13 years and counting

Monday was our 13th wedding anniversary, and we celebrated in a way that couldn't have been more perfect! (Well, okay, a cruise might have been a little better, but I'll take what I can get!)

Roger and I dropped the kids off at Grandma and Poppy's house and drove up to McPherson for an auction! Talk about romance!! We even had hotdogs, chips, brownies and soda all for $5. And, we came home with a van load of treasures.

Ceramic poodle! Seriously, can you have a mid-century modern house without a poodle?

Nice large milk glass basket

Cute little Tom Thumb typewriter! It's nice and light weight. It took my 8 year old son to help me find the numbers on this thing, though!

And, the best find of all (in my opinion!) They were auctioning stuff off outside and inside at the same time. Roger went out side and bought this as a surprise for me! I've been wanting one. Granted, I was hoping for red or maybe yellow, but I'll certainly take avocado!

This is, by no means, everything we bought! Roger also bought (another) trunk and a couple of pictures. I got a set of three Fire King white swirl mixing bowls and a Hamilton Beach mixer with a couple of Pyrex mixing bowls.

Not a bad way to spend an anniversary!

Adventures in Antiques

Roger and I have always had a mutual love for old stuff. We both enjoy scouring antique stores for our favorite things - tin toys and WWI stuff for him and toy and full sized sewing machines for me. We love finding interesting things at auctions and have bought more than our share of odd stuff for a buck!

Recently, Roger started buying pedal cars to restore. Then, he restored a couple antique school desks for my sister and I and the results were fabulous, so he bought some more school desks. Then he bought some trunks to restore...



It's come to our attention that we cannot and do not want to keep all of these things. Plus, I've bought a number of random things, too, that caught my eye, but I don't have a good way to display. The next obvious step for a pair of collectors is to start selling. So, that's where we are at. We plan to spend the summer collecting, and then open a booth in one of our local antique stores this fall.


We have definitely been collecting this summer, and we have barely entered the auction and garage sale season! Just a few of our favorite finds, thus far!




Slide puzzles! These were at the bottom of a box of board games I bought at an auction. I love little surprises like this!



This clock is 30 inches in diameter. I saw it and loved it, so Roger brought it home. It will probably be up for sale, though, since I don't have room.



Roger bought this covered with dirt and filled with a broken ceramic planter. I was so proud!



The fire truck is a Midge Toy and the other two are Tootsie Toys. They'll probably stay in Roger's collection.



Needlebooks! Do people collect these? If not, they should! These are a just 3 of the ones I found in a box of miscellaneous sewing stuff from this past weekend. The Atomic and Shakespeare ones were my favorites.

Check out more awesome finds at Thrift Share Monday!

Finished Project

This is the project that I put my Granny A Day project on hold for. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! The pattern is called Colorado Stripes and is from The Great Afghan Book by American School of Needlework. It's a super easy pattern and would be awesome if you are just learning to crochet!

I made this as a wedding gift for my friend Alysha who married the love of her life, Cliff this past Saturday in a gorgeous outdoor ceremony in Oklahoma. This is a picture of Alysha and me. Alysha is the one in white. :)



I'm assuming she has either opened this by now or doesn't read my blog. If neither of those is true, then, "Hey, Alysha!! Guess which box has the afghan in it!"

My Crop-A-Dile Died...

Originally, I bought this pretty little tool for scrapbooking. It will punch a hole in almost anything - paper, fabric, leather, metal, chipboard! And it sets eyelets, grommets and snaps, too. When I started making the book corsets, I realized it was the perfect tool for that. Unfortunately, in the middle of making some corsets last week, it suddenly stopped working. I can bare squeeze it and have to pry it open once it's closed. Even Mr. Kay couldn't fix it. I can't even tell what's broken on it! It just won't work.



Fortunately, I had its big brother in the cupboard, brand new and unopened. (I got a good deal on it at Walmart, but hadn't needed it yet.) So, now I'm back in business! Seriously, though, if you are a seamster, but not a scrapbooker, you should wander over to the scrapbooking department and pick up one of these guys. Either the original Crop-a-Dile or the Big Bite. Totally worth it!

Down & Dirty, Why Did I Buy This Fabric, Reusable Bags!

I have a lot of fabric. LOTS! Okay, not as much as some people, but it's still a lot. I was going through it this weekend and trying to assign jobs to each piece. And some of it made me stop and think, "What? What was I thinking when I bought that? And why did I buy so much of it?" It's not that it's really ugly fabric, just not really my style.

So then I started trying to think of ways to get rid of it fast. Trying to sell it off is a pain and could take a while. Reuseable shopping bags! Everyone needs those, right?

I found this tutorial which I really like, because it's EASY! And it looks pretty good, dontcha think?

I'm going to give these away with purchase at my crafts shows this year. Assuming, I can get enough made!

More Grannies!

I'm behind. Totally to be expected and actually planned. Yeah. Planned. That's what I'm going with.... Actually, I'm putting all my crocheting energies into another project at the moment. It's a gift, so I can't say more than that. But, these are the last 12 blocks that I did, and I think they're really pretty! The one with the purple flower is my favorite! I'm very happy with how that turned out.



This square turned out a bit bigger than I had hoped, so it won't work with my other squares, but I still love the pattern. I was experimenting to see if I could get the 8" block pattern down to 6 - 6 1/2 inches by using an E hook. Um, no. But I did find that the 7" block patterns work well with the E hook.

I tell you what! Using that E hook on this yarn is hard work! It makes my hand hurt a little, but it's getting me the size I want, so I'll keep using it. I should be getting back to my granny squares in a few weeks. I better be, otherwise it means my gift will be late!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I made some green velvet cupcakes last night. I love the way they turned out. Not especially pretty, mind you, but they are GREEN! I sent one with Lil' Kay in his lunch box this morning and half a dozen to day care with Sally. The kids are both wearing their green t-shirts today, and I'm sporting my green sweater. When you've got an Irish last name, you've gotta represent!