Oodles and oodles

The more, the merrier...49 days to go

I called home at 9:15 last night to let my family know I was headed home from a meeting.

My daughter answers the phone.

"OK, Mommy. Be careful, Mommy. I love you, Mommy."

Her words travel with me down the dark country roads, lined with snowbanks from the latest storm. The windows of the house glow. My daughter is still awake, snuggled under blankets.

"Mommy!" Smiles, hugs. "You're the best mommy in the whole world."

Mmm-hmm. She's 13. Something's up.

"And since you're the best mommy in the whole world" - BIG smile - "Mackenzie can't have the sleepover at her house  tomorrow night so can we have it at our house PLEEEASE?"

So we'll be using all the extra blankets tonight. Even the pretty vintage ones. (top blanket, $1 at an auction, middle and bottom blankets, $1 each at the same yard sale). The opportunity to be the best mommy in the whole world, even for a day, doesn't come along that often when your daughter is 13.

* counting down the days until the yard sale season begins on April 18 with my favorite finds that cost a dollar or less

Don't forget to enter the contest! If nobody gets the right answer, I'll choose someone at random. Since I've only got about four readers, your chances are really, really good!

A dollar or less, only 50 days to go! And a giveaway!

(Note - this giveaway ended ... congratulations, Julie!)

I bought a pitchfork at a yard sale last spring. The handle on our old one had snapped, and the yard-sale pitchfork was one of those heavy-duty kind that the guy in American Gothic is holding. I thought my husband would faint when I brought it home. "You bought something we can use?" he asked in amazement. He was so happy that day.

In the thrill of looking for vintage treasures, I forget that you actually can buy useful things at yard sales. I'm trying to think of examples. Oh, I know. Clothes. Yes, some people like to buy clothes at yard sales. I don't, but I've heard you can find them there. Or recreational equipment. Um, like skis and stuff.  You can tell this is all a little new to me.

So the fact that I bought something at a yard sale that I use constantly can be attributed to one thing: dumb luck. It's a pleat maker. I love it so much that I get a little panicky when I go to use it and can't find it immediately. I love it so much that I'm afraid to let my friend borrow it, because if she accidentally lost it and she couldn't find a replacement we would still be friends but not really because in the back of my mind I'd always be thinking about how she lost my pleat maker. I love it so much that when people ask me, as they so often do, "Do you have any hobbies?" I say, "Yes, I do. I pleat crepe paper."

The pleat maker originally was intended for making smart pleat skirts - see the one on the card? - and, if you read the fine print, also dresses, aprons and drapes. I came up with the crepe-paper thing completely on my own. I believe I wanted to make black crepe-paper ruffles for Halloween decorations, and I remembered that I had this thing. So I tried it out on a length of narrow crepe paper, and it worked. It worked so well that I'm not sure I ever made the Halloween decorations. I just wanted to pleat more crepe paper. I have pleated crepe paper in every color now. Yards of it. Oodles of it.

A few weeks ago I branched out and tried pleating wide crepe paper. That worked, too! Oh, the thrill. I used it to make the little blue Easter basket. And then I made a white one, and a pink one, and I'm thinking how cute they would be for little May baskets I could give to people ... sometimes I think I need an intervention.

I consider my pleat maker one of my best yard-sale finds ever. I don't remember how much it was - I think there was a box of button cards and trims and such, five for a dollar or so. If you ever come across one, buy it. Even if you don't want it, I might want to buy it from you. I think I would sleep better knowing I have a backup.

OK, here's the giveaway part. I am NOT giving away my pleat maker, so just forget about that. I remembered this when I mentioned American Gothic. It's a trivia question. Do you know what industry was revived single-handedly by the popularity of the painting? Go ahead, guess. The first person to answer correctly will receive something from me (again, NOT my pleat maker) that is nice and vintage-y and in some way related to the correct answer.  Leave a comment between now and Sunday, and I'll announce the winner Monday.  This prize is of a nature that I can indeed send it abroad, so give it a try, wherever you are.

I have to go pleat more crepe paper now.

*counting down the days until the beginning of the yard-sale season (April 18-ish) with my favorite dollar-or-less finds

A dollar or less, 51 days to go*

The forecast called for up to a foot of snow.

We got only 10 inches!

I'm bringing out my pretty spring dresses!

(crocheted pot holders, 50 cents each at a sale last summer)


*counting down the days until April 18 when the yard-sale season arrives. Wednesday is my day to make the rounds of thrift stores. What has life come to when that's the highlight of my week?

I don't know what you're talking about. 52 days to go*

A bluebird print ($1) propped on a windowsill.

See all that fresh snow outside?

No?

Me, either.





*counting down the days until the yard sale season begins with little finds from seasons past. It's going to stop snowing any minute now. Really. I can feel it.

Happy Monday! 53 days to go*

Wishing you a week filled with signs of spring!

* 53 days until the yard sale season begins. The sale Saturday, and the sunshine and the appearance of vast flocks of robins Sunday, buoyed my optimism. I am paying no attention whatsoever to the meteorologists who keep saying a snowstorm is headed our way tomorrow.

Two versions of the same sale, 54 days to go*

Version 1, (fantasy version) House Sale, Saturday, Feb. 23

Oh, what a delightful sale we attended Saturday! The cozy home was absolutely packed with vintage treasures, all of them so reasonably priced we could hardly believe it! My friend Linda and I spent a pleasant hour making our selections from an abundance of vintage sewing, holiday and craft items that had been lovingly collected by the homeowner over the years. Then we returned to my country home to warm up with a cup of coffee and exclaim over our good fortune! I adore this rose-sprigged hatbox I found. I'm using it to store just a few of the wonderful items I purchased: vintage ribbons, buttons and the sweetest vintage doll patterns! Here's the best part: almost everything we bought was $1! If we go to a sale like this every weekend, the time between now and the first day of the yard-sale season will simply fly!!!!!**

Version 2, (the truthful one), Same House Sale, Saturday, Feb. 23

I can only think one thing as I pick my way through the jumble: Is this what my house will look like someday? Will I leave box after box of unattractive holiday decorations, artificial flowers and unfinished craft projects? Will it be such a hopeless mess that the very efficient woman who is running the sale admits that she ran out of time to price items and would be delighted to get a dollar a box for most of it? Linda and I spend an hour trying to unearth a few items of value. We amass an unwieldy pile of, um, stuff, and decide to take it back to my house to sort through and divide. We're not even halfway through it, and here's what the dining room table looks like:

Hours later, order returns. I have a big box of stuff to be recycled, a big box of stuff to take to the thrift store, and a few things that simply must be thrown away. The treasures emerge. Some of them are in the first photo - there really were some pretty things amidst all the junk. Linda and I each got one of the hatboxes ($1 each), lots of buttons and trim, and ...       

these exceptionally fun party invitations that Linda found in a box (what will we do with them? no idea)

 

knitting pattern books for Barbie dolls, which brought back the memory of my mom knitting Fair Isle sweaters for my Barbies on toothpick-sized needles (Mom was happy to hear I found the pattern books but was pretty clear that she has no intention of knitting any more of them)

an unfinished stamped cross-stitch sampler that I'm going to complete. I've already started working on it. If there's one thing I learned at that sale on Saturday, it's to tackle those projects one at a time, before things get completely out of control.

*counting down the days until the yard-sale season begins in upstate New York with my favorite finds (and the occasional sale adventure).
** If I ever again use multiple italics or strings of exclamation marks, please intervene. Friends don't let friends over-enthuse.

A dollar or less, 55 days to go*

My dog comes running when we open the refrigerator door.

My other cat comes running when she hears the can opener.

But Patch? She comes running when she hears the rustle of crepe paper. Patch loves crafts. She likes wrapping gifts even more. It's odd, but you have to love a cat that purrs at the sight of pretty paper and ribbon.

We're almost done with the project we've been working on. If we get it finished, we'll show you Monday.

So what did I get for a dollar or less in this picture? Well, Patch was free. So was her twin sister, Polly. (My best deals ever. If you don't count the vet bills, the cat food, the catnip toys...) But they came from our veterinarian's office, not a yard sale. If you look closely, you can see some vintage pink forget-me-nots in the green paper next to Patch. Millinery flowers are one of my favorite things, especially pink forget-me-nots. I found big bunches of them at three different sales last year - a yard sale, an auction and a really scary place that I'm sure I'll have to write about sometime - so there was great happiness on three occasions last year.

Oh, more than three occasions. Patch makes me happy every time I see her sweet little face.

*Counting down the days until the yard-sale season begins (I hope on April 18) with my favorite dollar-or-less finds. Breaking news! I'm #14 on the list to get in an estate sale Saturday morning. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

A dollar or less, 56 days to go*

I have a lot of aprons, but this one is one of my favorites.

It's crisp and bright, and when I bought it (for $1) it was sporting its original tag.

But the reason it's one of my favorites is the note that was in the pocket: "Happy Birthday For Helen From Dick."

I've always wondered. Did Helen think the apron was too pretty to wear?

Or did she never wear it because she was irritated that Dick got her an apron for her birthday?

*You've got to be kidding. It's 56 days until the yard sale season starts?  This count-down-on-the-blog project is fun, but it ain't making the time go any faster.

A dollar or less, 57 days to go*

The alternate title for this post might be, "Swanky Swigs, or Why I Love My Husband."

If you have the March issue of Country Living, turn to page 130. There's a photo of a table set for breakfast, spread out across two pages, that would make any dieter break down in tears. The table is heaped with food, platters of bacon and pancakes and waffles, and a bowl of fruit, and a basket of muffins and a pot of coffee and ... oh, it's stunning. I showed it to my husband (who, I'm just guessing here, does not wish to be referred to as Mr. Oodles) and  asked if he noticed anything special about it. He studied the photo and then asked, with a bit of hesitation, "The Swanky Swigs?"

Yesssss! What a guy. He knows that even while looking at a breakfast table that's laden with goodies, he should not focus on the food but the tableware. Specifically, the juice glasses.  The Swanky Swigs.  You can see the two pictured here on the left-hand side of the Country Living layout. I have the star one that's in the picture, too, except in black, and the horizontal floral stripe ones, too, except in blue ... oh, I could go on all day. How can you not love something that's called a Swanky Swig?

Housewives from the 1930s on acquired their Swanky Swigs by buying jars of Kraft cheese spread ... you know, pimento cheese and pineapple cheese and all those other fine processed foods we grew up with? For anything that was so mass produced, the glasses can be just a little bit hard to find. I don't often see them in antique shops or at shows. I've never found one at a thrift store. Almost every summer, though, I spy a couple at an otherwise unassuming yard sale. They are usually marked a quarter, or, like these, a dime. I leave with a huge yard-sale high. I grab the cell phone and call my dear husband.

"Guess what I just got?" I ask him. "For a dime!"

There's a pause on the other end. "Swanky Swigs?" he asks, with just a bit of hesitation.

I love that guy.

*counting down the days until the yard sale season begins on April 18 with my favorite cheap finds

A dollar or less, 58 days to go*

I found lots of Haeger pottery at last year's sales. As soon as you learn to recognize it, you'll see it everywhere. The pieces I like are classic vases and urns with soft colors and a matte finish. This little pedestal planter is one of a pair I picked up last summer for 50 cents each. It changes with the seasons; this held little pumpkins last fall and Christmas ornaments over the holidays. The planters look nice empty, too.

Haeger's pretty easy to identify. (Even I can figure out that mark!) A lot of pieces aren't marked on the bottom but still have their paper stick-on tags.  If you look at the Haeger listings on eBay, you'll notice two things. One: Wow, is a lot of that ever ugly! The other is that even the prettier, more subtle pieces aren't selling for a whole lot. I'm hoping to find more on the cheap this season. (I'd show you the other pieces I found last year, but I need to save them for another day. I've got a lot of posts to go!)

*in which we count down the days to the beginning of the yard sale season (on April 18, I'm hoping) with frequent posts about yard-sale finds that cost a dollar or less