Revamped Relics

Someone who follows my blog emailed me a flyer for this great event which is coming up soon, so I thought I would share it, in case any local people see this. It sounds like something I will definitely be keen to get to, possibly lining up at the door on opening day :) (retro fabric-aholic is a pretty accurate description of me, and I love me some up-cycling!)

At my house

This must be the first day I have had to myself for about 10 months. Having both kids in daycare at the same time is great. So what do I do with a day to myself?? Go thrifting of course!!

I had to go into town anyway to take back the wig hubby hired for his costume, so that gave me an excuse to visit the two op shops close to town. These are the goodies I bought home -

More vintage linen and doilies (because I obviously haven’t got enough already, only a whole suitcase full), a little crochet blanket, a retro print metal tray which will make a great magnetic notice board, an oval box which I will decoupage and use for storing some crafty supplies, a few bags of random craft stuff like lace, ribbon etc, some bits of fabric, a couple of cute dolls dresses (although these are more for me than little princess because she prefers her dolls to be naked and takes the clothes off them immediately if I put clothes on them), and a few vintage-ish books, two of which (raggedy anne and the cookie snatcher and Leo the lop) I remember owning as a child, the other one just had really cute pictures.

While we are on the subject of thrifting, here are some things I have found lately that I haven’t posted on here yet.

A pile of pillowcases, mostly vintage.

  More pillowcases, with gorgeous roses.

A lace edged under skirt for little princess, and also for me to copy to make more, because something like that has got to be fairly simple to make, right?

Some fabric/fabric items.

A vintage plastic tray and a bag of buttons.

And this very cool children’s book, great story, great pictures, great concept for a preschooler who loves balloons.

The rest of my day (all 1.5 hours of it before family gets home) will be spent planning some things to make for my swap partners. I can’t believe I have joined three swaps in a week, but they are all so fun I just couldn’t resist. I think the colour swap will be the easiest, but the one I have to send first is for the “here comes the sun” swap, and I have no idea what I am going to make for that. Better get thinking (which means blog surfing until I find something or have a brainwave).

Head over to Lou Lou’s to see what's happening at other houses today.

Pretty Packages

This week has been a super special snail mail week. On Wednesday I received a package from Leonie, which contained the giveaway I won on her blog a few weeks ago. Then this morning I received my vintage baby swap goodies from Kelly.

Leonie’s package contained an awesome pouch, which fits my camera perfectly, great timing because I have lost (or little hands have stolen) my camera case. Everyone else thinks it’s awesome too, because it is also the perfect size for an iPhone/iPod touch, and both my mum and hubby want one. Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of it before it went missing (suspiciously), but you can go here to see it along with the other goodies – the delicious Aussie Mentos (why do they get the best flavours?? Apple and Pineapple = YUM!!), and the red & white polka dot note hanger (which I haven’t had the chance to hang yet but I have the perfect spot right over my desk.

Kelly’s package contained a gorgeous little handmade dolls quilt and pillow set made from vintage sheets

Which got put straight to use as soon as little princess got home, to put her baby to sleep.

Also included was some little handmade bunting, also made from vintage sheets

Which looks so cute hanging above little man’s cot, the colours are perfect because, although I hadn’t even realised, blue and green are kinda the colours of his bed area (which is just one little wall in our room, sadly).

And these will be added to Yuna’s toy bag for our road trip tomorrow

    More vintage sheet goodness, in beanbag form, but actually they are ricebags, so can be heated in the microwave and used for keeping little fingers and toes warm :)

Also included was a pile of vintage books, including a pattern book for children’s classics illustrations in counted cross stitch, which is not something I’ve ever tried, but now that I have the book I will have to.  And all this was wrapped in a piece of vintage sheet as well, perfect.

So a big thanks goes out to these wonderful bloggers, for their very thoughtful and beautifully handmade goodies!!!

We are off on a little road trip down to Napier tomorrow, to visit some family, a spotlight, and maybe a cute little coffee shop or two. Little man’s first road trip, but he has been on a three hour flight, so I don’t think this will be too difficult because at least we can stop and get out if need be.

Catch you in a couple of days, don’t do anything crazy or too exciting while I’m gone!

Unsuccessful Thrifting & Crafting

I want to start with something positive, because the rest of this post is going to be a bit blah. I am absolutely loving this sunny weather, it makes me happy even on the most unhappy days. Will I jinx it if I say it could be an early spring?? Oh how I love spring.

Anyway, I have tried crafting lately, but I am suffering from very uncomfortable back /neck / shoulder pain. I have no idea how or why this started, but it is not getting better, in fact it seems to be getting worse. My body’s natural reaction to pain is nausea, so as well as being in pain, I am nauseated, dizzy and feeling quite queasy today, YUCK!!

But I have a mission, I chose to join the vintage baby swap at the last minute, without a clue what I would send, but with the naive idea that vintage baby stuff would be easy to find. Well, it seems all the thrift stores within a 10 minute walk/bus ride from my house have been cleared of all vintage toys, and all I can find is bins full of soft toys. Vintage children's books have been easy to find, and I have bought home a few, some that I am reluctant to part with, but I’ve made peace with it because I know that they are going to a lovely kiwi mummy blogger.

Of course I have not come home empty handed from my thrift store searches. I just haven’t come home with anything I had actually been looking for. One of my finds I am super happy with, and I can’t wait to find a special spot in my house and a special something to display inside it.

I have been seeing these on other blogs with lovely things displayed in them like cupcakes, birds nests, fruit, little bitty plants…that gives me an idea to use the little bitty blue & white plant pot I found a while ago.

I also came home with a pile of pillowcases to be used for crafty things, except for one which will be used for it’s intended purpose for little princess.

And a pile of vintage linens, doilies, lace, fabric etc.

  A book for me, which is meant for kids, but it has some really basic patterns for crochet and knitting, and I am thinking I should try knitting again. A tea cosy (that's the olive green knitted thing you can kinda see on the left), because even though I don’t actually have a teapot yet, I desperately need a tea cosy. A doll for little princess. A little cross stitch kit that was inside one of the books and I didn’t even realise it until I got home. some round wooden things, I don’t know what they are meant to be, but I am going to stick stuff to them.

And even on the worst of days, when I am feeling blah and tired and grumpy….

I have this little guy to cheer me up with his smiles and giggles. Little man is supposed to be starting daycare next week, it makes me a bit sad, I will miss him. I am still completely undecided if he should even be going to daycare yet, as of yesterday he is 9 months old, but we are noticing some delays in development now. He can not sit up unsupported or crawl, and he has no teeth and is not at all interested in eating any kind of food other than fruit/vege puree. He can, however, laugh enthusiastically at pretty much anything I do, smile hugely whenever he sees me (including if I just turn away from him then turn back again), pivot around on his tummy when I’m not looking so that I find him in a completely different place to where I left him, and he is almost just about sleeping through the night *touch wood*. The daycare dilema is – the staff there are excellent and will know exactly what to do to meet his needs, he needs to start getting social interaction early and he needs to learn to be ok away from me, but on the other hand, I can give him quality one on one time, I have gotten him into a really good routine which will get completely messed up when he starts daycare, and he doesn’t really need to go to daycare yet. I guess it’s worth a try, to see how it goes, and if I decide that it’s not working for him we can put it off until next year. I can’t believe in three months my little man will be ONE. Wow this year is really flying by.

And I think this post has gone on long enough. I’ve just had a couple of parcels from overseas delivered to my door, so I am excited to open them up and see what’s inside.

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.

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.

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 :)

Finally Thrifty Friday

It feels like it has been forever since I did any thrifting, and it has been a really long time since I had a visit to Funky junk, so today, even though we have very little money, I decided a trip to my local thrift store was in order. I don’t often go there with both kids, but little princess actually enjoys it, and this is something I want to encourage, because as she gets older I want her to learn the lessons I learnt as a child about money. I grew up as an only child to a single mum, who struggled to make ends meet for most of my childhood, so I learnt the value of money, how to budget, and how to “shop smart”. Every now and then I get the “urge to splurge”, but at least my spending generally happens at thrift stores, where everything is cheap, and at least the money is going to a good cause (sounds like I am justifying it?? maybe I am feeling just a little bit guilty about spend $20 when we don’t really have money to spend). Anyway, here are my findings for today…

A few clothing items for little princess (jeans, skirt, top = $2 total), Blue gingham apron, froggy bath mitt (this was little princesses “toy” of choice), zip up purse (which is currently the perfect size to hold the crochet blanket I am working on for little man), magnetic wildlife book (LP’s book of choice), A very old your home and garden magazine, some vintage heels that fit perfectly so maybe I will wear them, 2 vintage sheets (not matching, but similar colour schemes), and some little bags containing lace and “old doilies for craft work” (that’s what it says on the bags so how could I not buy them!). When you buy those bags of craft stuff, it’s pretty hard to see what's in them, and they put about a million staples in the bag to stop you opening them, but for $1 it’s usually worth it. This is what was inside those four little bags…

There was 5 metres of a creamy lace, just over 5 metres of navy blue lace, some odd amounts of other lace that wasn’t measured, but it seems pretty long, a cushion cover with a bit of damage to the embellishment, some lace edged hankies and different embroidered things. Definitely things I can use if I ever get around to making myself one of those awesome doily quilts/blankets that everyone’s making at the moment, like here, here and here.

And while we are at it, I found this photo of thrift store finds from a couple of weeks ago that I never posted about…

The most amazing red doily which I guess is supposed to be a table runner, turquoise biscuit tin (LOVE the colour and the pictures), another vintage sheet, some cute floral fabric, another bag of random lace and stuff, a bag containing cards of 3 different ribbons in gray/silver still with heaps on them, a black cape for dress ups, a Barbie doll and a vintage Barbie doll dentist chair, and the navy blue hat that I posted about here.

I’ve got quite a collection of vintage sheets now, I should really start doing something with them. I’m a bit scared to cut them up in case I ruin their fabulousness….but I suppose there's plenty more vintage sheets out there if I need more, right?? If you have an idea for what I could make with them, or if you have made something with them, please let me know, I love finding new ideas and ways of using things in my stash.

Linking to:

Flea Market Finds at Her Library Adventures.

Thrifty Treasures at Southern Hospitality.