I’m Moving

Blogs that is.

I have decided to give Blogger another chance since they have improved their layout and posting settings. I may end up back here, but in the meantime, come visit me at http://those-purple-tomatoes.blogspot.com/

Hope to see you soon!

Thrifty Lunch Time Adventures

I have lived in Leesburg for two and a half years now. In that time, I became vaguely aware that Leesburg has its fair share of Antique shops and then some, and it is quite the destination for wealthy Washingtonians on nice weekends in the Spring, Summer, and Fall. However, until a week or so ago, it never occurred to me to track down any possible thrift shops in the area. Or if it did, I guess I just assumed that the “pickins” would be slim due to the many antique shops. I just assumed that the local antique shop owners would ascend on any thrift shops like vultures every time they suspected there were any worthy goods to be had, leaving nothing but ragged clothing and beaten up shoes for the rest of us.

Thus you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that Leesburg does indeed have a thriving thrift shop. In fact it has five. Yes you read that right. FIVE thrift shops. There’s the Capital Hospice Thrift Shop (proceeds go to benefit hospice care), the Blossm and Bloom Thrift shop (I can’t remember where those proceeds go, but again it is 100% charitable),  the Resourceful Woman Thrift shop (proceeds support a local battered women’s shelter), Twice is Nice (again, I can’t remember which charity the proceeds go to), and finally the old standby Salvation Army Thrift shop. Since I discovered this treasure trove of thriftiness I have visited all five stores at least once, most of them twice, during lunch breaks or on the weekend.

Since I am currently embarked on a mission to make my house a home (after 2.5 years it’s about time!), I figured there was no better way to do this than by thrifting, especially since my tastes run toward vintage items anyway. Of course, living in Leesburg I have a plethora of fancy schmancy boutiques and, again, antique stores, to choose from.  But since I can get literally the same items at a thrift store for 2-3 dollars that I would pay anywhere from 18-25 for at an antique store, I will stick to thrifting, thank you very much.

Some of my many recent finds include: Vintage shutters ($3.00 each); Cast aluminum scroll-y grape themed book/platter stand (either 4 or 5 dollars; I can’t remember which); two wire wine carriers ($4.00 for the double carrier and $2.50 for a single); a terracotta wine cooler ($4.00); some vintage decorative plates  (ranging from $1.00-$3.00), a vintage Swiss warmer (like a chafing stand) for $3.00; and my favorite: a vintage valet suit stand for $8.00. I want to paint it white and distress it but my roommate threatened me with death if I did, so I guess I’ll have to leave it wood colored, at least for now.

I hope this proves to anyone who’s obsessed with fancy schmancy that if you’re willing to be diligent and intelligent about it, you can get some fancy schmancy stuff at some pretty thrifty prices.

Mantel Link-up

Tomorrow, over at The Nester, there is a fireplace mantel linkup. As I understand it, we are supposed to take a picture of our own mantel, blog about it, and then link up to her blog. I’ve never really done this before, and unfortunately my camera charger has been temporarily misplaced, so I’m doing the best I can.

The best I can do is this: I realize the pic is way too dark and not clear enough and all the other issues that you probably noticed. However, I wanted to participate in the linkup, and didn’t want to let a little thing like a missing camera charger stop me.

This is the most recent iteration of my mantel. It changes almost daily (and in fact most days the plants get taken outside for at least a while so it could change from hour to hour). The one thing that usually stays the same is that big French poster. That ended up there because after my painter (who did that marvelous job on the bricks!) finished up the living room, while I was running to the bank, he found it behind a chair where I had placed it and promptly forgotten all about it. It matched the new fireplace/wall so well that it has remained there ever since. It isn’t even a favorite of mine, but it seems to go so well.

As to the other items up there, I really wish you could see them better. There are commemorative mugs from both of the Renn Faires I’ve been to, as well as a feather from the first one. There is a collage piece and a huge decorative clothes pin, both items I made at classes, a glazed bowl an old roommate made for me, and a really cool candelabra  stuck inside a wine bottle (which is from a favorite local Virginia winery).  There is also a mosaic vase that I was given when I left Virginia Tech to move to Northern Virginia and finally the plants, relatively new additions.

So this is my mantel. There are not currently any family pics up there (those are on the wood burning stove insert below the mantel), but there are still quite a few personal items. I think it is rather telling of my personality, don’t you?

Crafty Update

So, I’m sure all my faithful readers out there must be wondering what happened to the crafty swaps. Well, I did manage to complete all my swaps, and mostly on time. There was the 12 Crafty Days of Christmas swap, the 13 Crafty Days of Halloween swap, the 25 Days of Christmas Recipe swap, the Halloween “recipe” book swap, and a variety of ATC swaps since then. They all went really well. I got some absolutely adorable items for both the Christmas and Halloween swaps, and some excellent recipes in the Christmas swap. I foolishly did not take pictures of the items I finished and sent, so there are none to be seen. But it was enough of a smashing success that I’ll likely give it another go next year if I’m still into craftiness at that time.

My next swap that is due is a 4 part Altered Playing Card deck swap. As of the beginning of April I have the first suite of the deck due. That’s right…all 13 cards due at once. I was smart and finished my cards long ago (for that suite at least; I haven’t even started on the other three) so I wouldn’t be under a lot of pressure at the last minute. They all turned out wonderfully and if I have time before I send them out I’ll take pics so you can see my awesomeness. I used standard playing card size, which is evidently different than standard poker size, so they are not quite exactly the size of ATCs but they are close.

Anyone else out there ever done any altered playing cards? Did you do a specific theme for your entire deck or just a mishmash?

Lolly’s at it again

LollyChops over at my favorite blog is doing a week of crafty project tutorials that all revolve around flowers. As usual, her projects are absolutely awesome! So if you have time, check out her blog.

Yippie for my Big Shot!

Thanks to the wonderful information imparted by my new favorite blog, LollyChops, I recently discovered I could use my Sizzix Big Shot to cut felt. This opened up a whole new world of crafty goodness for me, since I had been mulling over the possibility of doing so, but was not yet sufficiently inspired to actually Google it to find out. I took her word for it, sandwiched a piece of regular ole craft felt (I am not yet cool enough to have actual wool felt, but give me time) between my cutting plates and the die, and off I went…

er, off I went…

Ahem, I said: Off I went!!!

Ok, so it didn’t go. I could not for the life of me get the machine to “grab” on to the sandwich formed by the felt and the die. (If you’ve ever used a hand cranked die cut machine, you’ll probably know what I mean).

Just when I was starting to be crestfallen that my pathetic second class felt wouldn’t work because it was some weird thickness or something, and I would have to shell out mucho bucks for real wool felt, I wondered, “what will happen if I turn the ‘sandwich’ around and feed it through the other way?”. Sure enough, It Went!

So, the lesson here is: Linda is not the brightest light bulb in the chandelier. Although in my defense, I only started die cutting very recently, and so it is not yet second nature to me like it is to some people.

Linda’s intelligence level aside, I managed to cut some lovely “top notes” felt with my Stampin’ Up! Top Notes die. I cut orange, black and purple for a halloween themed pin cushion and then got really adventurous and decided to feed the red and white felt through together for my Christmas pin cushion. Lo and behold, it worked! I have not yet gotten up enough nerve to feed through 3 thicknesses of felt at once, even though Lolly says it will work, because I only have one set of the clear cutting thingies and with the creaking and cracking noises that I got from just two thicknesses I am afraid that three may be too much for it. Maybe once I have a standby pair of plates to fall back on I’ll give it a go.

So, what am I planning to do with my lovely “top note” shaped pieces of felt you ask? Well, as I mentioned ever so subtly (not) earlier, I am going to make pin cushions. I know that’s nothing too spectacular, but when you (foolishly) signed yourself up to make 12 Christmas-y handmade goodness thingies and 13 Halloween-y handmade goodness thingies and you only have a limited time to make them and you are not by any stretch of the imagination Martha Stewart, you can’t possibly make every single item so fabulous that the recipient immediately starts drooling upon receipt of the items. So, my Halloween-y partner will be getting as one of their 13 days of halloween a lovely black and orange and purple pin cushion. And my Christmas-y partner will be getting a red and white one.

Anyway, the whole purpose of this post was to mention how thrilled I was about learning I could cut felt with my big shot, and that has long sense been conveyed, so I’ll cut it off here.

Until next time!

My new (current) favorite blog

So, I have been working on some craftiness lately in between my three, yes, three, jobs. I am doing (er, hosting) several swaps on swap-bot for Halloween and Christmas, and so whenever I have a spare moment, I try to get in some great craftiness. Well, in the course of looking through all the cool swaps on swap-bot (it’s an awesome site; really it is. You should just go on over there and check it out. But after you finish reading my post, of course), I discovered a fabulous blog called Lolly Chops. Now, I have only read a few of her posts so far, but that was just enough to make me realize that I of course had to go back and read her entire blog. She’s quite a prolific writer (and crafter–I honestly don’t know how she gets it all done) so it will probably take me a while to catch up, but everything I’ve read so far has been fabulous. She has awesome crafty ideas, always provides great resources and links, and is a great writer. (read, it’s actually fun to read her blog). So, if you are looking for a great new blog to become your current favorite, go over and check her out.

Oh, and I’ll try to be sure and take pictures of all the cool Christmasy and Halloweeny crafty goodness I’ve been generating, but no promises. I mad the cutest felt stuffed pumpkin today. Honestly it wasn’t all that fancy, but since I only recently learned to sew , I’m pretty darn proud of it…

Meeting bloggy friends and life in general

I recently found out that one of the bloggy ladies who I follow has a shop very near where I live. So last Saturday I headed over to check out her shop. Lo and behold, I lucked into her actually being there that day, and so I got to meet The Graphics Fairy in person. She’s a very sweet lady with a wonderful vintage-ish, French-ish shop called, appropriately, Fleurish. I didn’t have time to shop that day, but I definitely plan to head back out that way with some free time and spare cash to sort through all the lovely things in her shop.

Since I last blogged, many things have changed in my life. I have found a new church here in Leesburg, and sing in the choir. I now work nearly exclusively from home. I went through a non-arty stage and have recently rediscovered the joys of creating beautiful things. I got a lot of walls painted in my no-longer-new place. I got a new boss. I got another new boss. And just in general went about living life.

I can’t guarantee that I will blog with any sort of consistency. But since I have been thinking about blogging for several months now, and have been putting it off because of the dreaded “first post after the loooonnnnggg break syndrome”, it is possible that I may do so somewhat regularly. We’ll see.

Haven’t Written in Ages

I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t written in way too long. And yes, I fully realize that since I’m “blogging without obligation” that I don’t have to say that, but even with the protection of that umbrella, it’s been too long.

I’ve done absolutely no art except for my Christmas cards since I last posted. Oh, well, I also made a handmade book thanks to the guidance of my friend Candice. I met her at a crop for Goldens Hill Paper Crafts, a wonderful shop in Fairfax Station Virginia. The owner is such a wonderful sweet lady. She always has great projects planned for the participants. Anyway, I met Candice at one of these crops, and she is really good at making handmade journals, so she helped me make my first successful one. I had made another one previously from a kit from Club Scrap, but it was a disaster cause I didn’t know what I was doing. But Candice sweetly brought all the supplies and tools for me to make a whole new one, and we worked on it together. It was a smashing success. That was the only other artistic project I’ve done in ages.

I did recently find out about SoulCollage(R) which is sort of artistic, but is much more about your inner voice, etc. I only just got the book, but I’m really enjoying learning about this. I have not really started my deck  yet, but I will keep you updated as things change.

I’m being recruited by a government contracting firm as a Senior Technical Writer; the position also has a supervisory component. It sounds like a really challenging position, and would obviously be a good move for my career and my finances (it comes with about  a 20% raise) but it’s contingent on my security clearance, and so far that hasn’t been a fun process. I’m supposed to meet with their security person yet again next week to fix some errors on my form; maybe then it will finally get submitted.

In the meantime, my current boss is great. He submitted me as a candidate for working from home full time, and is letting me work from home occasionally while that’s being considered. With the horrible drive from Leesburg, it sure is helpful to be able to work from home, even just occasionally.

Things at church are going well. We’re starting a church wide study in a couple weeks to determine the direction our church should be going in, especially with regards to missions. I’m really looking forward to participating in that. Handbells are also going well, but we’re playing a crazy hard song and everyone is a little stressed out about that. But stressed in a good way, of course.

I also joined a supper club and we have our first meeting on Februray 10. I can’t wait to meet everyone. I’m a little nervous though, since it’s been quite a while since I’ve participated in one of these. but all the girls were really sweet in their email introductions, so I think it’s going to be a blast.

I joined a book group meetup as well. The book for February is Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez. I just got it from the library yesterday, and I literally read it in one night. I stayed up until almost 2:00 AM. I really enjoyed it a lot. Of course, since i have a lot of Afghan friends, there were parts of the book that spoke to me that other people may not find very compelling, but it’s a good book no matter where you’re coming from.

My roommate, Sohrab, introduced me to one of his friends, Hamid. He works as a contractor, mostly doing flooring, etc. but is also really good at general handyman stuff. He has really been a life saver. He fixed several doors that I had a problem with, he took out that stupid sliding door thing in the shower (who actually likes those things?!?!?), he fixed my extremely wobbly table, and lots of other stuff.  I was feeling bad because I didn’t really have the money to pay him, but then he asked for my help with some computer stuff, so we’re going to do a sort of trade. It’s so nice to know that there are really good people left in the world.

 Oh, I’m getting Dish Network installed next Saturday. For the first time in 3 years, I’ll have a TV. Well, I don’t actually have a TV yet; I’m still working on that. I’m hoping my new roommate will bring his TV by then so they can test the signal using his TV. I’m going to have a connection installed in my room as well, but I’m not all that keen on actually getting a TV. And there is definitely no room for a TV in the living room, so it makes more sense to just get both connections installed in the bedrooms upstairs. That way if I ever get back around to doing workout videos, I can do them in my room.

 One last thing…I’m learning Farsi again. But for real this time. I discovered something called the Pimsleur method that puts the Rosetta Stone to shame. I’ve been taking a 30 minute lesson once per day for 7 days now, and I can already carry on a fairly complicated conversation. I invested in the full 30 day course instead of the quick course, cause I really want to get good. I also have the quick course in Arabic that I’m going to do once I get really comfortable in Farsi. That way I can learn simple things in Arabic like how are you, thank you, you’re welcome, etc. I don’t care about having a complicated conversation in Arabic at this point in my life. Thus the simple version.

Well, that’s about all folks. Those are the highlights of whatever has been happening in my life since the last time I updated.

It just occurred to me…

…that perhaps I should give y’all, my, ahem, loyal readers, a bit more information about the place I purchased. Although I’m sure it will bore some of you to tears (or perhaps not, since if you’re really that uninterested, you’ll probably just stop reading), some of you have expressed quite an interest in it.

So here goes: It’s a 3BR, 1.5 BA townhouse style condo. It’s located in Leesburg VA, which is a very pretty town that reminds me of a slightly more sophisticated version of the place where I  grew up. Since it’s townhouse style, it’s two levels. I have a small fenced yard with two trees in the front and a private bricked patio with flower planters on the side/back. It has a fireplace (painted, which I know lots of people hate, but I actually like) and tile all through the downstairs. It also has a tile counter-top on the breakfast bar area. There’s carpet all through the upstairs (well except for the bathroom, obviously). The only room with two windows is my bedroom, and they are so big they practically go floor to ceiling! (or maybe the ceiling is just that short; I hadn’t thought of that) I have attic access for storage, which I probably won’t use, but it’s nice to know it’s there just the same. I also have a small utility/storage/access room outside that looks like a second door to make things nice and symmetrical.

All in all, it’s very cute, very practical, and has lots of room for storage (hmmm…kind of like me, come to think of it, except I need lots of room for storage. LMAO)

So, that’s the gist of it; I’ll try to get some pics soon, but at least give me a chance to unpack first. Otherwise, y’all think I didn’t learn anything at all and that I’m going to be a crazy messy person–totally not the case.