Samaritan’s Purse: Operation Christmas Child: Girl 10-14

This week is collection week at local churches for the donation of packed shoeboxes to send to underprivileged children around the world (along with a donation of $9 for shipping).

It recommends sending one "Wow" gift along with other small items such as school supplies and personal care (but no liquids).

For this box I picked:

• Trolls themed decorate your own jewelry box
• Dove soap
• Soft wash cloth
• Small plastic cup
• Toothbrush
• Flip flops
• Child safe scissors
• Box of crayons
• 2 packs of Colored pens
• Colored elastic strings
• Small beads
• Psalms adult coloring book
• Booklight
• Fold up backpack
• White with gray stripes and pink stitching Cat and Jack tank dress (pictured below)

To be frugal but still get nice items, I buy things year-round to pack in the boxes.  

For example, the crayons, pens and scissors and backpack were purchase at back to school sales, the jewelry box last year after Christmas on clearance and the dress below last Winter.

You can also pack a shoebox box online and pay for it if you don't have time to shop.

For more information and drop off sites visit Samaritan’s Purse: Operation Christmas Child.

LIMITED TIME: $5 Off Maurices with Rewards sign up - FREE SHIPPING - Snake Print Cat Eye Sunglasses $1.70

One of the Instagramers I follow, One Cute Couponer. posted that Maurices currently is offering $5 off coupon for signing up for their rewards program and free shipping.

View this post on Instagram

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A post shared by Erica (@one_cute_couponer) on Nov 16, 2019 at 9:13am PST

I have been in the market for a new pair of sunglasses because driving on snow on sunny days can be blinding and found these
Snake Print Cat Eye Sunglasses normally cost $10.99, now 40% off and with the $5 coupon, was only $1.70 including tax with the free ground shipping that is currently offered and they offer where you can pay through Paypal and checkout was completed within a minute.

It might be worth a look to check out to see if you could find any small Christmas gifts or stocking stuffers for someone on your list.

Sticky Yarn Art Craft Class

As more the world is going digital, local libraries are coming up with ways to get patrons to visit and use their services and an initiative the Allen County Public Libary began in the past few years to offer craft classes to adults.

Today's craft class was for ticky yarn art at the Little Turtle Branch at part of their Alt Art program,  I had never heard of it before, so had no idea what it involved, but thought it would be fun to try something new.

It turns out it involves yarn and the backside of a floor tile, as it is very sticky, and you just create a design on it with yarn; that's it!

I would never have thought to so that so was excited at the repurposed creativity possibilities.

Here are the instructions we were given:

Here is a sampling of creations they had on hand for inspiration.

You can't really see in the above photo, but on the far right behind the instructor's arm is a tile full of circles.  

I had thought about doing that, but it seemed too simple and like a cop-out and then the lightbulb went off in my head to that the little circles sort of look like the stars in Van Goh's "The Starry Night" painting and decided to do a project inspired by that painting.

The inspiration:

Van Gogh, Vincent. The Starry Night. 1889. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
The Van Gogh Gallery. “The Starry Night.” 15 January 2013
https://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starry-night.html>.

 he Van Goh Gallery wrote the following for the Starry Night story:

Vincent van Gogh painted Starry Night in 1889 during his stay at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Van Gogh lived well in the hospital; he was allowed more freedoms than any of the other patients. If attended, he could leave the hospital grounds; he was allowed to paint, read, and withdraw into his own room. He was even given a studio. While he suffered from the occasional relapse into paranoia and fits - officially he had been diagnosed with epileptic fits - it seemed his mental health was recovering.

 Unfortunately, he relapsed. He began to suffer hallucination and have thoughts of suicide as he plunged into depression. Accordingly, there was a tonal shift in his work. He returned to incorporating the darker colors from the beginning of his career and Starry Night is a wonderful example of that shift. Blue dominates the painting, blending hills into the sky. The little village lays at the base in the painting in browns, greys, and blues. Even though each building is clearly outlined in black, the yellow and white of the stars and the moon stand out against the sky, drawing the eyes to the sky. They are the big attention grabber of the painting.

For my sticky art project, I had to work with the colors of yarns that were on hand and selected the following.   Wish there had been more shades of blue.   

Not pictured, they also had tulle, ribbon and stick on butterflies.  I took a tiny scrap of light blue tulle, but the other items would not have worked for my project.

It was about an hour and 15 minutes later I ended up with the following.  We were actually to make two projects in that time frame 

As the tile was only 6 inches by 6 inches, it was not a lot of space to work with and I started with making the moon on the right and it was too big, but already stuck down by the time I realized it.  You can take up the yarn if you don't press it down to hard, but I already had and when trying to take it up, it lost the stickiness. 

I ran out of time to do anything with trying to make detailed houses and hills.  

I ended up using E6000, a strong, clear craft glue, to secure any bits that were loose and I am now using it for a mug rug.

For the unused tile, the instructor allowed me to take it home and pick out what I wanted to use.  I took some green, white with gold and red yarn to do another project at home, which I figured will be Christmas themed and probably something a little more simple; perhaps just those simple circles I snubbed for this project.

It was fun and could see this could be a good project to make with kids as you can cut yarn with children's safety scissors.

Thrift Store Donations - 90's Triva Game, Ozzy, Sharon and Vampire Wigs,Videos Batman House,and More Clothing

I am continuing to declutter and purge items and here is another round of donations.   An article that I had read in the paper said taking a picture of it and keeping that it a way to help let go of things, so this is part of that.

The above is a 90's Trivial Pursuit game.  This was hard to let go of as a friend gave it to me for Christmas one year.  We played it a few times but Kyle was too young to remember most of the 90s.

Below are an Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne wigs I bought in the mid-2000s.  The vampire wig was purchased around the same time but never end up opening it.  

There are also two pairs of brand new undies that had been part of set that I never wore.  They were ordered pre-gallbladder surgery and I couldn't stand to wear anything that within a few inches of belly button where one of the five incisions was made and have not since that time.

These are a few videos, some VHS and some DVD and a CD I have not used for a long time. 

This was part of my son's much played with Batman house from the mid-1990's.   

I thought of keeping it to make into a Haunted House decoration but just couldn't bring myself to do it as I hope it brings another child as much joy as it brough my son.

Below is a pair of barely worn Dr. Scholl tennis shoes, more slinky bras, undies, an antenna, and a basket.   The only thing I think I wore more than once was the sports bra.   There is a pair of brand new thong panties from another matched set in the basket.  I know some women swear by them as being the perfect undergarment, but they just make me want to swear.

This is a puppy/cow costume (could never figure out which) that my son saw at a garage sale when he was younger and thought it would be perfect to put on one of his Christmas bears.  I kept the bear, but the costume can be another child's puppy/cow.

Thrift Store Find: Butterick 4808 - Late 1970's Dorothy Hamill Tops

This is another pattern I found at a thrift store recently and would have purchased it had it been in my size.  

I sort of wished I had bought it as I liked the pleated sleeve detail I have on a garment before.  I might have been able to adapt that to use on another pattern, but I am trying not to drag home anything I will not actually use.

Those under the age of 30 may only know her from her brief stint on Dancing With The Stars in 2013, but Dorothy Hamill was a 1976 Olympic figure skater and this was one of her endorsement deals after that win.  She was captivating to watch on the ice.

In the above picture, she is wearing her signature hair cut that many a gal copied as it was flattering if you have a nicely-shaped head, long neck and pretty features (which left me out of getting this cut) and easy to care for.

Hong Kong Seam Finish

 Photo:   Sew-Easy

Most of the time I don't finish my seams (except pinking shears) when sewing as it adds time and can add cost, but if you are sewing something you want to last, making a higher-end piece, using expensive fabric or alternately an inexpensive fabric or one that prone unravel or lose its shape, it is a good idea to finish the seam as it will help it to last longer and look more professional.

I had not seen or heard of this method before and read on it on a blog I follow, Sew-Easy.   

It involves sewing a seam binding to one edge, folding it over half over the seam and stitching it down.  I like the clean look it has in the pictures above.  I have been thinking about making a coat and if I do, I think I will try this method.

For the tutorial, visit the post on  Sew-Easy.  

Thrift Store Find - Simplicity 5009 - 1972 Dress and Paint Suit Pattern

While I left this at the thrift store as it is to make a Size 12 (but I am not) but I put in took out of my cart many times before leaving it there.

It is a Simplicity 5009 pattern from 1972.  It has simple lines but still had that 70's retro vibe that could be updated by just using modern fabric.  

It looks like a fairly simple pattern and I could probably easily upsize it except it has one element from some 70's fashions that I hate; the dreaded back zipper.  

I made a pair of pants that were similar in the mid-'70s and it was a nightmare to get off and on as you have to reach in back and unhook (most called for a hook and eye closure) and unzip.   

I think I only wore them a few times when the zipper got stuck in the back and I could get it up or down and ended up breaking the zipper.  

I ended up tying a jacket around my waist for the rest of the day because the only thing holding it closed was the hook and eye.  Even with the jacket there, I still felt a breeze.  

Yeah, the back zip pants can stay in the '70s as far as I am concerned.

12 AMAZING & FREE Sewing Patterns to Sew THIS Fall Season!

Alisa Shay of Thoughtful Creativity is perpetually perky as a pre-school teacher and shares 12 free sewing patterns that are on trend for this Fall.

The one I am interested in trying is the Shauna Coatigan from Sew.   You have to sign up on their website to download the pattern (sign up is free).  

The pattern is actually from October 2017, but as I live in the Midwest in the US we are usually 3-5 years behind on trends.  

While I like to see what is out there and maybe pick up something so my wardrobe doesn't look frumpy, I usually go for things I like and looser drapey garments.  This one and a long loose draped jacket that is sort of timeless and can camouflage a multitude of figure flaws and keeping you warm.   

From my experience with online free printable patterns, it is fine as long as the design is fairly simple and where to tape things together is clear and most of these in the video seem to be.

There are several other cute garments with links at the bottom of her video on Youtube in the description box.

More Thrift Store Donations - Undergarments and Son's Clothing from Early-Mid 2000's

Yesterday I started going through more items in one of my dressers and in my son's closet.   Most of the above was in a drawer that I had some of my craft stuff in front of I don't think I had opened it since 2004.

I had stopped at a garage sale a week ago and picked up 6 items so I needed to get rid of at least that many items to stay of my continuing declutter plan.

It has some pretty lacy bras from Frederick's of Hollywood, Victoria's Secret and other such brands that I used to wear.   I now buy more utilitarian ones and the goal is not to look sexy, it is to try to prevent sagging.

There are also a few girdle-type products for a flat tummy under all garments.  That too has changed and I now buy one with a less firm hold for more comfort and the goal is not to jiggle. 

There are also a few pairs of socks as I need to wear ones with more support/compression:  either athletic socks, like Puma (which my son left behind when he moved out) or lighter weight compression stocking, mostly off of Amazon.com.

I have to admit it was easier to let go of the above that it was some of the items that remained in my son's old closet that I have been going through. 

This is a shirt my son wore all of the time for several years, but he now shies away from bright colors and it is too big on him as he lost a lot of weight when he worked at a scale company and was lifting weights to calibrate machinery and walking vast distances.   

This shirt is still in good condition and I hope it goes to a good home,

I remember my son wanting to get this at the thrift store and begged me to get it because it had a race car on it and he has always loved cars.  I am not sure he wore it more than once as he was worried about getting it dirty before it made its way slowly to the back of the closet. 

This is another one my son liked to wear during his skateboarding phase as it protected his arm from a rash in case he felt .

I don't think he ever fell while wearing this one because except for being a little faded, it is still in good condition.

There are a few other items like a short sleeved denim shirt and a khaki outfit that always seemed to need ironing so I would say "pick something else" and it too made it's way toward the back of the closet.

This is the one item that is newer - itis a pair of Propet shoes I bought 2-3 years ago.   The black area on the right shoe is cosmetic as I only wore the shoes a few times.

They are to be washable and after they got a little muddy after wearing a few times I washed them in a lingerie bag and put in the dryer.  They shrank.  I tried a trick I found online to try soaking them in water with a high concentration of fabric softener and air-dried but it only helped a little so it is time to donate them. 

I have purchased over half a dozen pairs of Propet shoes in the past five years as they are very comfortable and the soles have 1,000 guarantee and they have styles that are more contemporary without looking gym-shoe-ish (which is not suitable for work).

I have a pair I have put at least that many miles on and the soles are fine, but the uppers started falling apart early on and I have repaired them several times with E6000 glue.

This was taken to the North Franciscan Family Thrift store.

Thift Store Donation and a Haul

A local thrift store, the Franciscan Family Thrift Store, was having a half-price sale recently, so to keep up with my de-clutter agenda to not bring home anything without getting rid of the same or more I packed up a few items in the box above.

There is an answering machine with caller id as some school kid might have a "Bring some old technology to school" day to share with the class. 

There is a Halloween mask tucked in the right lower corner that was my son's from probably 2002. The Teddy bear is probably from the same year and I had planned on making a shabby chic wreath using him until I realized he was too thick for the screen door to close if I did. 

The rocking horse candle holder I bought through a fundraiser at my son's school when he was in Jr. High.  I rarely burn tapered candles and the rocking horse with toys looks a little out of place a middle-aged woman's bedroom.  For some reason, I keep picturing an old movie with Bette Davis called "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane" that I watched on late night tv one time.  Let's just say her character was a few quarters short of a roll so it was time for it to go.

The Christmas decoration is attached to a wicker sleigh that I had intended to take the decoration out and adapt the sleight for a  GI Joe and  Barbie my son had that he no longer played with (he insisted GI Joe needed a girlfriend when he was young.  Mostly of the time her legs were stuck in a dinosaur's mouth and GI Joe would come to the rescue).  The pinecone were to have been transformed into me reindeer with pipe cleaner legs and googly eyes and red pom-pom nose.  That was over 10 years ago too and as I never got around it, maybe someone else can enjoy it.

In the back is a light-up Christmas painting of the Nativity that I won at a family Christmas bingo game and put up for years.  Since my son moved out, I don't decorate for Christmas anymore so in the box it went.

As the box was full, the below Trivial Pursuit game ended up in a plastic grocery bag. I thought this would be fun to play but no one was interested in family gatherings we had so no reason to keep it around.

THRIFT HAUL

This is less than half the stuff I started out with inside my cart t as I went through it several times and asked myself:  "Will I really wear this on a regular basis?".

I ended up with a sweater for $2.50 and 3 scarves for .99 cents each.  On the scarf on the left, I was on the fence about because it has colors that are in my wardrobe and I don't have a scarf with those colors, but not a really liking the blotchiness.  I decided if I find I don't wear it much I may bleach it, dye it or just donate it back.

Does anyone else have these dilemmas?

9 Easy DIY Spice Blends from Women's Health

Source: Women's Health

Sometimes you might have a favorite dish but want to serve something a bit different and can do so by changing up some of the spices with this chart of easy DIY spice blends chart from Women's Health.

When added to vegetables it can make them more interesting if you are on a diet and trying to keep the calorie count down but change things up a bit. 

If you like more of one thing that another (I am a big fan of garlic) you can add more, or if you don't like something add less or not available (I have had no luck in finding Hing/Asafodtida) you can omit it and make it your own special blend.

Pour Cup Painting

This is another free class I signed up for at our local library.  We created two "paintings" and this was my second one.   I decided to call it "Busted Eyeshadow Pallette" as that is what it reminds me of.  For the above, I used red, black, white and gold paints

The project is called "pour cup painting" as you literally mix paint  a flow medium, water, and I kid you not, a squirt of Coconut Milk hair serum, then pour each of those a bit at a time into a larger cup and literally pour it all over the canvas inside a box lid.

This is the hair serum we used.  It helps create the "cells" or small voids in the paintings.

Here is the set up to prepare for doing the "paintings"

Here are the paints I chose for my first painting after I added the flow medium to the paints I had chosen.  I had too many dark colors which is why my first one didn't turn out so well.

This was my first project using the above colors.  Calling this one "Black Forest" as that is what it looks like to me with the greenish trees.  Looking at it now with the red in the center, it looks more like "After Bear attack Black Forest" with the red in the center.    You can turn the canvas in different directions to assist the paintings flow/final look.  I had tried drawing buildings with the sticks in the project below, which is probably why it looks like tree trunks at the bottom.

I sat near a woman who said she has done over 100 of this "pour" type art to sell at craft fairs.
She said the bubbles are usually a result of mixing the mixture too quickly.   She said no two painting turn out the same.   She also said the mixture she uses at home is about 70% paint to 30% flow medium and less water than we used in the class.  She showed me pictures of some of her projects and I liked how they turned out.

To help with drying, we put push pens on the edges for "legs" before starting the project. 

Here is the instructor in front of the table of paints.

Here are projects by some of the other participants.   This was done by a young girl and she called hers "End of The Easter Bunny".  I can sort of see that.

I really liked this one.  The gal that created it called it "The 80's"; it is sort of reminiscent of a tracksuit I used to have from that time.

This was by a teen and she called this "Crime Scene"

Here are some more pics.  I like the brown one on the lower left.

It is fun and easy and glad I had a chance to try it.  I can see where it could become addicting as you sort of could become sort of a mad scientist trying different techniques/ratios/colors to get different results and it would be a fun craft for kids to make and give as a present.

Closet Purge - Thrift Store Donataion

As part of my continuing declutter, before I went thrift shopping this weekend I went through more items to donate to charity.

An article I read indicated taking a picture of items to let go can help if it is sentimental so here goes.

In the above picture, the yellow baby hat was crotcheted by a former co-worker when my son was born. There are also several shirts that were his that are too large, like the Shelby Racing shirt in front, or too small.  I hung on to them in hopes he would have a child that might want to wear them someday.    He is now 26 and has no children and he has said before he doesn't want any.  Time to let them all go. 

The vest below was used in a movie that my son was in through a local video production company, Windsong, for their movie "Michalimacinaw" set in the 1770's.   I couldn't afford an authentic costume so I bought a blazer, took the sleeves off, shoulder pads out and changed/added buttons. 

While the transformation was minimal on my part, there was a lot of effort on my part to get him to rehearsals and shoots and many times I tried to sleep in the car as I had to be into work at 7pm and work until 8am.  We also went up to Mackinaw City where they filmed at the Fort up there.  We had a good time and have great memories of our few days up there.   

Not something he would ever wear again and Halloween is coming up; maybe someone else can use it.  

Nope, never going to wear parachute pants again.  Maybe someone has a 90's themed party that might love them.

This was a little more painful as I loved these shoes, but I can no longer wear heels. I haven't worn them in over 15 years so time for them to go too.

This was a present and I did like the scarf, but see how it wrinkles?  I don't like to iron so it is going too.

This was probably the hardest of all to let go of as I have had it for many years and only wore it around Christmas.  I am sure people are tired of seeing it and it is bulky and takes up too much space for something I wear a few times (or less) in December.  Also, I have lost weight and it is way too big and would be a pain in the butt to resize it to make it look decent.  Time to be welcomed to another gal's closet to bring holiday cheer.