Long Lost Relatives......

Yesterday I was visiting The Magic Onions. While reading about their big Garage Sale Day I noticed that one her favourite finds was a little red vintage elf. What was so amazing was that I too bought a very similar elf on our garage sale day. The similarity is uncanny, I believe that we have two long lost relatives! My elf is green and does have some condition issues, a chip, rubbed off paint there but he's adorable.

Do you know anything about these elves? I have never seen them before but they are so cute that I could easily see them becoming one of my "must look for" items. Oh geez, no collectibe figurines! I always said that I would never collect figurines ............

I am working on tomorrows post, it will be all about my most recent crafting and future crafting aspirations. :)

A Great Weekend..........

We had a wonderful weekend starting with a FAB Estate Sale that Max and I went to on Saturday morning. This has become a tradition for us, Max calls it "adventuring". We adventure around for a few hours and the husband gets a quiet house . Well this Saturday we found a treasure trove of wonderful items which you can see below:

This is all of our booty, actually not all of it.

The rest was still waiting to be unpacked!

How GREAT is that poodle?

When I spotted this mushroom motif three piece Franciscan set I was hooked. I had a feeling that it would be way out my price range but was thrilled when she only wanted $3 for all three pieces :)

So, for all of what is pictured above plus two large quilting hoops a huge stash (about 100) skeins of embroidery thread, a rotary cutting set, hundreds of sewing and embroidery needles, three rolls of vintage satin ribbon, and several other bits and pieces I paid $7. Great right?! With my crafting circle still in the works I will let the moms use the stash that I just bought. It was getting costly for me to give new crafters embroidery thread and needles from my personal stash.

Saturday night Max was in our local St. Patrick's Day Talent Show Fundraiser. He and 13 of his Waldorf School classmates sang a song and played their flutes in front of over 150 people. We were so very proud of him! My mother and sister were also there so it was an extra special night for Max. Pictures of the event are forthcoming. That's it for now. Sunday was a great day too but I'll save that for another one of this week's posts. I have been crafting a lot and will also give you a peek at my new project(s).

Hope you and your family had a great weekend.

Yours in gratitude and appreciation for family and friends,

News, News, News........

Recently I have suffered from writer's block. I've done tons of projects but have not been able to put pen to paper. Let's see if I can get past it!

Home: Things have been plugging along at home. Max has had a great week with two after school playdates and a visit with MoMo (grandma, my mom). My sister is an accomplished rower with Marin Rowing Club (next year she'll be a rower at Stanford), she has a race this weekend in Oakland that I think we'll go to. The weather will be beautiful, it should be a great day. No matter what we have to go, my sister is Max''s most favourite person on the planet and he'd hate to miss it. During a playdate I showed Max and his friend how to make people using pipecleaners, now he is figuring out how to dress them. It has been a great project for him and a good lesson in trial/error and patience.

My creative space aka "Treehouse" is moving along nicely - I still have to re-home my husbands sport stuff. With the new set up I have been able to move my sewing machine in. It's been great to not have the machine in the kitchen and have to run up and down the stairs to sew. Now I can just turn from my cutting table to the sewing machine!

Crafts: After the sewing machine move, I did a big run of machine sewing. I ended up making about eight stuffies, some of which are pictured below. I really enjoyed making the skirts for the bunnies, cats and monkeys. I found the pattern for the monkey here and then adapted it for a cat and bunny. When we visited friends last weekend I took one as a gift :)

I borrowed a copy of Wee Felt Folk from a friend. I made this woman but she looks mad. I have tried several faces but they all look ticked off! Considering the amount of wooden beads that I have already put mad faces on, it looks like I'll have a lot of witches to make. I need to work on drawing more gentle expressions :) PS. I can't find an acorn cap big enough for her yet, so I just placed her hair on her head, I didn't want her to be bald in the pic - how embarrassing!

I also made this horse...........

and this kitty

There are a few new projects in the works. Once the schedule is set, I plan on signing up for a beginners quilting class at Sunflower Fine Fabrics. My hope is that a friend or two will do the class with me. My other project is getting some baby stuff made for friends. I found some great bib and burp cloth tutorials here and here. If I feel very brave, I may even tackle a blanket or some shoes. I highly recommend that you take a look a The Long Thread, she has a ton of great tutorials listed for all skill levels - a great resource.

Swaps: Check out the Easter Bunny Swap that we just signed up for. Max is excited to find out who our partner is and get crafting for this swap.

Fun Finds: This week I did take a trip to a few of my usual haunts. In addition to a stash of double sided binding (my new must have) I found:

This amazing large vintage heavy cotton tablecloth. Yes, it is covered in mushrooms of all shapes and sizes. I really love it and can't imagine cutting it up - if I found the right project though ....................

Four yards of this great vintage cotton ribbon/tape embroidered with "dutch" people and a heart/bird/flower motif. I am always looking for trims like this and finally found a stash. They had a lot more in other styles, hopefully the next time I return they'll still have some left.

Happy President's Day.................

Happy Presidents Day, I hope this post finds you all well. Life around here has been slow this past weekend. The rain has kept us all from top speed which has been a relief.

I worked on a few projects this past week, one of which was making balls from wool felt. In the past I have bought these at Waldorf Faires but now wanted to try my hand at making them. I made quite a few in a variety of colors, and put a small pouch of rice in two of them to make them more weighty. You could also put a bell inside for a baby..... hmm.....

I was sitting back admiring a job well done when a lightbulb went off in my head. With two strategically placed buttons the ball could become a great pincushion! So, here you see the ball/pincushion before and after! I will definitely be making these for future crafts faires and as gifts.

This past Friday while with my Grandma we stumbled across the most amazing Thrift Shop. When I walked in it looked like any other thrift store but upon closer inspection I saw 'The Annex" tucked in the back corner. The Annex is a separate room overflowing with vintage items. Boy did I hit the motherlode. You name it, they had it - shelves of vintage linens, clothes from the 40's - '70's, old games, books, pictures - it was all there. To top it all of it was all additional 50% off already insanely affordable prices! Here are some of the treasures that I uncovered..............

This amazing framed embroidery panel. The frame is trimmed with green velvet - it is now hung with pride of place in my little sewing room.

The picture up close - great detail.

A cushion embroidered with a farm scene. The foam is horrible, one day I'll change it out.

An embroidered tea towel. Could this deer be any more precious?

I am currently working on a "Mollie Monkey", I found her at mmmcrafts. Take a look at her blog, she has tons of wonderful ideas. I am making the monkey for my uncle's new baby Grace - she is expected any day now. ;)

The Weekend & Crafting for a Cause................

This weekend was great! Saturday I took my 'mom day off'. I sauntered around to all of my favourite thrift shops (spent $0) and then went and saw a movie. I saw a chick flick - He's Just Not That Into You (I love Greg Behrendt) and ate the wonderfully awful Kettle Korn. Sometimes you just need a few hours to yourself when you can do whatever you want in your own time. Coming home feeling just that little bit refreshed can make a big difference. :)

On Sunday, Max, my mom and I went to visit my great aunt at her care home. She loves it when we visit her, especially Max. The truth is that my great aunt is 86 years old, is very frail and thin, and looks a little scary. It's amazing that Max has never seemed to notice. He walks right in, gives her hugs and kisses and talks to her just as if she looks like everyone else. Maybe that's why she loves to see him - he looks past the facad to the person that she really is inside. Seeing him with her always brings tears to my eyes.

This weekend I also finished this Felt Wee Folk kit that I found in my stash.

Monday

A fellow Waldorf mom and I got together this morning to discuss starting regular crafts mornings for our school parents. In the world we live in today gathering to share knowledge and build new relationships is more important than ever. We feel that starting these mornings will benefit our community in many ways, three of which are:

#1: By meeting together outside of school parents are given the opportunity to build new and stronger relationships.

#2: Gathering and sharing a common skill or craft.

#3: An additional goal for these mornings is to help parents to contribute more to the Crafts Faire(s) that we participate in. In our community our 'Waldorf' crafts using all natural fibers are unique and have sold very well. It is our hope that parents will learn new skills/crafts and participate more in our Faire(s). By putting our skills '0ut there' it is a great way to 'advertise' our school and reach out to our greater community.

Of course there are many additional benefits to these mornings, we are excited to find out what they may be! Our hope is that periodically the group would concentrate on one theme or project such as: a group knitting project, making ornaments/items for our Holiday Faire........... Have any great project ideas? Please let me know, this is new for us and we can use all the help we can get!

My husband and I bought this gnome house from Bill at Heartwood Arts many years ago. These are some of our most chrished items. See the tiny gnome? He's about 1/3" tall.

Surprises................

Surprise #1: Finally, it has started to rain. Yippee!

Surprise #2: We love getting packages in the mail. Thank you Beth for the fabulous Handmade Swap items. The memory game is awesome, Max tore the package open as soon as he got home from school. Once I'm done with this post we are going to have our first game. I am so impressed with the bag and all of the pieces inside. Thank you for the soap too!Great job, maybe one day my sewing skills will be so neat and clean. My sewing machine and I need to have a heart to heart.

Surprise #3: Went to a Thrift Shop that I don't usually frequent and found these fab items. I could not resist this salt and pepper set. They are handpainted and named Salty and Peppy, love them! I also found these small spools of thread. I always pick up the ones that are on wooden spools, problem is, I never use them, I just love the way they look. Also picked up some Gutermann thread, 10 cents ea - SCORE!

Surprise #4: Waldorf Doll #2 is now finished. Love the colour but the velvet is probably too stiff. But he's soft and cuddly so you can't go wrong.

Treasures.........

I have been trying very hard lately to keep my 'fun' spending to a minimum. Clothes shopping is a big NO NO and I haven't been to the craft store for over a week (that's a long time for me). Yesterday, while the guys ran errands and I had some 'me' time I treated myself to a quick trip to our local consignment shop. My budget was $10. My first find was a hand painted red mushrooms tea towel for only $3. Next I found three pairs of vintage(?) knitting needles, $1/pair. I love the colours. So, for $6 I had a good time. Yes, retail therapy does work form me and it's even better when I don't walk away with buyers remorse. I have tried really hard lately to look for fun stuff in thrift and consignment stores. My favourite is the Marin Community Food Bank Thrift Store in San Rafael, CA. I like know ing that the money I spend in there goes to help people in my community - and I get a great bargain! There is another thrift store not too far from me, they have a 50 cent rack, I found a purple wool sweater there the other day. I plan to felt it and then make something..........................

I love old things. As a little girl I remember riding around with my grandma and great-aunt to antique stores, thrift shops and garage sales. I suppose that's where my appreciation for all things old comes from.

Maybe I'm a collector. What do I like? Pyrex, I have several old pieces, my favourite colour is aqua, I'll only spend up to $5 per piece. Heath Ceramics - LOVE IT! The Heath factory and store are in Sausalito, CA - not too far from me. Every so often I'll stop by and find a bargain. Hey, in this economy who can afford not to be frugal?