Wicky Sticky Warrenton

See the banner photo?  That's where I'll be this week - in Rotterdam.  The photo is actually Delfshaven.  I love saying that - Delfshaven - like a Dutch person.   I'm real stressed out about going but I'm sure it will all work out in the end.  Work is really busy and stressful right now and I have alot of things planned.  Like Friday, when I went to Warrenton with one of my besties, H.  H and I were neighbors for 18 years.  We take 529 west and stop in Bellville for breakfast at Newman's Bakery (yummy plus I found a crocheted baby bonnet for $2).  From there we take 159 and then a little right turn for Warrenton and we come in right at Cole's.  Easy peasy drive and of course, we talked the entire way, so time flew.  The parking lot at Cole's was muddy - apparently we'd just missed the rain but unfortunately, the humidity soon followed.  And I'm tellin ya, it was just miserable.  Hot and muggy and sticky and it was almost not fun.  Almost.  And yes, we found some goodies, wanna see?  Oh, wait a second I'm getting a head of myself. 

 

Oh, and I can't talk about this yet, either.  That was found inside, at Cole's.  at Wendell's booth.  Let's stick to the stuff outside. 

My first purchase was a Texas handkerchief for $5.  It has the cities and just was cute and neat.  I know it will come in handy one day.  At the same booth as we were leaving, I spotted an Anagrams game for $20.  She was happy to tell me that all the pieces were there.  I was thrilled.  I've been watching them on ebay and quit at $40.  Yep.  this was a good buy.  I found the pink felt baby booties for $5.  I don't know the names of these booths, I just recognize them and I usually find a goodie or two at this one.  I found the wooden spools at the very end for $8.  The trims we found at the booth in Cole's for $1/yard except for a scallop velvet which was $3 (and at another booth - its an older lady from California - she's always in the same spot - very sweet).

The westie was $3 at a junk booth and the letters were $1 near Wendell's booth at Cole's.  I think that covers it.  Except for Wendell's booth.  He had that color gem cabinet marked $79, I got it for $65.  It has small 2 x 2 plastic slots to hold things.  Its not a fancy wood or construction, by any means but I love the staircase aspect.  I may paint it white.  I think its cool.  When we were going to pick it up I saw the picture easel and let me tell you.  I have always loved stars/moons.  It was marked $48 and I was only willing to pay $15 really.  He came down to $30 so I took it.  It is just so unique.  I turned the picture around so you can see it - and the picture isn't that great - I was too lazy to download from my camera so I used my iphone, which I switched to 4G this week.  Last week Kathleen was whipping through hers and since mine crashed, the replacement is slow as molasses.  Guess Apple's marketing ploy is to give you a piece of shit so you'll upgrade.  Sorry for the negativity, my patience is really challenged these days with computers and hot water heaters.  But thats a story for a different day. 

I made this baby block this weekend for a baby shower.  My Mom's caretaker needed a shower gift so I whipped this up.  It was good practice.  I had seen the paper shoes on blogs and tried them but still don't have it down pat.  It was fun to put together.  She mod podged and glued the buttons so she could say she made it.   We used a paint pen to color the babies hair and I painted a bit on the face and then wiped it off to tint her color.   She needed a to/from  card so we added the diaper and she wrote a note.  Those diapers from vellum were one of the first things I ever made - I found the pattern in a BH&G book and I bought all the pink/blue footprint vellum from Michael's.  Remember how old that stuff is?  We added pink and white buttons down the side.  I spray painted the clip white and added a button in the center.  We stuffed the baby shoe with kleenex - probably could have picked something better but that is all I can come up with.  I hope, one day, to look back on this blog and look at my staging photos and think, man I've come a long way.  I've learned alot of things with this scrapbooking craft but my staging skills are sad and lacking.  One day I want to be in the Heather Bullard league.  Really.  I do. If you're going to aim, aim big.

Well, I have two chores left, three really and I don't think they are going to get done so I will close now.  Hope it is a great week for you.  Thanks for visiting..

Harley-town

I want to blog about my weekend, before I forget the details. I had a workshop in Milwaukee for work and I thought. Yuck, that's just great. Who in the hell wants to go to Milwaukee. Well, let me tell you - I was in for a surprise. First of all, it was cool, which was super. And the workshop had an incredible keynote speaker, Jason Dorsey who talks about the differences by generation and how to communicate with each other. So funny, so true - watch his video. If you watched 60 minutes about a year ago - he was the guy talking about Gen X. Okay, back to Mwk - they have a casino. Uh, huh. Did you know it was the home of Harley-Davidson? Me neither. And they have some pretty nice architecture downtown. We stayed at the Hilton, which was built in 1924 and recently refurbished. The details in the elevator were amazing, on six different levels. I know, who'd a thunk - an elevator. Once the business was over, my CE/SE roomie, Jeanne picked me up and we headed out of Dodge for the greater parts of IL. We stopped at the Third Ward in Mwk (thanks for Design Sponge for the city guide). There were 3 stores in the area - Broadway Paper (so-so), The Home Market (super yummy but -spensive!) and Utrecht art (small but good). We passed a junk store and squeezed our way in. Ohmygosh, I felt bad for the owner. I don't know why other than she was a serious hoarder and we had to push our way through her store, through all the junk, there wasn't even a path hardly. Not complainin, just sayin. I found a couple of cool things - a glass/plastic owl (from Avon), a white "cold" hardware knob, some tiny 1" vases and a 2" princess and an old flower frog. We headed out of town and stopped at the Olive Pit and while we're waiting for our sandwich, scoped the antique store next door. It was set out very nicely so I equated that with expensive. I was w-r-o-n-g, thank goodness. I found several goodies: a large ledger for $16, a hotel spoon, 2 vintage books. There was another larger store close by but we were running late so we only did a quick recognizance and no purchase. Antioch was our destination and we met up with three former CE lovelies, Kathleen L, Shelley F and Kathy W. And Hannah's was having a garage sale. I only bought a couple of Tim Holtz supplies (those feet thingies) but had fun looking around. Hannah's is a true crafts store, not just scrapbooking. I was tempted by the latest collection from My Mind's Eye but didn't want to haul paper. We stopped for coffee and a fox ran down the road over yonder. Way cool. Then we were heading to Schaumburg for the Big Bowl and dinner with Cathy D, Nan G and Candi. It was fun to hear about their projects and Cathy's view on 2010 CE and just all the latest events. Then we headed to Crystal Lake and Jeanne's abode. I've never met her 3 old English sheepdogs and 2 border collies and so there was no time like the present. We had a nice visit with her hubs. She has such a comfortable house with alot of land - I could have spent days just visiting and relaxing. And what's not to love about a pile of pups in your lap/feet/floor/everywhere! On the way to the airport, we stopped at Woodstock and looked at one of Jeanne's haunts. Fun to see all the hardware and piles of printer drawers. I saw two women looking at a photo album (the type I collect) and they couldn't figure out why it was upside down. I couldn't either, I've seen several like that - I figure someone tried to repair it and put it in wrong... that's all I can figure. Anyone know? So they bought the album and gave it to me to fix. Hmmmm. Fate is an interesting visitor.

And to answer your question, Linda. Yes, I am taking off Friday and heading to Warrenton, hopefully with Miss Sandy and if not, we'll hook up while we're there. I love the idea of going for 3 days, you lucky duck. Looking forward to a day off, looking at junk albeit expensive junk - let's hope for cooler weather. What about you, Debe?

Oh, and one last thing. I tried priceline and I'm super happy. I wanted to stay at the Renaissance in Amsterdam because of its proximity to the train station but it was $215 or $240 or something so I pricelined it at $125 and got a 4 star... that happens to be the Renaissance. Interesting! Looking forward to their cooler weather next week.

Hey, would you mind leaving a comment? I'm feeling a bit lonely here...

15 days

It's sizing up to be a nice month, the rest of September. I had a good weekend, starting Saturday morning when I headed up to Cypress for a craft fair at the Berry Center. I did my usual - parked on the side, entered and went straight for the back. I found a vintage linens booth with incredible piles of linens neatly ironed and stacked. I was first in and allowed myself a pillow case, table runner and pillow. Oh so pretty embroidery. I walked past a booth with Christmas decorations. You know the kind, it just speaks to you, personally and directly. I have been wanting mill spools. I know, I know, everybody bought mill spools in the 80s, okay maybe 90s. But I don't have a one and I wanted more than one. So I bought 5. One has a scalloped metal edge. Yummy. She also had a cool egg basket, in red. Across the way, she had plastic, kind of like oil cloth (but not)lunch bags. I got a Dick and Jane one and a Queen Elizabeth one, each $8. Did I ever tell you that I collect QE coronation memorabilia? Mostly because my brother loves royalty stuff but I also like it. I've picked up a few very cool items. I will photograph them one day. We also sent a birthday card to the queen one year and she wrote us back, thanking us. Of course, AFTER I bought all that stuff I realized I needed a baby gift for my Milwaukee trip this week. I hemmed and hawed and bought nothing but I saw cute stroller bags made from blue jeans skirts. So, of course I stopped by the Goodwill on the way home and bought two cute skirts. (Are you the kind that can't ever buy just one of something - you always have to buy two. or more? me too). I think I have it figured out - follow me. I will sew a lining to the bottom of the waistband and then sew the bottom of the skirt closed, with the fabric. I will put two grommets on each side (or maybe just one) and run some thick, maybe grosgrain ribbon through to tie it to the stroller. Oh, and add some decorative ribbon trim on the front and back, perhaps I should do that first, before the lining. Okay. I have two chances to get it right.

So Saturday afternoon, some girls came over for crafting goodness and we made decorative blocks ala Julia. We are kicking ourselves for not taking photos (I mean, really, what kinda scrapbookers are we? - okay, Julia isn't a s/b but I am). Because it was so much fun and no one wanted to quit, we made cute Halloween blocks too. Julia is such a talent. I love it because we all had a great time, and when everyone leaves they want to know when's the next time. It's just so much fun. Time to laugh and connect. And BONUS - I got to show off the room of shame! The empty room of shame, that is. (a spare bedroom, that now is truly spare). I still have more work to do for the garage sale, but we're making progress.
Sunday I headed over to Richmond for an auction, this auction. I was a bit surprised. It was smaller in person. It was a good day to attend, very small crowd and low low prices. But there was nothing that I had to have. So I bought a wooden iron board. Mainly because the vintage linens lady from Katy that I'd met the day before said she loved ironing on her wooden ironing board, that there was nothing like it. And I only paid $10. And then I realized when I was driving home. We HAVE an ironing board in our den, in the wall. My house is 50 years old and we left it in... I should go look and see if its wooden. I'm sure it is.

I'm headed up north for a couple of days for work. OMG, its 90 flippin degrees here this week. Disgusting. Its a high of 60 in Milwaukee. Saaaawwweeeeeeet. and yes, I will so enjoy it. Going to see my scrapping peeps and meet Jeanne's dogs. Can't wait. The following week is WARRENTON, can I get a hellyeah. And then to Rotterdam for some even cooler weather and hanging with my Dutch peeps. Okay. wait. I have Dutch colleagues, that's it, they're not peeps. Who am I kidding. I'll report back after Warrenton.