Save Some, Earn Some

 Not much going on so far this week.  The Youngest has been sick and has managed to taint me with his little germs and now I feel like dog dirt.  Crafty stuff will resume shortly, I promise.  Until then, Check these out:

 Save Some Dough:

1.  Here's an awesome deal over at Amazon that will be perfect for gearing up for Christmas: Amazon Mom

What you get:  3 Months of Amazon Prime Free!  You get free two day shipping which is totally awesome.  And, for every $25 you spend in the Amazon Baby Store, you get another month of free shipping.  There is also also a great discount: 30% off select diapers and wipes. 

You don't have to be a Mom necessarily to qualify, just a caregiver or someone out to help a new parent.  Sweet.

Earn Free Stuff:

 2.  Swagbucks:  You've heard me mention this one before.  I absolutely adore this site for earning Amazon Gift Cards.  So far I've earned around $200.00 to use over at Amazon.  Christmas will be very good this year for my boys!  I'll be combining my gift cards and using them with the free Amazon Prime shipping mentioned above.  I know a few of you have joined through me and I'm curious, how well has Swagbucks worked for you?

3.  Irazoo:  This is similar to Swagbucks, but you only search and win, there are no special offers to do.  It's much simpler, so if you don't want to do all the extra stuff on Swagbucks to earn the free Amazon gift cards, this is the place for you.  They do give out codes like Swagbucks does (they're called Treasure codes on Irazoo) and you need to be on their Facebook page to get them. 

Birthday Boy

Tomorrow is my baby brother's birthday!  I just thought I'd give a shout out to the 35 year old young man.  :)

Here's a pic of one of his birthdays "way back when."  Notice the cake that my mother made and decorated:

All together now!  "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww!"

Have a great holiday weekend everyone!

A Use for Peach Pits

Remember my last trip to the dollar store?    Well, I went back and found a few other gems.

More glassware that will be transformed into smaller versions of the hurricane lamps:

Also, gearing up for Fall, I found these lovely darlings:

Speaking of the William Sonoma Hurricane Knockoffs, I finally found something to put in them:

Peach Pits!  Two summers ago, we had a bumper crop of peaches from our peach tree in the back yard.  I spent quite a bit of time scrubbing the pits and drying them out.  I wasn't sure what I was going to be using them for, but I loved the color and texture that they had.  They'll add a lot to the Fall mantlescape.

Just look at all that texture:

Also, look at what a difference a change of lighting makes.  Who knew peach pits could be interesting?

Little Pirates are Gross

"Gentlemen; m'lady. This is the day you will always remember as the day that you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow!"

This boy is a natural born pirate.  He does way more work coming up with imaginative ways to get out of trouble and work than if he just did what he had been told to do in the first place.

Case in point:

We thought we had gotten past all the woes of potty training a while ago, but a new issue has cropped up.  The boy has been stopping up the toilet by using wads and wads of toilet paper.  I threatened to start deducting from his allowance if he did it again.  Lo and behold, there was no more stoppage of the plumbing.  I patted myself on the back on a parenting job well done.  Yeah.

How he got around it:

We found the trash can full of (used) toilet paper.  The little pirate filled the trash can with copious amounts of the toilet paper.  Icky, but at least the plumbing is not stopped up anymore.  Little pirates are gross. 

I am so going to use this blog as blackmail later on when he starts dating.  Mommies can use Pirate Ethics too!

Give A Lamp A New Life

Everyone makes bad decisions on decorating once in a while.  One of my worst was made almost 14 years ago.  I purchased some basic brass lamps for our bedroom and over the years have come to loathe them.  My first instinct was to throw them in the trash and go out and buy new ones.  Then I came to my senses.  The lamps are in perfect working order, so what could I do to make them look better?  The answer?  PAINT!

Start with one ugly lamp that has potential and tape off the bits that you don't want painted (please ignore the kiddie basketball goal in the background):

Next, Get out some spray primer and turn it gray:

Once it dries, get out the paint that you want and paint it!  I used Rustoleum's Universal Metallic Oil Rubbed Bronze.  

So how does it look now?

Look at the before and after:

And because the above photos don't do the paint color justice, look at it in the sunlight:

Isn't it amazing the difference that a little bit of paint can make?  I still have to get some lampshades to compliment the "new" lamps.  The old ones are hideous and have been very abused.  Once I get the new shades the lamps are going to be gorgeous!

Etsy Treasury

Has today been a good day for you?  It has for me.  Some of my Cashmere fiber was listed in an Etsy Treasury!  It's always a good day when your products are listed in a Treasury. 

Have a Safe and Happy Weekend!

Dollar Store Fun

 I've seen the very cool William Sonoma Hurricane Knockoffs all over the blogs that I read and thought that I would give them a try.  So off I went to the Dollar Tree to gather my supplies.  I've become an addict of The Dollar Tree.   There are so many great things to be had at this store.

This is what I ended up with for four bucks:

This was such an easy project.  Glue the candlestick to the hurricane vase (using a glue that dries clear of course) and you're done!  I'm going to cut two round felt circles to place in the bottom to protect the glass, but I have not had time to do that yet.  I have yet to fill them or find a permanent home for them, but didn't they turn out great?  Four Dollars.  Wow.

What Not To Bring To A Consignment Sale

While at the Children's consignment sale yesterday, I was working at a table checking items in to be sold.  There are two piles that these get sorted into: accepted and rejected.  Most of the items that go into the rejected pile have the usual stains or tears.  No big deal, everyone of us that have children has some of their clothing that has these.  We don't take these to be resold and we don't think anything about them really when they come in with the rest of the stuff.  It's so easy to miss a stain.  I did it too.  I had no idea a stain was on that shirt.  We just took it out of my pile and didn't think about it again.

What does get talked about though are some of the oddball things.  Someone tried to sell a half used bottle of baby powder. Another person tried to sell a "vintage" crib toy that was yellowed and OLD.  I know, I had a crib toy just like it when I was a baby.  Not to say I'm old, of course, just "vintage".  In another ten years I'll be an antique and so will that crib toy.  It was similar to this one, but older and very yellowed with age:

There's no new mother that I know that would buy the one that was brought in, not one.


How much does it say about the economy these days that someone would bring in to sell a half empty bottle of baby powder and an ancient crib toy? 

Of course, those are nothing compared to the used and uncleaned potty chair that I saw brought in to a sale one year.  ICK!

The Magic of Blocking

Want to see an example of the Magic of Blocking?

Here's a before pic while Summerflies (Ravelry link) was on the needles:

Now check it out after it's been blocked:

Now do you believe in the Magic of Blocking?  Yep, thought so.


This was such a lovely little knit.  It's quick, never boring and turned out just right.  Just think, some dude decided that he didn't really like the dark green sweater that his Aunty gave him and donated it to Goodwill as soon as her back was turned.  A few months later and it now looks like this:

I love recycling!  And you know what?  This lovely shawl cost me about $1.00 total, maybe.  I still have a mountain of this yarn left over.   How cool is that?

The only modification that I made was due to the size of the yarn.  I went up to a size 10 in order to get gauge.  That's it, no other mods to see here folks, move along.

By the way, I will not be home much this week due to working the children's consignment sale so there may not be a lot of posts.  Please be patient with me, I'm trying to help a lot of needy children get set up for the winter!

The Joker Wears Pink Hairbows

The craziness that happens twice a year has begun again.  I'm getting ready for the children's consignment sale.  There is crap everywhere downstairs.  My office/dining room has been taken over by clothes, toys, games, puzzles, etc.  There's a very narrow pathway that takes you from doorway A to doorway B, it's just ridiculous.  The foyer has big bins of stuff in it too.  I've gotten three quarters of it logged in, now I just have to add tags to everything. 

I've been fighting a never ending battle with the Youngest over what is going to be sold.  He keeps pulling things out and telling me in a very stern voice, "Mom, we're NOT selling this."  Oh yes we are!  I keep repeating that Christmas is coming and that if he wants Santa to bring new toys, we have to make some room.  It's not working.  The little pest is like a squirrel that you've chased away from the birdseed.  As soon as your back is turned, he grabs something and runs.

The funny thing is, he hasn't played with any of the toys that are going out in over a year and doesn't really care about them. I'm not sure where the sudden possessiveness has come from.  He's really worried that I'll go into the playroom and get rid of all the stuff he really loves.  I've been getting lectures about that too.  It's very amusing to be lectured by a four year old!  I've reassured him over and over, but it's done no good.  I mean, why in the world would I get rid of the stuff he really loves?  Have I ever done it before?  No.

In a completely unrelated way today, I did find the perfect way to tick him off though.  We were riding in the car and I was hearing (ad nausea) about The Joker (one of his favorite villains.)  Just for fun I told him that

"The Joker wears pink hairbows and skips through the fields and picks flowers and has picnics and pretends to be a girl."

Boy, was he steamed!  He screamed, in the car remember, "HE'S NOT A GIRL!"  Then he quit talking to me.

Oh the deliciousness of silence!  :)

Spinning Camel Down

It's been a while since I've done any spinning and I started getting the bug the other night.  So I put on a dvd and got out my spindle.  The spindle work that I've done in the past has been with longer stapled fibers, but this time I opted for something out of my comfort zone: Camel down!

This stuff is OMG soft!  It's so lovely to touch, you just want to run your hands through it and pet it for hours.

As I said, it's a very short stapled fiber and it's difficult to get the hang of spinning it.  It wants to be spun quick and fairly tight so that the fibers will stay together and not send your spindle flying across the floor.  Go ahead, ask me how I know.  :)  I sent that sucker to the floor quite a few times before I got it under control. 

I've thrown a penny in the pic to give a reference to how fine I've managed to get the singles to be.  I don't normally spin my singles this thin and I'm quite proud of it. 

I'm always amazed when I go from using a wheel to a spindle at how much more I learn about the fibers that I'm working with.  A spindle is more intimate, you work slower and you can stretch thin or bulk the fiber up and generally just "play" with it more.  I think that when working with a new fiber, like I am with the Camel down, it's important to start with a spindle to really learn how that fiber wants to be handled. 

Did I mention that using a spindle, at least for me, is a much slower process?  Everything that you see on the spindle above?  Yeah, that's two hours worth of work.  At this rate it will take the next twelve years of my life to finish it. 



In reference to yesterday's post:  No tenant excitement for me today, another family member was there to witness the eviction.  Ultimately nothing happened.  They're out, house is still standing, end of story.  :)

Today's Excitement

So much excitement happening today!  My brother has some tenants renting his old house here.  Turns out that these are not the kind of tenants a landlord is hoping for.  They were due to be evicted on Wednesday thanks to nonpayment of rent, but we got a call that the eviction had been moved up to today instead. 

So I headed over there to see what was happening since my brother is in another state and couldn't make it.  I was really nervous about being there.  For one thing, I had my four year old with me and for another, I'm kinda small, so if anything really dangerous was going to happen I was prepared to floor it on out of there. 

When I pulled up, there were no cops there.  I drove on by and pulled over and made a call to the husband who was coordinating this whole shindig from his office.  It was kinda creepy.  There was nothing happening in the neighborhood, it was way too quiet, but there was this really nice mustang in my brother's driveway.    No sign of anyone so I went down the street, turned around and parked a few houses away.  Pretty soon a woman came out of the house and stood there in the yard talking on her cell.  Obviously nobody had moved out of the house yet like they were supposed to. 

So I made another call to see if anyone had spoken with the Sheriff's office.  The next thing I heard was:  "Get out of there now! The mustang is a stolen car and the cops are on the way to arrest someone."  I felt like I was in the middle of a movie!

Did you hear a sonic boom?  If so, it was because I was hotfooting it out of there as quick as my mini van would go!  If I hadn't had The Youngest with me, I might have made my way down to the cul-de-sac to watch the excitement, but to make matters worse, my phone battery was dying and was beeping loudly too.  My family knew where I was, but didn't know what was happening and I didn't have a phone charger for the car.  First thing I did was head to Walmart to get a charger for my phone so I could keep someone from calling in the Cavalry to come find me.


The whole thing has been rescheduled for tomorrow now.  I do plan on going back over there, but there's going to be other family members with me this time.    I'll let you know how it all turns out.  Pretty juicy stuff today though!  :)

Happy Friday the 13th

Happy Friday the 13th!

You guys wanna win something cool?  Angie over at Home Grown is turning Friday the 13th into a good luck day and is giving away a really nice food dehydrator.  You can enter to win here: http://bigredcouch.com/journal/?p=3595

Contest ends November 13th and every comment left on her blog until then becomes an entry to win. 

Good luck!

First Day of School!

Today was the first day of 4th Grade for The Eldest:

This is his Bus Stop Buddy, Cammie the Camouflage Cat:

The Youngest got left behind.  His school doesn't start for another couple of weeks, so I took him shopping.  Guess what he spent his allowance money on? 

He's such a Daisy Duck freak.   It totally cracks me up.

Knitting and Dogs

There are two things that I habitually photograph that never show up well on camera, my dog and my knitting.   I really do want a photography for knitters class to show up on my doorstep.  It would have interesting and fun poses for the knitting project (cause the projects quite often are bored with just being laid out on my back deck) as well as a camera 101 session for the knitter.  But alas, until that time I'm going to have to settle for this:

My back deck gets much better lighting than any place inside my house and at least the wood is a nice contrast against the green and browns in this yarn.  Here's a closeup so that you can see the yarn a little better:

The color of my Chinese Crested Powderpuff is a mixture of brown and black and my camera has a difficult time focusing on her (maybe I need to put her out on the back deck as well), but I finally got a fun shot of her for you:

I called in The Eldest to show him the pic of Roxie and the only thing he said was:  "She's picking her nose!"  :sigh: 

I've been giving her a "puppy cut" lately.  She looks so beautiful when her hair is long and her face is shaved the way it would be if we were showing her at a dog show, but this is one high maintenance dog so I'm going to have to settle for just cute. 

Her hair is very fine and is very much like a human's.  It has to be washed at a minimum of once a week and has to be brushed daily or it mats all up and she gets terrible dreadlocks.  I don't have the time or patience for that and I don't have the money to get her professionally groomed ($55 a pop where I live) so I went out and bought some shears and learned how to give her a haircut.  I now do three haircuts around here: 2 boys and 1 dog on a regular basis.  Now if I could only start charging them for it...

Adventures On Craigslist

I'm a big Craigslist junkie.  I'm always trying to barter stuff.  I don't always get a lot of takers, especially since most of what I have to offer is girl stuff, but it's still fun.  A couple of weeks ago I sold a full bed at a yard sale.  The person didn't want the box springs, so I finally got around to putting it up for free on craigslist last night.  My husband swore up and down that nobody would be interested and he'd be stuck having to take it to the landfill.  Well, I do so love to say "I told you so" and today I got the opportunity.  I had over ten people begging for it!  Yay!  It's out of my garage! 

Being well motivated after that, I got back on Craigslist and I have to share this one article that I found cause it totally cracked me up.  Even the website that it points to is amusing:

Wanted: Six Missing Velociraptors in the North Hall area - $5150 (Gainesville)

---

Date: 2010-08-09, 1:54PM EDT
Reply to:

---

Here is the deal: I run an unlicensed dinosaur cloning operation in an abandoned chicken house off Price Road. Yesterday, several of my Velociraptors broke out of their cage and are now running loose in the North Hall area. As I was tracking them last night, I found pieces of a cow near Short Rd. I assume this is their most recent location.

I need help recapturing these raptors before they lay eggs and infest our fair city.

If you can kick butt with the bo staff and nunchucks, have an assault shotgun and an awesome hat and do not fear death, please e-mail me immediately. I will pay $5,150 for each raptor safely returned to my laboratory/chicken house.

If you make contact with any of these fearsome creatures, DONT PANIC. This resource will give you better chances of living another day:
http://www.velociraptors.info/

This should all be over soon.

-Jonas Rapier

In Hindsight

So there I was, knitting happily away on my new shawl, Summer Flies (Ravelry link) by Donna Griffin, without a care in the world.  I had finished Section 5 already, the shawl was really flying off the needles and guess what?  I looked down at my creation and thought, "It's looking kinda small."  Uh-Oh.

Guess what jumped up and bit me on the behind again?  GAUGE.  Darnit.

Most of the time when I'm making a lace project, I don't do a gauge swatch and didn't do it this time either.  But this time, I really screwed up by not making that swatch.  Here's why:

1.  I'm not using standard yarn for this project.  I'm using recycled yarn from a Lands End, Men's XXL sweater that I unraveled a while back.  Therefore, my gauge will probably (and is) way off.  But it's pretty isn't it?  A dark heathered green.

2.  This is supposed to fit around my shoulders.  It's a shawlette, pretty small one too.  So it should have been treated more as a sweater.  Yeah. Should.

Hindsight is 20/20 isn't it?  I have to go unravel this yarn a second time now.  I'm getting good at that.

Sloppy, Sloppy, Sloppy

My stairs have now been completely uncovered and the wood is beautiful.  But, check out what the original painters left for me to clean up:

Look Mom,  I've got a demonic cat and  "Go Faster Stripes" on my stairs!  What a pain this will be to fix up.  Not so much on the risers (the vertical part of the stairs), but on the actual steps themselves.  The risers will be primed and then painted white since I'm tired of trying to kill myself at night when walking up the steps in the dark, so the stripes are no big deal there.

Here's the view from above complete with matching cat:

Can you see the stripes now?  Also, do you see the one stair that doesn't match any of the others?  We had to replace that one.  It had split into two complete pieces and the builders had just rammed in a bunch of extra nails to keep in place.  It was going to be covered in carpet, so who cared right?    Combined with the careless painting, that's just plain sloppy all the way around in my book.  If you're going to do a job, why don't you just do it right the first time?  Except in knitting of course, you're allowed to fudge mistakes there, aren't ya?

The mess on the bottom step is where I'm using paint stripper to get the paint off.  This is going to be another slow, PITA process I'm afraid and one that will be better and quicker done once school starts back.


Once that's done however, I have a decision to make.  We plan on changing the floor color eventually (a good ways down the road.)  I hate the color that the wood has been stained.  I really dislike light oak colors and prefer dark cherry.  Do I go ahead and stain the stairs the color that I want the floor to be or do I try and match the current color of the floor?  What does the "Internet Collective" think?

Bubbles!

So how do you know when you've used a drop too much bubble bath in the kid's tub?    I think I might have found out:

3/4 Skein Stole

The One Skein, A Stole! (Ravelry link) is finally finished and blocked! 

This is a super easy project and works up pretty quick thanks to all the dropped stitches (mostly intentional) in the piece.  Isn't it pretty?  Not only is it perfect for Spring/Summer as a stole, but you can make it into a really thin scarf for Fall/Winter too. 

This was made using three quarters of a skein of Noro sock yarn.  Yep, not even a whole skein was used.

Here's another view of it:

I've already started another lace project, but I'll have to show you that a little later.  I've been ordered to go play with the Youngest who's feeling needy at the moment.  Have a great day!