Weekend Bounty

This weekend was so sunny, I think the whole community was out and about. If you weren't having a garage sale (Thank you!), you were in your garden sprucing it up. We took advantage of the garage sales. : )

My loving husband had a shift at the Baseball Snack Shack, so my parents, my brother, and Justin and I hit up a few sales. We didn't intend to, we actually had started out with an errand to Lowe's, which I went to "look" at the curved shower curtains, and found the exact one I wanted, on SALE! I didn't even hesitate to purchase it, since it was half the price I kept finding online. We found our other few items and headed out.

Nanny and Poppy had spotted a Salvation Army that none of us had been to before a few days earlier, and that was on our list of to do items. We headed over there and were quite astonished at how large the store was. Unfortunately, the items were way over priced. I know, sounds kinda funny, but they were! When you find a used dresser for $250.00, I'm not sure how thrifty that really is. BUT! I did find these AWESOME hanging lamps! I've already spray painted all the bronze to silver and bought the light cord adapter plug, just need it all to be rewired. I can't WAIT to hang these in the office. Oh, and they were only $15.00, now that...was reasonable.


If we had a super cool outdoor living area, I could totally see these done up in a fun vibrant pop of color and hanging outside, lighting up an evening bar-b-que.


The big score, came totally by random driving around. The way my poppy drives is very obscure in that you never go somewhere and come back the same way. Sometimes it's annoying, but other times, like this one, it scored a jack pot! We hit up a garage sale and an Estate sale. We could have probably skipped over the garage sale and stayed at the Estate sale and spent all our money there. Here's what I scored...and thanks Nanny for your sweet wheeling and dealing on the milk glass! I owe you...no really, I do owe you for this bounty.


Sock Monkey-$1.00
Blue Ball jar with Zinc and Ceramic lid-0.50cents (crazy, huh?!?)
Black iron wall mounted plant holder- $5.00
Two painted milk glass plates- $2.00 a piece
Mickey frame-0.50cents
LARGE pedestal milk glass bowl-$5.00
Covered pedestal candy milk glass dish dated from 1955-1960-$20.00 Yes the most pricey, but it's in PERFECT condition and so hard to find ones with unbroken lids! Actually, all the pieces of Milk Glass are in perfect condition.
Pair of milk glass candle sticks-$5.00
Low square covered milk glass candy dish-$5.00
Large Vintage Christmas Santa chocolate mold-$3.00
Tall glass jar, don't really know how to describe it, just liked it-0.75

And these...for FREE! Love those hubby's that just want the stuff gone and tell you,"Yes, I said there was no price tag so guess what, they are free and if anyone hassles you, send them to me." You really should have seen how fast my hand shot out and grabbed on for dear life. : )


These are going right up in our kitchen sink window. I've been looking and looking on Craigslist, but either just miss them, or don't want to pay what they are asking. But Free, I can do!

The Estate sale was the best, Nanny and Poppy found some beautiful Polish cut glass pieces and my brother found some more cook books that look yummy delicious. (Except for that meat dish, brother, please don't make that, it looked super gross!) Oh, he also scored a bread machine and recipe book for $5.oo! I couldn't believe it. We had just walked up to the first garage sale and he was already returning to the truck with arms full. Okay, it may have not been that fast, but he spotted that thing and had his mission complete.

All in all, great weekend to the end of a GREAT spring break. I'll be posting about that as soon as all the video and pictures are ready. I'll leave you with a little hint of where we went. One of the items I bought at the garage sale tied in nicely and still had the original price tag which I know we would have paid while there. We all left with just a little more Happiness in our Lives.

~nic

Easter morning!

Easter aftermath:

We had a great Easter! Justin likes to wake up early on ALL holiday's. So, the festivities began at 7 in the morning. I do love the early morning excitement, but I wish it would last a little longer. Having only one child, and coming from a family of 6, the holiday fun only lasts a short burst of time. But the overall joy and cheer enjoyment Justin has, makes up for it!

The Easter Bunny always hides our real colored eggs, but he also tucks in a few fake eggs with clues to find a HUGE golden egg. The Bunny has been doing this for several years now. Justin always gets a kick out of it and loves to find that Golden Egg with the prize inside. One year, that Bunny was so tricky, he hid one of the clue eggs in our Pepsi machine! (Yes, we have a fully functioning Pepsi machine in our garage, for the poker night boys, we honestly only drink milk, water, or Arizona's Diet Blueberry Green Tea.) Anyways, this year Justin found all his real eggs, but not one fake egg. He thought the Bunny forgot. Until he opened up his new WII game and the first clue was tucked inside! Off he went to hunt for that Golden Egg...which he found tucked in the entryway cabinet stuffed with cash for our upcoming Disneyland trip. Happy Easter to him!

Here are some pictures of Justin opening his Easter basket from both mom and dad, and Nanny and Poppy.

Mom and dad's Easter basket goodies.

New WII Baseball game, The Bigs 2.

Checkin' out the new Tony Hawk shirt from Nan's and Pop's.

New Flip Flops for back and forth to Gym.

What are these?

Super cool recycled, ultra scented writing pencils!
Very Berry and Cotton Candy.

I can't wait to be retired and find all the cool things my parents get to find. : )

Here are just a few of the "quick get the camera before he finds them all" shots of Justin hunting for the eggs.

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter as well!

~nic

Oh...and just because I can, (sorry brother! : ) ) here's a shot of my brother, looking like he's trying to ignore it, getting the stare down from our dog Brody. Really, fluff ball? You think you can take him down?

Could you do something with this?

I found this in our community spring clean up:

It was old, painted on, and super beaten up. But I saw potential in it and loved the vintage appeal it came with.

I brought it home and cleaned it and took it all apart.

I spray painted all the green metal bright shiny red.


I started with the back rest first. I sanded down the inner wood and then started by hot gluing batting to the wood and covering it all with a yellow liner material.


Then I covered it with this beautiful material I've had for years. I don't even remember where I got it, but I love it and have been waiting to use it.

Can you picture it yet?

I traced out a crude pattern, found some red plaid ruffle and white eyelet ruffle to add and pinned them all together.

After sewing it, turning it right side out, and slipping it over the padded back rest, I folded and stapled the bottom opening to the wood and ended with this result. LOVE!

I attached the back rest cushion to the metal part and started in on the seat.


The seat was so rotted I had to have hubby cut me a new piece from a left over kitchen cabinet shelf.


I didn't have any seat batting, so I cut up a free thermal blanket. I layered the "batting" and then cut a long thin piece to go around the edge of the wood which I just hot glued. I then took the whole thing and covered that with a piece of a white sheet.


I then took my beloved yellow and white material and cut a square piece out of that and placed it over the top of the white.

I found some red courderoy material and white eyelet material. I cut them both into strips, the red into 6 inch wide strips, and the white eyelet into 4 inch wide strips.


I gave them each a quick hem with a zig zag stitch and then pinned them together and ran a gathering stitch along the top. I made a quick ruffle and pinned this to the edge of the seat cushion.


I sewed all that together and then pulled it tight over the white seat cushion. It looked like this:

I screwed the seat cushion to the base and then attached the back rest and turned out with this. I ADORE it! I do need to finish the steps so I will have some updates, but I was so excited about her so far, I just had to share! Let me know what you think! : )



~nic