Fun with Blocks
I had too much fun with Beans at the thrift store. I got some baby blocks, and I’ve been tormenting the pets for my own amusement.
Having a limited set of letters forced me to think creatively, and I think these are hilarious, but I have a weird sense of humor.
Thrifty Fun
Beans and I had too much fun thrifting the other day. This whole post is just me bragging about what we found.
If only I could fit into size 5!
Beans and I freaking loved this. We named him Steve. He’s a funny guy, and my new night light. YEAR ROUND.
It’s DEATH NUN!! You may recognize her from such posts as Thrift Store Treasures. At the Goodwill I found this nativity that looked like Death Nun was part of it, even though she’s not. I just thought they looked super cool together. I love finding bizarre things, and contemplating who originally created this, who then thought it was a good enough idea to mass produce, and who would then subsequently purchase these things? That’s why thrifting with friends, and Beans in particular is fun. We laugh our asses off the entire time.
I need more skulls in my wardrobe
These shoes were blank, and I decided I would not let that stand. Skulls? Hell yes. You need shoes with a large enough blank area to paint on, shirt paints, and a paint brush. If your shirt paints are older, like mine, you may need a safety pin and paper towels to clean out the nozzle.
I drew the outline on with the shirt paint first, and then filled it in with the paint brush. I did this on both shoes, let it dry completely, and then did another layer.
I made the skulls fairly small, and ended up using my safety pin to draw on the details.
I drew the bones and bow on with the actual tubes of shirt paint.
I think they came out really cute! One thing to be careful of: if you have to open one of the tubes of paint make sure there is nothing anywhere around you that you care about. In fact, put on a poncho and go outside. I opened one, and there was a casualty:
My cell phone is in the line of fire. I just let it dry and peeled it off, but it was about a foot away when I opened the paint. That shows you how large the radius of devastation can be. I’m also lucky I had newspaper down, because a ton of black paint jumped out. The phone just got grazed. But such are the risks of being crafty!
A New Look with Old Sheets
I have lots of windows in my house, which is nice, but sometimes I want to walk around in clothes that the neighbors shouldn’t see me in. I have an easy, lazy solution. This is especially lazy if you are lucky enough to have curtain rods already in place.
You can see the bare curtain rod in our library-but-supposed-to-be-a-dining-room.
These magic little clips are the key. You just hang them on the rod, then you can clip any fabric onto it. You don’t have to add loops to the top, or sew a giant tube at the top or nothing. Just clip the sheets on, and poof! New curtains!
Right now I can hear my mother going “BAH!!! I only gave you those to use as drop cloths! Don’t you know how old those are?! They’re probably 90% dust mites by now! And they’re POLYESTER!!!!”
It’s all true. These were sheets from the family farm that my parents just moved into. The whole family has been storing excess furniture etc, up there since the ’60′s. That place also supplied the makings of Flapjack’s dog bed. These particular sheets are in great shape, probably because they’re polyester. I have several reasons for using these:
1) They match each other. I had nothing else to put up that was not just going to be one big panel across the whole thing.
2) I love my neighbors. They’re quiet and polite, and bring me cookies at the holidays, but their son has a trampoline, which was obviously a good investment because he uses it all the time. I don’t like wondering if he’s seen me walking around in my panties and a sweater while I do laundry.
3) Flapjack has learned he can see squirrels through this window if he climbs on the couch, and I want something over there I don’t have to worry about. He’s been scampering back and forth like he’s on speed.
So those are the curtains. They’re staying there for awhile, or at least until my mom comes over and rips them down in a fit of Martha-Stewartism. Just kidding. She’ll probably show up with hand made curtains made from vintage fabrics cut specifically for this window that will put all my crafting to shame. That’s my plan, anyway.
Thrift Store Treasure
The other day when my sis Beans was in town, we went thrifting. I don’t mean stop-in-at-a-goodwill thrifting, I mean hardcore, forget-to-eat-all-day thrifting. We stumbled across this plastic candle holder that I instantly loved. I was painted a spatter blue, which was okay, but not ideal. It was also starting to chip. I got Hubby to spray paint it with white primer for me, but I forgot to take a “before” picture. Once I whined and moaned enough to get him to do it for me, I didn’t want to interrupt him for the pic.
So this is after the white primer is on there. I’m hoping that will allow my glorious paint to stick much better than the previous. I actually washed it before he painted it also. I had some gorgeous blue paint around from when we redid our coffee table and a small shelf, so I decided to use that. I know it will match, plus having small amounts of the same color around the room makes it look like I actually PLANNED the design. Try not to laugh too hard, it’s possible. I could plan stuff.
I did one coat of paint, let dry completely, and then did another coat of paint. I let it dry overnight, then had Hubby spray it with a clear coat:
You probably can’t read it there, but the important part to me is that it says “Non-Yellowing”. Many of the other products I’ve found say on the label that they cause things to yellow, and I hate that. I went through all the work of painting this a specific color, not a slightly yellower shade. So Hubby did one coat, then let it dry overnight, then I braved the can and did a second coat today, and let it dry completely.
Now it’s hung up with another thrift store find:
I’m calling her Death Nun. I was so excited when I found her, I snatched her off the shelf and looked around to make sure I wasn’t going to have to fight for her. I know she looks like just regular Death, but when you see the back it looks much more like a nun’s habit, or whatever Virgin Mary is always wearing. Plus Death Nun sounds cooler.
You can see a tiny bit of the ticky tac I used to secure her on there. Meh, I’ll get Hubby to fix it when he gets home. I just love the shapes of the candle holder, and I think Death Nun has a lot more visual impact than a boring candle would have. Oh yeah, and Death Nun was a dollar. The candle holder probably about the same (it was from the $1.39 per pound thrift store).
I LOVE THIS THING!!
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
I just finished The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards. It’s the story of a couple who’ve been married for about a year in 1964. The wife goes into labor during a snow storm, and her husband delivers surprise twins. When the second baby is born, he realizes she has Down’s Syndrome. The wife is completely sedated, and has no idea that she’s had twins, much less that there’s something wrong. The husband makes a rash decision that affects the whole family throughout their lives.
Image stolen from Amazon, obviously
This book was very well written, but to me, the characters were not well fleshed-out. I had trouble keeping people straight, not because there were lots of characters, but because they didn’t make much of an impression. The story was interesting, and somewhat depressing. I liked it, but I will be giving it away. So on the Clever Chick Book Scale this gets a “Readable, but forgettable”.
I also discovered that Lifetime made this into a movie! I can’t imagine why. No women get beaten or raped at all in the whole thing. Maybe they’re branching out? (The Lifetime Network gets a “Only Deserves Constant Derision and Snide Remarks” on the Clever Chick Scale. I really need to finish that thing, soon).
