Buying and Selling (and Buying)

I try to buy locally, but for all that, I've been indulging a bit in online commerce recently, and of course I quite encourage the online purchase of high-quality handmade fangeek goods from my own online shop, so there you go.

I don't know if you do this, but when I'm preparing to go on vacation with the family, I tend to use that time to buy a bunch of stuff. You know, stuff like the baby wears her really ratty swim trunks that used to be her sister's to the local pool every day, but she certainly can't wear ratty swim trunks on vacation, so let's go shopping! And the girls have tons and tons of art supplies and small toys here at home, but I'd bet they'd behave so much better on an airplane if they had all new art supplies and small toys, so let's go buy some! None of those previous items have yet to be purchased, although they're all on the dream list, but this week I did buy a few extravagances for our upcoming trip.

Although I have successfully made my own mei tai, I found it bulky and awkward. The straps crossed right over my quite substantial breasts, for instance, and although that was nicely supportive, it leaves something to be desired aesthetically, I believe. I just can't get the use out of something if I don't really love it, so I never did wear Sydney in my home-concocted mei tai as much as I would have liked to, and so recently I broke down and bought this awesome mei tai. It's pink with skulls on one side, you see, in case I'm feeling fancy, and plain black on the other side in case I need to blend. The straps are long enough so I can tie them backpack style instead of across or under my breasts, which is comfier on us more ample figures, and it's way trimmer than my bulky old tai. Although mei tais, especially in a back carry, have a learning curve (it takes me a few tries still to get the mei tai pulled up around Syd's back without catching her butt on the top and thus sitting her on it instead of in it, which makes me swear), and although I have a couple of personal preference mods to make on it, such as padding the straps where they sit on my shoulder and the back where it catches Syd's thighs, I love, love, LOVE it. Love it.

This year Willow is old enough to carry her own backpack with her own and Sydney's things inside, toys and snacks and etc., and so I decided to buy the girls and myself some nice, reusable water bottles. I'm not a fan of the whole commercial bottled water concept, nor do I approve of the long-term re-use of an old commercial water bottle for your own water needs. That cheap plastic leaches, which you ought to be able to tell from the way that the really old bottles of really dedicated re-use types look all discolored and yellow-brown. There will be no phthalates in my breastmilk or my kids' bloodstream, I say! That's why, even though I disapprove of the willful misspelling, I bought us some Klean Kanteens. They're food-grade stainless steel, nice and light and non-leaching. The bottle mouths are wide enough to pour ice cubes in, and you can buy sippy spouts for them, but we like sports caps because they're also relatively non-spill. I bought the plain silver 27-ounce for myself, Matt didn't want one, Willow chose the blue 12-ounce for herself, and Sydney chose the pink 12-ounce. Oddly enough, I didn't actually buy these from the Klean Kanteen site, because this Greenfeet site was about twenty dollars cheaper for our order. Weird.

In other news, it's finally time to say goodbye to my Sandman soldered glass pendant, which hung around on my etsy shop for months even though it had tons upon tons of hearts. It will be happily wending its way to its new forever home tomorrow.

If you're wondering why I haven't been showing off my crafting lately, it's because it's a secret! I'm tootling along on my Christmas in July Stashbuster swap on Craftster, set to send out before we leave on vacation, but hopefully I'll finish tootling this weekend and then I have lots of other wacky crafty ideas to try out and post after that.

She Likes It! (and by extension, me)

My partner in the Bargain Hunter Swap received her package of goods from me, and posted them all in the gallery. Yay, she liked everything! I have to say, myself, that I did do some pretty swift bargain hunting. Here's my list (Mind you, the total had to be under $10, with as little stash as possible):

1. Broken China Pendant

• Piece of China plate—$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale


• Copper plate, solder, jump ring—stash


• Carton--$.25, Clearance at Joann’s


• Polyester padding--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale

2. Knit-It Mice Kit--$1, garage sale (haggled down from $2)
3. Crocheted and Knitted Afghans pattern book--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale (I reeeeaaaaallllly like the tiger-striped afghan!)
4. My First Storybook Dictionary--$0, dumpster-dived from behind the Salvation Army (I thought my recipient could use if for book-altering or scrapbooking; I think dictionaries are kind of fun for that)
5. Blouses to Knit and Crochet pattern book--$.25, Goodwill in Arkansas (vacation to visit my grandparents!)
6. Sweater Sets to Knit and Crochet pattern book--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale
7. Aluminum Size 15 Knitting Needles--$.50, garage sale
8. Building Better English--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale (I thought it might be fun for book-altering, and there is insane 1950s graffiti all over it!)
9. Aluminum Size 2 Double-Pointed Knitting Needles--$.50, garage sale (There’re only three left in the set. Can you knit with only three?)
10. Hot Blue Sugar’n Cream Yarn--$.97, Joann’s (on Clearance)
11. Aluminum Size 5 Knitting Needles--$.25, garage sale
12. Five Scrapook Sheets--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale (these were originally 50 cents!)
13. Aluminum Size 8 Knitting Needles--$.50, garage sale
14. Instructions for Making the Red Heel Sock Monkey Toy--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale (this was inside a half-full bag of polyester fiberfill that I also scored—awesome!)
15. Aluminum Size 4 Knitting Needles--$.50, garage sale
16. Hot Pink Sugar’n Cream Yarn--$.97, Joann’s (on Clearance; I thought it might go well with the blue)
17. Aluminum Size 6 Knitting Needles--$.25, garage sale
18. Espanol Lap Quilt

• Espanol T-shirt--$2, thrift store in  Arkansas


• Brocade fabric--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale


• Thread—stash

19. No Hablo Ingles purse

• No Hablo Ingles T-shirt--$.99, Goodwill (50%-off Storewide Sale!!!!!!)


• Zipper--$.25, garage sale


• Red ribbon with gold hearts—stash


• Thread—stash

20. Glen Miller Story record box

• Record album cover--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale

21. Scrapbooking Gel Pens--$.50, Half-Off in the Dollar Bin at Target
22. The King and I record box

• Record album cover--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale
  GRAND TOTAL: $9.68

My favorite thing is the broken china pendant. I basically smashed an old china plate I picked up for free and soldered around it just like I do with my microscope glass pendants. This was the first time I'd made something like this, but it turned out just like I'd hoped, so I'll definitely make many more.

Here's the tote I made: 

It's made from a double-thickness of the T-shirt for sturdiness (which is why it's long enough but not so tall), with a zipper at top and a wide ribbon for the straps. I knotted the ribbon instead of sewing the straps together at the top so that you can adjust it for a variety of strap lengths.  The ribbon is wired, too, so that you can tie a bow or whatever and it will stay and the ribbon ends won't just flap in your face when you walk. I might make one of these for myself.

This lap quilt is made from a T-shirt I found while thrifting visiting my family in Arkansas--my swap partner speaks Spanish, so I thought it was a very fateful find. The brocade fabric I found at the free day, and I think it complements the T-shirt perfectly:

  

There's a pretty cool quote in Spanish on the T-shirt, about how to speak Spanish is to speak the language of fiestas, mariachis, happy children, sun-drenched lovers, etc. Matt thinks the quilt is a stupid size, but I say that it's a lap quilt, and consequently it covers the lap, so there. It's 20"x20"--is that stupid?

So, that's all for Bargain Hunting. What am I doing next, you ask? That's easy--Christmas in July Stash-Buster swap!!!!!! My partner is awesome, and likes cool things, so this will be much fun.

A Day That Needed Kittens

It was a day that turned out to need kittens, yet it started out well enough. After breakfast and before our weekly playdate at the library, the girls played with modeling clay together for nearly an hour--they stuck the colors on fondue forks and made caterpillars, smashed them on the table and added birthday candles and Willow sang the tall tree song to Sydney, used them as props for a dinosaur puppet show--long enough for me to sew and turn and topstitch and quilt these babies:

They're hand towels for the downstairs bathroom, the one with a dinosaur theme. The backside is a recycled pool towel from a Marriott that somehow found its way into our luggage, but never made a home for itself in our linen closet, due to its pukey green color, until now. The fronts are remnants from the dino quilt I'm making the girls. The hand towels aren't standard size, of course, but they don't need to be, and I like that the dino fabric gives them a soft side to contrast with the rough terry side. Kiddos tend to have tender skin, don't you know.

The library was terrific, obviously, except for the tornado warning that had us all herded into the Program Room for half an hour, but while we were at the library all morning, two people in a red pickup truck (says an eyewitness) stole my girls' tricycle, ride-in car, and wheelbarrow right out of the middle of our yard. When the police came they tolerantly took our statements, but obviously objects that are precious only to their little girls are unlikely to be recovered. The ride-in car was a hand-me-down from a friend, the wheelbarrow was a yard sale purchase just from Saturday, but the tricycle...the tricycle was Willow's present for toilet-training, and it was beloved by all of us:

Willow is such a sweet and gentle kid that her first idea was that people had wandered into the wrong yard in the rain and would return her toys in a minute, but I couldn't stand to see her standing at the window, waiting, and so I explained that I thought the people had done it on purpose, even though it was very wrong, and that maybe they'd return the toys, but probably they wouldn't. So Willow looked at me, tears running down her face, and asked, "Will the people give my tricycle to their own little girl?"

Fortunately, when the mail came, Willow's world began to look up, because our package from the Craft for My Kids swap arrived! Our partner made a lot of really terrific things for the girls, including a crayon roll, a painted wooden dinosaur, charm necklaces, matching aprons, matching scarves, washcloths, and felt pastry, but my favorite is these matching rompers:

Cute!

An added bonus to the day--I declared myself too emotionally depleted to cook dinner, so Matt ordered our absolute favorite dinner: Pizza Express. Matt always gets pineapple (yuck!) on his half of our multi-grain crust, but I waver between sun-dried tomatoes or broccoli, both of which are delicious. However, when we opened our pizza box, we discovered the wrong pizza! Half cheese and half pepperoni, with nacho cheese dipping sauce! Do you know what that means? Free pizza! Score.

The girls still seemed down, though--I think you have to be a little older to appreciate a free pizza--so Matt and I put into action a plan we've had for a while, and we took a family trip to the Humane Society. We're a foster family, so we sometimes take an animal to come visit us for a few weeks--lots of animals benefit from fostering, including moms with babies, very young animals, animals undergong medical treatment, or animals who are depressed by the Humane Society environment. We had our choice there between two little one-pounder kittens who need to be 2.5 pounds each before they can be spayed and adopted out, or three puppies from a litter of nine border collie mixes. Willow was leaning towards the puppies, of course, but I told her that even though it's her choice, the kittens did need us more, because they were smaller and younger and don't really do well in a Humane Society environment. Willow said, "The kittens need us more?" I said yes. She said, "I want kittens." And so, a day that needed kittens turned into a day that got kittens:

And there will be pizza for breakfast in the morning.

Bargain Hunting Begins!

After the successful conclusion of my part in the Craft for My Kids swap, it took me about five seconds to sign up for the Bargain Hunters swap. Basically, I have a budget of ten dollars, with which I am to find as much awesome stuff that my partner will love as humanly possible, and with which I am also to make her a good-sized craft. After a slight misunderstanding in which I thought for a couple of days that she ONLY wanted decorative wooden boxes, we are now on the same page and I realize that she is going to be fun, fun, fun to shop for.

I have to say, I am going to be GOOD at this swap. In case you're local, here are the places to hunt bargains in my town:

1. Post-season at Target and Jo-Ann's, when holiday stuff gets marked down to 75% off (in late January, Target will mark Christmas stuff down to 90% off, but you have to be watching for it, because it gets picked over fast). These are good places to buy twinkle lights to make your house look awesome, shaped molds for soap or crayons, goth stuff or costume stuff or face painting stuff, etc.

2. Goodwill at two locations, the College Mall one being more of the college student Goodwill, and the much bigger west-side Goodwill being the townie store. Frankly, I find Goodwill a little pricey--a T-shirt there is two dollars. Two dollars! However, each week a different colored tag is 50% off, and the tag color changes on Sunday, so if you go Sunday or Monday, you get the best pick at the half-off goods. These are good stores for board games for jewelry or altered books; sheets, pillowcases, and blankets with which to sew; china for mosaics or jewelry; and themed T-shirts for a quilt.

3. Salvation Army--this store is dirt-cheap, with one tag color being half-off each week and one tag color being 25 cents, and another clearance rack up front at 25 cents. I recently got a ton of wool sweaters there for 25 cents, including one with dinosaurs(!) intarsia knitted in. Their selection of adult T-shirts and adult jeans sucks, however, and they only take cash or check. This is a good store for wool sweaters for felting, record albums for record bowls and album cover boxes, weird children's picturebooks for framing or altered books, and I bought Willow an awesome pair of rollerblades there for two dollars once.

4. Dumpster behind the Salvation Army, which is my all-time favorite place to dumpster-dive, on account of the Salvation Army closes at 6:00 pm on Saturdays and doesn't open until 9:00 am on Mondays. All weekend people come by the loading dock and either dump stuff off or pick through stuff. We usually go by on Sunday afternoons after my partner's softball games, and if it's a rainy day and we don't go, I feel sad. The pro about this place is that it's totally free; the con is that it's technically illegal. This place is good for children's clothes and toys, books, clothes with unusual patterns for sewing, work shirts for my partner, and just really odd stuff. Yesterday we found a six-foot artificial tree, which we took, a huge blonde wig in a Kroger bag upon which someone had written, "NEVER BEEN WORN," which we did not take, several puzzles--still sealed--of dogs or cats or elephants, some of which we took (the girls and I have been working/crawling over and rolling in and throwing around the dog puzzle off and on all day), two wool sweaters, which we took, one orange work shirt for Matt, which we took but it's a little too short so we're taking it back next week, and several still-packaged little hearts that are supposed to grow 600% when you immerse them in water, one of which we took and which is now sitting in a glass of water on the bathroom sink right now.

5. Our Recycling Center (which is the most terrific Recycling Center in the nation, as it recycles plastics #1-#6, including bags, offers donation drop-offs for a billion different items from shoes to bottle caps, and encourages you to drop off materials that they can donate to children's art programs) has a sidewalk exchange, where you can drop off stuff you no longer want but is still good (no electronics!) and which you can visit once a week and take up to four items per person. The girls and I bring a bag of stuff here about every week, and take in turn a bag of stuff. This place is good for records, magazines, Nintendo stuff, jeans for denim quilts, and children's stuff. I usually leave Sydney in the car here, since the exchange is right in front of the parking spaces, and Willow's special job is to choose a toy for Sydney and a toy for herself.

Where do you bargain hunt where you live?

Craft for My Kids Conclusion

The Craft for My Kids Swap is OVER, at least on the giving end. Being as my partner just, you know, gave birth and all, I reckon I can wait patiently to receive my goodies. Here's the swap gallery in which my partner very generously compliments my crafts, and here are my photos of what I made:
My partner's nursery is decorated in blue and sage, so this denim quilt has a sage wool felt backing and binding and is tied with an embroidery thread that sort of, but doesn't quite, match the backing:



I made this baby powder by sieving cornstarch over and over with lavender essential oil. It smells so excellently awesome that I wish I had an excuse to, um, powder myself...I used some different essential oils in these vegetable glycerin soaps. Lavender is calming and soothing on the skin, peppermint is energizing and helps upset tummies, and lemon-eucalyptus clears up stuffy noses: I think babywearing is critical to attachment parenting, which I think is critical to raising calm, confident, creative, and self-actualized people. I make a lot of these ring slings, and I teach babywearing locally at Barefoot Herbs+Barefoot Kids, so I felt very comfortable making a ring sling for my partner, but I still wanted to weight-test it, of course. Yeah, I think it will hold a newborn...One of my partner's kiddos loves turtles, so I wanted to make a turtle stuffed animal out of felted wool, but I never ended up totally happy with the pattern. I've got some more ideas, though, so I'm going to keep sussing it out:

I've made so many of these crayons in the past year that, seriously, the girls are running out of crayons. Is it still a recycled craft if you have to buy your kids new stuff so you can craft with their old stuff?This is my most favorite thing ever--I made my partner four of these, in different colors. These are made out of old T-shirts, y'all!I like to make kiddos doll ring slings to match their mommas' slings. Only Sydney uses them to carry actual baby dolls, though. Willow is more partial to hauling dinosaurs...On the whole, this swap was a huge success, and I haven't even received my own package of goodies! I learned some terrific new skills that are already serving me well, which is one of the big reasons why I love these swaps, and I developed some great new ideas for new products for my web shop and craft fairs. The essential oils soaps went over really well at their first fair last weekend, and I'll be bringing out the tie-dyed T-shirt bibs really soon. The felted wool turtle still needs some work, but I think it has potential.

I spent a little time today making black bias tape to frame up a tie-dye quilt I pieced, but most of the day was spent running a child-labor fruit salad sweatshop in my kitchen in preparation for Willow's school birthday party this afternoon. Willow's teacher, who is some kind of preschool evil genius, has a beautiful birthday celebration for her students. At circle time each birthday child gives a proper introduction of their family to the rest of the group--"This is my momma, Julie, and my daddy, Matt, and my baby sister, Synee"--and a large model of the sun is placed in the center of the ellipse on which the children sit. When it's your child's turn, she holds the large model of the earth and walks around the ellipse as many times as the earth has been around the sun since she's been born, while a parent reads a brief biography of the child, prepared earlier with the child's help. Willow was insistent that I mention she'd been to France as a baby, for instance. After every birthday child has had their turn, all the birthday children stand in the center of the ellipse while the teachers and their schoolmates sing the "Tall as a Tree" song to them. Reader, did I weep? Oh, freakin' yeah, I did.

Craft for My Kids Swap

I am rocking this new swap that I joined on Craftster. In it, I get to make stuff for my awesome partner's awesome kids, and she's making stuff for my awesome kids. So if you're wondering why I haven't been posting my projects, it's because I don't want to spoil the surprise! I'll post everything when the swap is over, however, with tutorials when necessary.

Doing a craft swap is really excellent for a lot of reasons. Chances are, if you have a craft that you really enjoy doing, you do it a lot, and that results in a lot of finished projects...a lot for you, a lot for your family, a lot for your friends, a lot for your kids' friends, etc. For instance--and this is not something I'm making in the swap!--I loooove to solder, and particularly to make pendants out of old postage stamps sandwiched between microscope glass. So I made myself some out of some cool stamps, I made Willow a couple of dinosaur stamp ones, I made all the grandmas necklaces and all the great-grandmas ornaments out of a photo of the girls, I made some of Matt's cousins necklaces of photos of their respective babies (and only received a sweet thank-you note from one of them!), I made a couple dozen dinosaur and superhero ones to post on etsy...and now, whenever another mom compliments me on the necklace I made from the girls' photo, I say, "Give me a little photo of your kid, and I'll make you one, too." I have also offered to do everything from patch another child's torn pants to making my daughter's dance teacher her own no-sew tutu to making my librarian friend's son a [insert item I am crafting for my swap] of his own. So having another recipient (especially a willing one!) for something I love to make allows me to keep indulging in a relaxing and useful pastime.

Craft swaps are also really excellent as motivation for learning new skills. In my very first swap, I learned how to cut out quilt blocks not with a template, but with a clear gridded ruler. I also indirectly learned how to use fusible webbing. In this swap, I've so far modified an existing pattern and created my own take on a certain baby item and learned (sort-of) to sew Velcro (sticky needles!), and I plan to create some new patterns/recipes for new items before I'm finished. It's part of my obsessive personality that I really, really, really like to learn new things, so this, for me, is the best thing about crafting.

Finally, who wouldn't want to have, in exchange for these pleasures, a few beautifully handcrafted items lovingly made just for you (or in this case, your kids)?