WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR CHRISTMAS CRAP FROM?

 

I get mine from all over the place. I'm not one to follow this years trend in decorations, so my stuff has been collected since the mid-1970's. 

FIRST UP: NEW AND GIFTED

 

 My friend Sarah makes these wreaths. They sell really well at the charity auction she makes them for.

 New Star Trek Hallmark ornaments.  The Borg cube no longer talks, but when plugged in it said "We are the Borg. Enjoy your holiday, resistance is futile"

 Santa from the 70's. I bought this fellow at Weinstocks in Sacramento. He broke in half and is losing his color, but I don't care. I'll keep him forever

 My Dad sent me these, our family ornaments. He divided up the Christmas stuff years ago. I wonder what happened to the silver tree?

 Santa painted on an oyster shell.  Don't remember who gave me this. I'll not going to have every new piece in this post, that would be nuts!!!


SECOND UP: HOMEMADE

 Tree skirt made from a sheet. Stencils were in an old issue of Martha Stewart Living.

 Recycle your Christmas cards into ornaments.

 Pine cones from the yard and glitter

 Use leftover beads and earring hooks to made pretty beaded earring things

 Ornaments made from old patterns. I made the Nutcracker ones in 1980 from a Vogue pattern. I always look through the patterns at thrift stores because you never know what will turn up. It's a great way to find vintage craft patterns.


THIRD UP: RESCUE OTHER PEOPLES REJECTS

 The 2 green angles are candles holders. The homemade tree is decorated with buttons, broken jewelry, beads etc. Why would someone get rid of this? But, hey, thanks, I love it.

vintage glass nativity

Santa and the wife

 I would have been rude not to buy this crap. The red one is a wishbone and a thimble. Crafty!

Someone took along time to make this pillow.

Karaoke elves

Break dancing Santa

Santa's a dare devil!

Santa planter.

Santa decanter and his friend

 

Christmas Eve Inc limited edition of 30,000. That's what the label says.

AND A 3-IN-ONE: GIFTED, THRIFTED AND VINTAGE

My sister-in-law gave (1)this to me years ago. She found it in a thrift store(2),  and on the bottom of the pieces it says "SA 79", so that makes it vintage(3). 

As the Borg say "Enjoy your holiday, resistance is futile"

 

PS: There maybe one more Christmas post.

WARNING!!!!! CHRISTMAS CONTENT!!!!!!!!

 

Well, I'm finally in the Christmas  Spirit. Thanks in part to the Menopausal Supermodel. She puts Christmas trees in her bathroom! Go check her out.

Let's start with outside......

 I made this wreath with a straw form, some left over yarn and a second hand Santa.

 My friend, J Willis makes these. This is the front door.

 Made with bits and pieces of stuff that ends up on the cutting table by John H.

 Got these vintage electric candles today for 49cents a piece. And they work.

A couple of years ago I decided to divide my ornaments up between 3 trees: the big main one in the living room, a Santa one in the den, and a Christmas Around the World one in the dinning room. First up: Christmas Around the World

 I got this Russian lady at Miss Kitty's Cat Rescue a couple of months ago.

 Weird dolls on the tree, from left to right: Bali, Germany, Indonesia, Queen Elizabeth I, I don't know where the pink and gold one is from, and a Chinese nutcracker.

 Mexico and an Indian elephant photo bombing

 Asia

 Russia, Germany and Ireland

 Holland, India, Florida Seminole doll, Portugal, Guam

 Santa in a shoe. I've had this guy so long I have no idea where he came from. Any guesses? I seem to be lacking anything from Africa, I'll have to do something about that.

 This is what the trees looked like last year with it's old topper

A left over prop glitter star from Carousal that the prop master gave me during the strike. He gave all the stars away. Stuff like that gets thrown out after shows, so we can take it out of the trash and keep it. 

That's one trees down and two to go. Off to watch 2-hours of Grimm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WEIRD DOLL WEDNESDAY, PART 76

 

Ragged Ann, her apron says "Handmade in Tortolo"  The last "O" is a heart.

Looks like she's going shopping.

TIME OFF = ANOTHER HOME PROJECT

 

I'm on Winter/Christmas break, so it's the perfect time to re-do my bathroom. 

 

The lovely before. I took the doors off the vanity so the plumbers could remove the old sink.  A wise friend once told me that you can do a lot of home improvements yourself, but you should call a plumber and electrician.   Hell yeah!

 Holy cats, what did I do? That bag is full of old floor and, yeah, the toilet is in the bathtub. Thank goodness we have another bathroom.

The after! Yeah, that's more black and white floor. I had left over from the kitchen. The sink, vanity and faucet are from IKEA. I looked all over the place for something narrow to fit the space. My choices went from ugly and cheap to WTF! Who's crazy enough to spend $700-$800 on a vanity? So IKEA it was. The whole project took 3 days and cost around $350, including the plumbers coming twice, fixing the broken part on the toilet and figuring out the pipes for the sink.

I took last photo standing in the closet, which also has a new floor. Now I have to put everything back in the closet. I'd say that's the prefect time to sort through and make a donation bag. 

Maybe, just maybe if it cools off, I can start thinking about pulling out all the Christmas stuff......................................

WEIRD DOLL WEDNESDAY, PART 75

Here's the weird doll MTW gave me

 Monster High is a cartoon I've never heard of.

 This is Skelita Calaveras, and she's made of bones.

 Her favorite activity is "anything associated with Dia de los Muertos" What gave that away? I don't know what to make of this.  What do you guys think?

I BROKE MY RULE: I SHOPPED ON BLACK FRIDAY

 

I'll get back to that.  I've had a 9-day vacation for Thanksgiving. Before we went to visit my BFF (from now on called MTW) I got in some thrifting.

 

Last Monday, I got all this at the local charity. The men's shirt is from The Kings Road Shop at Sear's and the blue sweater is cashmere from Peck and Peck. I can't pass up cashmere at the charity shop. I'm not taking this one apart, but if the seams are sewn, the sweater can be pulled apart and you can make something else out of it. Recycle it!

 On Tuesday, I won all these purses on a local on-line auction. 22 purses for $11. I gave MTW the fake Channel and I used one that has a beaten up handle for my "beauty products" on the trip. Yeah, I spelled that wrong

 More birthday gifts. A Frida tote bag, homemade cigar box art, a note book and a weird doll. She'll show up on Wednesday.


About breaking my rule. I don't like that Christmas has become the reason to stand in line at a store so you can beat someone up for that $10 toaster ( and I'm not even religious) When this trend first started, I swore I'd never shop on Black Friday....until this time. Does it count when I shopped at 2 Value Villages, a Goodwill and my new favorite place on earth, The by the pound outlet?

 What I got at the by the pound outlet. Yeah, that's a wedding dress. And the label......

 Brand new Polo slacks that are The Doctor's size. All of that was $20, including 2 items MTW tossed in. Wait for those. I'll be posted more photos of that pile of clothes made into outfits in the coming days. I decided to made a new feature, instead of photos on clothes, I'm going to make outfits. I'm finding myself getting bored with photos of random clothes. Look for that soon.

 A couple doors down, is a Value Village. Full length Harris tweed coat, a blazer and a vintage dress.

 The Value Village on the other side of town: silk scarf, Henry Higgins hat and a priest shirt. None of theses stores were crowded and the people shopping were friendly.  This was in Charlotte, North Carolina  in what some people call "the bad parts of town" Yeah, whatever.

 Our last stop was the Goodwill in the town MTW lives in. She was dealing with some phone messages and I found this robe/kimono. I had been put on the quest since summer to find MTW this item. Ha, yeah, I'm that good! Her quest was find me a handtooled Mexican purse (which she did) now her new quest is finding me a leopard coat.

 Here are the 2 items MTW found at the by the pound outlet. A Kate Spade wallet and a Maurizo Taiuti leather bag. The first thing we did when we got home was google "Maurizo Taiuti". The smaller version of this bag was being offered for $250.00 on a resale site. How does a high end bag like this end up at the Goodwill By the Pound Outlet? 

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner and spent our down time watching the first (and only season) of The Lone Gunmen. Does anyone remember this show? It was a spin off of the X-Files and lasted 13 episodes in the spring of 2001. 

The show was about 3 guys exposing cover ups in their newspaper "The Lone Gunmen". The reason I'm going on about this old show, is the pilot episode. The pilot aired in March of 2001 and dealt with the guys foiling a plot to....fly an airplane into the World Trade  Center!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We all know what happened 6 months later.  Crazy or what?