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?

WEIRD DOLL WEDNESDAY, PART 74

 

Marie Antoinette says "Happy Thanksgiving"

 

 

"PUT THOSE WITH THE REST OF THE BODY PARTS"

 

 

Yeah, I said that at work yesterday. And here  are the "body parts"

 It looks like a bunch of sausages! From right to left: hip rolls and butt bumps for period (1500-1700) dresses, a fat suit, Edna's "lady parts" from Hairspray, a ruffled bustle  and a couple more fat suits. We make a lot of crazy stuff.

 It was clean up the hat room day. It's amazing how much room there is when stuff it put back where it belongs. My god! I can get to the cabinet! Yeah, that's a box of astronaut helmets and court jester hats. Can you find the Viking horns?

The stage stripped bare. Where the magic happens. It also is so sad to see a naked stage. Those little paintings are the set painting class's projects and those metal things across the back are stage lights. We are done for the year. I look forward to this space being transformed for Arcadia in February. It will be an English manor house around 1803.  That weird yellow light thing is called a "ghost light", I don't know why. Another strange theatre tradition.

WEIRD DOLL WEDNESDAY, PART 73

 

 Say "Hello" to a fancy lady.

 And what I really got for my birthday. The post about the heater/AC unit was a joke. We did have to replace the 25-year old unit and it just happened at the same time.

 Because One can not have too many black and white dresses. I got this one with the birthday money my father-in-law sent. It's from Tahari and was $100 off! And a size 14W, thanks vanity sizing!

A huge bottle of John-Paul Gaultier perfum, I wear this everyday because I like to smell nice. Yeah, I play video games. The sparkle book is a journal. I've been keeping one, on and off, since high school. The bag is from Anthropology and was 50% off plus 15% off with the birthday coupon.

Do you sign up for the free rewards programs that stores have? I do, if it's a store I like to shop at. World Market, DSW, Sephora, and Anthropology all have free reward programs. DSW, Sephora and Anthropology send you birthday coupons (the 15% coupon).  I don't like the ones that charge you to join. 

We didn't make it to the Full Moon bonfire on Saturday, had way too much fun earlier in the day at early Thanksgiving at a friends house. Of course,  didn't take photos. I feel that if I'm a guest at someone else's home it's rude to pull out my camera and start snapping away. 

3 more days until real Thanksgiving break!