Apron Thrift Girl

Home Again and Catching Up

Spoiler Alert **** if you are Stephanie from Mundane Superhero. I am posting photos from the Vintage Button Swap but I'll save them for the end in case you are reading this.

To start off this posting, we have arrived safely home. We are exhausted and the 854 mile journey home was painful and long. But alas we pulled into the driveway in time to share tales of the exchange with our swap family for an hour until they left on their way to another swap in Canada. We broke their wine glass, they broke our starbucks tumbler and we considered us even. It was an incredible vacation but lovely to be home again.

Yesterday we celebrated Dh's 44th birthday. We are ten years apart. I am 34 and he is 44. We try not to think too much about those years when I was 5 and he was 15 or I was 10 and he was 20. As we know while I was playing with Barbie and Ken kissing away and then some, he was probably doing the same with a British gal he picked up at the pub. But for the most part I appreciate our 10 year gap. He turned 44 on the 30th of July.

Here is Keiran still in his jim jams (not sure of the correct British spelling and dh is outside chopping wood so I can't ask him-google was no help) at 1pm and dh has just opened up a gift of fresh blackberry jam from Cerys. We celebrated the day by opening the English family gifts early so he could call them to give thanks. He had a fantastic gift of Marmite, Marmite crackers and a Marmite cookbook from his sister. We are both pretty much marmite obsessed snackers here. He received a book on how to build chicken coops from his mum and from his dad a book about JFK. We had a full house this weekend with my brother, SIL and new baby Liora visiting as well as SIL, and two nieces visiting from Germany plus my parents who live a couple hours away. We had a lovely meal at a local Mexican restaurant and then home to a gluten free spice cake and frosting for dh. It was one of those lovely, happy days.

I finished my apron for Tie One On.

Elphaba didn't turn out as well as I would have liked but because this is my first apron, I am pretty happy with it. It was a fun challenge and even more challenging since I took it on vacation to finish.

And here are the photos from my first ever blog swap. I wasn't sure whether to stick to the original 12 buttons or not. Since I was just too excited about being in a swap, I found a few other cute items to send to Stephanie too.

And lastly I thought I would end the post with some embarrassing photos. What's a little loss of pride between blogging friends eh?

This is what a packed Eurovan looks like after 854 miles of having a 4 & 6 year old in the back and full to the brim with thifty finds. There was only just room for the children. Keiran threw up in the mountain passes of Oregon which was fun. This photo is when we arrived home. Let me tell you that this van had been packed neatly and in an organized fashion but that was not the case when we arrived home smelly, tired and ready to get out of the van.

What a summer.....

Collectibles - Tuesday List Day

I started collecting when I was young and haven't seemed to stop as an adult. There was a time, years ago, when I had practically every known Strawberry Shortcake item there was available. I kept a handful of things through the years including most of the dolls with Blueberry Muffin being my fav. She and sweet Huck used to have quite a thing going. I remember one of the first things I ever purchased with my own money was a white & blue t-shirt starring Blueberry Muffin. I loved her dearly. I also collected books as a teenager and used to be a bit obsessed about it I'm afraid. I had around 1000 young adult books. The reason I know how many? When I couldn't sleep I would get up and count them all. I kept written lists of them in a binder (which I still have) by publishing company and then in alphabetical order. My addiction to collecting hasn't changed much at all. Here is the top ten list of my favorite collectibles. I'd like to hear some of yours if you have a chance?

10 - Vintage Tablecloths. I must have at least 15 of them and most are stained since I have bought them at thrift stores. I don't mind the stains because I tend to use the tablecloths and with a 4 & 6 year old so they are bound to get even more stained. Plus I can never afford the perfect condition $30.00 ones. My favorites to collect are Vera's. They are getting harder to come by but they are still out there in thrift stores if you look hard enough.

9 - China Tea Mugs. I don't mind if they are modern or old but I love the frail thin type that when you hold it up to the light you can see your hand shadow. My two favorite in my collection are my two Cath Kidston mugs. I have the pink & white polka dot and the green & white polka dot mugs. If anyone is ever near Oxford in the UK there is an amazing Cath Kidston outlet store in a town north of Oxford called Bicester. I was also able to pick up some pink and white striped wall paper for $10.00 a roll there. I plan on lining my inside kitchen cabinets with them.

Two prints from the 50's I bought at the Alameda Market for $5.00 each.

8 - Maxfield Parrish. Maxfield Parrish is my college artist. You know the kind you start to fancy in college because your roommate likes them or they are the "in" artist at the time. Somehow I was introduced to Maxfield Parrish and I fell in love with his work. Ecstasy is my favorite. I have a book of his from the 20's that I inherited from my grandmother whose own mother owned a bookstore in Berkeley called The Studio Book Shop. I named my ebay store after the store. So the book means a lot to me. I also have his collector trading cards set (heaven knows what I'm going to do with these now) and about 8 calendars. I hope to one day own a vintage print but for now I'll happily frame his calendars and call it good. The two pictured above are in the children's room.

7 - Vintage Silk Thread on Wooden Spools. Sometimes it takes just a small introduction of something that influences me enough to start a collection of my own. In Keiran's parent-tot class a couple years ago, the teacher had us working on some sewing while the children played. She had a lot of silk thread on small wooden spools. I loved the colors and the texture of the silk and started to look for them when I thrifted. They are harder to find than cotton thread but the half size spools are easier to spot and are usually at the bottom of a thread basket at yard sales.

$19.99 from Goodwill

6 - Patchwork Quilts. I'm not sure how many I need but if they are cheap enough I tend to buy them in any condition. My favorite will be the one I found this last Sunday. I also found a beautiful quilt from the 40's (I think) at Goodwill for $19.99. The photo is above. Keiran has a patchwork quilt on his bed in browns and other vintage patterns. It is a collection of all sorts of fabric including some bark cloth. I think I found it at the Goodwill outlet in Seattle which they sell items by the pound.

5 - Pink Pyrex Dishes & Appliances. When we bought our cottage a year ago I decided I was going to branch out in a color that I had tended to avoid; Pink! But I found my first Franciscan Desert Rose plate and my color scheme for my kitchen became Pink & Green from that day forward.  Last summer we went to the Alameda Antique Market that Jackie talked about in her comment recently. I found a complete set of the pink gooseberry nesting bowls for $23.00 and scooped them up. My mother had a set in our kitchen but it was the soft yellow set so finding it brought back a lot of nostalgic memories for me. I try to collect other dishes in this line but they are very hard to find. I watch them on eBay but the shipping is too high for me to bid. My favorite item in the entire kitchen is my Sunbeam Mixer in Pink with the original 2 set pink bowls. It is my pride and joy of my kitchen. I would love to find other pink appliances but boy are they hard to find. When they are for sale on eBay the prices are really high. In my year searching for pink items at yard sales/thrift stores, I haven't seen one pink appliance. I found the Mixer at an Antique store in Silverdale.

4 - Jane Dyer Books. She is my all time favorite illustrator.  I'm hoping to eventually have every one of her books. I first fell in love with her illustrations when I discovered Child of Faerie, Child of Earth which was written by Jane Yolen. Together the poetry and illustrations of both Janes are simply breathtaking.

3 - Franciscan Desert Rose. I'm a thrifty collector of these and usually only buy them when they are very cheap. I tend to buy chipped pieces because we use these every week.  Once you are a Franciscan collector though you are in dangerous collecting territory. Franciscan has many similar designs that are just as temping. I found a large set of October dishes that I bought on Craig's List last fall to resell on eBay. I don't remember if it is an 8 piece setting but I purchased it for $150.00. Sometimes 2 dinner plates will sell for $30.00 dollars on eBay so I thought it was a good investment. Of course once I got them home I kind of fell in love with them and haven't had the heart to sell them. I may bring them out this fall for our Autumn dishes.  The last bit of Franciscan I have is Forget Me Not which I found at a thrift store for a very inexpensive price. I only have a few pieces and again I am overcome with this sickness of not being able to part with them. Does anyone else have this? I may need some dish therapy. So many dishes to love and never enough space or money.

2 - Vintage Aprons. You would have thought that these would be my top collectible item but alas it falls to number 2. I love my apron collection and proudly show it off in the kitchen. During the winter it is hidden by rain gear and warm jackets but once those head down to the basement for the summer, my aprons once again shine in their glory. Can you believe I only found one apron on my 3 weeks of thrifting, yard sailing and antiquing? 1 apron. It should be illegal to find so few.

1 - Clarecraft Faeries. I have loved faeries since I was small. I remember my grandmother and I talking about the fairies we danced with at midnight and then shared a cup of tea with. I carried those memories with me all the way into my adult life. When I lived in the UK I came across this amazing collection of Clarecraft Faeries. It breaks my heart to say they have since closed the factory and are not making them anymore. I think I have around 10 of these. I collected them for a long time before I ever had one. I would go to the shops that sold them and peer in their cases. In my heart I was already collecting them even though I couldn't really afford even a small one. Then I gave birth to Cerys and without going to much into detail I had a rough time with tearing and a botched up stitch job which left me in a lot of pain for at least a couple weeks. Dh was kind enough to go into debt and bought me my first fairy. This page is the closest I can get to showing you what they look like. The links do not work because the store has sold out of them but you can kind of get an idea of them through the small photos. My most treasured Clarecraft Faerie is the Faerie Bride. They still sell on eBay from time to time but are generally sold for a lot of money, especially since 99% of them are in the UK and sell for British Pounds instead of dollars. Gulp.

Sebastopol Flea Market

Four days left and counting until we leave Sebastopol. In a way our vacation ends today because David is flying to Texas tonight on work and doesn't return until Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday will be a mess with packing (I honestly don't know how I'm going to do it-remind me next year not to thrift so much)cleaning the house and early Thursday we leave to go home. So to take advantage of the time left, I woke early to get to the Flea Market before it was too hot. It reached 103 today and is pretty baking hot out there right now. Dave is in the pool with the kids and I'm sipping on a lovely decaf ice latte from "My Friend Joe" (who I'm going to miss dearly). The day started rough when I went to "My Friend Joe" and he was closed because Andy's (the nearest natural food store around the corner of which Joe is attached to) lost their power. I haven't been able to drink the sludge Dave has been making in the morning and so Joe and I have become very close friends. But alas I had to keep driving past closed "Joe's". Luckily I found another latte stand and was able to pick up something just as buzzful.

The feeling of driving to a flea market is similar to going to an early morning boot sale in the UK. There is that excited anticipation of the morning ahead. Yard sales have a different feeling. I love both of them equally and really wish there were both yard sales and boot sales in the states. I arrived with a lot of the antique dealers and started hitting the sellers just arriving to sell their goods.I found a small piece of bark cloth right off the bat which improved my morning greatly.

Since I have such a hard time finding any reasonably priced bark cloth, I was really happy finding this. I paid $1.00 for it.  At the same table I also bought an embroidered doily for my button swap partner. Since it is my first ever blog swap I wanted to include some other items besides buttons. The same seller also had a box of scrap fabric. She wanted $15.00 for it. I didn't want to spend that much on it. When I was ready to leave the market to return home, I grabbed a $10.00 bill out of my wallet and asked her if she would accept $10.00 for the box. She said yes and I was relieved. I would have walked away from it but after digging through I found so many neat vintage fabrics so I was glad she accepted my offer.

It seems like there are probably 200 pieces of fabric if not more in the box. It filled two plastic grocery bags completely full.

This should keep my craft room supplied for a few months. If you see anything you have to have, let me know and I would be happy to do a swap.

I grew up in an olive town in Northern California called Corning. It is a half hour from Chico. I learned to ski on Mt. Lassen. I have lots of fond memories of skiing there as a child. My favorite being in 8th grade during the one year I was homeschooled by my father. It was an incredible year and one of our field trips was a ski trip to Lassen with the other homeschoolers and their families. I found this advertisement today for $4.00 and plan to hang it in my kitchen. I will paint the frame white when I return home.

The next item is a great score for me because if you recall a couple weeks ago I found a chenille bedspread for $50.00 at a thrift store. I was disappointed by the price because I thought it would be perfect on Cerys's bed. I came across this for $10.00 and quickly bought it.

It is pink with white chenille and except for a few spots, it is in beautiful condition.

And last but not least is my biggest score. Maybe it ranks up their on my top 10 biggest scores of all time. I was probably 2 hours into the market when a new vehicle arrived. I saw the seller on the way to my car to drop off some of my flea market stash. When I returned to his table I saw this quilt on the corner. I asked how much he wanted for it and the seller said $20.00. I took a better look at it even though I liked what I saw when the seller said "You can have it for $15.00." With shaking hands I found $15.00 and gave it to him quickly. A man standing behind me told me that the quilt is completely hand sewn and probably worth between $200-$300.00.

All of the quilting is even sewn by hand. I am so in love with it.

I had four people ask me about the quilt as I walked around. There is nothing like positive comments to know a girl scored well on an item. Another seller asked me how much I paid for it and then told me that it should be worth at least $200.00. I just think it is a work of art and I can't help wondering who made it and where it came from.

The morning went so well and it was nice driving home with that sweet thrift high. As I pulled onto the highway in the morning sun I couldn't help but shout "Wahoo" out the window in happiness. Isn't thrifting just the best?

She can swim.....

Today was a day to remember for our family. Cerys has learned to swim. Since arriving at the house exchange a week and a half ago we have swam at least twice a day. It has really made our holiday. Well today my 6 year old girl has learned to swim. Yesterday she could do a few strokes but today she just was able to swim across the pool. She is so proud as are we. It was like something clicked in her today and she was able to just do it. It is such an amazing step for her to swim on her own.

The house we are staying at has an Intex pool and we are seriously considering one for our own home. The thing we are nervous about is whether our Pacific Northwest climate can warm the water enough. But it is tempting. I always had a pool growing up and loved the water. Dh who didn't grow up with a swimming pool was very impressed to see both the whirlpool and the tidal wave in action.

Here is dh throwing Keiran in the air.

Another beautiful moment of summer is Cerys's desire to sew. I love the fact that Waldorf kindergarten curriculum includes handy-work. One of the projects every child does before entering 1st grade is to make a Waldorf doll, including the boys. I'm looking forward to my son learning how to sew and knit as my daughter will learn to work with wood. I found this lovely book this week for Cerys.

When I gave it to Cerys she started to carry it around with her anywhere she went. She looked at it constantly and couldn't wait to start crafting from it.

   

Cerys has already started on her pair of mittens. I'm not sure if they'll protect her from the cold at all but her excitement is so sweet.

Cerys traced outside her hand on paper, cut it out and then cut the felt out. As you can see her cuts are a bit rough but I think it will still work well.

Yesterday Cerys and I had an outing to the first dedicated Craft Thrift store I have ever been to. We purchased an entire grocery bag full of felt, thread, wool yarn, fabric and iron on patterns for only $6.75.

The fabric on the right feels very vintage and is my favorite. I think it would make a lovely apron.

These were in the free box at the thrift store. There must be over 100 iron on patterns.

Last but not least are these post cards that I purchased from the most beautiful toy store that I have ever been in. I found two postcards that I hope to use as inspiration for an embroidery project.

 

The bottom post card is an image that comes from a book called "The Princess in the Forest" and it is one of Cerys's favorite stories. I hope to embroider this and frame it for her bedroom. And just to share another tidbit about Cerys, her name is actually pronounced Care-iss and means love in Welsh. Her middle name is Feyth which means the love of fairies. I call her my Welsh fairy girl.

beach, ice-cream & sunshine

Keiran loves his ice-cream. It was a lovely day of coffee, picnics, sunshine, the beach, ice-cream, iced decaf lattes, a BBQ on the patio. Ah...one could get used to this kind of life. Dinner consisted of nitrate free Hot-Dogs, Cascade organic Tater Tots, Organic Corn on the Cob that we put on the BBQ and for desert we had a fruit salad mixed with a teaspoon of raw honey with organic cream. Craft wise I am finishing up my apron for Tied one On and am enjoying having the free time to sew and spend time with the children.

Summer List -Tuesday List Day

Between Dave & I we seem to have seasonal favorites. I think being on holiday has emphasized them even more since we have spent so much time together. What are your summer favorites?

Summer Song: Summer Breeze - Isley Brothers. Now this is only our song because Dave kept singing the main line "Summer Breeze-makes me feel fine" in an early 70's crooner's sort of way. We watched an episode of "How I Met Your Mother" where Ted mentions his favorite song is "Summer Breeze" and ever since then Dave has been belting it out on a daily basis. We now have this weird game of whoever says it first sings "Summer Breeze, First of the Day". It's a "had to be there" moment but I'm sure some of you have similar odd things in your marriage that makes you laugh. Tied for 2nd with our summer song is "Holiday Road" from the movie "Lampoon's Vacation". Every time we hit the road for travel we sing this song at the top of our lungs. The children now join us and I imagine when they are adults they will think of this song fondly as our traveling song.

Summer Drink: Juice Squeeze. We have weaned ourselves off the main brand sodas and exchanged it for Juice Squeeze. It is a delicious carbonated drink that is only fruit juice. Passion fruit Mango is my favorite. We buy these by the case at Costco and so far it is our drink of the summer.

Summer Coffee: 16 oz Latte / Ice Coffee. Pretty dull but delicious. I go off and on with coffee. I know I shouldn't drink it, I know it depletes my body of minerals but I'm just so darn taken with the flavor that I have a hard time avoiding it. Not to mention we are borrowing a $700.00 espresso machine from a friend of David's(to try it out and possibly buy from him-hopefully in payments) who stopped drinking caffeine himself. When I stop drinking it I feel much better and find my natural energy comes back. But I slowly start slipping it in again and I so love the flavor. Have I mentioned that already?

Summer Saying: Do you ever get an annoying expression in your head and use it for everything? I started using a phrase from Forest Gump in June and now Dave and Cerys say it as well. Cerys thinks it is especially funny. I think the original is "Stupid Is As Stupid Does" although I've yet to say that one itself. If it is warm we'll say "Hot is as hot does." One day I was so onto this annoyingly obsessive expression that I nearly said this all day for anything. If someone is a rude driver "Rude is as Rude does" fits extremely well. Great tasting ice cream? "Ice Cream is as Ice Cream Does." It seems to tell all. We are starting to say this less and it will fade away into summer history until a new expression shows itself.

My summer girl...

Summer Destination: California

Summer Cheese: Anything cheddar aged over 2 years. After trying out some 2 year aged cheese at a pre-school end of year potluck I have been hooked. David likes anything cheesy even if it moves like blue cheese. We found some lovely 5 year old cheese here that was scrummy.

Summer Chip: Andy's Cheese Tortilla Chips. Andy's is a local shop just around the corner that is full of health food and organics. I used to love Doritos but it is full of MSG and gluten so I haven't had a chip in years. Andy's makes their own cheese tortilla chips that are the closest thing to Doritos that i have found. They are so delicious and I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask our house swap family to ship me cases of these. Ingredients are: stone ground white corn, safflower oil, sea salt, cheddar, parmeromanoa cheese powders, parm, romano, blue cheese (I'm ignoring this one since I can't taste it) and whey. I can't copy and paste Doritos ingredients but some of them include: MSG, Artificial colors- Yellow 6 lake, Yellow 5 lake, yellow 6 (how else can you get that nuclear orange color?) red 40, red 40 lake, wheat flour (shaking fingers at them), dextrose and sugar (I mean it has to be sweet to keep eating it right?) I think I'll stick with Andy's chips any day.

Summer Show: Frasier - we miss our tivo so much. Tivo to me is probably like the microwave was to my parents. I can't imagine life without it. I'm not a huge tv watcher and we rarely ever have it on until after the children are in bed. But going from plain TV to not Tivo is just plain painful. I introduced Dave to an American part of history the other night by showing him "Footloose". Man where those pants tight in the 80's. At 11:00 I was getting tired and was reaching for my non-existent tivo remote to instantly record the rest when I remembered that I am without tivo. I bit my lip and endured the last half hour of it through partially closed eyes. I think the worse part was sitting through the commercials. But luckily reruns of Frasier are on nightly and are including the last season which I think we missed because of moving or babies or all of the above.

Summer Hobby- Thrifting...need I say more?

Summer Ice Cream Flavor- For me I eat coffee anything from an ice cream shop. It can be mocha, espresso chip or just plain coffee. It is probably my favorite flavor in the world. What's not to love when you mix coffee, cream and sugar? Dh's favorite is Grapefruit sorbet and Cerys's is Watermelon sorbet. Keiran loves it all and tries a different flavor each time with much of it ending up on face and shirt.

I think that pretty much sums it up. I was aiming to get this out last night but was too tired to blog. Shopping just does that to a girl doesn't it. Happy Summer. I'd love to hear some of your summer favorites if you have the chance.

Keiran at the round house at Train Town in Sonoma.

ps. sorry for all the corrections. I type this in the kitchen on dh's laptop with children running around so it is usually full of half sentances and words you'll never find on spell check. I accidently hit save instead of spell check and without reading it for errors.....silly me. Then I am obviously in vacation mode and thought it was Wednesday but it is Tuesday of course making this Tuesday list day and not day late list day. It's 10:27 am and I'm going back to bed....

The Story of the Kitty & the Quilt

Today marks the day for completing my first ever stuffed animal. It was interesting, fun and now I'm going to have a hard time parting with her. But she is a gift to my new niece of my brother who I am very close to. I think it is fitting that this gift will go to her. Because my niece is a mere 2 months old I decided to not use the buttons on the eyes as well as her outfit. I'm hoping that this kitty will be loved, slobbered on and cherished rather than kept on a high shelf for safety reasons.

I purchased the pattern from the Wee Wonderful's Store. I just checked and she has more available in her store currently. It was a very easy pattern to follow and luckily I had the house swap Bernina to work on so the entire process from start to finish went extremely well.

Onto my next project. A couple days ago I mentioned a picnic quilt. Yesterday at a sidewalk sale I found a perfect picnic blanket size oil cloth that was white with green polka dots. My idea at the moment is for the oil cloth to be the bottom of the quilt. I am going to use the Hawaiian bark cloth shirt fabric as well as some green gingham I found in a thrift store. I took a sample of both of these and drove to the local quilting shop. I felt a bit like a dork having to ask really newbie questions. Questions the shopkeeper probably roller her eyes for. Swallowing my pride, I asked away since I wanted to get this right. I asked her if she remembers her first quilt. She told me that it was a disaster and she threw it away. Gulp. I think she could have lied for the sake of a nervous newby.  She could have told a colorful tale that wasn't quite so near the truth. Never mind, I imagine she didn't have the supportive community of bloggers back in her day like I have.

 

What do you think of the colors you expert quilters? I tried not to over coordinate but at the same time I tried to go with a theme. I am not sure if there is any quilting tools here so I may have to wait until I arrive home and use my sad, second rate machine. Although dh was hinting that if I can save our family money by mending clothing or something like that we may be able to save up for a Bernina. I can't picture me mending clothing but I never quite imagined making a stuffed animal either. The fabric is sitting on top of the green polka dot oil cloth.

Here's a different angle of kitting sitting down.  She's quite the poser that funny feline.

Farm Chicks - Favorite Item Saturday

When I write a blog entry for Saturdays, I hope the links and info I share are more than an advertisment. I will only share with you items that I believe in or would buy myself. It will generally be thifty and if not I will hopefully have tips on where to get this item thrifty. Sometimes items will be recycled or just plain eco-friendly but usually they will stay in the realm of being chic.

Today's item comes from one of my favorite Websites: The  Farm Chicks
These gals are local to Washington State and twice a year they host the Farm Chicks Antique Show. Their next event is in September. I've yet to go but each time they come around I am itching to head East to attend. Maybe some of us Seattle bloggers could make a girl's weekend of it sometime. 

The items I am highlighting today are the Vintage Wallpaper Pendants. The one I have is their Sweet Rose and on the back they have used old sheet music which is encased in glass. It comes with a chain. I actually received an email coupon for $5.00 off any order over $20.00. Well of course since the necklace was $18.00 I then had to buy another item. I located their cheapest item; a Farm Chicks bumper sticker for $3.00 and checked out using my coupon code.  The bumper sticker shines proudly on my Eurovan and to tell the truth I kind of had to sneak it on. Our last van was covered in stickers and we kind of mentioned that we might avoid any more stickers on the new van possibly, kind of, sort of, maybe (she says cheekily). Well, a savings is a savings and you don't normally find such chic looking stickers in pink and brown so it had to go on the van.

Once Upon a Blue & Green Summer

Does anyone else change their color interest? I know, odd question but about a month ago I started taking notice of the lime green and blue colors. It may have started when I found a lime green sweater at Goodwill and felt kind of Spring-like in it. It was a welcome change from my typical outfit of browns & pinks which I wore most of winter and fall. 

Today I went thrifting to a place called Rohnert Park, a town south of Santa Rosa. The sun was shining, my double tall latte was hot and I headed out of town. I hit 4 thrift stores & 1 scrapbook store during my morning out.

 

These colors were purely accidental. It wasn't until I was unloading my thrift stash when I realized that I went a bit crazy on the ol' blue/green combo. I'm not complaining (I'll save that for our drive North when I have to somehow pack it all into our already crowded Eurovan). I'm happy with everything I found. And it kind of is artistic in a thrift obsessive sort of way. My biggest find for $1.00 was a book that I have been searching after for at least 6 months. It is a Betty Crocker book illustrated by Tasha Tudor and is perfect addition for both my Tasha Tudor collection and my Betty Crocker Cookbook collection.

The inside pages have illustrations of both garden, children and family.

I have come across some other blogs with many mentions of Bark Cloth. This one especially describes all of her beautiful bark cloth curtains she has found for pennies (or pence). I have been searching for bark cloth for ages and have found 1 item in my thrifty price range. I actually own two small scraps both of which I am proud of but I am hungry for more. Today I found not exactly what I was looking for but it does qualify as bark cloth. If you noticed on the top photos, everything is on top of something loud, proud and definitely green and blue. That is one vintage Hawaiian bark cloth shirt.

I'm thinking that this above fabric ($2.00) will be the inspiration for my picnic quilt that I mentioned yesterday. It is actually small blue flowers with green leaves although it looks kind of gray here. Do you think the loud & proud shirt would look good with this? Keiran has a patchwork quilt on his bed with some bark cloth and I love the feel of it in a quilt. It is so soft and welcoming.

Did I really need to find so many vintage glasses that I have to pack and drive 854 miles with? Every time I found a new breakable item today at Vinnie's I just sighed, cringed and placed them in my basket. I did leave behind 4 oval Pyrex plates with blue trim as well as an avocado green fire-king mug (20 cents). 

You know I really didn't need the top dish. But do you see the inside powder blue it has? I just couldn't part with it. I could picture having a meal with friends and serving some vegetables from it. Maybe even a soup with these new bowls. I picked up a single plate of this design earlier in the week thinking it was so retro and cool. How could I resist 4 matching bowls for 50 cents each?

Do you remember these ice packs from the movies? Or maybe you had one in your childhood. Not that I want any bonks on the heads but I hope to put this to use one day. I like everything to have a place and a reason for it when it comes into my home. This ice bag cost $1.00 but it was 1/2 off everything day at S.A.

Now to Work In Progress Friday- I finally finished cutting out my Wee Wonderfuls pattern. I started it before I left, worked on it at Mt. Shasta while camping and finally finished cutting it out last night.

I started sewing her today and I made an incredible revelation. I thought for years I was simply crap at sewing. I loved it, I was also drawn towards fabric, patterns and notions but when it came to a sewing machine and I, it was pretty much a hate/hate relationship. There weren't even the good ol' years back in the 80's to reminisce about. I blamed myself and figured I just wasn't meant to sew well. I had crooked seams and weird stitches that looked plain wrong. Tonight I realized it wasn't me at all. It was the machine. I have always used a Singer Sewing machine. My mother had one and I purchased one as an adult. I think I went kind of cheap on mine as budget was more important than anything else. Plus I knew my machine would still be used by an average if not below average seamstress. Tonight changed everything when I hauled out the sewing machine belonging to our house swap family. It was a Bernina. I have heard of this name but it didn't mean too much too me. I started sewing. Oh. My. Goodness. It was an amazing experience. All of the sudden I had straight stitches. Everything I did on that machine was perfect. I realized that the foot pedal is less sensitive than mine therefor allowing a slower pace of sewing. But just everything about the machine was amazing and tomorrow I will hopefully stuff the little cat. How am I ever going to go back to my pathetic and below average machine?

Last photo of the day. Isn't it odd that both WIP items are also blue & green? This is a tea towel that I am making for my SIL who lives in the UK. It is my first embroidery project.

Dh left us this evening for a baseball game in San Francisco. We kept dinner simple with an Amy's Organic Rice Flour (GF) pizza along with a salad and water to drink. It was delicious and tasty and a great way to end the day.

Water, Sun & Sand

Does anyone else have a DH (Darling Husband) who comments on your blog? I actually don't mind since he is on the funny side but I've yet to see another dh that leaves comments. If you know of one please let me know. Dh said yesterday in my comments "all the thrift stores were closed today". Well that we know is far from the truth but I did stick with the family today as we headed out to Bodega Bay. Does anyone remember the Hitchcock movie "The Birds" . Here is the old school that was apparently featured in the film. I haven't seen it for nearly 8 years and can't exactly remember the scene but it was worth taking a picture of for the sake of the blog.

We left early but not before stopping off for lattes (dh got me a 4 shot!) and picnic food. We arrived at the beach around 10:30am and were both buzzed on coffee. I swear coffees are larger here in California than in Washington. Maybe I'm just used to "tall double latte" rolling off my tongue that I don't notice any size larger than a 12 ounce.

The beach was sunny and warm and we layed out our beach blanket (deciding that instead of using nice floral blue Target blanket, would make own first patchwork blanket as soon as able -maybe picking up fabric from summer vacation for a memory quilt). The children ate some lovely sticky sweet honeycomb with dripping honey from Wednesday's farmer's market and I vowed silently never to mix honeycomb & sand again. After eating sticky honeycomb they raced to the water's edge to play in the cold surf. Dave started his sand castle/mote/river routine and I was able to lay out on the blanket wearing my new (2nd hand) sun hat to read my new Katie MacAlister book "You Slay Me". I love Katie MacAlister, especially her lovely bent humor which sometimes matches my own.

Here are Dave & Keiran hard at work. Basically at the end of our beach time they somehow had the water climbing up hill through their dug river to fill the mote at the seaweed covered sand castle. They were both very proud.

This picture of Cerys playing in the sand reminds me of Da Vinci's painting "Head of a Young Woman" (not too fancy on the painting titles back then were they). The link is actually to a page about the movie Ever After, since the painting of Drew Barrymore copies Da Vinci's painting but it also has the original painting by Da Vinci. I like capturing the children when they do not know I am watching them.

Here is Keiran giving me one of those kind of fake smile-mum-has-her-camera-out smiles and to boot he is looking away. But I thought the photo was still cute enough to share since he is covered with sand.

We drove home tired and sandy but we felt relaxed. We arrived home and the children and dh went to swim while I headed out in search of dinner. Tonight Dave cooked some large shrimp with lemon pepper & lime juice and with it we had an organic spring salad mix with Annie's Naturals organic sesame ginger vinaigrette (which she states on the bottle that it is Gluten-Free-a major plus for me), and organic heirloom tomatoes with olive oil and Celtic sea salt sprinkled on top. We drank a fruity sweet Gewurtz wine with our meal and finished the evening with an organic yellow watermelon from the Farmer's Market. I won't mention my sunburn as it is not very eco-chic but definitely ranks up there on the eco painful scale.