There is a very short list of things that I’m quite certain would make me happy even if everything in my life was falling apart. Among them: if you walk through my door and hold out your hands, offer up some random little piece of debris from your life and say, “can you make something out of this?”… I will always go weak in the knees. Always. Doesn’t matter what it is. Thinking about someone I know standing in their house and looking at something before they throw it away or put it back in a box and wondering what I could do with it means more to me than a billion dollars in profit from selling my stuff. Maggie and I have been doing this to each other practically our whole lives. This is why we are friends. Manda has mailed me packages full of her broken jewelry. This is why we are friends. My father in law destashes his abandoned projects into my life – darkroom supplies, woodcutting tools, stained glass supplies – this is why we are friends. Last Wednesday Walt showed up at hour house with one of these in his pocket:

And the ever-magical, “can you make something out of this? Like… jewelry? Earrings? I have lots more.” Look at those boxes, man!! Drool. Amp tubes. I never would’ve thought.

Since then it has sat on the island in our kitchen, suffering many inspections per day. Fiddling, walking around holding it in my hand, rolling it between my palms, pressing it to my lips (why do I do this? Hazel does this too – is she mimicing me or is there a reason that we do this?) I’ve lost sleep at night trying to figure out how to get it to hang horizontally. Because of course I wanted it to be part of a necklace.

Yesterday immediately after supper I retreated to the garage to give some ideas a try. First idea: solder jump rings to each end – one to the prongs and one to some copper tape wrapped around the glass tip – fail. Some curses. Second idea: wire wrap a band around each end of the main body and attach a jump ring to that – fail. Many curses. Third idea: solder a thin band around each end of the main body and attach a jump ring to that. Call Walt first. How much heat can these things stand? Is it going to blow up in my face if it gets too hot? A lot, he says. They have a heat resistant coating so that’s probably why my soldering ideas are not working – the copper tape won’t stick to it, he says. He reminds me that since it’s a vacuum tube, it would only crack if it got too hot. He’s smart, this guy. It’s not going to blow up in your face. But… you’re wearing glasses, right?

I am.

He says it probably won’t work. Try it anyway. Many more curses. Of course he’s right. Almost crying now – very mad and I’ve burned myself. What time does Lowe’s close? It’s 8:00 p.m. – I wish they made cable ties in metal. That’s exactly what I need – thin metal bands to which I can attach a jump ring. I get in the car, very angry and with the music very loud. Immediately I am not mad anymore because the CD that plays when I start the car is Chris Coole, and he is the opposite of music that could sustain craft-induced fury. I start to calm down. Drive to Lowe’s calmly. Thanks, Chris. Maybe I can find some tiny little hose clamps that will work.

Get to Lowe’s. Am asked many times if I need help. Am the recipient of many confused stares that I’m all too familiar with (I was an art student, after all) when I respond “I don’t really know what I’m looking for….” and I don’t bother to explain what I have in mind. Locate properly-sized hose clamps. They are too bulky, but they are ninety-seven cents for a pair so I dejectedly make my way to the checkout with them anyway, knowing that before I even get there I’ll turn around and put them back because I’m not going to put a ninety-seven cent thing on my debit card. Swerve into the electrical aisle. Glimmer of hope. Spy the boxes of cable ties, and start wondering if I could spray paint plastic ones with metaillic spraypaint. And… what’s that?

Stainless steel cable ties???

Will wonders never cease? I grab a pack of ten. I run back to the plumbing and fling the cute little hose clamps back into their box. I feel elated and speed the whole way home. I put Hazel to bed (she conks out in about four minutes and stays that way for the rest of the evening, the dear child) and go back to the garage. Send Walt a jubilant text message. Fifteen minutes later I have tears in my eyes because it won’t work. I can’t get them pulled tight enough to stay securely on the tube. I have glue all over me. I use bad curse words that are reserved for crafting. Send Walt angry text message – maybe he’ll have suggestions.

Two minutes later – I’ve got it figured out. So easy. Win. No glue needed. Add a couple of jump rings and solder them closed. Burned again. Don’t care now. It’s 11:00. Run upstairs to my beads – surely this kid is going to wake up any time now, because she’s only been sleeping for an hour before waking since we got back from Toronto and when she does wake up she makes me come to bed with her. Miraculously, she sleeps all night. By 12:30 I’ve constructed one necklace and not liked it and taken it apart and made another. I like this one. I’ll keep this one. I’ll make a few more and see if they sell in my Etsy shop to nerdy girls or wives/girlfriends of nerdy guys.

And if they don’t, I really don’t care, because all I really wanted was to beat this thing into submission without it breaking. I win. You’re pretty now, you wily little bastard.

Listening: Rilo Kiley
(I am) Reading: The Last Child in the Woods
(Hazel is) Reading:: 123
Working on: getting back to crafting that I’m actually getting paid to do for the rest of the day

…when I can hit three different Goodwill stores in my regular errands & travels. The past four days have been good to me: a pile of books for Hazel; an overstock plate from Target with the “ABs” on it (she picked that one out herself – “ABs!! ABs!!”); toy enamel kitchenware for her that I’d wonder the dating of if it didn’t have Ikea stickers on the bottoms; a Pyrex bowl; a carafe that I’ve already got two of (eek); a little tin bucket for her kitchen utensils (I picked up tiny bamboo forks, spoons, knives, and a mixing spoon in Chinatown in TO for a quarter each); a small piece of fabric; a cheery metal tray and two Fire King mugs.

Parkersburg.

Morgantown.

Clarksburg.

How is it that I can make 17 fruitless thrifting trips in a row and then when it rains, it pours? Is this still spring cleaning? I’m getting really excited about Hazel’s play kitchen plans – I need to start getting to the ReStore a few times a week to look for furniture to hack. The more I think it about it, that seems much more fun than building from scratch.

1.) Maggie and I went thrifting – joy! I bought the $9.00 school desk I’ve been thinking about buying for two weeks. Also found: icons and oldtime music books for Mikey, some yum fabric, a Billie Holiday record, and two glass canisters for treasures. A morning well-spent.

2.) My mom came over so that Mikey and I could simultaneously leave Hazel for the first time. He played a show – it was a must. I’m sure it would have happened sooner than 17 months old if Hazel had spent her first 13 months around her grandparents more than once every few months, and if she hadn’t spent her last three snowed in away from them all the time, but here it is – 17 months old and we’d never been out together alone. Not that we never went out – we just took her everywhere. I don’t know how she would have fared at one month old or five or ten or thirteen… but at seventeen months old she didn’t shed a tear and went to sleep on her Grandma’s shoulder without a fuss. Liberating! The show was really good – lots of people that I love and have missed were there. Who cares if my eyeballs and throat still hurt from the cigarette smoke (3.5 years of smoke-free bars, I’m not used to this).

3.) Lots and lots of time outside in the beautiful weather with my pretty little Bitty.

Listening: Iron & Wine
(I am) Reading: The Poisonwood Bible
(Hazel is) Reading: The Peace Book
Working on: spotted box; bunnies; custom jewels

I never really got the hang of thrifting in Toronto. I tried, and it just didn’t take. It felt incompatible with living in the city. Now OBVIOUSLY there is not an ounce of truth to that statement, but I just couldn’t get it to work. Any time I would go in a value village or a goodwill there were too many people so I left. Random thrift shops that I’d pop into were usually the way too expensive kind. I didn’t live in a good neighborhood for picking any trash other than my neighbors’ (which I totally did from time to time), and my brain just could not wrap around the notion of church rummage sales in a city because to me, they are such a small town, country thing. I never went to a single one. I would have had to drive half an hour or more to the burbs to hit up yardsales – which I always meant to do but just felt like a huge hassle. On top of all of that, I wanted as little stuff as possible to have to haul back across the border at whatever point in time we decided to leave.

NOW. This is not to say that I have nothing to show for my three and a half years in Canada – I had some great freestore finds and a couple of noteworhty trash finds. I dug through dollar bins of vintage headscarves in subzero weather in Kensington Market. I have a little pile of amazing vintage fabrics that I am saving for Hazel clothing when she’s a little older (so it’ll last longer? so she can run around in it because it’s flowy? I don’t know why)… but I found those in the country last summer. I had my moments, but by and large it was unsuccessful.

And now we are three weeks into my thrifting-every-week resolution and I have struck gold every single week. I love small town thrift shops and goodwills and the thought of springtime rummage sales and yard sailing make me want to run out and buy a pickup truck rightnowrightnow. I have spent less than $25.00 and have come home with things we’ll need when we have our own place (trash-picked furniture, an awesome lamp, some decorative/organizational stuff, old Pyrex for dimes and quarters – we need that right??) and a pile of books for Hazel (a quarter or two each) and craft supplies (several yards of vintage embroidered ribbon for $1.75, ’70s afghan patterns for 35 cents each) and a pristine vintage suitcase ($4.99) packed with clothing and linens for a major repurposing undertaking ($1.29 per pound)… that I am afraid will have to remain a secret for quite a while. And I used a birthday craft store giftcard to buy spraypaint for it alllll… bwahahaha. Not really. But there is nothing that I will not spraypaint.

Why is it so different here? Is it because people have more space to hoard their stuff away for 30 or 40 years before they finally donate it? Because people come and go less? Is it because West Virginia (and I suppose other small town places) are behind the times in general? I never really realized how true that is until we moved away and watched everyone back home discover bubble tea and moccasins and… whatever the reason, man does it feel good to find junk that makes my heart all skippy. I inherited this gene from my grandpa I am sure, the yardsale king himself.

There is also Gabe’s of course – one of the top five reasons I could never live in Canada forever (kidding… kind of). The oasis in the desert of full-priced nonsense, where I can find the perfect bird lampshade for my $3.00 thrift shop lamp, and instead of whatever ridiculous price Urban Outfitters had marked, I pay $3.99. Yes thank you.

I haven’t even checked to see if this lamp works yet. A trip to Lowe’s might be in order. But oh, it’s so happy happy.

(…and there is my third-week-of-the-year destash – a bag to Goodwill equal to the size of the bag I brought home, hmm.)

I also feel the need to mention that I am stripping Hazel’s diapers for the first time. Fifteen months and my first diaper-stripping… not too shabby, but annoying enough that I bought some recommended soap that apparently eliminates the need to ever have to strip your diapers because it doesn’t leave any residue like detergents. I have always assumed that 7th Generation was fine to use on them, but after six months in the same 12 diapers (which are synthetic, not natural cotton or bamboo, so they don’t rinse as well) I can tell they are getting a little bit of detergent buildup. They smell clean when they are clean but not as soon as they are wet, and they aren’t absorbing as well. So after several evenings of researching diaper-stripping-methods I am going at them full-force (and my hands are suffering – should have used rubber gloves), and hopefully the new soap will have arrived by the time I need to do a load of diaper laundry. It might be in vain anyway, because we will still use 7th Generation detergent on everything else so the residue left in the washer from regular laundry might cancel out the nice, fancy powder soap.

Listening: Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
(I am) Reading: The Case for Make Believe, new DIY magazine, The Happiest Toddler on the Block (a swaptree swap – I really liked the sleep suggestions in his happiest baby book… it’s hard to find non-cry-it-out advice and I was feeling a little desperate last week)
(Hazel is) Reading: a pile of thrifted books, including stuff about trains, trucks, the alphabet, and houses all around the world
Working on: blue & gold blanket; some Etsy stuff; some Hazel stuff

Tiny, vintage, mustard-colored elementary school chairs for hazel – $2.00 each at yardsale… freshened up the legs with black rustoleum and they are patiently waiting for her to get big enough to use them.

Pretty fruit skewers for a summer picnic – I love projects where everything comes from the dollarstore. Skewers, wooden bees and flowers, and glittery hot glue – all $1.00 per pack.

Shirt for Hazel’s first rock show :) Stitched a handmade patch onto a long-sleeved shirt that she already had – felt was twenty cents per sheet.

Ok, not a craft project, but she’s so darn cute – Hazel & I sitting on a caboose. She’s wearing her banjo shirt from Sarah Holsapple. She’s going to bust out of it by the end of summer so I really need to buy the next size up… it’s Mikey’s favorite.

Listening: Ryan Adams
Reading: almost done with Columbine
Working on: Etsy photo revamp – after a battle with Ritz camera, who lost the macro filters I ordered and wouldn’t respond to emails, Amazon has refunded my money, I bought filters from elsewhere, spraypainted my props, and I’m ready to go…

I’m super excited about this find: vintage kids’ puzzles that arrived in mint condition, still in their shrink wrap. They look so nice framed… things like this make the time spent sifting through all the total junk in Etsy’s “vintage” category worth it!

Puzzles: $9 for the pair from bouquet
Frames: $7 each at Michael’s

Listening: rain, rain, rain
Reading: I need to start a new book tomorrow – can’t decide
Working on: in reality, probably nothing more than getting us ready to go home for a week :)

I am so desperate for spring that I’ve found myself coveting all of these wonderfully delicate, flowery, rosary-style necklaces, even though I can’t wear things like this for an indefinite number of years. You know, as the mother of a four month old who will have siblings coming along just as she’s old enough to not break my jewelry and try to rip earrings out of my lobes :)

If I were a childless person who could still wear whatever jewelry she wanted, I would be saving my pennies for these:

Yellow Dream Flower Pendant Necklace by Tamar // $45.00

Primavera Pendant by Fern Street Designs // on sale for $24.00

Red Rose Necklace by Divine Rose // $38.00

I can wear a few babyproof things, I guess, like this awesome custom-stamped cuff by Lotus Blossoms. Great customer service and super-fast turnaround time on this skinny cuff stamped with the ISBN of our daughter’s first book (The Giving Tree) and cut to fit my abnormally skinny wrists!

I also had my bead-shop-employee-friend Erin babyproof two strands of my great-grandmother’s vintage glass beads – she wore them with dresses to do farm and housework, so I’m wearing them to channel some of that domestic goddess from the fifties and sixties… strung on 49 strands of interwoven steel wire coated in nylon, and triple-crimped with sterling crimps :) Hazel is a fan:

Listening: Dan Auerbach
Reading: Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks; about seven other things
Working on: a droolproof photo album for Hazel of far-away faces; spring jewelry & stationery

One of my projects for Hazel’s room is to put together a shadowbox of small vintage toys and game pieces. A couple of weeks ago I was in the mood for a hunt, so I spent quite awhile in the vintage category on Etsy and snagged these goodies:

Wooden building blocks from goodlookin, who kindly modified the set to include everything I need to spell Hazel’s name.

Four owl game pieces from thriftypyg.

Vintage bingo cards from One Cozy Nest (which can’t all be used in a shadowbox, and will be appearing in other projects).

I also stumbled upon these lovely tree notecards, and bubbledog happily put together a set of the three colors that I liked the most for framing.

As if I hadn’t done enough shopping, I ended my night by snagging a set of fairy silkies from Beneath the Rowan Tree. I’ve had my eye on them for awhile, and am sure that by the time easter rolls around, Hazel will enjoy finding them in her basket.

A good haul! I can’t wait to see how this shadowbox comes together, and hunting for the bits and bobs is so much fun. I’ve also been collecting things for one of vintage kitchen odds & ends and another of sewing notions. I’m super excited about all of them, because I love all these tiny things but not the clutter, so having them artfully contained under glass is perfect for my eyes & brain :)

Listening: Bob Dylan
Reading: looking for a tutorial on how to make a toddler dress out of an adult tshirt -I know I’ve come across them before
Working on: destashing, collecting supplies, sketching ideas for pinback buttons to sell at a farmer’s market in the spring

It is obviously not Sunday – it’s a beautiful Friday afternoon and a couple of our friends are crossing the border just about now, on their way to visit for the weekend!  Since I will be playing and having all sorts of fun with them this weekend, you get your Sunday gift ideas now!

With so many fancy toys to be had in box stores, I always feel like kids are the hardest ones to buy for when it comes to keeping it handmade – sticking with our books and art supplies exception is always much easier!  So many of them are not impressed with a gift that does not take batteries, especially as they get older.  I’ve browsed hundreds of toys on Etsy this week and picked out a few that I particularly love for their aesthetics, that I would have played with as a child (even though I’m also of the battery-and-lights generation… oh how I loved all of those Nickelodeon toys that Did Awesome Stuff!), and that I know at least some of the children in my life would enjoy.  I hope that our baby grows into the kind of little kid that loves toys that foster open-ended, creative play, and I’m sure many Etsy purchases will have a hand in that!  And if the little Canadian ever wants a Flashscreen or an endless supply of Gak and Floam, I will see what I can do – I don’t think they even make them anymore.

1.) These wooden pull-toys by cookiedough are a classic AND so pleasing to the eye.  All lead-free paints and several layers of a non-toxic glaze make these fun and safe.  Paisley printed elephant  :  $20.00.

2.) This wooden candy dispenser by stumppondtoy is simply awesome.  I was endlessly amused by similar marble toys as a kid, but candy?? Genius. I imagine it would be equally enjoyable on someone’s desk at work…  Jelly bean dispenser  :  $41.95.

3.) I’m completely in love with these recycled-fabric birds by deliciousness – each one lovingly named and ready to adopt!  No two seem to be alike, but each is yours for $18.00.

4.) Woodmouse makes so many great wooden toys that I was having a hard time picking just one to feature, but this guy takes the cake (har har) because if I lived in a real house with a real kitchen with a real window – as opposed to a tiny 17th story apartment – I would buy one of these to put in my windowsill.  I *might* let my children play with it if they were extra-good.  Hardwood liriodendron tulipifera – if my high school biology memory serves correctly – has wood-burned detail added, is painted with non-toxic paint, sanded, and finished with beeswax and natural oil to protect the wood.  Retro aqua mixer  :  $17.00.

5.)  Play food always seems to go over well even with the most video-game addicted kids, and this felt pasta by BeckyM looks parcitularly delicious!  Check out her shop for food to suit everyone’s fake-culinary taste.  Twenty pieces of bow-tie pasta  :  $5.00.

6.) Seriously, what kid doesn’t like blocks?  I don’t think one has ever existed. Functional AND fun to look at, these blocks by SparklePower are decoupaged (in a non-toxic way) with pieces of vintage maps.  Set of five  :  $15.00.

Listening: Elliott Smith
Reading: The Glass Castle
Working on: cleaning out folders of Etsy photos; sorting out what needs to be photographed