Thrift Shop Treasures

I love a great thirft shop find! Here are my latest treasures, and I found them all in one place! First, my eye caught this Hanukkah mug for 50 cents. The original tag said $9.99! I wish there was more than just one! Then I found this gorgeous aqua springy swingy skirt that was calling my name. Remember my declaration that I will wear more skirts? Well, this one will get me started off beautifully. And I can wear it with these fabulous leopard print peep toe pumps! Well, sometimes anyway. The heels are pretty high, but I couldn't pass them up. And my favorite thrift store items are always the books. My house is filled with great thrifted reading material! I rarely pay full price for a book (unless it's for a gift). This time we found five nice hardbacks to take home. Quite a successful shopping trip!

Ready for Spring...and Skirts!

For the past two weeks, my family and I have been dealing with a yucky flu-type virus, and we are all still trying to recover. I'm finally starting to feel normal again, and the weather for the past few days has been beautiful. I'm ready for spring! I'm also ready for skirts! I LOVE skirts, and last summer I decided that this year I will wear more skirts. They are comfortable, cool, feminine and oh, so cute! And there's an added bonus: skirts are easy to make. I've always been intimidated by making my own clothing and getting it to actually fit, but I'm pretty confident I can do a skirt. I recently purchased these two books to help me along:


The first, "Sew Serendipity" by Kay Whitt, includes patterns and has a section on custom fitting, which looks like it will be very helpful. It has directions for several skirts, which are all variations of the same basic skirt, but they are very cute. There are also several variations of a tunic or dress (also adorable), and some jackets that I will definitely not be making. These are the high waisted, weird sleeve length types of jackets that would make me feel either very little girlish, or pregnant. I am not looking to accomplish either of these looks, so I will not be using the jacket patterns from this book. But the skirts and dresses are a definite yes!

The other book, "Sew What! Skirts" by Francesca Denhartog and Carol Ann Camp, shows you how to make skirts without a pattern. It guides you along making your own basic pattern for several types of skirts, and gives you ideas for your own designer touches. I love this book! I think I will be making quite a few skirts with it, and I am going to begin with this bright and fun fabric:


I can't wait to start wearing the cute skirts I'm going to make! And, yes, I will wear them everywhere, including trips to Wal-Mart, where everyone else is in sweats or pajamas (seriously, pajamas???). I don't care. I will wear skirts!

I've got the world on my wall

We have a world travel kind of theme going on in our living room, and I was looking for something to go on the wall above our new tv. We got a Google tv (love it) and chopped off our entertainment center, so the wall above it was empty. I found the perfect thing at the etsy shop BubbaAndDoodle. It's a vinyl decal of a world map. I love it! It looks very cool on the wall. This picture really doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea. I was a little intimidated by the thought of trying to get it placed correctly on the wall, but it was MUCH easier than I expected. BubbaAndDoodle has so many amazing looking decals, for walls, laptops, windows, etc. I really like this one for an Apple laptop , and the chalkboard vinyl labels to put on jars. There's also a dry erase circle to put on your refrigerator, and many, many gorgeous decals for walls. I think I could find one for every room! I'm so glad I found this shop. I'm sure I will be a return customer :)