FAIRIES AND IBISES AND CALLING CARDS

I liked the Thrifty Chicks’ idea of leaving calling cards at the yard sales I visit. So early Saturday morning I designed my cards. Fiddled with them until they felt right. Told the computer to print.

I'd like to, the computer said, but you’re out of black ink. I changed the black ink cartridge. (Note to self: go down to the kitchen and put ‘black ink cartridge’ on the shopping list so you’ll have a back up.) That’s better, the computer said, and sent through the five sheets I'd asked for. But the black ink didn’t print.

I took out the new cartridge, shook it—sounded like ink sloshing around in there. Put it back, tried another sheet. No black ink. Took it out, pressed on the place where the ink comes out with a piece of paper. No marks on the paper. Smooshed it some more until some ink marks showed, put it back in printer, tried again. No black ink on paper.

At that point I gave up and went garaging, sans calling cards but with friend Diane. Calling cards are a good idea, but a friend is even better! And on Sunday I tried again to print my cards and they came out just fine. Guess the universe was averse to my starting this just now…but I'll be ready for the next time!

Have you ever noticed, as you’re going from sale to sale (or thrift store to thrift store, if that’s your venue) how a theme will develop? You keep seeing the same item or motif over and over. There was one Saturday a couple of years ago that was Backstreet Boys Day. Everywhere I went there were posters and t-shirts and CDs emblazoned with their faces (is it just me or do they all have impressively chiseled jaws?). This week’s theme turned out to be fairies. Yes, fairies as in little people who live among the flowers and do magical things. At our first stop we opened an oblong blue box and found this inside:

I wish my photography did justice to the details.

I did some searching when I got home and found that these are carved by lasers, guided by a computer. I’m still completely in the dark as to what that actually means, and it must not be terribly difficult because these pieces are not expensive even new, lots available online for about ten bucks. Neither Diane nor I are particularly fairy aficionados, but we both liked this. I ended up buying it, feeling a little guilty because I felt like D wanted it too.

And then at the very next sale we found another one! It was about half the size of mine (and about half the price!) so D bought it, and we spent the rest of the morning marveling at finding two of them.

Then we kept seeing fairy motifs everywhere. Books, jigsaw puzzles. Probably the cutest was the pair of gauzy fairy wings for playing dress up. We resisted those however!

We were even more excited by the trio of ibises walking across the road. There was no traffic so we stopped to watch them strut. I see herons and egrets fairly often, but I think these are the first ibises I've seen here. They were probably white-face ibis, since those winter in this area. Gosh, garaging is educational!

As always, I thoroughly enjoyed the various pets we encountered. One was a beautiful gray cat named Motor, so called because of his loud purr. “When he was a kitten,” they said, “his purr was bigger than he was.” Motor was a fair sized cat, so he grew into his purr. While I was petting Motor, I heard nice background music and commented on it. “Oh, that’s from next door,” they said. So as we left I saw the next door neighbor in his driveway and called out that the music was great. He said he’d been fishing in Mexico, and the hotel was playing this over their loudspeakers, and he’d bought 5 CDs, he liked it so much. “Let me play you my favorite piece,” he said, so we wandered into his garage. He skipped ahead to his favorite, which turned out to be a polka. As we stood there talking about the music, we noticed there were dozens of wooden whirligigs in his garage. Turns out that when he retired, he taught himself to make these things. He has over 80 designs he makes and sells. He pointed out his fish skeleton design. “It's usually ladies that buy that one,” he said. He also paints rocks, and we got a tour of his back yard to see some of his rock fish. And all the while, the Mexican polka bounced along in the background.

We also enjoyed meeting lovely Hannah, a black lab and heeler mix:
She had been spayed the day before, and her owner was trying to keep her quiet. But Hannah didn’t care that she’d just had a hysterectomy—she wanted to play ball! Her owner told us she had won a free spaying on a radio call in show. Otherwise she didn’t know how she would have afforded it. Turns out this nice lady is one of the many, many casualties of our meltdown economy. She lost her job and hasn’t been able to find another, and for a time was living in a tent. Now she’s in a small travel trailer, parked by a relative’s house. We could see how much her dog means to her in these hard times. She told us she had a number of friends—former friends—who pressured her to get rid of her dog, telling her she couldn’t afford to keep her. As Diane said, that’s someone she won’t be needing to call anymore. I've always maintained that I would live in a tent before I gave up my pets, and here was someone who has done it.

I spent $10.35, and besides my laser fairies I brought home:

A couple of gifts for friends and family—a fun visor for someone who drives a convertible…

…and these cute pj pants for someone who would live 24/7 in flannel if she could.
Nice green tencel shirt for me.
Bar of French soap with shea butter in it.
Two new candles for the lanterns in the yard.
A Sunset gardening annual.
Fun necklace. Needs cleaning, and I think I'm going to remove the little tube pieces.

Lizzie liked it and wanted to try it on. I told her she can wear it the next time she has a date.

A DVD.
Some cleaning goop.
Have to admit my eyes deceived me. When I picked up this box I could have sworn it said Oxy Cleaner, and I've had good success with Oxiclean, the stain remover stuff. So I bought it. Imagine my surprise when I got home and saw that it says Orange Clean. Can’t blame my glasses, just got new lenses a few weeks ago, so it must be my brain!

And finally, this should make a fun door prize for some lucky children's librarian.

Next week I most likely will not be garaging, because we have a little vacation planned. We’re driving to Phoenix with my husband’s brother and his wife to see this Dale Chihuly glass exhibit at the botanical garden there. Of course, if we pass a yard sale sign on our way from the motel to the gardens, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the car just automatically turns where the sign points!

YUMMY LEMONADE AND A THRIFTY PETITION

“Whoa,” I said to my husband. “You gotta read this.” (Never pass up a chance to impress your husband!)

We stared at the computer monitor together. It was a post on the Thrifty Chicks blog, and the second paragraph reads: “Queen of Fifty Cents: This woman deserves a crown for her dedication to thrift. I am certain she is bordering on legend on the yard sale circuit of Southern California. I imagine her secretly leaving a calling card, like the Pink Panther, at each yard sale notifying the host that she was present. I then imagine the host pondering for days on end which customer she was. How apropos.”

Wow. Thanks, Thrifty Chicks! They have bestowed a Lemonade Award on me and four others.

I’ll have to do some research…is this the idea that when life give you lemons you make lemonade? Or perhaps they think I am sweet and tart and so refreshing!

I feel extremely honored, not just by that glowing encomium, but because of who the Thrifty Chicks are. Amy and her cohorts are thrift shopping geniuses. I mean, I do pretty well at this, but dang, every time I head over to their blog their slide shows of thrifted finds just knock me out with envy.

I love the idea of leaving a calling card at the sales I go to. Hmmm, I even know the graphic I want to use, but it's on my work computer, so I'll have to wait to design my QoFC card. Soon though!

The Thrifty Chicks are also busy promoting a petition to establish National Thrift Store Month. Now there’s a worthy celebration! If you’re a Facebook member (or want to be), you can sign the petition here. Other non-Facebook options are reputed to be in the works. And after you sign the petition, keep an eye out for opportunities to let other folks know how very cool thrifting is. Whether your venue is the thrift store, the flea market, or someone’s driveway on Saturday morning, there are adventures in shopping out there just waiting for you.

Now if you’ll ‘scuse me, I need to go read those other Lemonade blogs!

THE BAGELS WERE JUST THE BEGINNING

I decided this was a bagel and cream cheese morning, rather than a cinnamon roll morning, so as I headed out on the garaging trail I stopped at the local bagel place. I gave the cashier a twenty, and asked if she could give me mostly ones for change, since I was headed for garage sales. She lit up—I had found another garager. As she counted out my singles, she said to the a guy picking up his breakfast, “She’s going to garage sales!” Now he lit up. “There are two over on my street,” he said. The cashier almost forgot to give me the fifty one cents that was part of my change. “Hey, that’s a new outfit,” I said. She laughed, then said she’d never thought of looking at clothes before. I started telling them some of the things I've found, and by the time my bagel was toasted we had two converts to thrifting. Plus breakfast.

Great way to start the day.

I'd already found something to laugh about on Craiglist: an ad for a “fabulouse” moving sale. Last week I chuckled over the ad with “an inconclusive list of what will be selling.”

At one stop, when I asked if they were having fun yet, the wife said, “Nobody asked me if I wanted to do this!” She was perfectly cheerful about it, not grumpy at all. I told them the tale of my friend’s husband who had sold anything for a dime and has never had to mind a sale again, and she really liked that. So I asked if the picture frame they were selling was a dime, and she said, no, but it was fifty cents. Turns out there were two, and I bought them both. Aren’t these gorgeous?

Even the little hinge thingies on the back have glitz!



At another sale I saw some handmade paper loosely rolled up and laying on the ground. I looked at it, almost picked it up (I really love paper) but then I thought of the mulberry paper already in my closet and resisted. I was so glad I did. A middle aged Chinese guy found it and asked how much. It was a dollar. He looked happily stunned. He said he is an artist and does Chinese calligraphy on this kind of paper. The lady having the sale said it had been in her mother in law’s estate. MIL died in the 80s, and the seller didn’t even know what this stuff was but always thought that someday she’d find out. So today she found out, and I think she was a thrilled as the calligrapher.

I spent $12 and along with the frames I brought home:

7 handmade lampwork beads—don’t know what I'll use them for yet, but at a quarter apiece I was willing to speculate.

At the same sale I saw this box as I was leaving.
The contents were all jumbled but I saw Fimo, so I bought it. Turns out to have two dozen blocks of Fimo in wonderful colors, two or three kinds of Fimo varnish…
…plus two boxes of sealing wax and three seals. And the Lucite shoe box it's all packed in would cost as much as I paid for everything. I have some playing with clay in my future.

Signed vintage linen tablecloth.


Isn’t this adorable?

All hand stitched, mounted on board. I think it originally had three of these…I'm guessing potholders.

The seller said her mother in law had made it, she thought in the Fifties, but I think it looks older than that. Anybody want to venture a guess?

Two little chalkware chickens—to add to that chicken vibe in my bathroom!

Don’t think anyone uses Rolodexes anymore, but these cards will be great by the phone for taking notes.

I am now prepared for the next time Edward gets matted fur behind his ears (hopefully never).

I'm always a sucker for a cute depiction of reading together.
This is a nightlight but the innards are missing, but I bet I can find a replacement (as I did for the Pooh & Piglet nightlight back in September).

I picked up these earrings…
…so I can use the posts to remake these.
They just don’t work with the wires. There, isn’t this better?

Lastly, I am totally thrilled with these cushions for the chairs on my patio. I didn’t hesitate one second over $3 for two of them. (Already had the model on the premises.) Looked them up on Lowe’s website when I got home. You can buy some just like them—for $58 each. Sheesh. Do people really pay sixty bucks for a cushion? A handsome Edward dog, maybe, but a cushion?
I think I got a fabulouse deal!

THE JOKE WAS ON ME, BUT I GOT THE LAST LAUGH

This is a PS to the bra-buying saga I recounted a couple of posts ago. To recap, I ordered three bras, two arrived, one didn’t. After too much time elapsed I entered into a very slow process of receiving that last bra. By the time it finally got here they had already sent a replacement, so I ended up with two.

The joke on me was, of the three styles I ordered, the one I got two of was the least comfortable! In fact it was decidedly snug. There was no way I was going to send them back—it was simply more than I could face.

But wearing an uncomfortable bra …nope, couldn’t go there. Then I had a brainstorm. I had another bra I was getting rid of now that I had the new ones. So I cut off the hook section and attached it to one of the new ones, and the eye section for the other one. Five minutes with my trusty old Singer 201 and I have two bras that are now perfectly comfy.

Whew!

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS YARD SALE

I always wake up early. Very early. Like, 4 a.m. early. I used to figure I was a dairy farmer in my last life, but by now I've decided I was probably the cow.

I was delighted when 4 a.m. rolled around Saturday morning and I opened my eyes to see moonlight streaming through the Himalayan bamboo outside my bedroom window. Moonlight now meant sunshine later, which would mean…yard sales! It rained all day yesterday, so I was resigned to a second weekend without my thrifting fix. Those of you who travel the thrifting road know what I'm talking about. It’s our favorite form of gambling, and we get antsy when we can't be out there perusing tables of used items on strangers’ driveways. Unlike gambling, however, we actually get something for our quarters. Today’s haul was light (often the case on a holiday weekend), but for $1.50 I came home with $40 worth of stuff.

Beats playing a slot machine any day.

I had my fingers crossed that I would run across some fusible webbing (used for sewing). And there it was at the very first sale—a whole 5 yard bolt of Wonder Under.


How much, I asked, and the guy said fifty cents. You speak my language, I told him. A lady near me giggled. I poked around but didn’t find anything else and went to pay. “Let’s see, that was seven dollars, right?” he deadpanned. “That’s right,” I agreed, handing him two quarters. Just then I noticed that his sweatshirt was emblazoned with a Comedy Central logo. So at least he was correctly labeled. And I have what will likely be a lifetime supply of this stuff.

I needed it to repair a spot on a sleeve that got splashed with some bleach.

I appliquéd a small heart over it. Yes, wearing my heart on my sleeve, as the saying goes. The fabric was a scrap left over from the Ulla Popken skirt I remodeled a few days ago.

BTW, if you ever buy this stuff, it works way better to remove the paper backing and use parchment paper instead. Way, way better!

The next stop was a little further west than I normally drive, but there were so few sales I decided to check it out. Lots of stuff strewn across the yard, much of it still in boxes, completely disorganized and hard to check out. The guy running this sale was as affable as a Labrador puppy. I spotted a CD I wanted and asked how much.
“If you buy one,” he told me, “it's a dollar. But if you buy two, it's still a dollar.” I raised an eyebrow. “I want to get rid of stuff,” he added. I said if I couldn’t find a second CD I’d like to discuss his pricing policy. “Oh, okay, fifty cents,” he said. Those Lab puppies can never hold out. I found a fun paper airplane kit for a door prize, and now we were up to a dollar, which seemed to make him very happy.


When I finished looking around and went to pay him, he was talking to another guy. “Did you see that?” he said. “That guy just left without paying me.” We shook our heads in disgust. Seriously, stealing from a yard sale is so low. “Did you see how fast he drove away?”

“Here’s my dollar,” I said, handing it to him. “And I promise I'll drive away slowly.”

Last stop was a moving sale, and the family seemed like a really nice bunch. Have you ever been to a sale where the people didn’t get along, the parents snapping at the kids and making snarky remarks to each other? I walk away from those. These people were the opposite. There was a glass topped coffee table that a couple of people were looking at, priced at $25. The teenage daughter finally sold it for $20, and called to her parents, “Twenty bucks! I got twenty bucks for the table.” Mom and dad both cheered. A couple of minutes later the mother hollered out, “We’ve got a work bench and table saw in here!” Dad chimed in, “And a partridge…” and the rest of the family sang, “…in a pear tree!” I was about ready to ask if they’d like to adopt me, they sounded like so much fun. I picked up a couple of packets of stickers for a door prize, and the daughter told me they were free. My favorite word, after fifty cents!


When I got home I found that the box of goodies I won last week (without knowing I'd entered!) had arrived from Old Time Me Artist. Sher, thank you! She sent me this darling wicker tea cup and saucer (I think it has a small blooming plant in its future),
a lovely little pitcher (pancakes for breakfast tomorrow, so I can pour maple syrple from this),
a packet of notecards,
and this sweet vintage apron, which I believe was designed for wash day. The entire apron is a big pocket for holding your clothespins. I love it!

I'm back in the market for a largish mug. I was willing to live with not being able to put this one in the microwave (even 30 seconds made the cup so hot I burned my fingers).
But this morning the entire handle came off, and that I cannot put up with! Fortunately it only had cold water in it at the time, and I was standing in front of the sink.
So now I've broken two mugs in my search for the perfect one. Third time will be the charm, I just know it.