Earn Money, Buy Stuff

The Fair and Green Gift Festival was quite the occasion:
Not only did I earn a tidy sum AND get all my papers graded (something I had to do this weekend anyway, so it's like I got double-paid!), but I was just a couple of tables down from a green burial company, so during the slow periods I got to eavesdrop on LOTS of gossip about, well...burial hijinks?

For those of you who were looking for something in particular--I sold out of felted wool dolls and crocheted grocery bag messenger bags, but I'll have two felted wool balls up in my shop tomorrow. I'll also be listing a few sets of Christmas-themed record bowls and two felted wool stockings.

But of course, we can't forget that yesterday was GOODWILL 50%-OFF STOREWIDE SALE DAY!!!

Everybody managed to get something nice and new to them, and the thrifting gods were indeed smiling upon me, because I scored two items that I have been on the lookout for. To help me finally make the soap from the soap-making kit I bought from the Kitchen Girls, I found an immersion blender--something that I was widely warned is rarely found in thrift stores. And, to replace the lousy one that broke TWO YEARS AGO, I found a super-super-nice digital five-compartment electric steamer.

Happy sigh.

Find Me

In case you're one of my *many* stalkers, here's where to find me tomorrow:

10am-3pm: Fair and Green Gift Festival, Alison-Jukebox Community Center, Bloomington, Indiana

This is the first year it's being held here, so the organizer fears that attendance will be light, but it seems to me as if she's been promoting it really well, so we'll see.

In honor of the festivity of the season, I'm just bringing my Christmas-y stuff (and in honor of the tiny little table I'll have), but the girls and I did have a happy morning together making these product signs: All from stash. Festive, right?

And, of course, nothing is more festive than crafting in the nude: The girls periodically get VERY into our mostly-thrifted rubber stamp collection: It would likely be a greater pleasure to use them if I took more care in keeping the stamps and ink pads clean. Seems like a lot of work, though...

I will have some of my newest stuff at the festival--soldered glass ornaments and felted wool ornaments and stockings and these guys-- --so I'm looking forward to seeing how well they do.

4pm-6:30pm: Cloth Diapering Workshop, Barefoot Herbs Barefoot Kids, Bloomington, Indiana

This is my favorite of the two workshops I do at the store. My guarantee: somebody will ask if you have to dunk diapers in the toilet to wash them, somebody else will doubt that tea tree oil does jack as a wash additive, and a third somebody will refuse to believe that you can use a wool diaper cover for a month without washing it. All of these people will be lectured into total submission.

7:00 pm: Goodwill 50%-off Storewide Sale, Central Indiana

Don't even ask me if I'm freaking that I'm not going to be there at 9:00 am, because you know I am. I'm hard put not to give Matt a list and make him go in my place--immersion blender, wool sweaters, retro sheets to make pajama pants out of, Christmas-themed T-shirts for a quilt, obscure crafting books, little-girl hats and mittens--all will be gone by 7:00 pm, I just know it.

Must get my mind off of it--look what came in the mail today!The provenance of the wood from Maine Wood Company looked pretty good, so I bought some little people, some bigger people, some trees, two snowmen, and some acorns.

They still don't have any furniture, though, so they all just stand around and stare out the windows:

Stalk me!

The Soapmaker's Newest Companion

So Matt's in the nursery right now doing this-- --with two bathed, sleepy little girlies, but I get to goof around because I literally just finished this:

Uh-huh, two loaves of made-from-scratch multi-grain bread AND some oven-roasted tomatoes. The oven-roasted tomatoes are my specialty, except that I kind of burn them usually, but the bread is quite the accomplishment. Y'all, my bread has been RISING lately. RISING!!!

It was only yesterday that I took this awesome workshop on soap-making from The Kitchen Girls over at Barefoot Herbs Barefoot Kids, and I am already all about the soap-making. I'm all, "I must make soap. I can't BELIEVE I don't already make my own soap." As if it's a character flaw or something, which it kind of is.

The best thing about the workshop was that The Kitchen Girls had these little soap-making kits for sale, with all the stuff you need for a nice big batch--all your oils, already mixed, your little container of lye, some essential oil in its own little container, a spatula, some rubber gloves, and some safety goggles. I bought another buck's worth of dried spearmint from Barefoot Herbs, requested
from the library, and I am in business.

Except, of course, that I need a crock pot and an immersion blender. Well, that's what Goodwill is for, right?

And at Goodwill this afternoon, that's where I committed a crime against morality.

It wasn't the crock pot--I found a little one that I can maybe use for small batches of soap, the idea of which I like better than the making of one big batch, anyway--and it wasn't the immersion blender, which I'm still searching for. It was the woman with a big armful of T-shirts, so big that when she wanted to flip through another rack of clothes, she had to lay her big stack of T-shirts on a trolley behind her. I come walking past, minding my own business, and then, on the very top of her stack of T-shirts, I see it.

An Angel T-shirt. With the whole cast. Have I mentioned that I'm a big fangeek?

I thought for a second, I started to walk away, and then, quick as lightening, I SNATCHED this woman's T-shirt from the top of her pile and kept walking. And then, my friends, I bought that shirt.

Am I sorry?

Do I look sorry?

Indianapolis Hearts Children

A happy day at the Indianapolis Children's Museum:

As we pulled into our neighborhood tonight, car both much less full from a big sale to Half-Price Books and a little more full from a few little sales from the Goodwill Outlet Store, bellies happy with cheap noodles, one child sacked out with her head resting on her brand-new-to-her dinosaur toy, the other contentedly mumbling, "Nurse, nurse, milky-nurse" to herself in her carseat, Matt commented, "It seems like we've been gone all weekend."

Isn't that the sign of a good day trip?

Goodwill Gives Us Reason to Dance

Yay, Goodwill 50%-off Storewide Sale!!! Both Goodwill locations!!! I've mentioned before how much I heart Goodwill, and I heart Goodwill 50%-off storewide sales just that much more. I hit the west-side Goodwill at the crack of 9:00 am and the College Mall Goodwill right after I was done with that one--fanatic, I know, but I buy almost all of my recycled crafting materials at Goodwill, and almost all our family's clothes and household goods, etc., so the storewide sales are serious stock-up occasions for me.

The kids, of course, always make out like bandits, but it's interesting, always, to see what comes up and who gets what. At the last storewide sale back in June, for instance, I only bought the girls a couple of shirts, but today they totally scored:So Will got a velvet dress, formerly of the Children's Place, a stripey long-sleeved shirt, a dinosaur shirt (cause she needs more of those!), a black turtleneck, a batik shirt done by a local artist that I can't BELIEVE I found at Goodwill (If I ever found one of my quilts I'd sold back at Goodwill, I think I'd be really upset) but was a total score because I can't really afford the shirts new, an old-school Mr. Happy shirt that was probably around when I was Willow's age, a Darth Vader shirt, a dance outfit, and a cutie little green dress with big green buttons.


Sydney never needs as much as Willow, because she has the "benefit" of hand-me-downs, so I generally just buy her something if it's particularly awesome, such as a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer long-sleeved shirt, or embroidered Mary Janes, or an awesome embroidered jacket, or black cowboy boots (that will fit next summer, perhaps?), or a skull-and-crossbones T-shirt.

Is there anything cuter than a bad-ass baby?

In the past I've gotten most of our family's adult, "professional" clothing at Goodwill, but this time we only made off with one pair of nice work pants for Matt and a vintage top for me:

The category of crafting/interior design was a big hit, though, with another bunch of T-shirts for quilts (probably none for Strange Folk), a bunch of wool sweaters that are already cut up and in the basement next to the washing machine waiting to be felted (it would be nice if I had time to work some of these up for Strange Folk--Matt really wants me to sell some of my felted wool stegosauruses, but I don't have any already made up), and a big mirror that I plan to put on the wall in the girls' room as part of a dress-up area for them: We didn't really get a lot of toys for the girls--Willow picked out a toy pony (of course), Syd picked out a wand, and I bought them a set of dinosaur flash cards (of course) and an addition to their Lincoln logs collection:

Our goal is to eventually be able to build an entire Lincoln logs civilization, don'cha know?

The biggest score, however, occured at about two minutes past 9:00 am, when I practically shoved two tween boys into a clothing rack so that I could get my hands on something that I have been waiting YEARS to find: A DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION MAT!!!

While I later hit the College Mall Goodwill, Matt and the girls hit the mall to buy a used copy of Dance Dance Revolution (which we'll return later this week for, ideally, a better copy and/or a better price?), and all evening we took turns busting the kind of moves that only our family can bust:

Hopefully, this Sunday will be unlike last Sunday in that our power will stay ON, and hopefully we'll take enough breaks from Dance Dance Revolution to buy an EZ-Up and freezer paper stencil our Pumpkinbear T-shirts. And find a King Kong DVD for my class this week. And get the car fixed, on account of our turn signals don't work. And get my bike fixed. And...mmm, take a nap, perhaps?

I'm a Wench

So I managed to convince my partner to drop me off at the eastside Goodwill last night while he took the girls to the post office to mail off an etsy package and to ask, again, about half our mail that we're sure went missing while it was being held for us there (Netflix sent me Yoga for Indie Rockers on July 31! And have it I do not!). I don't usually go to Goodwill this late in the week because, since I usually only buy from the 50%-off color of the week, it gets picked over, and for a while I was feeling pretty grumpy and uninspired--I found a red tie-dyed T-shirt but it wasn't particularly awesome, I found the Unofficial Guide to Buffy but I thought I already had something similar at home, I found an awesome purple velour blanket but it wasn't on sale, etc.--but then, THEN, you will not believe what I found. A FREAKIN' REN FAIRE DRESS!!! A Ren Faire Dress!!! Velvet and silk, corset tie in the back, push-up bosomness in the front, long skirt for prancing around the maypole and swinging while acting saucy.

But I'm a curvy girl, you say. Does it fit?
IT LOOKS AWESOME!!! Matt was a sport and took this photo of me at 9:00 last night--I'm not fun to take photos of, on account of I tend to critique people's photography techniques while they're photographing, and then I have to preview all the images and delete the ones I don't like, and then we pretty much have to start all over again, don't we? But I love this shot of my new awesome dress. My two favorite parts of it are how you can see the hole in the side of the dress that I need to mend, and the Goodwill tag sticking up out of the neckline. And, of course, I love how I look in my awesome new dress that I am now going to wear absolutely every single place I go for the rest of my entire life.

Friends, this dress cost me $3.99. Sometimes, life can be so good.

Goodwill 50%-off Storewide Sale! AHHHHHHH!!!!!

So yesterday after the craft fair, instead of going home and rubbing moisturizer on my sunburn like a reasonable person (BTW, I cannot BELIEVE I sunburned! Not because I applied ample sunscreen, because I didn't, but because I'm so olive-complected and freckley. Freakin' global warming), our family hit both Goodwills for their 50%-off Storewide Sale! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!! Because I craft from recyclings, these sales are actually important to me professionally, as well as pretty much the only way my environmentally-sound and cheapskate family gets stuff, so I was very sad that I wasn't able to hit the big west-side Goodwill right at the smack of 9:00 am opening like I usually do, and you'll be able to tell from our haul that the stores were slightly picked-over by the time we got there, but we still did very well. Here's the score:

1. Yet another Italian soccer shirt for Matt. He has a lot of soccer shirts.

2. This navy blue silk babydoll dress for me:

I plan to wear it over jeans, but I don't do babydoll, so I need to have Matt help me pin the sides to fit so I can alter it.

3. Yet another work shirt for Matt. I know I buy him a lot, but I get so sick of washing them and line-drying them and putting them away that frankly, I need the variety.

4. T-shirts for quilts:

Let's see... Star Wars (to remake a quilt I sold), Batman (ditto), Superman (ditto), another Star Wars, dinosaur (for the girls' dino quilt), Care Bears (for a quilt in progress), France (a new quilt idea, because I often see lovely France tourist T-shirts), tie-dye (maybe another quilt for the house, but definitely baby bibs and coasters and placemats), and another dino.

5. Awesome!

6. The Lost World I re-read Jurassic Park while at my family's house in Arkansas, and I'm pretty stoked to have the sequel.

7. The Bean Trees: A Novel Don't tell Matt, but I already have this one. It's just that good.

8. A Scrabble game for making tile pendants, but then this happened to it:

9. A 70's style button-down shirt for Willow, probably overstock from The Children's Place, because it still had the original tag on it. This puppy was supposed to sell for $19.50. Seriously? When there are so many shirts at Goodwill for $1.25?

10. A land-line telephone to replace our land-line telephone (bought used a while ago and ridden pretty hard by a couple of sticky-fingered little girls) whose handset doesn't work, so we'd just have to listen to people leaving messages on the answering machine and then call them back, like, two seconds later on the cell.

11. And, of course, a big dinosaur floor puzzle.

Wow, you were really patient to sit here and read about shopping. As a present, here's a gratuitous kitten photo:

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?

Goodwill

The Goodwill 50%-off storewide sale is awesome. I look forward to it with such joy in my heart. I mark it on my calendar and gaze at it happily whenever I happen by. I memorize the date, so that I can say things like, "No, we can't go to Indy next Saturday. That's the Goodwill 50%-off storewide sale." I plan the night before so as to get to Goodwill as soon as it opens at 9 am on the day of the sale (this Saturday, we were 9 minutes late. As Matt dropped me off on his way to the hardware store with the girls, he said, "Nine minutes late? Oh, please." And yet? I had to wait by the cash registers for a cart, and then follow the person with the cart out to her car, and then help her load into her car the 5,000 deoderants she had bought---which weren't even 50% off, because they were NEW!). I follow a strict hierarchy of departments to visit, based on what I want most, how crowded an aisle is, and if my arm is tired from pushing through overcrowded T-shirt racks.

I adore the storewide sale for numerous reasons: for one, I don't do a lot of shopping, so going on an actual shopping spree once in a while is fun. I also buy all our clothes, all our books and toys, and most of our household items used, so, for instance, Matt actually needed work pants, and Willow needed shorts for the summer. And I buy a lot of the materials I use in my handiwork used, so I'm always looking for wool sweaters to felt and T-shirts to quilt. Here's what I bought this Saturday:

• dinosaur matching game, because the girls love dinosaurs



• dinosaur pop-up book, same rationale



• wading pool that must be tested and may or may not be returned, based on how massive it is and whether or not I decide it's actually an extravagance



• 6 pairs of shorts for Willow for the summer, one of which is identical to a pair of Matt's cargo shorts--awesome. I need now to make her some ribbon belts to hold them up, since they're a little roomy.



• flowery dress for Willow, unnecessary but very pretty



• 2 pairs of work pants for Matt



• one pair of jeans for me, one pair of brown pants, and one pair of brown pinstripe trousers--awesome. Only the jeans need to be hemmed, even.



• Sewing for Dummies--awesome.



• 3 wool sweaters for felting into stuffed animals or quilt blocks for some crib quilts I'm thinking about making



• one stripey shirt, two peasant tops for me.

• two hoodies for me, both brown, yet both different
• two ringer tees, for me and Matt


• half-dozen or so tie-dyed T-shirts for a quilt I'm making for us, to match one I donated to Willow's Montessori for an auction and really liked



• three dinosaur T-shirts for a quilt I'm making for the girls



• one Superman T-shirt for Matt



• three Star Wars T-shirts for a quilt



• one Captain America T-shirt for a quilt



• four or five pillowcases for summer dresses for the girls, including a couple that match--awesome



• one burgandy fleece blanket for a quilt backing



• one Christmas-themed T-shirt for a quilt



• one World's Best Mom T-shirt for a quilt



• The Mouse and the Motorcycle, a chapter book to read to Willow at bedtime

Whew. And for way less than a hundred bucks.