly, but I think as I get better at it I will be able to see where I’m up to. These are my two itty bitty practice granny squares:

Now that I know I am capable of crocheting (because I really was starting to lose hope), I think I will try a different granny square tutorial that I found here. I would LOVE to be able to make a whole granny square blanket for my little man. When (or if) he gets his own room, the colours scheme is going to be blue and brown, so I want to make a blanket for his bed in those colours, similar to this, but imagine the stripes as rows of granny squares:

Last week I made a couple of things to give to a little miss 3 next weekend for her birthday.

But then I felt like she needed something else, so I spent a few days throwing ideas at hubby, who is her teacher at daycare so knows her a lot better than I do. Well, I went through LOTS of ideas, before I came across one he liked. I had seen this tutorial a while back and thought one day I might make that for my kids, so it was added to my mental to-do list. I altered it a bit, switching things around so the magnets are inside the fish and the washer is the “bait”. I also had to hand sew because I am still without a sewing machine, so I blanket stitched all around the outside, which was way easier because I didn’t have to turn them.

I just love this fishing set, and so does my daughter. I think I will have to make more and give them to every child I know, but that will have to wait until I have a sewing machine to speed up production. Now that I have made them, Hubby has changed his mind and wants me to make her a fabric book cover, but that will only be happening if I get my sewing machine before the weekend, and because it is coming from Spotlight that is highly unlikely.

These are the flowers I made using the knitting needles bought from a thrift store in the weekend. I have only made 5 so far, so they don’t really make a nice “bunch” yet, but I plan to make more. I decided to go with a neutral linen fabric, because there is plenty of colour in the needle stems, felt bottoms and button middles.

So that's two and a half things ticked off my mental to-do list, about a trillion to go ;-p