Deck the Halls

I have a thing for ceramic Christmas trees, especially vintage ones. Usually I get them out around Thanksgiving, but to keep my husband happy I don't switch them on until after we celebrate Thanksgiving. He thinks they're tacky, but keeps quiet since they make me smile. I'd actually never seen one until we got married. His mom puts two of them out every Christmas and I just loved them. In fact, she got me my very first one - she spotted it at a garage sale and snaped it up for me.

One of my favorite things to do is to find old ones without lights and bases at second hand stores and bring them back to life. The best thing about the base-less trees is they are generally quite cheap. I designed the white base above in Tinkercad, an online kid-friendly CAD program for creating 3D printable objects. I just print the base in the size and color I need, pop in new plastic bulbs, install a light kit and the tree can shine again.

The big green one below looked awful when I bought it. It was covered in grime, half of the bulbs were broken off with ends still glued in the holes, but a 1974 tree with a base for $10.00 was a bargain. My Dremel make short work of the broken bulb ends and the filth washed right off. Now it's my favorite tree. 

This one I actually bought separately. I found the base in with the lamps (for $4.99) at Goodwill and just held onto it. I figured I'd find a tree to go with it someday, and I was right. I think the tree, without any bulbs or the star was $5.00. Now that these trees are becoming much more popular, I rarely see them.

I think I actually like these better than my full size Christmas tree. They are a lot less work to put up and take down and they brighten up some of the darker corners of the house. What decorations are you putting up this year?

 

Small World

After my sister-in-law got home from work today I popped out to do a little thrifting. 500 miles (about 800 km) away from home and what do I see at Goodwill? Not only did I find this Mackinac Island sweatshirt but I found Round Island Lighthouse as well.

Sadly, no ceramic Christmas trees, but I'll keep looking...

Jackpot

My youngest child and I were in St. Ignace the other day to get their Covid-19 vaccination. We happened to have a few minutes to kill before catching the ferry home, so we popped into the local thrift shop for a quick peek. Nestled in with the rubber stamps I found these beautiful made-in-West-Germany cookie molds. Happy happy joy joy! 

The cookie molds are typically used to make traditional German springerle cookies, like the ones pictured above (from 2018.) To buy the molds new is quite expensive, so you can imagine my joy at finding the whole lot for $5.00!

Halloween 2020: Covid Style

This year I had a mouse and a traveler on the Oregon Trail. (He tells me, he wasn't just any old traveler, he was a specific character from from the musical The Trail to Oregon!)  We decided to go cheap on costumes for 2020 since we weren't sure trick-or-treating would even happen this year. All we bought was my son's vest, which set us back $4.00 at the thrift shop. (I made the mouse costume for a dress-up day or a play at school years ago.) When we finally decided that we could make trick-or-treating happen, the kids didn't care what their costumes were just as long as they could celebrate.

We made sure the kids could go out and collect candy yet remain socially distant. One end for rapping on doors and one end for retrieving sweets, all while staying 6+ feet away. Sadly, we decided to save them just in case they need to be used again next year.

The kids built this contraption so we could safely pass out candy. I dropped handfuls of candy into the top of the tube from up on the porch, and it came out of the worm's mouth and dropped into an awaiting candy bag. (It's supposed to be a sandworm from the movie  Beetlejuice - one of my kids' favorites.) It was a huge hit, especially with the little kids. 

The haul was a little lighter than normal, but that wasn't surprising. Instead of the normal 10 - 12 pounds, each of them brought home around eight pounds (a little more than 3.5 kg.) - still plenty for a smorgasbord of treats while we watched Hocus Pocus. (We watch it every year on Halloween.) 

Look closely at my son's haul... Notice anything interesting? Yup, someone decided to give him a White Claw. We're not sure if it was an accident or a trick, but he willingly turned it over to his dad as soon as he got home. If something like that was ever going to happen, 2020 was the year.

 

Kolaportid Flea Market

The flea market is only open on weekends, so yesterday was the day to explore it. It may have been small, but there was a surprising array of items for sale.

  Whale vertebrae? They had them.

Vintage prams or antique fish net floats?

They had those, too.

They also had a very large treadle sewing machine,

 vintage Icelandic 45s and a Star Wars All Terrain Armored Transport.

Feeling peckish?

Available snacks included traditional horse sausage

and "acidic whale." Of course they had fermented shark, but we opted to snack on Icelandic doughnuts instead.

My favorite part was looking at all the handmade items.

Especially the sweaters. They were stunning. Believe it or not, except for the doughnuts, I didn't buy a thing.

My Kind of Shopping

This week we were lucky enough to find the Iceland Red Cross Second Hand Shop. It was a lovely little shop complete with a rack of second hand, hand-knit Icelandic sweaters.

The prices were significantly higher than second hand stores in the US, but the used sweaters were much less expensive than the new ones. 

Today 8,000 Icelandic Króna (ISK) was equal to $65.64. A new sweater, of the same style at the Handknitting Association of Iceland's shop was about 28,500 ISK (about $233.00.) The new sweaters were gorgeous, but we wanted to check out the used ones before we bought something new.

I'm glad we checked out the Red Cross shop. My mom found two sweaters, I found a shawl and I enjoyed getting a peek at just how creative Icelandic knitters can be.

Thrifting in Amsterdam

Amsterdam has a thriving second hand market - you just have to know where to look. We found a number of high-end vintage stores, the more every day thrift-type shop, and a flea market. The Kilo Store is similar to a Goodwill  store in the US - except everything was sold by the kilogram. Several thrift shops did not allow photography inside - even if you made a purchase.

In the Kilo Store, everything was color coded -

just put your item or items on the scale, 

and then punch in the color to get the price.

We found prices for new clothing Amsterdam to be high (by our standards.) €150.00 (about $175.00) for a women's shirt or summer dress was not uncommon. Given such high prices, the high (again, by northern Michigan standards) prices in the second-hand shops shouldn't have surprised us. Shirts ran in the €15 range, while sweaters were in the €25 to €30 range. The cheapest clothing, by far, was at the Waterlooplein Flea Market. S found a long sleeve denim shirt he wanted, and since we've got a washer and dryer in the house, we picked it up for €4.00 (about $4.50.) One booth even had used lederhosen. Lucky for Allen there was nothing in his size!

Today's Giggle

I stopped at my favorite thrift shop the other day and giggled when I saw this. I'm not sure why I found it so funny, but it made me laugh out loud...

Dying Eggs with Ties

 

We decided to try something new for Easter this year - dying our eggs with silk ties. I picked up the ties at the thrift shop for around $2.00 each, and the kids had a hoot. They chose their ties and wrapped the eggs, but the best part was unwrapping the them after they had cooked.

It was hard to know what they were going to look like while they were boiling, but in the end they turned out nicely. Though we discovered our pink and yellow ties didn't work very well - nor did that beautiful turquoise. However, the reds, blues and the greens all worked just fine. We might just have to try this again next year. 

(We followed this tutorial.)

Furry Fun

While we were in the Salvation Army Thrift Store over Christmas break, my son spotted a Furby. What was left of the shredded box was held together by tape, but the little guy inside looked brand new. The price tag said it was $10.00, but all toys that day were half price. "Can I get it?" he asked. My husband quickly agreed, knowing full well that Furbies are hackable.

The kids have been having a lot of fun playing with it, though my daughter is not keen on sleeping in the same room with it. (She felt better knowing the army guys would keep her safe.)

After paying five bucks for the thing, I was shocked to see this at Target a a couple days later:

Sure it's been fun, but not that much fun...

Score

On Friday,  the kids and I took the day off school so I could take them to orthodontist appointments. Whenever we have a few minutes on the mainland we always pop into thrift shops so I can look for sweaters, and of course, the kids often find a bargain or two. On this trip they found two snowball makers at Goodwill for $1.99 each.

The next day they spent the entire morning outside enjoying the wonderfully packable snow. 

Worth. Every. Penny. 

Halloween

I love Halloween. Love it. Especially helping the kids get the perfect costumes. 

For a number of years now our Tourism Bureau has organized a trick-or-treating through town for the last weekend that the stores are open. This year my son decided he wanted to be a bride: a beautiful bride wearing his great grandmother's mink stole. I was worried he'd take a lot of flack from the other kids (and adults) he knew in town given that a bride is not a typical costume for a ten year-old boy. Thank goodness I was wrong., he got lots of positive comments.

He knew back in August he wanted to be a bride, so we started looking. From the moment he saw it, he loved that dress! We found it at the thrift shop for $25.00. It was a vintage wedding dress with a beaded bodice and a long train, but it had to have been a size zero because it was tight when he wore it with his fleece underneath it. We found the veil at another shop for $5.00. Score! Once we got it all home all I had to do was take the dress in at the bust, add some tucks to shorten it and add a bustle to the back.

Sadly, the "marriage" didn't work out, and by Halloween night my beautiful bride had passed on, started to rot and returned to life as a zombie - who, for some reason, was still wearing the same dress. (Though this time over his coat because once we factored in the wind chill, it was 17 degrees here on Halloween night; about -8 C.) 

He loved being a zombie, but I must admit that I have a personal problem with zombies.  They give me nightmares. We were a little worried about the little ones at school, so the zombie bride only came out at night.

My daughter is now reading her fourth Harry Potter book, so it did not surprise me when she decided she wanted to be Hermione Granger for Halloween this year. I made her Hogwart's robes but I found the tie for $1.50 at yet another thrift shop.  Allen even made her a wand with a tip that could light up.

All afternoon as we trick-or-treated through town people kept saying, "Look, there's Harry Potter." So on Halloween night she changed her mind, had me add a scar to her forehead and decided to be Harry instead.  Her costume was perfect for a Northern Michigan Halloween. She was snug as could be wearing her coat under her robes. 

And just in case you're wondering, the kids trick-or-treated through around 1/2 of the village and each brought home about eight pounds (about 3.5 kg.) of candy. Yum!

I Heart Homemade Shopping Bags

I made more of these. I had collected ten pair of rain / wind / athletic pants (from my favorite "donation only" thrift shop) that were taking up valuable storage space in my sewing room. It was time for them to get transformed into shopping bags. I had a couple oxfords I couldn't use for these so they got transformed as well. And let me tell you, it was great to make something other than mittens. They have been all consuming of late - like every moment of my spare time has gone to making them. I am so looking forward to working on costumes! (A pink dinosaur and a stick man, if you're wondering.)

I know I can purchase bags for a buck or two at most stores, but shouldn't they really pay me to advertise for them? I'd rather make my own instead. And knowing that mine are recycled just makes them that much better.

They may not be the most attractive bags, (let me tell you - those turquoise pants were hideous!) but they're super easy; I'd say less than 20 minutes each. I made eleven of them other day. Add those to the two I already made and I got out of the grocery store for the first time ever without using one of their plastic shopping bags. There's only one downside - I just realized I don't have any bags to scoop the litter box into! Any suggestions?