Last summer I ignored, for several days, a sketchy poster board sign hung on a boarded-up building a block away: “yard sale inside, knock on door.” Every yard-sale-loving cell in my body answered the call with a quite certain “yeah right, and DIE.” Until the day that… I went inside. Very end of the week, sign had been up for days and days with no reports of murder in my small, happy neighborhood. Door was hanging wide open, normal-looking people were loading things out of the building onto a truck.

So I wandered up. Was greeted at the door by a very enthusiastic old man who told me the story of this former pharmacy – closed down many many years ago, but the building was boarded up rather than being sold. Now the family was finally clearing things out to make the sale. The inside was like a fossil record of the 80s and beyond. There were some other normal-looking yard sale patrons paging through books. The guy shooed me inside and begged me to take things. He said he’d give me a deal.

Over an hour later I emerged victorious. And really really, dirty. Like, I went home and showered kind of dirty. Feeling a little guilty and like I had just committed some kind of yard sale robbery, but also sure that my grandpa would be proud of the price I paid for my haul, and positively giddy about my treasures.

For part of a sweltering hot Friday afternoon, I sat on a grimy chair in this grimy room and pawed through grimy boxes full of pristine greeting cards that were older than me by decades. They were amazing. I drooled. I fawned. I sorted out two boxes of the ones I wanted. What for? I didn’t know. I was completely consumed with the wanties. They were going to go in the trash the next day. There were hundreds and hundreds, most in multiples. They were almost entirely packaged neatly in flat, brown paper envelopes, reorder tickets sticking out of the tops. No bends, no creases, no fading, no de-glittering or de-flocking. The vellum was beautiful and crisp. They were all stock that had never been put out for sale.

I emerged into the sunlight with two big boxes of greeting cards. And then again with a box of lovely antique cameras, plus a couple of 70s Kodak gems (most have been gifted – I kept one). And then a box full of half-empty, ratty scrapbooks, which I devoured to learn a little of the family and the past of my town. On top of that last box was a super-ratty quilt, which lives on to enjoy outings onto the grass to listen to music and be sweated / bubbled / hummused on by happy, dancing children.

All told, I had paid the guy a sum so small that I can’t admit it here, even after fighting him and rounding up to something above “really fancy Starbucks coffee drink.”

So the cards. What in the hell do I do with hundreds and hundreds of beautiful vintage greeting cards? Aside from use and gift, I came up with two solutions. Some I will sell on Etsy. They have been in plastic totes for half a year because I felt a little guilty doing that. However, practicality wins and the first batch will be up shortly. Beyond that, I am scanning all of them and making them available for download here. They are all uploaded in their original size, for graphic taking and crafting in whatever way you are able. There are many, many more to be added to that set, so check back often.

The people who owned the pharmacy were German. They had a nice collection of cameras, mostly German as well. They were good photographers. The man – the pharmacist – had two doctor brothers, both lived in Florida. They took a lot of photos of snow. They sent Christmas cards. They baked cookies from stained, handwritten recipes. They rode horses on Kingwood street. The women had excellent taste in clothes, but, alas, were not my size.

Enjoy.

Listening: Nick Drake pandora (probably for the rest of “winter”)

I finally got around to photographing some vintage goodies over the weekend, and spent part of this rainy day (eating soup and listening to Iron & Wine and) listing them in my shop. Have a peek! Many more fun and colorful housewares to come, as well as clothing and a goldmine of pristine 1950s and 1960s greeting cards.

(Just a few – click through to my shop to see the rest!)

A gigantic, crazily rainbow striped, crocheted masterpiece. Vintage sheets (and quilt daydreams.) Hazel’s find – cowboy boots, one size too big. Which is not stopping her :) And, a turquoise Pyrex bowl – the first piece I’ve found of the clear glass variety. And a wee green milk glass dish, unmarked. I had intended it to go straight to the selling stash after I paid my quarter, but it’s too cute and happy – I just keep using it.

My brother and his girlfriend just showed up at my back door after some morning yardsailing, bearing a pristine blue #401! Yip yip yip – complete set!! Red thrifted by my mama, green from goodwill, yellow from a local thrift shop, and now the most delicious wee blue. Thank you, Ben & Megan!

It is said that if I could melt it down and shoot it up I would, but really, I don’t know why people do drugs when you can just go thrifting. All you have to do is take in an episode of Hoarders every so often to keep yourself in check. It’s cheaper than beer, cigarettes, coffee…

swoon. swoon. swoon.

- I love my wee back porch. These little succulents in their mismatchy milk glass homes love it there, too. One of Hazel’s current favorite things (and the only plant she’s ever chosen to buy, beyond selecting flower colors) are the “baby toes” in the middle. She loves to pet them and look in the little windows on their tips.
- Sometimes there is an owl asleep on the kitchen floor.
- Thrifted a pretty pretty pretty (and functional!) vintage Belgian Descoware pot… smothers wish for a Le Creuset, matches a tiny decorative version that belonged to my grandma, looks smashing living life on top of the stove with a turquoise teapot, and doubles as deadly weapon to use against any potential back door intruders. The goodwill gods have smiled upon me once again.
- Text message from my brother requesting books 3 & 4, and practically running down the block with Hazel to deliver. Yay for new Potter fans! And yay for my brother and his gal living so nearby that Hazel’s “is ‘dat Uncle Ben’s house?” pointing inquiries are limited to less than 10 houses between theirs and ours.
- Snoopy band aids for wee injuries!
- …and “band aids” for the rest of the “injuries” in this house. What is it with two year olds and band aids? All over their parents and stuffed animals and dog and…I do not have the kind of band aid budget that Hazel would like, but I LOVE to watch her play doctor, so instead I give her these labels that look like small neon band aids. She loves them. I pay a penny or so each, and sometimes go about my day with nine of them all over my shins. Win.

I found the first of these gems at one of those garage sales where you walk in and immediately want to walk back out, but peruse the christmas decorations and power wheels cars and VHS tapes anyway, just to be polite. It was partially hidden under a table, sitting on a bench. My heart lept at its minty greenness, and then again at its one dollar price tag. It’s a Swiss-made Hermes 3000, and appears to work just fine – I need to download the manual and procure some ribbons and see if I can get it functional. I thought about fixing and selling it to finance a couple months’ electricity usage, or half the year’s water bills or something, but I want it in my life for awhile.

The glass coasters / casters are from Viking Glass, whose defunct factory is still located three towns up the river from where I grew up. My mom and I popped into a yardsale in a building there, and were greeted by tables of the usual fare, AND tables and tables of glassware that was left behind when the store (which used to be located right where we were standing) closed and the building was sold. Lots of sample pieces etched with numbers, lots of mismatchy and chippy and partner-less stuff. It would have been a goldmine for a hardcore collector of stuff from old WV glasshouses. So, after an hour spent one night hunting online for affordable, appropriately-sized vaseline glass coasters and coming up with nothing, I did a little internal yip-yip at these perfect little replacements for this cabinet’s wooden shims. Two bucks a pop and part of my heritage? Yes, please. Who cares if they don’t glow under a blacklight. I also basically reinacted this conversation about an oversized wooden shipping crate, stamped with the Viking info and destined for New York. Instead, as soon as I fashion a fabric liner, it will nicely hold Hazel’s growing stash of dress-ups. I don’t have a picture of that – the trunk of my car was too full of photography lighting equipment and a vinyl cutter. Oh baby.

Listening: Jackson Browne

four Hazel Atlas “kitchen aids” mugs :: 1966 Memory game :: vintage Little People village :: brand new LL Bean backpack with my name on it, in my color :: a good weekend :: if we’re ever destitute we’ll sell the village set and game on ebay :)

The best things Hazel has said, lately:

“I a farmer, Mama”, while seeding some radishes…

- and –

…singing a toddler-murder-ballad variation of a classic children’s song… go pop the weasel. A lot. Every day.

…but I do not always like to sew. Or, more accurately, I do not always have the time, should be doing other things instead, have a toddler who is not occupied enough to allow a hot iron anywhere in her immediate radius, etc. On those days, no-sew fabric projects are where it’s at!

$3.00 vintage folding chair – a little WD-40, some added padding, and fresh new fabric (and a fifty-cent apple tablecloth of perfection – thank you goodwill.)

Various scrap fabric, leftovers, and a vintage shirt popped into “circles” (much to Hazel’s delight) and arranged on the wall. I think I’ll be adding to this – delicious color combo!

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.