Auction Goodies!

Years ago Sean and I used to have a great time going to the auctions and finding up inexpensive things for the house. It's been a long time since we've gone, and last week we decided to go again. And I'm hooked, again. I guess you could say I relapsed LOL! I've been busy going to flea markets with friends, going thrifting, etc, all of which is a gateway to auctions... as a friend on facebook put it, "the thrill of the auctioneer pointing his finger at you" yes - I know this feeling! YES! I've won! It's mine! It's a rush!
Last week I got some awesome finds, 3 turn of the early 1900's typewriters were the pinnacle of my winnings, I'll have to snap some pictures of them. They're great. The best part is, Neil, my son, loves them - and I paid so little for them that I don't mind if he types away on them. It's definitely a unique way to teach him his alphabet haha.


My first win of the night was this big shopping basket sized wire basket. It has handles, and what looks like a small fishing lure wired to the front of it. I have no idea why that's on there. Maybe I don't want to know. What I do know - it's slightly rusty, well used, and still very sturdy. I'm not sure where it's home is going to be, I think maybe upstairs in the bathroom with some towels rolled up in it. I scored this baby for $4!
I also scored a box of "junk". Now, as I have been on a purging binge lately I told myself I would absolutely NOT buy boxes of "junk" but this one I rationalized.... it had a small Singer box in it full of sewing machine attachments, a few bobbins, some old wooden spools of thread (which I am a major sucker for) and a few other sewing odds and ends. So, I went for it... it was $2. It was practically carrying itself to my car. As for the stuff in the box... there were 2 blue bell jars, I'm keeping them, an old Pepsi bottle - keeping that. A few other oddities - like a "squirrel call" that my MIL claimed..... I said, "why would someone want to call a squirrel" and she told me that you use them to lure in animals that prey on squirrels and then killhunt the bigger animals. The old bait and switch. Works every time. I'm still not completely convinced that I'd want to sit out in the woods and pretend to be a prey animal, but hey, to each their own. The rest of the stuff in the box- a weird holiday tiered app plate, a matching mug thing, a strap on horse feeder thing..... they'll all be taken straight to goodwill. I'm not even taking them out of my car!
From the second we walked in I saw the coke crate. I figured, it's Coke, collectible - no way I'll get it - but I'm gonna try! I set a limit in my head of how much I was prepared to let it go for.. and I got it for less than that! I am stoked!
After that I was very pleased with my purchases. I could have left but rationalized "well I might as well stay and see what _____ goes for. I ended up bringing home a porcelain lamp that has what I call a "Washington-esque" couple on it. It was $2, I couldn't say no. And I always need lamps. It will match my bedroom..... if I need it in the bedroom, I don't know. But it was $2!

All in all I spent a whopping $21! That's including $4 for 4 solid wood folding tv tables that my MIL got for crafting on too!


Blogged with "Thrifty Thursday @ Bloggerville!"

EtsyNJ Team Tuesday- Saying Thanks!

The amazing and talented group of etsy sellers from New Jersey - EtsyNJ has decided to host a team blog hop every Tuesday. Each Tuesday EtsyNJ members will be blogging about other team members in order to get the word out about all the wonderful handmade goodness that is available right here in New Jersey.





<--- Thank You Card by AJKArtistry








Today is a rainy, dreary, dismal day in New Jersey. However, there is something I am thankful for - the fact that it is rain and not snow! I am so sick to death of snow! Rumor has it that we are expecting snow Wed/Thurs but hopefully nothing that amounts to anything!






<---- Thank You Card by SiblingStew








So, my feature today is about Thank You cards, my way of sending a virtual "thank you for not snowing" to the great state of New Jersey! I have had the pleasure of meeting each of these three designers in person ( I even went to Elementary School with Sibling Stew! We were great friends then!) and seeing their work up close, and it is even more beautiful in person! So, if there is someone in your life that deserves a thank you - send a beautiful one! These are just as affordable, if not less expensive than Hallmark cards, and so much more beautiful!






<---- Gratitute Card by Collective Elements










To see more great finds from EtsyNJ Team Members, Search "EtsyNJ" on Etsy.com! Check out the links below with "McLinky" that will show you the other EtsyNJ bloggers that are participating in Team Tuesday this week!

★★★★Blog about EtsyNJ on Team Tuesday! Join the Blog Hop!★★★★
Welcome to the EtsyNJ Team Tuesday blog hop! This is our very first edition. Here's how it works - write a feature about any EtsyNJ team member on your blog (as long or as short as you'd like it to be) and then add the blog hop code at the end of this post and check out all of the other great features - get to know the EtsyNJ street team!! More details can be found on the EtsyNJ Team Blog - Here!

Ahhhh Organization Lust!!!!

I was reading Somerset Studio & saw an add for the "Original Scrap Box" http://scrapboxusa.com

i literally stared at the page and had visions of an organized workspace, everything I need within my fingertips - and better yet - having a home for this magical land among the rest of my family in my house - hidden when it needs to be, easily disguised in my dining room!

Has anyone seen this thing? Is anyone lucky enough to *own* this thing? It looks amazing. I am surely strongly considering saving up for this thing. But it got me thinking - are there other things like this? What do you all use for organizing your crafting space?

If I get one, I want to go for the biggest one -the "Workbox" http://scrapboxusa.com/catalog/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8:black-raised-panel&catid=6:workboxcategory&Itemid=60 ahhhhh it just seems too good to be true. It's like the unicorn of my craft world!

See, in reality I'd love to have a bigger house, so I could just have a room to call my own and make that my creative space. We do have 3 bedrooms and the third bedroom at the moment is currently an "office" (read: shit we don't know what to do with goes here) I've thought many times of turning this room into my craft room. It's small, but, I don't need much. I just know that if I do turn the office into my studio - I'll immediately get pregnant and we'll need the room for the baby. That's just how things go. Which is fine, I just, dont't want to bother because I know that's what would happen!

So, whatever I do it has to be as functional as possible, and also be able to work in my dining room. Right now my Buffet table, a vintage steamer trunk, and an old pharmacists table are in there disguised as decoration/furniture and packed to the gills with supplies. It's ok, but it's not functional.

Abbie

New in my Etsy Shop

I was so ashamed when I went to my etsy shop and found it EMPTY! Ack! How is that possible?! Well, I've been really focusing on my wholesale business lately, which is a good thing - but - etsy had taken a back burner for me and all my listings expired! Yikes! So, my etsy team - EtsyNJ, which is an etsy location based team for New Jersey has decided to run a weekend long sale during Thanksgiving Weekend, November 25-30. I of course want to participate, and nothing gets me moving like a deadline to get me motivated - so, I signed up.

Being the nit picker than I am, I needed to re-do my pictures since I haven't done that since I got my new camera, so I took all new pics of my Art Blocks before listing them.

Along my path of listing things and thinking OMG WHY WHY WHY isn't there a "c

opy" option on Etsy like there is on my wholesale site?! It would make things SO much faster! I started a search and found this site - etsyhacks - where, so long as you run firefox as a browser, you can install something that lets you copy your existing listings, and also I installed a feature that lets me add 5 photo's at once rather than select, upload, loading......... repeatx5. It's super handy, I listed pretty much everything in my shop today from scratch..woot!

So, now I am all set for the Thanksgiving Weekend Sale that EtsyNJ is hosting! Of course I still have other things I should / will / might list.... but, I'm happy my Art blocks are up!

In other, less interesting but odd news, as I'm typing this I'm sitting in the waiting room at my son's therapy doctor..... he's in therapy and I sit and wait, as usual... well, there's a dad in here waiting that was sitting a few seats over and ever since I brought out my laptop he started pacing around the room, now he's standing about 10 feet behind me to my left side, just.... standing there rocking back and forth on his feet... uh, wtf? If you're THAT interested in what I'm doing, maybe ask me, it's not all that magical and secretive! WHACKO! Hahaha... maybe the caps are big enough he can read them from across the room ahhahaha.

Halloween

I haven't been blogging much lately, I've just been busy with some new projects, and, then I just plain did't feel like it. I've been in a bit of a funk lately, I'll post about all that later...... Anyway, my hubby couldn't decide on a halloween costume, so we went to Spirit Halloween. Yeah.... he found a costume there he liked - opened it and it was cheesy and polyester, nasty fabric. I could not have him dress up in that and pretend to be scary. So, we talked about sewing a costume, though, Halloween was less than a week away. I said I'd sew it.... now.. I can sew, but, I am quite novice at it. This was my first time following a pattern, and I altered it slightly because they wanted me to use a gauze-ish material and Sean wanted a heavier material so I used felt, which, I didn't realize would be an issue until they were telling me to hem, fold, sew, hem again bla bla... got a little bulky and I had to improvise a tad, but, it ended up coming out really nicely. I was quite proud of myself!

Here's some pics from Halloween, showing off my cute little "Woody" cowboy, and, of course my sewing handiwork on hubby's costume!

Must be the Season of the Witch

Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. I do love Christmas and all that good stuff but there is just nothing better than the weather and colors of fall.

I got inspired last week, as usual, when I have 10,000 other things to do I get inspired to do something that would be considered "wasting time" haha. It's always when my time is crunched that I get motivated to do other things, guess it's my stubborn inner child! Well, I listened this time and I created this "Season of the Witch" sign. It's about 5' long and it sparkles in black, which is another big kick for me, glitter, I just love it haha. The sign reads "Season of the Witch" in letters cut from different Halloween cardstock. Here I am holding my sign, in my custom handmade Witches had on my way to the Witches Ball, which was an awesome event, btw!

Sean and I also celebrated 10 years of being together on October 11th. We decided to celebrate the day doing one of our favorite past times, exploring the pines. Sean wrote this in the dirt on his car while I was out catching pics, it says "I Heart Abbie 10/11/99 10 years together!" He's such a sweety. I caught some pics, on my sweet new camera (thank you MIL & Sean!), of some of the fall foliage of the pines. Check out a few of my fav's, I think you should be able to click for a bigger view...

Big Steps!

I applied to a website that is going to help me wholesale my art across the country. It's not an easy site to get into, and not cheap but I think it' s going to take my business to a new level. The site is wholesalecrafts.com, you can't see much w/o a membership but it is a really awesome website.

Because I am a new seller, I am being featured on the home page all week! I hope it leads to a sale! Here's a screen cap... you can see my art block down there! This is the artblock that is being featured on teh front page!