Flea market finds

So, I mentioned that the Fleaology flea market was coming up HERE and I'm back to report a successful trip. My sister in law came with me and we went to several yard sales on the way home, as well. It's the first time I've been this whole summer. Gasp. I can't believe a whole summer of garage sales got away from me.

Here's the goodies:

{All these were a buck a piece and that ring is already one of my favorites ever.}

{These bookends are HEAVY, like solid brass heavy. They're also weird and I love it.}

{"Flair Squares," right? I don't know what I'll do with these, but I have 4 packages.}

{The newest scarf in my collection. I just love a '70's scarf, what can I say?}

{My new DIY Christmas ornaments. I'm going to hang the candy cane upside down so it's a J for Johnson.}

{This frame caught my eye and it wasn't until after that I noticed it was a peacock. See my other thrifted peacocks HERE. Now I think I'll keep the doily in it and just switch out the maroon velvet for...something.}

{This little hankie is going to be a pillow.}

{Vintage floral pillowcase! Hooray! It'll go into the quilt I'm gathering fabric for for Eleanor.}

{I found this little Utah cross stitch irresistible. I'm going to leave it exactly as-is and hang it on a gallery wall.}

My grown-up rock collection

This is possibly my new favorite art. I know I said that just yesterday about the Fancy Nancy thing, but I've wanted to do this for YEARS now and it's finally done. It feels good.

Hold onto your butts (Jurassic Park, anyone?) because here it is:

{The sample I had for the upper left frame was just a tad too big, so I have to decide what to put there instead.}

It's rocks in shadow boxes! Hence calling it my grown up rock collection.

A bit of background- I got my bachelor's degree and did my graduate work in geology and I LOVE it. Seriously, it is so cool. I even worked at a nearby university for a couple years, teaching the intro to geology course as an adjunct instructor. Because I've been a geologist for so many years, I have a giant rock collection. Just tons and tons of rocks. When I was first married I kept the best ones out on a side table dedicated solely to rock displaying, but then we had our first little one and they got packed away.

As I mentioned before, I've wanted to do this for a long time. Even before we had drywall up, I had this section of wall earmarked for the rock collection and just a few days after the basement was completely finished I had the shadow boxes I had up and ready to roll, with the 4 remaining spaces being reserved with pieces of paper cut to the right size. On Monday I finally got to IKEA and bought the last frames I needed (the Ribba 10" shadow boxes, online here).

Here's how the rocks are mounted:

I took the chipboard frame backing and folded a piece of normal, 8.5" by 11" cardstock over it. I thought about painting the frame backing or cutting out cardboard and painting it white and gluing the rocks to that, but this was much easier and should hold up well.

Then I used the hanger clip to hold the paper in place. Easy. 

{Sorry it's blurry. Nighttime photos, right?}

 Then I flipped the mats around (the mats that come with the Ribba frames were a little bit off-white, but the back is as white as the cardstock I was using), centered the rock inside of it, on top of the cardstock, and just used hot glue to stick it there. Since the cardstock wasn't secured to the backing except for that little clip at the top, the whole thing was kind of floppy until I got the frame all put back together. And now they're all fine. And awesome.

See?

{Don't mind the distracting surround sound wiring- that's going to get moved up by the ceiling and out of my way.}

 Here are some close ups of my favorite samples:

     






















And since the scientist in me just can't resist, from the top left and going clockwise, it's kyanite, muscovite, rhyolite (some people call this variety "wonderstone" because of the banding) and a quartz geode.

Another cool thing- I didn't have nice slabs of all of these, until I thought of it while we were renting the tile saw for the downstairs bathroom. After we were done with the tile, I had a little fun with all my samples.

I did one other thing before I mounted them, too. A fresh cut surface of rock is very dull compared to polished rocks, but I didn't have any plausible way to polish these (in a lab I'd use a series of finer and finer abrasives on different lapidary wheels) until I realized that I could use baby oil for a fake polishing effect:

{Before and after, of course}

Anyway, I couldn't be more pleased with my grown up rock collection.

My new favorite art

I love having something a little different in picture frames, instead of all family photos all the time. I have my fair share of those, of course (I do love looking at my family's faces, after all), but it's always kind of a fun surprise having something different in a frame. Prints are great, but they add up, so finding cheap and large art that's not a photo can be tricky sometimes.

Without further ado, here's my new favorite art:

It's a book jacket! I hate book jackets (especially on kid's books) but I also hate throwing them away. This was totally a light bulb kind of moment and I still kind of feel like a genius. My daughter LOVES Fancy Nancy (it's been a Fancy Nancy for her bedtime book for months now) and this is, of course, in her room. She thought it was a pretty great idea, too.

Here's the 'tails (if you don't know what I mean by 'tails, you need to watch more Parks and Rec) :
 *I didn't cut the back of the book jacket off, I just creased it flat.
*Since the book had that cute little border on it, I attached it to the front of the mat instead of behind it.

Best aunt ever

Well, probably not, since my niece's birthday was in December. These are her combination late birthday/kindergarten graduation gift. I was going to make some fabric strap flip flops, like THESE, but then I found all these little jewel beads (that actually used to be my daughter's dress up bracelets, but she broke them) and inspiration hit.

 Little bejeweled flip flops. So cute, right? Here's how I did it:

First up was gathering supplies. My daughter helped me sort out the pink, purple, and white ones.

{Upholstery thread, scissors, needles, the beads, hot glue. }

 The beads had two sets of holes in them, so I threaded them like this.

There they are. I had measured the flip flop straps before, so I knew how many beads to thread.

I used hot glue to keep the beads down at first, but knew a little extra something would be a good idea if I really wanted these to wearable. 

So I wrapped more threads around the threads that held the beads together. That sounds confusing. Here's the picture:

And then I was done. I sent them off one at a time and I can't wait for my niece (who is 6) to get them.

Thrift finds

So, there's a flea market in Utah County. It's called Fleaology and they have a blog HERE. I went with some friends a few weeks ago (they only have it quarterly or so, I believe) and scored some pretty awesome stuff.

I think this mirror is awesome. I think I'll probably give it to Mim some day for her dress ups, but I think I'll wait until she's a little older and I won't have to worry so much about her breaking it. For now it goes on my dresser, which is fine with me, since it totally reminds me of Beauty and the Beast, which is my favorite fairy tale/Disney movie.

 The brown scarf was a DI (Utah's Goodwill) find, but the red with white polka dots was from the flea market- 2 bucks!

 

These are my new awesome flour and sugar canisters. They're awesome. I only wish I had more counter space (since it's so limited in my tiny kitchen, they're usually in the cupboard).

 

 I did not happen to find any zippered pouches at the flea market, but I did get about 2 yards of this awesome strawberry/floral/polka dot for $9. I didn't get any pictures of it before I started cutting it up.

 

 This was not a thrift find. It's from the old swamp cooler that used to go in our living room window. That monster is out behind the shed, waiting to go to the dump, but I noticed this wheel on it a few days ago. I thought it might be kind of a neat little keepsake, plus it kind of reminded me of these from Pottery Barn:

They're no longer available, but I remember seeing them in a catalog and thinking they were pretty cool.

Anyway, I've been pretty pleased with my thrifty finds lately. Anybody want to go garage sale-ing with me?

DIY Building Blocks

I try to focus on giving my girls classic toys. At least things that I consider classic, which I guess means anything I loved as a kid. And one thing I loved- my family's building block set. My parents still have the remnants of it (everything that wasn't lost/buried/destroyed) and Mim always loves playing with it when we're there.


She turned 3 on April Fool's day (I still can't get over what an awesome birthday that is) and we gave her some galoshes and some books. Then I thought about how we hadn't given her any toys, which just seemed kind of sad. So I made some blocks and gave them to her at her birthday party, which was just last Saturday.

I looked at buying block sets first, but it seemed like all the ones I thought were really cool were all over $100. This one from Land of Nod was my favorite. I love the colors. Anyway, I got to thinking- I mean, blocks are just cut up wood. We have tons of that. All I would need to do is cut it, sand it, then paint it. I got hung up on the painting idea- it would take forever, plus baby Elle would just be chewing it off in a few months (if she would ever get teeth instead of just acting like she's teething for months on end). Then I had a brainwave-

I could dye the wood!!

I've used dye on fabric plenty of times before. Like on these onsies. And I'd seen a pin where Rit Dye was used to dye buttons.

Here are the blocks:

{The alphabet blocks are not ones I made, if you were wondering.}

 She's played with them every day since she got them.

And if you care, here's the how:
1. Collect wood. I used some 2"x4" and 2"x2" scraps, some dowels (2 round in different sizes, 1 square one), and a 1"x12"x5' board.   I only had to buy the dowels.

2. Cut it. I went to my in-laws house to use the miter saw and my father-in-law ended up just cutting everything for me. I would measure, then hand it to him to cut. We had a good little system going on and it only took us about an hour and a half to cut 114 blocks. I'm really glad he helped- it would have taken more than twice as long by myself.

3. Sand. I used my little hand sander and got it done during my baby's morning nap, so about another 1.5 hours.

{Sanded, sorted, waiting to be dyed.}

{Before I dyed them, I decided what each color each block would be. Most sizes had 2 colors. Setting them out like this really helped me decide what colors I needed more or less of.}

4. Dye them. I used Rit brand. It's what I already had on hand and they seem to have the largest color collection. Plus, if you're brave (I didn't do it this time) they have this chart on their website to mix all the in-between colors.
The colors I used were scarlet, tangerine, golden yellow, kelly green, royal blue, teal, and purple.

{I used the stove top method, same as I do for fabric.}

{Rinse, rinse, rinse. I didn't want any excess dye coming off these babies when I handed them over to my daughter.}

 5. Dry.

 6. Play!

So here's what this 114 piece block set cost me:

$6 worth of dowels
$12 of dye, and there's leftovers. I already had about half the colors I needed- I'm not counting those in the cost.

About 5-6 hours of doing stuff. The dyeing took about 2 hours (still so much faster than painting would have been). If I did it again, it would be even faster. I wasn't expecting the colors to take to the wood so strongly and I was expecting more to rinse out, so I left the blocks in the dye baths for much longer than I needed to (I didn't want the colors to be quite so intense).

Not bad. 

I totally think it was worth it.

{This was at her little party- she opened them and then dove right in. I couldn't get her to look at me for a picture.}

Some miscellaneous things:

*All the stuff I used was pine/douglas fir, except for the dowels. I don't remember what they were made of.

*If you do this, use non-treated wood. Most dimensional lumber is, so it's not a problem, but it can never hurt to double check!

*Try to keep your sizes as fractions of each other- like this size of block is twice as long as the next size down, this size block is twice as thick as these others that are the same shape. I put some thought into it before we started cutting, but I wish I'd written down exactly what I wanted.

*Each of my dye baths was a couple quarts (I didn't really measure) and I used about half a package of powdered dye for each (like I said, I wasn't really expecting the colors to take very strongly, so I made a VERY concentrated dye bath). If I ever make a supplemental block set, I'll cut the amount in half, at least.

*To make arches, use a hole cutting drill bit. This is a note for me, for the supplemental set I bet I make in a year or two.

*Be prepared to make a big mess when dyeing. The picture doesn't do the disaster justice, but here's my kitchen after:

The sink was terrible, too.

Thanks for reading!

Sweater stocking

I've seen stockings made from sweaters all over blogland and on pinterest.  Since I needed a new stocking for little miss Elle, I decided to upcycle an old sweater of my husband's.  It was just plain red, so to give a little detail, I did my pretend embroidering (as seen here and here) and added some snow flakes.  Here it is!

{It's not lined, the cuff is just a bit of fleece that I sewed on.  I'd explain how, but I didn't take pictures and I don't think I can do it with just words.}

{I used a yard darner and a fuzzy off white yarn to add the snow flakes.  The yarn was left over from this project.}

{Here it is with the rest of our mismatched stocking collection.  Mike's is his from when he was a kid, mine is one I picked up at Target two or three years ago, Mim's is my old one from when I was a kid.}

 It still kind of makes me do a double take when I see four stockings up there.  I kind of love that they don't match, too.  Maybe I won't ever end up making the matching set I've been planning for three years.

Also featured on the mantle: my old school paper chain advent calendar.  I was going to use those paper maché boxes from craft stores to make a fancy one this year, but I just won't have time.  This one is good for us for now, anyway- Mim totally gets a kick out of tearing the links off everyday.  And since we made it, she hasn't asked every day if Santa is coming.

I'm more excited for Christmas this year than I have been since I was a kid.

Happy holidays to all!

Thanks for reading.

Sad face shirt fail

After the old man shirt skirt, I wanted to make myself more stuff.  It didn't go well.

 

 There's the fail.  I very carefully removed some ruffles, but it didn't go well.  Well, I started started removing ruffles carefully, but then after I made a bunch of little but noticeable holes, I gave up and ripped the second ruffle off (those are the bigger holes you can see).  

I'm pretty sure the real root of the problem was not having a clear idea of what I wanted it to look like.  After I realized my original idea wasn't going to happen because I wouldn't have enough shirt left over, I didn't take time to adapt my plan.  

It started off well, at least:

I've learned my lesson- next time I'll make sure I have a doable plan.  There will be a next time, too.  I realized I can make a whole army of embellished tees from knit shirts from the thrift store, and I want to do it.