Lots to Say

I’ve been into a little bit of everything the past several days.

 

1. Cool places on the Internet:

1. Bubbledog is a gal (I think!) who has really great stuff for sale on etsy.com, but the way that I found her was by searching for old stickers. I have most of my sticker collection from the 80s and bubbledog has taken the time to go through and categorize many of the old scratch n sniff stickers from that era. I am working on consolidating my collection so that I can confirm that I do, in fact, have every one of Trend’s “Stinky Stickers” in my collection. And if not, well, that’s why God gave us e-bay. I especially love bubbledog’s snap wallet collection on her Etsy shop.
2. Speaking of Etsy (your source for everything handmade), they rock! I love their “shop by color” feature. Click it and you’ll see why. This is probably where I’ll be buying any future gifts for people, because everything is unique and cool.
3. Ephemera is a guy who collects vintage papers and other old junk. From his site, I learned about…
4. The JunkPirate, a guy who works at a Junk Shop where they take in donations of art supplies and “raw materials” for assemblage art. I’d love to start something like this and be able to go through all the people’s junk searching for treasures. He also has a great site link where he displays his artwork and studio. Very cool stuff.
5. P.O.S.H. is a cool store where they get and then resell stuff from hotels, diners, etc. Bri and Rob brought me this great mug from there last week, so I thought I’d post the link to the site so you can all take a peek at their goods for yourselves.

2. In the spirit of Junque collecting, I went over to Salvation on Saturday. They were having a 49-cent sweater sale. If one sweater for 49 cents is a good deal, then ELEVEN of them must be, well, eleven times as good! Plus, they arrange all the shirts and sweaters ROY G BIV style, so you know I was thrilled just with that. I still need to wash my eleven sweaters. They had to stuff them into a big black Hefty bag for me to carry out of the store. In all the sweater excitement, I forgot to look for any cool junque.
3. That’s OK, because I went to Urbana on Sunday and picked up a bunch of free junque. I went up there to visit my papa and grandma because they’ve been sort-of stuck at home lately. Joe D slipped on the ice a couple of weeks ago and landed on his ribs, breaking one and cracking 2 more, and what with all the ice and snow of late, they’ve just been staying inside and trying to keep from having any more unfortunate incidents. Papa Joe is in terrible pain, but he seemed to be OK otherwise. Well, probably a bit restless from being pinned up in the house for that whole time, but otherwise OK. It totally rocked the way things worked out, because I got in touch with Cathy and she and Tommy were available for lunch. We picked up Chinese and went over to the house. So, everyone got to see Tommy and everyone got fed. That kid is so freaking cute. Also, for no apparent reason, while we were all eating lunch and Tommy was extolling the virtues of sharing and having all of us try whatever was on his plate, he suddenly exclaimed “SON of a BITCH!!”, which must have been the first time he’s ever said that in front of Cathy, because the look on her face was complete and utter shock. And of course, we all laughed. He was so confident in saying it, you’d think he was a little 4-year-old trucker or something. AWESOME. Also, he remembers some of the weirdest things, for example, there was a dinosaur sticker on grandma’s fridge from Cathy’s graduation and he pointed it out and said “that’s what I gave you when we went and mommy was a nurse!”. Which totally blew my mind, especially because he also remembered that I gave him the stickers and that he gave each of us one. Uh-dorable. He also asked where my kitty was (STELLA!) and where Grandma’s kitty was, and then talked about their kitty, and then told us about how he used to have a dog, but the dog got hit by a car. He was not even two when that happened. I can’t believe he can remember all that. Anyway, sorry for all the Tommy-babble, but man, I get excited when I talk about him. This was going to be more about the junque I found in the attic. I’m going to post photos later this week, but I’ll say right now that I found 2 more sticker books, a bunch of little plastic toys, and 2 more sets of the antique Christmas ornaments. Yay! I’ve also come up with an official moniker for one sub-stream of the Stealth Organizational Project: Toy Reclamation Project. This is where I gather up every toy I can find in the entire house (believe me, there are still TONS) and then clean, organize, and re-order. Then I’ll decide whether to keep them for future kids, sell them, donate them, or what. Ah, sorting and organizing. I need more drawer and shelf space!
4. I also brought my scroll saw back from dad’s workshop. I’m going to start use it to make dovetail and finger joints for some boxes I’m working on. But on the way home, I also “designed” a scrapbook cover for my “50 states” scrapbook that I can make with the scroll saw. It will be a wooden binder with a wooden inlay puzzle of the continental US. I will probably end up making 4 extras because I think it takes 5 colors to fill in all the states without having the same color touching. I want to use 5 different species of wood to make the little states. This will make more sense when I sketch it.
5. Some folks have been commenting or querying things about the MiniFarm, so I’ll have a post later this week about some ideas I have for how we’ll support ourselves down there.
6. CubeNeighbor and I got into a conversation about how Mirm and I did a paint-by-number set one afternoon. Mirm will tell you that she did the set, because in the time it took me to fill in the tiniest parts of my board with a toothpick, she had finished her board and started on the big board. She actually finished up my board after I left. Anyway, I was telling that story to CNK, and she said I should check out these cool paint-by-number kits for grown-ups. So I did, and I ordered a set for me and a set for Mirm. They look simple, but it still took me 8 hours to do 2 canvi on Saturday. The effort was well-worth-it, though, because they turned out great! I highly recommend getting a set. 5 bucks is a great price and they are huge, like 16”x16” or so. I also found a bunch of unfinished paint-by-numbers in my K-12 memory box, so I’m going to finish those and post the pics here. Probably some time next year at the speed I work.
7. I can feel the spring in the air! Yay! I spent about 40 minutes last night sort-of cleaning up the yard, which had gotten really full of trash. The Cav is going to finally go to that great car lot in the sky this week (thank YOU, St. Vincent DePaul!), and all the branches I trimmed last fall are actually kindling now, so we’ll be ready for more firepit action this spring! J