Book of cards

I was just telling a friend yesterday that the real reason I make stuff is to avoid doing actual chores like dishes and laundry.  Here's what form my procrastination took today.  (Yes, there are still a few remnants of Christmas scattered throughout our house.  I'm really hoping to get those bins closed up this weekend so that Matt can put them in the attic for me by the start of February.)

Our Christmas cards went from this:

 to this:

It's not my original idea.  I saw it on Pinterest or someone's blog.  In the past I have chopped the cards up and made scrapbook-type pages out of them, but this method is faster, plus more fun for the kids to flip through.

And for good measure, I did a little decoupaging instead of sorting that ever-present pile of mail and school papers.

The M stands for "Maybe we'll have leftovers tonight."

Retro Friday: Tangy Taffy!

Pregnancy aches and pains plus allergies plus a nasty little virus that has worked its way through our family equals me not blogging for a while.  But I'm feeling better today & want to share something sweet.

Did anyone out there eat Tangy Taffy as a kid?  I used to save up my change and buy it at 7-11 when I was a kid.  Then in college, there was a gas station just down the block from my apartment where they sold it, plus a cute boy often worked the cash register.  So I started saving my change for them again.  Anyway, they used to look like this:

Then at some point, the brand was purchased by Wonka (owned by Nestle), and now it looks like this:

Don't be fooled, though!  Not all candy labeled Laffy Taffy tastes as good as the original Tangy Taffy.  Laffy Taffys come in small bite sized pieces (which taste gross) and long ropes (which taste gross).  The only ones that taste tangy (and good) are the flat bar-shaped Laffy Taffy.  And of those, I've only tried grape and cherry, which are the ones I ate as a kid.

Since our recent reading of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, my kids have been fascinated with candies that carry the Wonka label.  I picked up two of these grape taffy bars while grocery shopping solo yesterday, and I ate one in one sitting.  Then I took a look at the label and learned that one bar contains 19 grams, or about FIVE teaspoons, of sugar.  Then I took a look at the calendar and learned that I'm scheduled for my routine gestational diabetes screening in about three weeks.  So maybe I'll reschedule this trip down memory lane until sometime after May.

Necklaces

At the start of a new year, I always feel the urge to pull out my beads and make some jewelry. 

Weekend color

I spent Saturday exploring Austin and eating candy with my big boy.  We saw lots of beautiful color, and even had our picture taken by a guy with a dyed-blue goatee.

Retro Friday: melted plastic popcorn

Another Friday, another piece of vintage Christmas decor that reminds me of my childhood.  Have you ever heard of melted plastic popcorn?  I hadn't until I found this in a thrift shop:

His red nose was mostly broken off, so I hot glued a puff ball on there, plus I added the ribbon to help hang it on the wall.

We had a couple of these decorations when I was growing up; ours were a Mickey Mouse dressed as Santa and a Donald Duck carrying presents.  Here's the best photo I could find of them, on the window ledge, circa 1983.  (Aww...Dad helping baby Jill open a present, plus Rachel rocking a Dorothy Hamill haircut.)

When I showed my Rudolph treasure to my sister-in-law Kelly, she said the her family had a witch in the same style.  After a bit of googling, she discovered the official term of "melted plastic popcorn", which of course led to a couple hours wasted on etsy and eBay by yours truly. 

Then in a strange coincidence, about a week later I was walking past my neighbor's house as she was loading her car with donations meant for Goodwill.  She asked me to take a look and see if I wanted any of their outbound kid toys, and I saw a black hat made of melted plastic popcorn sticking out of a bag.  I probably startled her with my enthusiasm.  "Holy cow!  Is that the witch?  Was it yours as a kid?  Why are you getting rid of it?"  Alas, it wasn't a witch, but a jack-o-lantern with the same kind of hat as the witch.  My neighbor's mom had gotten it in an estate sale grab bag, and her family had no interest in keeping it.

You better believe we brought this guy home and added him to our collection.  Does two items count as a collection?

My internet searching has told me that the witch is fairly easy to buy, though a little pricey, but the Mickey Mouse Santa is going to be near impossible to find.  I plan to keep stalking my neighbors' outgoing junk piles.



Chair recovery

I have an antique kitchen table set that my grandma gave to me when I got married.  Back in 2004 my sister offered to help me re-cover the seat cushions, and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to do it in beige canvas.  I mean, why not just cover the chairs with a layer of old oatmeal?  It's approximately as appealing as beige canvas.

 

Several years and two kids later, you can see how the cushions held up.  In case you can't tell from this embarassing "before" photo, they were literally instead of just figuratively covered in old oatmeal.  I tried cleaning them with the brush attachment whenever I steam cleaned my carpets, but they were still gross.  And then one day I thought, "Why don't I just cover these in plastic?"

Here's what they looked like in the middle of the process.  It was like an archaeology dig, going back in time with each layer unearthed.

These chairs are several decades old.  There were lots of nail & staple holes.  Next time I want to change the seats, it will probably be time to have new wood pieces cut.

I used several layers of batting (these aren't the most comfy chairs) and some laminated cotton from Hancock Fabrics.  Here's the end result.

Patterned laminated fabric instead of beige canvas means better form (color!) and better function (cleanable!).



I realize this is the tip of the iceberg in terms of re-upholstering skills.  I have a bland-looking sofa (okay, fine, it's beige!) that is crying for a makeover.  However, that is a much more ambitious job.  Anyone ever done one yourself and have some words of advice?

Retro Friday: felt and sequins

Posting late today because I am having photo upload problems.  I think Google is trying to force me to use their Picasa album instead of just pulling my photos directly from my own computer.  Why are these internet companies getting so pushy?  You get what you pay for, I suppose.

On Fridays I will post something retro/vintage/nostalgic, because, as my kids put it, I "like old fashioned stuff."

A while back I was in an antique store in downtown San Antonio, and I saw this handmade Christmas wall hanging.  I thought it was charming, but it was in the $30 or $40 range, so it did not come home with me.

But, hooray!  A few weeks ago, I found something similar at a resale shop for the delightful price of one dollar.

It feels very 1970s to me, but I can't be sure of the time period.  It's clear that many hours of hand work went into this.  Please tell me in the comments if you made or had something like this in your house growing up.

Rosy-cheeked angels!  Sequins!  A dollar well spent.