Finally!

It really feels as though I've been neglecting my blog. I've wanted to sit down and write a couple of times but life has been very busy around here. Heck, I haven't even read any blogs in almost a week. I've got a lot of catching up to do.

First, I want to say thanks to Lisa from Confessions of an Apron Queen. I won a contest on her site a couple of weeks ago and received a FABULOUS apron & a big, huge World Atlas! Both came in the last week or so and I've thoroughly enjoyed them already!! She rocks- be sure to check out her blog and also her apron store at Rickrackattack.com. She has the best selection of vintage aprons anywhere!

My Apron:


My Atlas:



In other news, the husband was off for a couple of days last week and we made some progress outside. We planted some flowers in our naked little flower beds and did some stuff around the house too. I still need him to pressure wash the rockers so I can get those painted. Our porch looks so sad right now. It's a big ol' wrap around porch but it's really naked. I need more flowers and plants and just to spruce it up some.

This past weekend was very busy also. We've been trying to empty the basement and sort through all of the boxes and put aside things for donation or a yard sale and taking the rest of our stuff up to the attic. It's a slow process but we're almost done. The husband is going to try to get the basement empty so he can waterproof down there and then finish it off. We could use the room down there for exercise equipment or maybe put a bar down there. I also want the office moved out of my scrap/craft room so I'll have more room for MY stuff!

Our yard sale pile is huge. Bags and bags of clothing and misc stuff that we've just been hanging on to. You would've thought I would've gone through all of this stuff before we moved from SC to MD 2 years ago but evidently I was convinced that I would shrink back into some of those old clothes. I've finally realized I'm not 18 anymore, I'm never going to be that size again unless my jaws are wired shut for 6 months and even if some miracle occurred and I was that skinny again, well, the clothes aren't really my style anymore. SO, I'm freeing myself of the clutter and I'm getting rid of it all! I'm going to try to have the yard sale in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully I'll do well because I'm going to use the money I get from the sale to drive out to Wyoming later this summer.

Speaking of yard sales, I went to two fabulous estate sales on Saturday. I got up a little later than I had planned so I didn't make it to one until about 30 minutes after it started and the stuff had already been picked through. I did manage to snag this great little cabinet for $5. I didn't even realize it was light green until yesterday when the husband brought it inside for me. I thought it was white, but green is even better! I love the chippy paint and the wire on the doors. So, so cute. It's perfect for storing all of my card making supplies.

The cabinet:


The other estate sale I went to was much larger and I seriously thought I had died & gone to Heaven. The entire basement was filled, FILLED with bookshelves. Know what was on the bookshelves? Cookbooks. I'm talking literally thousands of cookbooks. There were more cookbooks in the boxes on the floor, every room in the basement had cookbooks. I was in.love. But it was also overwhelming. There were just so many to choose from. I spent a good hour down in that basement looking for books. The lighting down there was horrible though and it was hot and humid and really hard to see. I managed to pick up 8 that I just couldn't live without. I had picked up a really old Betty Crocker 3-ring cookbook that I really wanted but another lady had mentioned she needed one so I gave it to her. Still kicking myself over that one! It wasn't in very good condition though so that made it easier to part with. The cookbooks were only 50 cents and I really should have bought more. I hope they have another sale this coming weekend. I'll go armed with boxes to put the books into because carrying them the way I did was very heavy!

Yesterday I spent pretty much the entire day cleaning out my scrap room. It looks about a million percent better but I still need some more storage in here. Like a good bookshelf to put all my magazines on. Right now they are just sitting in files on the floor. And I need to figure out what I'm going to use as my ribbon storage because what I'm using now isn't going to work once I start actually crafting again. Right now they are in these big blue boxes from Ikea but I need to be able to see my ribbons while I'm working. The last couple of houses we've been in, I've used cafe rods and put the ribbons on that. It works really well except I don't have very much wall space in this room. Lots of windows which is really nice, but not a lot of room on the walls. Not sure what to do with the ribbons. I don't want to use jars because that would annoy the heck out of me each time I had to go through the jar to get to a specific ribbon. I may be able to use the back of the door though. I have to look into that.

Anyhow, here are some more pictures of my little scrap/craft room:




12 x 12 paper storage:


Ribbon Storage in blue boxes, pictures in the others:


Some of my vintage books, a train case filled with misc craft stuff and a cute cabinet I bought at the Salvation Army for $15:


Some of my favorite aprons. This little cabinet had one cup hook on the side and I added a few more. A great way to get my aprons out of a storage box so I can enjoy them:


My work table. It's never this clean so I had to take a picture so I could remember it:


And finally, my wall of embellishments- sorted by season, event, categories and completely full. I actually need another one for some of the overflow!


Now that I've caught up my blog, I'm gonna spend some time reading what everyone else has been up to this past week!! Thanks for stopping by.

Yard Sale Saturday

Boy, I've got some catching up to do, huh? I haven't been feeling well for the last week and although I've wanted to post I just haven't felt up to it. Luckily I am feeling much better now and I can share all of my latest goodies with you guys.

Today being Saturday and all, I went yard saling. I stayed up late last night plotting my course and finding all of the sales in my area and making notes as to what each sale had to offer. The doggies woke me up too early today, at 6:15, so I went ahead and got up and started getting ready even though none of the sales started until 8:00 or later. It's so weird going to yard sales so late! Back down in SC yard sales usually started at 6:00 or 7:00 and most were over by 10:00. I guess because it gets so dang hot outside by 10:00 and there's no point sitting outside sweating all day long!

So, anyhow, I get ready and I go to the bank for cash and then starting driving towards my first sale- listed as an Estate Sale. Okay, maybe it's just me, but when I hear/read "Estate Sale" I'm picturing an entire house full of stuff, not 10 boxes on the lawn with a bunch of broken junk that no one wants.

I left that sale without buying anything partly because I canNOT stand to go to a yard sale where NOTHING is priced. I am not going to waste my entire morning asking over and over "How much is this?". Well, that and the lady running the sale didn't even bother to acknowledge me at all and kept on talking to her neighbor. Oh, and well, there wasn't really anything there that I wanted anyhow.

I left that sale and drove over to a yard sale at a Church and I totally scored at this place. One lady was selling so much stuff and it was really dirt cheap! I picked up 4 vintage aprons for $1/each, 2 vintage tablecloths also for $1/each, a bag full of vintage cake decorations for $2, an old cookie press and about 12 cookie cutters for $2, a package of baby dolls that are cake decorations I think for 10 cents and an old glass measuring cup for 25 cents. Of course I didn't realize it till I got home and added up all of my stuff but I think she miscalculated. She only charged me $7.35 but I gave her $8 and told her to keep the change. Hmm, maybe she just really wanted to get rid of her stuff and didn't care about the money!

After leaving the church sale I went to another sale advertised as an "Estate" sale. Haha Yeah, once again, a couple of boxes of junk does not an estate sale make. I mean really, just call it what it is. It's a yard sale. Even if I had seen something I wanted at this one I probably wouldn't have bought it because I find it very misleading to call it an estate sale when it very obviously isn't!

I then drove over to my favorite store ever- the Ghetto Thrift. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't very busy. I managed to find another little glass jar to put more of my craft stuff in, 3 vintage pillowcases, and two different tablecloths. One is from Hawaii and has 3 matching napkins. All of these goodies only set me back $10 and some change- thank you military discount!

All in all, a successful day I'd say. And for less than $20! Twenty dollars won't even get me a quarter of a tank of gas these days so I am pretty happy to have found so much stuff for so little money.

Here are some pictures of all of my great finds:

1) little baby dolls- cake decorations


2) a cute little King crown with "King of the House" wording underneath. I think I'll put this on the husband's cake for his birthday!


3)The cookie cutters that came inside the box for the cookie press


4)Tablecloth with 4 napkins


5)Another tablecloth- I swear I think I have a blue one that is exactly like this. Well, except that it's blue!


6)Aprons








7) Hawaiian Tablecloth w/ 3 matching napkins



8) All of my thrift store finds from today



Thanks for stopping by. I hope you all have a great weekend!

Vintage Thingies Thursday

It's time again for Vintage Thingies Thursday, hosted by the Apron Queen . Be sure to stop by her blog to check out all of the other people participating today!


Today I am going to share some of my vintage stationery- notecards, invitations, envelopes and the like. I totally scored at a thrift store a few months ago. I used to go to this store every Monday because everything was an additional 25% off. Unfortunately we've moved and it's now almost 40 miles away. And well, with the cost of gas, I just can't justify going down there anymore. Unless we're going on base anyhow and then I'll ride along with my husband.

Anyhow, one day back in February, I was shopping at this thrift store and I found a whole baggie full of these cute vintage cards. There's some blank note cards and several packages of invitations. I have no idea how old these are, probably from the 50s or 60s but I just had to have them. The whole bag was less than $1.50 and these were just too cute to pass up.

The whole lot:



The invitations:





The note cards:





Thanks for stopping by & checking out my vintage thingies today! And thanks to the Apron Queen for hosting!

Work in Progress (or, Wow! This place is a mess!!)

This picture is of my work table area in my scraproom. This is the first time in the 6 weeks we've lived in this house that the desk has been clean enough to take a picture. I have spent days, literally, working in this room trying to get it organized but it still isn't finished.

I am still trying to find a suitable cabinet or bookshelf to replace a few other pieces of furniture in this room that are just not working. I even thought about having the Husband build one but when we priced out lumber we realized it would probably be more expensive to build it than if I found a used one somewhere. Hopefully I find something soon because the clutter and mess is driving me crazy!! If the rest of the room ever gets organized, I'll share more pictures, but I refuse to photograph this room with it looking as it does now! Such a mess.

This little craft room was one of the deciding features of buying this house. Well, that and we were running out of time before our lease was up and all of the other houses we'd put offers on had fallen through but I digress. Anyhow, when the husband and I decided to buy a house, I knew the one thing I really really wanted was a craft room. At our house in SC I never had a room just for all of my scrapbooking/craft stuff. I had to share our room over the garage with a pool table and then I moved all of my stuff into one of the guest rooms but I never did have a place that was *just* for me.

And the house we were renting here in Maryland had a little sunroom on the back of the house that I used as just a craft room but it wasn't very functional. It was also the only way to get outside so the dogs were always coming through and leaving muddy footprints and hair all over the place. Not to mention it was not heated nor did it have air conditioning- which was a nightmare last summer. It was so hot in that room that my paper was curling up!

So, all of the houses we looked at had to have a place for me to use as a craft room. And I really wanted a place with a basement too, which we have, but we're dealing with a little infestation of camel crickets so I do not go down there. At. All. Not until the husband deals with all of the camel crickets.

Anyway, we found this house, probably the 100th one we looked at and either the 3rd or 4th one we put an offer on, and it had this perfect little room off of the dining room that I just knew would be my craft space. It's really too small to be anything else except maybe an office, measuring maybe 7' x 10'. That sounds like a decent sized room but it's still a little on the small side. Either that or I have entirely too much junk in here. I'm going with the first theory though!

I am just so happy to finally have a place -as small as it is- to spread out and do my scrapping and not have to worry about cleaning it all up every day or having to deal with the dogs coming through several times a day getting the place all dirty! Now if I can just get the rest of the stuff organized and put away and actually start working on my list of projects. At least it's better than it was a month ago and with any luck I'll find the perfect storage piece within the next couple of weeks and then my room will look complete!

More Thrift Store Goodies...

It's official. I have an addiction to the thrift store near my house. Seriously. Part of me wishes I had never found that place because it's like crack. I can't stay away. But, I always walk out of there with fabulous deals and they always have the best stuff too!

Here are some of my fabulous finds for today. Sorry for the picture quality. I have yet to find a good spot in the house for taking pictures.

A little set of strawberry canisters that will go in my scraproom. $4.95 for the set.

Another adorable little jar- it has Scotty dogs going around it and I just love Scotty dogs. Less than $1.50. It's also going in my scraproom.

Two little pink shelves which I could not get a good picture of because they are supposed to go in a corner and it was impossible to stand them up like that and take a picture. These are going in one of our guest rooms. And only 3.93 for the set.

I have a small obsession with vintage linens. Especially sheets and pillowcases. I cannot resist buying the ones that have roses on them. Therefore these two full sized flat sheets had to come home with me and for only 1.98 each, it's cheaper than buying new!! Besides, new sheets made these days are horrible!!

And here's a sweet little twin sized fitted sheet with blue roses. It too was 1.98 and it'll find a home on one of the twin sized guest beds. Too cute!

Finally, here's a little green check tv tray that I'm going to repurpose and use in the scraproom. Just a little picture hanging wire on the back and I'm going to use this as a magnetic board to hold things on. Less than $2 too!

Oh, I almost forgot. I picked up this cute little embroidered piece for less than a dollar. I'm going to paint the frame and then hang this in one of the guest rooms. Maybe I'll start collecting these and group them together.

Now hopefully I can resist the urge to go back to the thrift store until at least Friday but I doubt it. Maybe I should look into getting a job there so I can support my habit!

Yard Sale Saturday

Ya'll, it is seriously like a billion degrees outside right now. Okay, not quite a billion but it is at least 106 according to my car. And that's pretty dang hot considering 2 weeks ago it was pouring rain and like 60!! I was just *not* prepared for this! I mean I grew up in South Carolina where it was hot as all heck for about 8 months out of the year. I moved to Maryland almost 2 years ago and I'm just not used to the scorching heat anymore. At least not until sometime in August but by that time I've had the whole summer to get used to it!

Anyhow, due to the heat (and the humidity!) I had to forgo my usual Saturday ritual of yard saling. When I came downstairs this morning at 6:45 to let the doggies outside, I noticed all the windows in the house were fogged up. I'm guessing because it was seriously like already 90 degrees outside and about 65 in our house! That moment I realized I wasn't leaving the house to go yard saling- not when it was already that hot outside.

Instead, the husband and I went to Lowe's to pick up some things for our new-to-us house. Our lovely little home was built in 1930. We bought it back in the middle of April and we've still got so much we want to do. Luckily, the man we bought it from had just purchased it 3 months prior and he came in and redid everything! Well, almost everything. We had to go out today and purchase ceiling fans for all 3 bedrooms and the living room. Now, I don't really like the way ceiling fans look- I think they are sort of ugly- but they are a necessary part of life. Especially on days like today, where every little bit helps. Besides, this will be our first summer in the new-to-us house and we aren't sure yet how well this place is insulated. And with the way everything is sky-rocketing in price, including all of our utilities, it just seemed like a good idea to go ahead and get some fans. Hopefully it will allow us to keep our thermostat set a little higher while still keeping the house cool.

I really wanted to go ahead and purchase window boxes for the front porch and the flowers to go in them but then I thought about it and realized I'd be stuck outside in this heat while I was planting flowers and well, let's just say I'll go back later this week and get all that stuff.

While we were at Lowe's the husband and I also picked out a new paint color for our shutters and front door. They are currently painted burgundy which I suppose matches well enough with our pale yellow siding but I. HATE. BURGUNDY. So, I picked out a nice dark, almost navy-ish blue and that will be getting changed out ASAP!

Also on the to-do list:

* pressure washing the rockers and then painting those white

* locating cushions for the rockers and the other 2 chairs on the porch

* also locating new buntings to hang on the porch and below the windows on the front of the house

That's just the immediate list. We still have tons of other stuff we need to do to the house like expanding the small little back porch and turning that into a nice sized deck, waterproofing the basement and then finishing that off, and also putting down some sort of walkway front the front porch to our parking area. Right now it's just grass and it's a mess!

So, while I didn't get to go to any yard sales today, as you can see I've stayed quite busy! I'm hoping the weather is better for next weekend and I can get out and find some good deals.

Show & Tell Friday

Today is my first time posting for Show & Tell Friday, hosted by Kelli at There's No Place Like Home. Here idea for this week was to post something from our childhood and these are two of my favorite possessions.

Meet Mr. Wrinkles. I have no idea how he got the name Wrinkles to begin with as he doesn't really have any wrinkles, but nevertheless, that's his name. I believe I received him as a Christmas gift when I was around 2 and I definitely remember having him when I was three. The Christmas when I was 3, I remember trying to feed Mr. Wrinkles some Christmas cookies. You know, the kind that you buy in a bag in the grocery store that has different shapes like stockings and bells and they are sprinkled with colored sugar. I guess being 3 I didn't realize Mr. Wrinkles couldn't eat cookies! If I pull his mouth really far apart, I can still still some colored sugar in there!

Mr. Wrinkles is wearing a pair of my overalls and a shirt from when I was a baby. I'm not particularly fond of mushrooms which is what is on the front of the overalls and I don't know why I didn't pick a better outfit to dress him in. I guess I put these clothes on him because my momma had made the overalls and it might have been something I wanted to hang onto. Either way, I doubt I'll ever get around to taking off his clothes. I just think that after all of these years he'd look funny sitting around naked!

The second item I'm going to share is a baby blanket my mom made for me. It's embroidered with different scenes from various nursery rhymes and I just love this thing! I've kept this blanket through several moves and it's always one of those things that I tell my husband he better use extra care with!! No storing this in the basement or attic or a box somewhere to get ruined. I think my mom was going to make another blanket like this for my sister when she was born but having two kids only 16 months apart kept her quite busy and she never got around to making the other one. I wish I could remember how to embroider- I have so many great embroidery patterns that I'd love to use to make something just like this.

Check out all of the other people participating in Show & Tell on Kelli's blog: There's No Place Like Home

Vintage Thingies Thursday

Oooh! I just ran across this blog- Confessions of an Apron Queen and I see she does this thing called Vintage Thingies Thursday. Well, today being Thursday and all, I thought I should participate. It's as good a time as any to jump in, right?

Today, the Apron Queen herself shared some of her vintage Ransburg items. They are just lovely!! It just so happens that I, too, own something by Ransburg! I bought these adorable canisters at the thrift store on the Air Force Base where my husband is stationed a year ago this past April. I knew from the moment I saw them that they had to come home with me.

The set consists of only 3 canisters, so one must have either been damaged or misplaced. I did some research when I first bought them and I believe these to be Era II in the Kopper Kettle pattern. They don't really match my kitchen in this house but I still have them stuck on the counter anyhow!

Check out all of the other people participating in Vintage Thingies Thursday at Confessions of an Apron Queen

Thrift Store Thursday

After months of reading great blogs with so many people that seem to like the same things I do, I've decided to start keeping one of my own. Mostly so I can share all of the fabulous finds I've scored at the local thrift stores and garage sales and partly because I'm a blabber mouth and need somewhere to "talk" with people that will appreciate the things I'm posting about!

Here are a few pictures of my latest finds- the first is a vintage highchair that I picked up at a Goodwill a couple of weeks ago. Now, my husband and I don't even have children but I couldn't pass up this little beauty! It was marked for $5.00 but being the savvy shopper I am, I used a 10% off coupon! It needs to be cleaned up a little but otherwise it's in pretty good condition. Please excuse all of the junk in the background. I was in a hurry to take this picture before the chair made its way into the attic!

Another thing I've found myself collecting, although not intentionally, are old kitchen utensils- the ones with the painted wood handles. Normally I'll pick up one or two at a thrift store near the Air Force Base where my husband is stationed and they run about $3 each. Well, I stopped in my "local" thrift store yesterday, the one that's like 4 miles from my house and I scored ALL of these for a mere $3.83. Well, take 25% off of that because I didn't know it at the time, but I get a military discount at this place!! Of course the old rusty can opener poked through the plastic bag while I was carrying my haul out to the car and totally cut my leg open and I thought I might bleed to death right there in the parking lot of the store I affectionately call the "Ghetto Thrift". So, yeah, that sucker is sharp!! I'm not really sure how to actually use a can opener like that but it's a nice addition to my little collection either way.

Well, I suppose that is enough for now. I have tons of stuff I need to get done around the house but hopefully as I finish unpacking and organizing all of my stuff over the next couple of days I can post more pictures of all of the things that make me happy!