Time flies!

I can't believe I haven't posted since December. I spend countless hours pouring over so many lovely blogs, but I just can't seem to get the motivation to post. I did spend Christmas, complete with snow, in NC. On one leg of the looooong flight back, there was free in-flight wi-fi. Imagine my delight, face booking from a high altitude...entertainment to pass the long hours. I was on long enough to post my Facebook status and chat with a friend. I closed it to eat lunch and when I opened it, the screen was black. It had crashed. I almost cried, but there was nothing I could do, so I made sure it was off and put it in my bag and read a book. About an hour later, I reached into my bag and burned my hand on it. the battery was so hot, I'm surprised it didn't burst into flames. I took out the battery and it started to cool off. When I got home, I called HP and talked to their outsourced help and had to send the netbook in. I wrote a letter expressing my disgust with the computer in general and got no response. In a roundabout way, I'm explaining that my pictures were all gone and I had no functioning computer to blog on. My desktop is ancient. I got the netbook back and it works ok, but it still runs hotter than ever. Ironically, I tried to take it back to Target because it got so hot. Target doesn't take back electronics. Lessons learned: don't buy electronic stuff from Target and don't buy HP! I'm blogging from my ipad2, but need to learn how to upload pictures from it....

And still more thrifted Christmas...

I bought a Santa head mug and thought "oh maybe I'll collect a few..." and then found these two Holt Howard cuties for 99 cents each at Savers. That store kills me...some things are absurdly expensive and then some things are really, really cheap. Go figure.

The hanging Santa is really a card I bought for a dime...actually, I bought ten of them for ten dimes. He is just adorable. Not thrifted, but thrifty is the Vera (modern) Christmas I succumbed to while shopping RETAIL at Macy's. It was 50% off of 25 dollars and I had some coupons and rewards so it ended up being about 8 dollars. They were limited in the Vera dept. I considered buying Christmas placemats, but they only had one and I didn't feel like questing to the other Macy's all over the island. The napkins that would have matched were plain and expensive. I am happy with the apron and obviously didn't need the placemats.

I recently made a friend's grandchildren cloth Mary Engelbreit books for Chrismas from panels. I thought "wow, panels are fun and easy to sew...why aren't there more of them?" Then at the thrift store, what shows up? this panel of 6 calico ornaments with it's original Sears price tag of 1.29. I paid a quarter. After my initial thrill of finding vintage craft items and kits, I get a little sad because the person with the intentions who bought it, never did it. I keep reminding myself of this as I sit among a million potential craft projects. I didn't have time to whip them up this Christmas, but maybe after.

The other half of the panel. So cute!

I also found a gingerbread house panel with it's original Sears price tag. I think the panels came from the same home. It's very cute, too.

Dolls for the gingerbread house...

Well, there was no Thrift Share Monday to link up to...so I'm bummed. I was delighted, though, to find actual COMMENTS on my prior posts. I hope people are checking back and I'm going to try to respond to comments. New to the whole blogging thing and all...but working on it.

Secret Santa Crafting

'Tis the season for Secret Santa at work. I drew the name of one of our school's secretaries. She indicated on her form that one of her hobbies is baking. I immediately thought to make her a Christmas apron. I have tons of apron patterns in my stash and seldom make any of them, or anything much for that matter. Our gift exchange is Wednesday, the 15th, so I chose the easiest one I could find. It's a McCalls pattern from the 1980's, which I picked up at Savers for 69 cents. I could have also gone to town creating appliance cozies, but maybe some other time. I just grabbed a yard of cheap gingham at Walmart Friday night. I was pretty sure I had some suitable trim laying around my place. All of the Honolulu Marathoners were in town as the marathon was today. They all seemed to be at Walmart, so I came home exhausted from the crowd and all the other shopping I had to do. I didn't make this until Saturday night. It was very, very easy and came together in about 2 hours. The next time I make it, I should be able to do it in about an hour. I was being careful and actually following the directions so I wouldn't have to spend time ripping out my mistakes like I usually do. It paid off...no major mistakes. Only someone who sews might be able to spot the flaws. Not that it's perfect, but it's pretty good. It looks cute on my dressform, anyway.

I originally wanted to ball fringe the bottom, but after doing the pockets, it seemed like enough.

I had about 5 yards of this vintage ball fringe in Christmas colors tucked away. I was so happy to have a chance to use it. I think I paid a quarter for it at a church thrift store. It was kind of stretchy to work with and I'd never sewn it on anything before, so next time I'll know better how to cut it to center it just right on the pocket.

Along with the apron, I'm giving her a thrifted copy of Betty Crocker's New Christmas Cookbook from 1993, an extra Pyrex Butter print mixing bowl I've had hanging around, a new potholder, and 2 new wooden spoons. I may include a Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix in with it. The limit was $10.00 and I'm coming in way under that, but it looks like I went over. I love it when that happens!

Now I'm in the mood to do more crafting, but I have to work on report cards. Bummer.

More Thrifted Decor...

Reunited and it feels so good...
I am a sucker for anything homemade/handmade. Two years ago in the Salvation Army, I came across this knitted, round, Christmas house of sorts. It's a coffee can in disguise. It is perfect for holding Christmas cookies (inside a Ziploc baggie). Then about 2 or 3 weeks ago, I found a mini-version. A guest house, if you will. It's a peanut can in disguise. I have done ZERO baking this year, but these adorable little houses look so cute on my kitchen bar! I don't know if these were ever together before, but they sure seem to belong together! Maybe one day I'll bake...

At a different Salvation Army on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, I came across 19 pieces of Spode Christmas Tree china. As we all know, "only Spode is Spode." Never mind that I already have enough dinner plates to open a restaurant, I had to have them. At $15.00 I just couldn't resist. I have 6 place settings in my parents' attic in NC, but to get them to HI would cost way more than 15 bucks. I am going to use the 3 extra salad plates as parts of gifts I plan to give.

This little herd of reindeer was waiting for me at the Goodwill that's in the same town as the Salvation Army where I found the Spode. They were 99 cents each and just too cute. My school office has a huge herd of these same ceramic critters decorating the teachers' mailboxes. Only their herd is painted a lovely shade of...ummmmm...blue? It's funny that they're the exact same reindeer, but I prefer the tan ones myself.

I found this lovely Tasha Tudor book at Savers that same night. When I go "far away" thrifting to Waipahu, which is about 14 miles away from Honolulu, I stop at 3 stores and I am never disappointed. I found a ton of great Christmas books for my classroom, as well as, my craft/cookbook collection. It was an awesome night! This book is very sweet and my students are really drawn into the "old fashioned-ness" of the stories and illustrations. I'm totally enjoying my 3rd graders who still believe in Santa and are just enthralled with all things holiday and Christmas.

Their enthusiasm really helps to keep me in the spirit of Christmas!

A Very Thrifty Christmas...

Do two angels make a whole host? These girlies were 99 cents each at the Goodwill! The next week, I found 2 more, so now I have 4 and that should surely equal a host!

Here are treasured Lego Chrismas characters from my college days of the 1990's. I think there are still a couple more at my parent's house in NC. I need to get out more to Target or Toys R Us because there could be new ones! These were probably 99 cents at Walmart, but I think those are days gone by. In the background are some thrifted brass angels that hold candles. They remind me of my mom, I love them!

Please do not laugh at my tiny tree. I thrifted it for 1.99 at Savers and it is the perfect table top tree. I spent about a half-hour picking off hot-glued Christmas ornaments and then decorated it with my Playmobil ornaments (from Savers). Christmas trees in Hawaii are just not worth it. I was a real-tree every year girl when I lived in NC. Since living in Hawaii, I've never had a Hawaiian Christmas. I've always traveled to TX or NC and so I never "needed" a tree. My bow is lame, I'm working on it!

Honestly, I had a HARD time getting any motivation to decorate. I started feeling all grinchy and bah humbug around Thanksgiving time. I think part of it was seeing Santa on top of Ala Moana Shopping Center the day after Halloween and part of it was just a variety of other things going on. Luckily, something came over me on Black Friday and I drug out the rubbermaid tubs and pulled out the decor. I have more to share, but I had to experiement first with putting more than one picture in a post. Mele Kalikimaka!

A Belated Picture of the Drapes

I'm an excellent procrastinator. I have procrastinated putting up a picture of my previously mentioned drapes for over a year. Go me. I added muslin behind the sheers because I get the afternoon sun and that Hawaiian setting sun is intense! So, I am posting this picture just in time for me to recreate new curtains that match my new furniture...but that is for another post. Now that I have stopped being a baby about posting and including pictures, I hope I will continue to post because I have been building a collection...ok hoarding...lots and lots of amazing thrifty finds!

Back to the grind...

These past two weeks have just flown by and now to my dismay, Spring Break is over. It's also the last time HI state schools will have a two week Spring Break as next year the calendar will change to accommodate summer school resulting in a shorter Spring Break and Christmas Break.

I had such high expectations of myself during this time off. Some of them materialized and others did not. I spent a lot of time just relaxing and doing things I wanted to do and avoiding things I did not want to do. I did manage to refashion some thrift store draperies and sheers into something cute and appropriate for my sliding glass door and jalousie windows. The other draperies that came with the place were HID-E-OUS! Think Sears burlap-style pinch pleat things. They were dry-rotting on the rod! I have a very tall sliding glass door, it's about 8 feet tall and 12 feet wide. I got lucky at Savers (one of my favorite thrift stores) and found 2 drapery panels that someone very talented had handmade. I needed about 4 or 5 of them, but since they were a great price, I had a coupon, and they were the right size I bought them. I thought about it and remembered seeing 2 panels of amazing embroidered vintage sheers there also and went back and got them. I have a window a/c unit at the bottom of the jalousies and it's irritating to have the curtain blocking it when I need to use it. I realized I could cut off about 2 feet and hem it to graze the top of the a/c unit, use the cut two feet to make some sort of valance to fit between the two panels, attach the sheers to the valance, and have the other full drapery panel hanging on the other side. It took me about 2 days to sew them and then another day to have the Boyfriend come fix the traverse rod. I am in LOVE with my new curtains, seriously! I love to do that kind of sewing where you just cut and sew and hope it works out. That, sadly, was the major accomplishment of the whole two weeks. I still have taxes to do and a work project to accomplish.
I also did a lot of thrifting during the break. I should say, a lot MORE thrifting. I usually thrift on Thursdays and Saturdays, but I love to go during the weekday mornings when I am off. Not that I found anything extra special on those days, but I just like going then. I have a lot of cool finds I'd like to share if I could ever figure out how to post photos and then link to all your cool blogs I've stalked over the past years.
Well, I probably need to go to bed so that I can be all refreshed for my return to work tomorrow.