Things I'm Loving

I spend a lot of time at home these days. Still looking for a job and trying not to spend money means a lot of down time. I wish I liked to work out because I'd be smokin' by now. ;) The heat in NYC has been intense the last few days which means a cranking AC window unit holds me to the living room and out of the steamy craft room. Finally today we've gotten a break with a lovely breeze and temps in the low 70s.

So while I'd love to show you something I've actually finished I have nothing to share. So instead, how about some things I'm enamored with right here in the house?



I found these spools at the thrift last week. I picked them up mostly for that spool of dark grey sequins and the fact that I just love wooden spools of any kind but particularly larger ones like these.



Also found last week is this trio of vintage glass top Hazel Atlas jars and an old chopper. You can't see it, but the handle is wooden and red. I have the same chopper with a yellow handle. I've never found glass top jars of this larger size before. Oh, and those price tags? Yeah, they're still on there. The dishwasher just broke and it's about 1,000 degrees in the non air conditioned kitchen so there has been no recreational hand washing going on around here. Perhaps today in the cool I'll get to it.



Color! One of the things I did do while hiding out in the living room was organize and wind a bunch of floss. I just love all the colors.



Especially the sherbet tones of these gorgeous skeins of linen floss. I've never stitched with linen before so I'll have to find a special project to use these in.

So there you have it. Some little things around here that have peaked my interest lately. Now I'm off to take advantage of this beautiful weather and clean something. Good times.

Please take a moment and visit my latest Examiner article on Brooklyn General Store. You can find it HERE. Are you looking for oil cloth? They carry several really cute designs that can be ordered on line. Check it out!

And the winner is . . .

Around here we like our winners shaken, not stirred . . .



drum roll please . . .



Red Rhiannon! Congrats! Please send me an email with your address.

Luis and I headed out to watch the World Cup yesterday and ended up staying out all day. After watching the USA/Ghana match at Hooters (of all places!) we headed to the Nautical Mile in Freeport, Long Island.



It's a strip of cute restaurants, hoppin' tiki bars and adorable little shops. We sat at a bar and had a drink and then had a nice dinner in a pretty fancy restaurant. I had oysters, crab and wine. Oh la la!



We stopped in these cute little shops where I picked up a gift for my Dad and some cute little nautical Christmas ornaments.



It was a fun spontaneous adventure and made me feel like I was on vacation. :) I think I'll go to the beach this week, too.

Happy summer! ~ rr

Day Dreaming

I have wanderlust. I need a vacation. I'm day dreaming of Paris.



I'm hoping to go (for the first time) in December this year to celebrate a friend's birthday. I'll be saving my pennies for sure!



I made this crown at my Mom's house last weekend. I love making paper crowns! It's fun and easy and oh so cute.

Some blast from the past crowns:



Pink & Brown Queen made for a give away.



Mother of the Bride crown for my Mom. The first I ever made.



And last summer's 4th of July crown. I was thinking of making a new one this year but perhaps I'll just sport the Paris one? Hmm . . . nah. Time to drag out the red, white and blue paper!

A few more days left to enter my give away! I'll post the winner on Sunday. Click here to enter. :)

Au revoir!

PS - I posted a short article reviewing the Martha Stewart fringing scissors. Click HERE to read. Thanks!!

Instinct?

So on Friday I had all the boring errands to run, groceries, Costco, blech. I wanted to go to the thrift store but it really wasn't in the same area and honestly I wasn't FEELING it, you know? Now this thrift is good but a little pricey, far out on the island and crowded on the weekends. While I was thinking it over I some how missed my exit. Oh well, off to the thrift now! (Instinct?)



It was a good linens day! (Which is rare lately.) A cute flowered vintage pillow case that will end up as a laundry bag, a cute little hanky with crocheted edging (I can't resist these, I know how much goes in to making those tiny stitches!) and a pretty piece of flowered fabric. Each of these items was only 99 cents which is also rare lately.



A super cute vintage apron. It's a full apron and has the cutest freakin' pocket. Love it! Not bad for $3 since they had another vintage apron that was a bit of a mess, missing a string and was marked $6!



And how cute is this hand made smock? It's a bit small on me (oy) but I love it regardless. It might end up in the shop unless I can bring myself to repurpose it into an apron.



These are little party picks and are too cute. I don't think they are too old and now I'll have to serve a cheese tray for dinner so I can use them.

I also found the mother load of cute vintage Crazy Eights and Snap cards.






Adorable, right? I kept a bunch and split the others up into sets and put them in my shop. You can find them here. Now what to make with them? I particularly like the circus ones.

This find is from when I was visiting my Mom:



It's a belt that is WAY too small for me and honestly, not my style. However, I love Egyptian things and these are scarab beetles. So I want to remake it into something I will wear. I'm thinking a bracelet and some kind of necklace using that big pink scarab on the right side.

So that's that. Don't forget to stop by this post and leave a comment to be entered to win some crafty goodies.

hugs ~ rr

Get Thee to a Big Lots! (and a give away)

Okay, so I've been to like 4 Big Lots in the last week and a half. Seriously. Thrill of the hunt, no? When I stopped by last week I hit the mother load of quality Martha Stewart Crafts and Making Memories supplies:



At the time I posted this the photo was upside down even though I corrected it 3 times. Hopefully it will right itself. :) Everything you see here was $1 each. I picked up some clear stamps for my Mom (who has that type of stamping set), some paper, glue sticks, stickers, tissue paper and scrapbooking supplies.My favorites, of course, are the pressed paper pine cone boxes.



I coveted these at Christmas but couldn't bring myself to pay the $15 for them. I plan to use these as favors for my annual Christmas Craft party.



Coming in a close second was this ribbon from Making memories. It's from a collection called Chloe's Garden and I have a few other scrap booking embellishments in this line like really cute butterfly paper clips. But the ribbon! Love.



I also snagged three packs of these sweet vintage inspired alphabet cards. Really cute! Not sure what I'll do with them so I'm sending one pack to a friend and putting the other in a give away.

Oh yes, it's time. Since I have way more than I need I gathered up a few things to share:



So here we have the set of cards, a package of the ribbon, some pretty blue cake stickers and some post cards found at a different location. You want it? Just leave a comment here for an entry. If you visit my latest Examiner article by clicking HERE and come back and tell me what craft I shared you'll get a second entry!

Due to the weight of this package I can take US participants only. You have one week to sign up, through next Saturday. I'll announce the winner on Sunday June 27th.

Cheers!
Rebecca

In the District

I'm back from my trip to DC. I love visiting the nation's capitol and I hadn't been there as a tourist in some time.



The Washington Monument is always an impressive sight. They were setting up for a Cultural Festival sponsored by the American History museum. I did stop by to see the First Ladies Inaugural dresses which are just gorgeous! That Mamie Eisenhower was some fashion plate. :) You can take a tour of the exhibit online here.



My favorite is always the Natural History Museum.



I love all the fossils and even had time to see an Imax movie on the South African ocean.



I also got to see the new Korean War Memorial. There are huge statues of soldiers walking through what looks like rice paddies. There is a large wall with faces engraved on it and a grotto with a fountain in it. It's a very nice tribute.





The Lincoln Memorial is also impressive and I hadn't been there since I was a kid. And as I always talk to people with dogs I got to meet this guy:



who was also visiting President Lincoln. His name is Jackson and he's the same age as my collie, Mason:



Couldn't post another dog's photo without one of my own, could I? :) I can't say enough about collies. They make wonderful friends. The ladies who owned Jackson agreed that there is no better family dog than the loyal collie. :)

I'm going to have a give away. For real this time. I lucked into some fabulous Martha Stewart crafts products and would like to share them. Stand by for the official post soon. I'm off to photograph the goods!

Fondly ~ Rebecca

Craft Challenge #3 - Forenoon/Afternoon Cards - Results!

I love the craft challenges and should do them more often. I love seeing what different people see in the item and as usual, the outcome was amazing!

Okay so Craft Challenge #3 were these date cards:

 

So on with the results:



From Shara we have a Party Every Day card! Now that is my kind of schedule. Shara says she's not much for paper crafts but I think she's pretty good, no? You can read her post about it here.



And this one comes from Kai who swore up and down that her card couldn't possibly be as good as the others. Really? How clever! The woman's arms move like clock arms! Love it.



Very Mary took a different approach and attached her card to what I think is a notebook. I love the vintage lady with all her "to dos."



Laurie from Magpie Ethel made her card into a little house! I love the little windows with the ladies peeping out. See her post here.



Darla's is a collage with lovely images. I love all the clock faces! Here is her post about the process.



Aimee-Suzanne also took the collage approach and incorporated some vintage labels. I can only imagine her collection of ephemera! Gorgeous!



This is mine. I was thinking vintage luggage tag and have been dreaming of Paris lately. I'm not in love with this project but it's still pretty cute and I got to use up some cute rub-ons I've had for awhile.

Thank you to everyone who participated! What great ideas. :) I hope to come up with something for a new craft challenge soon!

Please take a moment to check out my latest Trash to Treasure article with a great idea for turning a vintage book into a clock from Heidi at Vacuuming in High Heels & Pearls! I'm off to DC tomorrow. Have a great weekend and I'll see you all when I get back!

ciao - Rebecca

PS - Check out your local Big Lots! I found some great Martha Stewart Crafts items for only a dollar a piece yesterday. I'll share the loot when I get back!

Thrift Share Monday

Apron Thrift Girl has a great idea for sharing thrifty finds on Monday. Since this is a Thrifty blog and every day is Thrifty Share day, why not? While I didn't thrift these items myself they were thrifted for me by my Mom. :) That's a lot of use of the word THRIFT.



Super cute vintage McCalls transfer patterns.



I really want to stitch the barbershop quartet on something. Any suggestions?





Some really neat old monogram transfers for the letter "D." Not sure what I'll do with these as there isn't one single D in my name but I'm loving the graphics on the packaging.





And not embroidery transfers but still vintage and cute, I'm loving these vintage baby patterns. I do love to make baby things. Tiny, cute and oh so fast to make up. This is why I've never made a real sweater. I get bored after the first sleeve. :)

So, any thrifty finds out there?

I hope to post the results of the Craft Challenge soon. I realized I hadn't heard back from one person and wanted to check before showing off the final projects.

And I have a new article up at the Examiner about Mochimochi Land which is one of my favorite knit toys sites. You can check it out HERE. Thanks for your support!

xoxoxo ~ rr

Nothing is safe . . .

 . . . from Sublime Stitching! I picked up Sublime Stitching by Jenny Hart when I was sitting around on my butt watching my ankle heal. I kept meaning to get to making some lovely stitched projects but it never worked out. Finally when I got home I grabbed the book and some various items and ironed on some of my favorite patterns. I LOVE DOING EMBROIDERY. Who knew? I want to stop this post right now and go do some more. I love picking out the colors and following the lines. It's fun. You should try it. I love that you can use the patterns over and over again.

To add to my pattern collection I also picked up the Sublime Stitching Craft Pad which contains even more cute embroidery designs. This is where I found the vintage looking horse design I stitched on the apron I made for Aimee-Suzanne for the Vintage Cowgirl Swap.



I LOVE the way this turn out. So much so that I almost kept it for my greedy little self. Ahem. I sent it to her and she liked it. :)





I really enjoyed making the apron and now I'll have to make one for myself. I'll post about the entire package I sent her with info on how to make this apron. Perhaps when you try it you won't have to take it from a full apron to a half apron because you botched the top. Hmm.



I also added some fruit to one of my Fiesta Towels. I almost ditched this project because I didn't love the edging on there. The thread is heavy and it's kind of stiff but the embroidery sold me on it. Now I'll have to make it a mate. Maybe with some maracas on it?



Since I still felt like stitching I decided just to iron some patterns onto fabric scraps and go at it. Now what shall I make them into? Pillows?? Anyone have any more interesting ideas? The scraps aren't too big but I have to use them for something. I really want to turn the bird one into a pic cushion but seriously, how many pin cushions does one girl need?

Today I think I'll break out a set of plain linen napkins and make them festive. This really is an addictive craft. Jenny has a few other books available like Embroidered Effects which is on my wish list. You can also visit her website where she sells individual embroidery sheets, kits and supplies. I promise you will be stitching up everything that isn't nailed down.

Ciao ~ Rebecca

PS - take a moment to check out my latest article HERE on finding craft supplies in the thrift stores. I know you guys know all these secrets but I appreciate the readership! I'm trying for the position of National Craft Examiner and need to pump up my subscribers and comments. :)