2011 rough year, but I still have items to list on Etsy.

I can see that the next few months at work are going to be hard. They are already asking people to cut hours for the next two months. Like I have many now. So as hard as this year has been and next year will be, I still have plenty to list on Etsy to ensure that I can eat and put gas in the truck for work. After selling many possessions and finding new homes for stuff that I can't keep any more I will work on boxes marked inventory and this load is part of what I've found. At least twelve listings here. My goal is eight a week. That will be one a day plus a bonus. I'm empowered and know that I can do it and make my store work for the basics I need. Here's to 2012.

New Beginnings

To every new start comes major changes and in the last several months it seems as though there have been just too many changes. As things begin to settle down and healing begins the need for still another change was there. What would it be? Well here he is, the devil himself, Diablo. A pet with it's own portable home. A Betta fish. He's been here for less than twenty four hours and has startled me twice. Sneaky little guy. Who would have thought that one little fish could be so entertaining and bring good feelings to this humble abode. Meet Diablo. May Diablo be the settling touch my life so badly needs.

Robbins Make My Home Theirs Too. Part Two

The heat has been unbearable this summer, but we have air conditioning. What do these baby Robbin's have? This has been exciting and interesting to have happen in plain sight this summer, but I'm worried. I fill the bird bath a couple times a day, but the water has just been evaporating faster than the birds can get to it. Mama robin is doing an excellent job with her three young ones. They look half dead, but when she comes with food (papa too) they perk up and fight over the gift. Hopefully they will survive. Nature will take care of them. Water is what I can provide.

It's time to stop and smell the flowers.

How can anyone not stop to look at the miracle of a flower? They are bright with color and just spread happiness. I could just spend hours looking at flowers and wonder of the life they live, the purposes they serve and the pleasure they bring. Enjoy for a few minutes some of ours.

The Finished Chair

Okay so the ninety nine cent chair is now worth so much more, but even the expense of fixing something up in exchange for comfort is worth the time spent and the price of paint. It took my daughter time to recover from her surgery, but once she felt up to spray painting she was right back at it finishing another project. Here it is. The chair is done and ready for use. We are both pleased with the result.
Don't ever be afraid to use vinyl paint and auto chrome paint. The results are amazing. They were new to both of us even though spray paint is one of our favorite things to work with. We highly recommend them. If you see that vinyl chair or vinyl anything and think it would look good upcycled then by all means give it a try. What can it hurt?

Spring Flowers

I love when the air is fresh come spring and the flowers finally decide to blossom. After this long and wet winter and spring the Iris' in my garden have bloomed. I have watched these grow year after year for the past six springs and for some reason this year they are special to me. Maybe the stress of getting the garden to mature is off or maybe that I am settled enough to enjoy them. Whatever it is I wanted to share them. I hope you enjoy them as well.

Featured Etsy Item on Australian Haberdashery Blog

Once again I have an item featured in an international blog. It continues to amaze me this power of the Internet. This particular blogger has featured one of my retro vintage trims . The blog is called The Haby Goddess.

Vintage Retro Trim $12.00

For someone who is still learning about international business I find that some days are like Christmas or a Birthday where you receive gifts but in this case the gift is not the sale of the item just the simple item being seen world wide. I will adjust to the new world. It's actually becoming quite fun and I have something to talk with my grandchildren about. I can keep up. Okay I can keep up a bit. Thanks for looking and I have added this blog to my list of favorite blogs so have fun surfing.

To Be Continued...Thrifted Chair Part Three

After the final coat of vinyl paint was added and left to dry the butterfly decals were applied and we now have the back of the seat and seat finished. We may add butterflies to the back of the back because there are a few remaining. I'm enjoying watching the progress of this chair. Next it's on to the chrome body and making that shine and putting it back together. I hope your enjoying this work in progress. True recycling at it's best.

Getting back to nature.

It's Sunday morning early and I'm working as usual. I'm taking a break to do some blogging. I decided this week to take some pictures of the wonderful nature around my yard. It's been so rainy and miserable that yard work has had to wait. I put in more daffodil bulbs this past fall that have already come and gone and I was given some Iris to put in and they are just starting to flower. I will get pictures of them as soon as they do. They are small and young yet and I hope to get to watch them mature. With all the wet weather the mushrooms have been plentiful and the grass has gotten high around them. The birds have been playful and I can't tell you how much fruit will be on the trees this summer. It's going to burst with excitement. I have to stop every now and again during any of my days to enjoy the natural life. It feels such a part of me and I never seem to get enough. I'd like my lawn to be perfect, but it will never be and I've settled just to keep up with what grows. It's all part of the great scheme of things. So here's to nature. Without it we can't exist. I'm so grateful to be able to enjoy it.

Robins Make My Home Theirs Too

For the past couple of weeks we have been watching a pair of Robins take over our back yard. Last spring we knew they were nesting in the hedges, but this year they are out in the wide open at eye level for us to watch. This fascinates me to watch nature take it's course. I've tried to make my back yard welcoming to wildlife and birds and I've seen all sorts of animals in the yard. I've had skunks, possum, rabbits, deer, and raccoons to mention a few. I like the large variety of birds the most and when the cherry tree and pear tree are full we need air traffic control in the back yard. The squirrels and birds will make more noise while I'm trying to retrieve the fruit but believe me they get more than I do. So I thought that I would share this miracle of nature and try to watch and see if there will be chicks soon. We won't disturb it to see if there are any eggs in it. They deserve their spot.

To Be Continued...Thrifted Chair Part Two

I didn't think that I'd get to the new pictures until this weekend, but as usual I get more done than I expect in a day. I am a bit tired today, but I think the weather has something to do with it. Nothing but clouds and rain. We saw some sun, but it's in and out. Today is my day off and I decided to keep working, but to pace at a more human rate. Done mostly little stuff today, but it all adds up to big stuff at the end of the day. So now it's time to show you the progress we are making on the 99 cent chair. It still has a way to go before completion, but we can visualize how it will look when it is done. I hope you can see it too. The improvements are slow, but any job worth doing is worth doing well. We will be repainting the chrome body, the vinyl is going to be white and the arms will be white and we found butterfly vinyl to decorate it. It will look wonderful in our computer room. I can't wait to actually see it done, but I can see what it will look like in my mind now.

To Be Continued...Thrifted Chair

I've been so very busy building my on line store that I haven't taken the time to blog. That extra income is helping so much right now. Any how on one of our thrift trips a while back my daughter needed to sit down for a while. She'd been having back problems and it was getting to her. This chair is the result of her needing to have a seat. It was very comfortable she said and had me try it. Spending hours on the computer working is hard on your you know what and we decided to take it. Of course the price was just right too. As you can see from the pictures it was quite marked down. The progression of mark downs only meant to us that no one even tried to sit in it. It was a bit soiled so maybe that's the reason. So for ninety nine cents we purchased a new office chair knowing that we could upcycle it with vinyl paint and maybe some decorations. It is currently in pieces in the garage being worked on. It is showing great progress and we found the most wonderful vinyl butterflies to apply to it. We'll keep you in suspense for a bit longer. I will take some pictures of the progress and blog again over the weekend.

Thrifting on the way from one job to another.

Okay so the thrift store was on the way from one job to another and I couldn't resist. Being the middle of the week and not expecting to find anything I took a chance and found two vintage aprons. At first I thought these were homemade, but upon second glance I noticed a portion of a tag that had been cut out of one and realized they were manufactured. I checked them out and they were new and just a bit dusty from sitting in some one's kitchen. I cleaned them up and ironed them and they are now listed on my store for resale.

One is a vintage yellow apron that buttons and ties in the back. It is a floral print and has two large pockets in the front. It is trimmed in green bias tape. The second is a vintage blue floral full apron that slips over your head and ties in the back. I found both of these apron styles listed for sale on the Internet and am happy to have found them to add to my store.

Sewing is my passion.

While I'm busy building my etsy store and doing the job search and working part time I am teaching myself to do what I love so that I can make it through each day. Sewing is my passion and I'm trying to keep one project going at a time and taking it to the finish line. The past three days I have worked to complete another childs red half apron. I think I'm in love with this vintage 1950's pattern. It also helps to have used a vintage piece of red fabric. I have another one cut out in a vintage Christmas fabric and will start work on that one tomorrow. I wanted to get this on my blog so that I can continue to share with my friends and followers what I have been up too. For now I am just moving along and growing. Soon I will be able to do this full time. That's my goal any way. Wish me luck everyone and show me what you've been up to.

February Success, March Madness

To keep myself from slipping into a deep depression about not being able to keep up with my bills and stressing just about everything, my daughter pointed out that everything I need to succeed was right in front of me. She is so right. I have so much that I can do to build an online store to support myself that it really isn't funny. I have two rooms overflowing with fabric to just sell or make something out of and it's about time that I woke up and saw this. Thanks to the universe for waking me up in this time of great stress and thank you Lisa. She's been telling me this for some time. Time to listen to wise daughters and son.

I got started with this project of an online store several years ago, but never took it where it had to go. After the first of the year and a couple of end of year sales I decided to get it going again. As of today I have listed my two hundredth item on the store and am getting good attention to it. The domino affect is amazing and it's with this action that one could say that it can happen over night. Not without many hours of work and dedication though. I spend every extra minute working on this business. In the morning before work, when I get home from work, in between projects, cooking, cleaning and anything else that pops up. I spend extra time checking out estate sales and thrift stores to find the fabric for resale that I think will sell. There is also the time needed to research what is selling and what is not. Oh and don't forget the time learning to calculate postage and going to the Post Office.

To shorten this story some it started out slow in January while I learned, but I made a few more dollars in February. Not bad for a short month and a new store. I only hope that the mad hours that I am putting into this store will continue on this prosperous path. Here's to March Madness. I also had the blessing of a few dollars come to me and this being the gift that it was I decided to invest in my stash and the pictures speak a thousand words.

Back to Sewing for February.

I have this never ending desire to be in the sewing room, but lately it's been nearly impossible with all the work building my etsy store and selling on eBay. This desire was so high that I forced myself to do something, so I took out all of the red Valentines day fabric I could find and started sewing a little bit at a time. My first project was a baby bib of red hearts on white background. That was fun and quick. My enthusiasm was there, but the time was not, so I took a few minutes every day to do something more. I started an apron. Valentine's kisses. I used a vintage pattern and had fun even though it took me two days back and forth to the sewing room. I got it finished and took pictures and listed it on etsy. Then I made two oven mitts and two potholders with the remaining fabric, vowing not to put the fabric back in a tub. To continue with my passion for aprons, I made another from the same vintage pattern, but in a bold red and black and yellow heart print. It too got finished and listed on etsy. I have a child's apron cut out and ready to work on and although it's past Valentine,s day I won't be happy until I've used as much of the fabric as I can. I will sell the scraps at the end of the month so that nothing goes to waste. I hope you enjoy looking at my finished products. I had fun knowing that I could get back to sewing and not just work on the on line business. Visit me at butterflyplace.etsy.com for all of my selling adventures.

Spread Love Through Thrift.

We're coming up on the most loving day of the year, Valentines Day, when love reigns for what we think is just a few hours. Take that feeling and make it live with you all year every day. Care about each other no matter what. Love is every where all the time.

These kissing angels were found over the holiday season at a thrift store. They are about ten inches tall and the pair was purchased for just one dollar. It was 50% off day. Angels are filling my home to remind me that love is all around. I hope we can all spread some.

Upcycled Candles From Other People's Junk

Have you ever wondered how to decorate cheap with candles. I've been successfully doing this for years with other people's junk that I upcycle. This is the in thing to do today. Glad it's become popular. These are two reclaimed Ball canning jars that can be hung with their own bail wires or set on the table.

These now white wall sconces started out as two goth black candle holders that with a quick spray painting in white made them two totally different holders. New life for less than five dollars. While out rummaging through another sale I found a number of tulip candle holders for fifty cents each and decided that these two pink ones would make these sconces perfect for my bedroom. I quickly attached them with E600 glue for a simple finish. Two wall sconces for just under six dollars.

One thing I like to do is go to the final day of church sales. This is the time that you can fill a bag for less than five dollars and what fits is yours for that price. I found these old metal objects that I am thinking are hand rail holders. Technical name I do not know, but my daughter and I used them in two different ways. She mounted hers to wood plaques that she purchased and I mounted mine to stained scrap wood. I attached votive glass and she just set the candle on the metal. Tastes differ, but for the seven wall sconces the price was well under $15. Can't beat that.

Santa is my favorite.

Santa is my favorite holiday character, but put him on an apron driving a train and it's just plain cute. I found this apron (of course an apron) at a thrift store just after Christmas this past year on one of our out of town thrift excursions and couldn't resist. It just seemed so playful and colorful and of course vintage. With a little tender love and care Santa is ready for use and is now listed for sale on butterflyplace.etsy.com. Santa is actually a large pocket on this apron. Even better to be useful and not just decorative.

Check this out! I was featured on Apron-iCity!

How excited was I to learn today that I had been featured on the Apron-iCity website. She feature my post on the Embroidered Aprons back in December. If you have a chance check out the website, for all things apron related. What a great day!

Happy New Year and a prosperous year full of thrifting.

I found a few new thrift items through the holiday week, but I'm saving them for a bit. I am listing items for sale on my etsy store, butterflyplace.etsy.com. Feel free to look and shop. I enjoy sitting out in the patio enclosure on those mild summer nights and I have even done some quilting at the large table out there. There isn't a lot of light so I am always trying to make what light I have work better for me. There is a very large picture window that connects to the family room, but light does not come through that window. While on one of my expeditions to the thrift stores I found this wicker mirror that needed to be repaired. It was less than four dollars and with about a days worth of repair and some new paint it looked fabulous. I hung it in the window and have been enjoying more natural light and the way it made the window look smaller so much that I can't wait for summer to come around again.