Desperate Thrifting.

Well, as predicted, we got hit hard. This was from the first day of hard snow, which was landing on about four or five inches of ice.

A week later, there’s still four or five inches of snow out there. YUCK. Everything is wet, cold, and muddy. I might as well be back in Chicago! This is supposed to be the mild-winter South! Justin stayed home on Thursday and Friday and went in late on Monday, so I got pretty spoiled, but we live on a huge hill and I didn’t feel safe getting out until Saturday and then I went with Justin — this town did not clean up the mess worth a flip and the roads were still icy. By Monday, I was desperate to get out, and when Justin got home early, I grabbed Jack and went to the thrift store. I figured NO ONE had been thrift shopping, so the pickings might be good. And they were. I mean, can you beat this tiny little Santa cup with Japan stamped on the bottom?

Well I CAN. How about eleven of his closest Santa friends? In their original packaging?

I love these beyond reason. I keep taking them out to look at them. But someone needs to tell me what the original purpose of these were — they’re so dang small.

Next up, this dough bowl.

Ridiculously priced at $3.99.

This basket, I think, is pretty nice, but I need a professional (Shara) to sound off on it. The handle is hand-carved.

So that was a fruitful trip to the thrift. Of course, the biggest thrill was ESCAPING THE HOUSE. Things get a little iffy when you’re shut up with two three-year-olds for an extended length of time. I did manage to get to the booth to drop a few things off — they had been closed for two days and had a really slooooooooow weekend, so I wasn’t expecting to find much of anything gone. And, in fact, the only thing that I had sold this week was almost all of the Christmas trees that I brought up last weekend, proving once and for all that they are the best sellers of my Christmas projects. This was the last one left.

Their popularity has given me the nerve I need to make some and give them for Christmas presents. I feel cheesy giving things I’ve made as Christmas presents. I don’t know why, because I love nothing more than to get hand-made things from other people as gifts.

Here are a few other signs I dropped off.

I also made another vintage ornament wreath. This will be the third, and the other two sold within one or two days of going into the booth. I need to work on those throughout the year, because they’re nice little money-makers. It’s just so hard for me to part with the Christmas ornaments! But they’re not doing anyone any good stashed up in my attic, for heaven’s sake.

I think I’m finished making Christmas stuff for the booth at this point. There are still quite a few items that haven’t sold yet (three porch signs and two trays, along with these latest signs I dropped off this week) and I don’t want to be left with a ton of Christmas stuff. I hope to be a little more prepared next year, maybe make things throughout the year instead of waiting until November to start on projects.

I forgot to take a picture of this box of marquee letters I got at the auction a while back:

There are anywhere from between 3-12 of each letter of the alphabet. I have no idea what I’m going to do with them but aren’t they just so cool? I was thinking punching holes in the top and making a banner.

While I’m skipping randomly from subject to subject, we got our tree up and decorated. This is the first real tree Justin and I have ever had. When we lived in Chicago, we always traveled to our parents’ houses for the holiday and so never bothered getting a tree — so this was quite the occasion for us. We have high ceilings in the dining room, where we wanted to put it, and I had no idea how expensive trees were — the 7- and 8- foot trees were $80 and $90! What the heck, man? There was no way I was going to pay that much for a tree, and right as I was about to say so to Justin, we happened upon the fluffiest 7-foot Scotch Pine you would ever hope to see for $35. These must be the most unfashionable of trees, I guess, but we love it.

Justin will be angry I posted this photo with the wadded up napkin (that HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR) in the frame. He spent about ten minutes cloning it out of this pic:

This peaceful scene did not last long as, at the time of this post, FOUR of my vintage ornaments have been smashed on the tile floor by some tiny little hands. Including one like this, a pre-1940s hand-painted mercury glass ornament:

That’s not the exact ornament, but mine was just like it. <Insert quiet sobs here.> I know, I know, it was my fault for putting them within reach. I thought they were old enough to handle the challenge but then I remember, they’re only three. Or will be in a three days! Where does the bleeping time go??