Apron Thrift Girl

correcting the past

Thanksgiving Day Camp - complete with camp nature table

As families gather together I usually get sucked into contemplating about my childhood and about the past. When we made the choice to move to California in order for the children to attend an accredited and established Waldorf school, we also made the choice to leave behind my mother, father, brother, sister-in-law and young niece. This decision brought a lot of guilt even though in my heart I knew that my own two children are the main focus of my life. Practically every thing that we have done since they were infants has been for the benefit of the children. I sacrificed our bed to co-sleeping, suffered the initial pain of breastfeeding to giving them the best milk possible, practiced intentional parenting and worked extremely hard to give them an upbringing that would nourish their bodies and minds. One of the most negative aspects of attachment parenting can be the relationship between the parents. A child is either in the bed or nursing most of the time during the first few years. We rarely used a babysitter which meant that dates included children (anniversaries too). There were some very difficult days when we used to question if what we were doing was right. As time unfolds and they grow older I can start to really see the results of our parenting. And let me tell you it is so beautiful.

My own parents grew up in the Bay Area and soon after they married in 1961 they made the choice to leave the city to raise their children in the country. They wanted to give their children a different childhood to the one that they both experienced. They drove up to Tehama County in Northern California and bought 40 acres that included an overgrown olive orchard. The town we grew up in had a mere 2,500 people when I was a young child. For a spirited and somewhat creative child this town was not beneficial to me. My energy and spirit both were crushed on many occasions. I had only a few teachers in my 12 years of being educated in this small town that really understood me and liked me. When I graduated from this school (that focused mainly on sports), I had no direction in life at all. I didn't know who I was, what I wanted to do or how to erase the angst of my childhood education. I was broken, hurt and for the next six years I wandered around aimlessly without a clue of what to do.

My past is partly why I am dedicating such a large part of my life to help my children. I want them to graduate from high school with confidence and direction. I don't have any expectation for them for college or anything, I just want them to do something that feeds their passion. I had so much passion inside me but it was pounded away for 12 years that I didn't know how to deal with it. When it would arise as a young adult I would be cautious because I didn't want to be berated or teased.

Facebook is guilty of bringing back lots of childhood memories. I've been tagged in a few photos, ones that make me literally cringe. I was so uncomfortable in my childhood body. I see comments by school mates about high school being the time of their life. Their beautiful photos express this clearly. They looked fabulous, confident and above all, they looked happy. A part of me is jealous when I curiously have to look at their photos. I was so miserable in high school, always dressing the wrong way, saying inappropriate things, trying to make people laugh at their expense (or mine) and just begging for some attention. I was desperate on the best of days.

Yet I can't hold my parents blame for the choices they made. They were working hard to give us a childhood that was better than theirs. They felt that the country was the answer.  Even though as an adult I secretly crave the thought of being raised in Berkeley in the 70's. I hope that one day my brother can understand why I left Seattle. Maybe conversation between the two of us can be comfortable again rather than awkward. He chose to leave the Bay Area to be close to my parents and us. I encouraged the move not realizing that we would be taking our family in the opposite direction only two years later.

My mother is sick with cancer which adds to my guilt. And I think for the rest of my life I will have a sad place in my heart that I made the decision to move our family to California instead of staying up with her. It wasn't an easy decision because there were so many complicated emotions with it. Yet I have to focus on the future and that future consists of Cerys and Keiran and their education. And being the dreamer that I have always been, I want the best for them. I want them at the best Waldorf school in an area rich with opportunity. Anything less would feel like a betrayal to them.

Maybe I am sharing too much here. I have these swirling emotions after a rocky Thanksgiving and I have this pressure in my chest to write down my thoughts. As I have shared thoughts like this in the past about my childhood, I recall that many of you have experienced similar ones. As adults so many of us are all still healing and striving to correct the past.

a time capsule oven

Here is our time capsule oven in the 1960's ranch house that we are renting.

At first glance I thought it was adorable. Then we tried to bake in it and it wasn't quite so adorable.

So I was happy to find this recipe in this magazine for a space-saving bird. When I bought my free-range organic turkey yesterday I batted my eyelashes kindly or possibly weirdly and begged the butcher to please "butterfly my turkey". Before this recipe I didn't even know such a maneuver existed for a turkey. And if the butcher had said no I would have panicked because I certainly don't know how to butterfly one on my own. I wouldn't know where to begin. But he did say yes (after exaggerating to him that my oven is literally the size of a single brick) and I'll be giving thanks to him tomorrow at the dinner table when we sing our blessing.

I'm still not certain that the turkey will fit in the small oven so our back up plan is to BBQ the bird. It's suppose to be 65f tomorrow which still qualifies as BBQ weather in my book. The recipe even includes instructions for cooking it on the grill. Either way we should be covered.

I finally sat down with magazines and cookbooks last night to create this menu.

Appetizer: Hot artichoke spinach dip (Food Network Magazine pg 80) with homemade tortilla chips.

Dinner:

• Crispy cornbread (pg 142 Country Living Magazine)
• Lemon glazed sweet potatoes (pg 142 Country Living Magazine)
• Pimento-cheese potato gratin (pg 143 Country Living Magazine)
• BBQ Brussels Sprouts (covering them in olive oil, murray river salt & pepper)
• Cranberry Sauce (Martha Stewart Cookbook pg 274)
• Butterflied Turkey w/apple cranberry glaze (pg 155 Food Network Magazine)

Desert: Wholefoods Gluten Free Crust with Martha Stewart Pumpkin Pie filling (pg 490)

Beverage: wine, organic sparkling apple juice & TJ's sparkling blood orange juice.

I don't tend to stick to a traditional menu that we follow every single year. I mix it up, change it around and above all try to make sure that everything is packed full of flavor. The entire menu of course is gluten free. We'll be cooking all day but it's what we love to do. Blessings on your Thanksgiving (or happy Thursday to everyone not celebrating).

creating

My three fiber art pieces are now in my Etsy store. I'm working on two more at the moment and plan to finish them in the next few days. Call me super crazy but I don't even have our Thanksgiving Menu planned and I haven't purchased a single items for our meal. California has just thrown me off for what time of the year it is. It's going to be 69 today which in Bainbridge Island terms is late August/early September. It certainly isn't usually the end of November. In my head I'm still preparing for Hallowe'en. I'm okay though because I work best with quick arriving deadlines. I'll do my menu tonight, shop tomorrow or this evening (late) and still feel relaxed come Thursday. Anyone else behind in their Thanksgiving preparations?

I wanted to share with you my three pieces of fiber art.

 "Mod Reindeer"

"Owl Moon"

and my favorite "Lion and the Pomegranate".

after the show

The Vintage Holiday Boutique went better than I had expected. It's funny but to me it wasn't just about selling. I adored connecting with people over the vintage wares that I had on display. Lots of women were drawn to the vintage patterns. Many said to me with a smile that they remembered wearing dresses like the one in the pattern that they held fondly in their hand. Some purchased patterns at the mere memory of the past. The packs of "Cocktail Party" cards practically flew off the table. I love the idea of women taking them home and planning their own vintage cocktail party. Being there at the show, in an environment that honors what is vintage was incredibly heart warming. It was also touching to see the nostalgic look in everyone's eyes as they looked through old Betty Crocker books, picked up a pack of vintage children's book illustrations or set their eyes on the 1940's patchwork quilt. It's part of the reason that I love vintage so much. It evokes emotions, often more than buying something in the retail world.

I plan on doing another follow up post tomorrow with photos and links to some of the other amazing vendors in the show. Here are some pictures of my booth before the show.

Here is one of my art pieces in the glow of the fairy lights. This Lion and two other pieces will be placed in my Etsy store on Monday.

I have one more craft show planned this season. It's going to be here.  I hope to see you there.

glimpses of the past

One of those great thrifting moments is when you stumble upon an unadvertised yard sale on a Sunday in the middle of the afternoon. Keiran and I sneaked out to the last day of an estate sale where everything was discounted by up to 50% off. After spending a half hour at the estate sale we started our drive home. That was until I saw a "Sunday Only Yard Sale" sign and started following the trail of signs on various streets to a very small but fabulous yard sale. The woman was selling items from either her grandmother or her husband's grandmother. I don't remember exactly what she said. Her prices were so cheap and what I took away were simply charming glimpses of the past.

Inside this hand embroidered bag was an attached change purse and this mirror:

Can anyone guess what time period this is from?

 
This one is rather damaged with spotting. I didn't leave it behind though. Couldn't leave it behind.

This one opened up so uniquely... 

Such delicate bead work. The other side has some patches where beads are missing. I'm not quite sure what to do with any of them. I do love holding them, opening their little latches and taking a peak inside only imagining what they once held. Perhaps one of those tiny books that were ever so popular in the past before they had invented Kindles & iphones.

3 French compacts (one with original powder) and a German cigarette case.

My most favored item was this vintage belt. I love the detail of the design. Some pieces are missing but it's still complete enough to be beautiful. Now I have my own vintage bling.

This is only half of what I brought home. I also bought about 10 vintage tins, 2 art prints, a quilt topper (quite worn) and some vintage clothing. She charged me $10 and I gave her $20. This was a case where I felt that even $20 was an incredible deal. If I had accepted her $10 price I would feel guilty. Now to decide what to do with them all. Any suggestions?

to market to market

I've read each of your replies about my art question and I really appreciate hearing about your own experiences. I think I have a better picture of how to go about pricing my work. Speaking of pricing, I've spent all day in my office going through bins of vintage items in preparation for Saturday. Pricing vintage items feels far more comfortable than pricing my art. Second hand is my own language so the hours spent pricing were enjoyable. I thought I would share some of my tips on how to prepare for a market.

Like so many things in our culture, presentation and first impression is everything. When a seller has a booth at a flea market or a craft market they have very little time to lure a potential buyer closer. Many busy shoppers glance at a booth and decide to walk in or their eyes slowly glance over at the table and they move on before they even touch anything. We want to do everything to convince the buyer (without begging) to stay and take a second look at our booth.

I start with a pricing basket.

Included in my pricing basket:

• Straight Pins
• Martha Pens
• Stamp Pad
• Vintage Ribbon
• White Price Tags with string
• Large Price Tags
• Post-it notes for no other reason than I love post-it notes
• Scissors
• Price Stickers
• Tape

My childhood "shop", that I still have the warmest memories of, was called the "Do-It-All" Shop. I sold many items including painted rocks, coupons for future jobs like make one phone call, clean windows (coupons that my sweet mother bought and never used) or tickets to silly shows where I would dance around or pretend that I was in a circus. I also was writer and illustrator for a family newspaper fondly called The Unicorn News. I guess I was born with the entrepreneur spirit. I think when it comes to running a yard sale or a flea market/craft booth, I'm sort of just playing shop.

This is why I make the effort to package up items and make them look good. I love this part of selling things.

I try to write down the size of the vintage fabric and carefully pin the price tag to each piece. Each piece is folded neatly and displaced in a basket.

I print out small signs for items rather than handwritten ones. I include my ATG logo.

Items are packaged using cellophane sleeves and priced using tags & stamps. Pictured here are vintage cocktail invitations (groups of 8), vintage Christmas labels with illustrations, vintage Christmas decals & a vintage address book.

Books are individually priced with stamped tags. I have taped them on with a somewhat not-so-sticky kind of tape. I can't bring myself to writing the price inside or placing a stronger price sticker on the front that may damage the book. These books will be in a simple and thrifted basket most likely on the ground near the table. I also have some vintage mid century modern ads that I have placed in cellophane bags and priced with a printed ATG label.

Artwork is priced and placed on stands or easels.

Wool felt squares from vintage blankets are neatly stacked. A small price sign with description is still yet to be printed.

Lastly I have a small sign and business cards with my contact details. It's lovely to contemplate repeat customers so why not make it easy for them to visit your website, shop or to email you?

Many of the items that I use for displaying items have been purchased at garage sales or in thrift stores including the longeberger basket ($10) that is holding the vintage books. I often find pens, labels, price tags and scissors for sale second hand. If you have plans to take part in a flea market this summer, now is the perfect time to start searching for your marketing supplies. 

I'm very excited about Saturday. I still have a million things to do, more items to price and more artwork to craft before Saturday morning. It's been a crazy week but a lovely one full of energy and anticipation.

pricing art

I went to a beautiful craft show on Saturday. I walked around with Keiran and we looked at each booth and admired everything. Of course I wanted many items but I walked away with having spent $5.00 on 3 enameled pennies. When you are a thrifter you start to get a mindset at the cost of items. Or maybe I should change that to the price that I want to pay. That isn't to say the artists don't deserve every dollar that they charge. They probably should charge even more. I personally have a hard time spending money on well....anything that cost a lot. I love handcrafted items and I am working harder to accept spending money on them. I love to support local businesses and especially local artists.

Which brings me to my current quandary. I've finally settled on some art that is stirring my blood. I've bounced around from craft to craft dabbling a little bit in cross-stitch, trying my hand somewhat badly at painting, striving to sew something that has a straight stitch and yet I finish or not finish a project and I don't feel that I would want this framed, on my wall or for heaven's sake something that I might wear. I don't tend to give up though and when another craft comes my way I try once again.

I've watched Jodi start off as a blogger who did a bit of painting on the side and become someone who is regularly in art magazines, has art showings and is selling her paintings left and right. A part of me wants that too. Is that a bad thing to admit? I mean we all have dreams right? I have way too many and some I will admit might not ever happen. I really want to be in a movie. I nearly got to be in one when a walk on role appeared at our school auction but it fell through. Maybe one day a film will be set in Sonoma County and I can get a part as an extra. Or at least help furnish the set with thrifted items. I also want to publish books, start a magazine, create a Thrift Conference, set up a non-profit to furnish homes with high quality 2nd hand items, illustrate a children's book, become a graphic artist and so on. But I really, really love the idea of being an artist even if I'm not using the traditional mediums of canvas and paint.

Over the last six months I played around with a medium that worked well with my crafty skills. I've finished two pieces and have started a third. I've never felt so much passion before about a craft. It just seems to be unfolding naturally and ideas are coming to me like crazy. I have to write them down before I forget them. I'm probably building it up too much here on my blog, but for me this is an exciting thing. I wake up in the morning anxious to start on my next piece.

My quandary though has to do with placing value on art. For those artists or crafters, can you share with me a little insight on how you price your art? Are there websites or books that you might suggest I read? I looked at Etsy regarding embroidery and the prices are all over the map. Some people put so little value on their art that I would turn away from their store feeling down that they aren't charging more.

For those that don't sell but instead buy ,how much do you usually pay for a handcrafted item? Is that a silly question? I'd love any help that you might offer. Here's a tiny peak at my 2nd piece.

This was taken when it was a work in progress.

I'm planning to bring them to the Petaluma Vintage Holiday Boutique on Saturday to test the waters. I'll probably place them in my Etsy store next week if I bring them home with me. Looking forward to your thoughts.

a new outlet - Santa Rosa Goodwill

The 138 boxes of our things in the garage are starting to drive me a little crazy. When I packed the house up months ago I really didn't want to see my things again. At least not until I recovered from moving.  Of course now that it is November I keep remembering things that I desperately want. The two things I wish most for:  a little white tree (for the Vintage Holiday Boutique on Saturday) and my numbers rubber stamp set that I use for pricing. Both are missing and I just don't have the heart to go searching through all of the boxes. At the weekend I did bring in three boxes marked Crafts and was reunited with my glass glitter, roving, woolly yarn, pens, paper and lots of other sweet things that make my heart sigh happily. A part of me knows that I could really live without these things for another six months. I shouldn't really get too settled in our rental since it is so short term but how can I resist boxes full of crafty goodness?

I popped out to Michaels today in search of rubber stamps to replace the ones that are missing. When did Michaels cut back on their stamp stock? The store in Santa Rosa has a pitiful little selection. I searched online for a local stamp store but I can't seem to find one either. Are stamps already so last year?

Although it's retail I was very excited to see this new collection at Michaels. I did pick up a few items for a certain girl's stocking. 

The above item is a packet of stickers featuring American Girl Dolls. They also have craft kits, pens, glue, tape and more.

I left Michaels and popped into the Santa Rosa Goodwill Outlet. Let me start off by saying that it is very different than the one in Seattle. A little whimper initially escaped my lips when I stepped into the store and looked around. It's so much smaller and I found it grimier and the bins are really full of trash mixed in with a few finds. I did manage to spend an hour there, spent $6.00 and brought these home.

 

They are in need of a good cleaning but for $6.00 I don't mind working a little extra to make these beautiful.

 

The cast iron pot is a fondue set by the Danish company Digsmed. I found lots of mid century items which really surprised me. While the fondue pot appears to be quite soiled, it's actually in very good condition underneath all the grease.

Remember these strange looking chairs? The cashier charged me $1.00 for the chair and $5.00 for the rest. The pricing is very different from Seattle too. Rather than set prices per pound, the cashier made the decision on how much to charge me by looking over the items that I had collected. Yet the woman in front of me had some simple leather boots and was charged $5.00. Maybe the cashier thought my vintage lot was just old junk which something I'm just fine with. You also aren't able to take your carts around the store to the bins. You have to park them on the side all clustered together in a mess, rush to the bins, collect stuff and return back to the shopping cart to unload. When the new bins are brought out people act like piranhas trying to lay their hands on anything and everything they can. I would be uncomfortable there with small children as there isn't much space between the rows of bins. I nearly got trampled on by a burly gentleman who nearly leaped over me to get to a small bin of legos.

I still enjoyed myself and plan to return. I think spending at least 2-3 hours would be worth the effort. This may sound like a long time to some but on a thrifter's clock it would actually feel more like 45 minutes. Time is really altered when you are thrifting and concentrating on what you are doing. Have you ever lost time thrifting? Or got the dreaded call from your dh wondering where you are? I'm very guilty of this.

entertaining once again

It's been months and months since we last entertained in our home. I adore inviting friends over to cook a warm hearted meal for them. Once we started packing up our Bainbridge Island house we realized that our house was not fit for guests. It was barely inhabitable for us let alone inviting friends over for a meal.

Tonight we invited new friends into our home and shared the English tradition of a Sunday Roast.  Since this was our first meal with our new friends we went with our staple let's-hope-to-impress-our-friends meal. Fingers crossed that it worked.

I've relaxed a lot with my entertaining ever since I first started reading the Reluctant Entertainer.  I'm so embarrassed to admit that used to be rather uptight about even allowing anyone into our home. It was never clean enough, nice enough, decorated enough and so on.  Although I'll still admit that I felt a bit uneasy tonight when I realized that I didn't have 8 matching forks, plates or cups. And I have no idea where the wine glasses went. Maybe in a box in the garage? Instead we drank out of some 80's smoky gray goblets, which the guests said that they had no problem with. The more wine the merrier? Overall we felt that Dave & I could pull the meal off even when our table wasn't going to be something out of a magazine.

And should I mention our 1960's oven? It is as lovely as anything with the glass doors and teak handles. It's right out of a time-capsule house. I raved and raved about it when we first moved in. But then I cooked in it and my raving switched gears to muttered complaints. It doesn't seem to keep in the heat which as you can imagine is sort of important when it comes to an oven. My brownie cupcakes took 40 minutes to cook instead of the suggested 22 minutes. Our roast chicken never obtained it's normal crunchy skin that we all usually all have to fight for. It took hours to cook them and there was no fighting for skin.

 

Even with the mismatched dishes and the slow cooking food we could have had our meal off of paper plates and still had a delightful time this evening.

 
A little part of me was excited to spend time around our relatively new table, one that didn't need a table cloth to hide it because it was so badly stained and unattractive to the eye. Hiding the tile might be considered criminal among some thrifters.

We kind of went the easy route with the English Roast since our two vintage ovens are tiny and don't really work. We roasted 2 organic chickens, a mix of roasted potatoes, parsnips, onions & carrots and we finished off the meal with some buttered leaks. I also went simple with some gluten free brownies for desert.

My favorite kind of meal really isn't about the food but it's the kind where you can barely get a word in amongst all the laughter. The wine poured freely and with that came funny story after funny story. Cerys was a little annoying as she went into the showoff mode though. Why does that happen? Other than that it was practically perfect. 

When we raised our glasses at the beginning of the meal we all gave thanks to new friends. As someone who spent months of the year (aka the winter) with a saddened heart up in the north of the country, I just can't express enough how happy this move has made me. Friends of course make it even nicer. I swear there is something magical in that sunlight. Or maybe it's something to do with being close to where I was born. Has anyone come home (or near home) after many years only to feel like they are in the right place in the world? That it feels good in their soul?

To end this Sunday post on a thrifted note, every single last item on the table (including the beeswax candles) was thrifted. The plates, cups, goblets, pottery serving dishes, cloth napkins, plates, groovy wine barrel candle holder and even the table was second hand. Even living on a frugal budget, you can still surround your life with beautiful things.

collecting miles/points

I love getting something for nothing when it is achieved honestly of course. Airmiles or Points Cards are a pretty easy way to get the goods for free. Our family credit card is with Hilton and we collect enough points every year to get a few nights free in the Embassy Suites. I have such a hard time paying $80-$150 dollars a night for a hotel room, especially the not so nice ones. It feels like such a high price to pay for only a 12 hour stay. I usually don't sleep too well in polyester covers and pillows. I'm also spoiled with my thrifted once-expensive-new duvet and my thrifted feather pillows. I crave luxury and comfort for a thrifted price. The last duvet I bought cost $15 and was the fanciest one that I had ever seen on the second hand market. It came from Italy and you couldn't feel a single stem of a feather like some of the cheaper ones being produced. It was plush and incredibly soft and you usually have to tempt me out of bed with a cup of warm coffee. I mean I'm in my 30's now and I like a comfy night's sleep.

Dave and I have been collecting different airline miles since we married in 1997. Dave had some United Airmiles from before we met. A couple of months ago he told me that they were going to expire at the end of October. We didn't want to use them for a flight somewhere so we delayed making a decision of what to do with them. Being the procrastinators that we uh me sometimes are, we waited until the last second. And when I say last second I mean we were in Dave's home office at his computer 15 minutes before they were going to expire. I don't recall how many miles we had but we quickly purchased a bunch of restaurant vouchers were you spend $50 and you get $25 off your meal. We then bought Keiran a lego firetruck that we will give him for Christmas and we finally we spent the rest on this:

 

It's not terribly expensive if you buy it new but it's something that we probably would never have gone out and bought on our own. It's an LG Blu-Ray Disc Player, (BD 370 for those that like tech stuff). What I am so excited about is the fact that we can somehow hook it up to be wireless (I think) and it lets us watch downloadable Netflix movies as well as videos on YouTube. It does lots of other fancy things that I don't understand. I'm hoping Dave will figure it all out so that I all I have to do is stick in a disc and press play. We don't own a single blu-ray disc but it does play regular DVD's. 

One of the reasons that I am drawn to frugality is so I can live a rich life by being surrounded by luxurious things that I pay very little for. I don't mind if someone has owned it before me. I just want something that will last. I don't want to own furniture made of MDF junk that cracks or crumbles when you look at it the wrong way. I am usually able to pay the same price or far less for a high end, solid furniture at yard sales and thrift stores.

Collecting airmiles (especially for families who fly a lot either for business or pleasure) or collecting store points can really can add up. I doubt when Dave signed up for his United Miles back in the mid 1990's that he would ever imagine getting a Blu-Ray DVD player, a lego toy and restaurant vouchers. Of course I don't think Blu-Ray even exist back then.

Have you ever used airmiles or points to earn something fabulous? What was it? I find that our earned hotel nights are far more satisfying than paying for it with our credit card. There's just something so lovely about getting something for free. Next time an airline offers you an Airmile Card application I highly recommend that you take the time to fill it out. It just might be worth your effort.