Trash to Treasure

S: There are several items in our home that I'm quite fond of, and they didn't cost a penny. I found them all patiently waiting for the garbage man to take them to their final resting place.

This is the first post in a mini series of the trash-to-treasure finds in our home. I hope you're inspired to do a little curbside rescuing yourself. Also, thanks to my mom who snagged some of these items for me!

Have you ever been driving down the street and seen an antique solid wood desk set out for trash day? My mom's neighbor was throwing away said item, that had been sitting unused in their garage. When I found it, it was painted in a dark glossy brown....not attractive at all. But it had all it's original hardware and some great details. Luckily it was on wheels, so I got my mom and we rolled it down the street to her house. I spent hours with paint stripper and scraper in hand, trying to remove what turned out to be three layers of paint. At some point I stepped back, realizing I would never get all the paint off, and also realizing that hey, I kind of liked how it looked. It definitely has a shabby chic look to it...emphasis on the shabby. But I adore this little desk. Zach not so much, since he bumps his knees when sitting at it.

Can you spot the needle felted monkey?

I scream you scream

Carvel and Coldstone are both giving away free ice cream today! The weather is pretty cool here in Austin, but who can pass up free ice cream?

Squeaver

S: I sat down the other day to make a needle felted squirrel, and ended up with a beaver. We'll call him Squeaver. I had sketched out plans for a squirrel but as I started felting the head I began to have doubts.

"What does this look like to you, Zach?"

"A groundhog...or a beaver."

"Or a squirrel?"

"No, not at all, that's a beaver."

Sigh. but no worries...slight change in plans but all he needed was a tail to become a full fledged beaver. He also got a little vest, buttoned on with a button that I made from polymer clay. I decided to start making some of my own buttons for my needle felts since they are so expensive to buy. I think the first batch turned out pretty well.

Z: In the days of yore, Sarah would have taken the Squeaver to market and she would have sat in the hot sun all day eating watermelon and fanning her pretty sweaty face hoping that someone would walk along and fancy her homemade needle felted craft. Yawn. We live in the digital age people! This is what happened: Sarah made a digital post to sell her non-digital Squeaver on Etsy and within 30 seconds someone had digitally purchased it. I believe that's a digital record. Sarah, in her humility, was not going to reveal this to our blog readers, but I'm here to verify that she made the fastest sale of a needle felted Squeaver ever.

S: I also searched the yard for acorn tops to use for these felted ones. They look pretty cute resting in a leaf-shaped dish that I have.

Table Runners

S: My latest project was to make a table runner for for the dining room table...which turned in to three table runners. What can I say, I'm addicted to making things.

For the fall, I made two burlap table runners with ruffled ends. (two different lengths to use when the table leaves are in.) I added brown velvet ribbon to the ruffles on the shorter table runner.

I made both burlap table runners for less than $5 each. If you can sew a straight line you can make one of these!

I also made a Christmas table runner with some red and white fabric I had leftover from another project.

Spinelli the spider

S: Meet Spinelli. He's a cute little needle felted spider I made for my etsy shop! Zach gets the credit for the pun-ny name.

Front loaded with mildew

S: I'm ashamed to share this post....but I'll do it...to keep all you front load washing machine owners informed.

We had heard that front loaders were infamous for mold, so we use Affresh tablets every month or so to clean our washing machine. The other day I was doing the laundry and pulled out the tray to add my laundry detergent. I bent over to pick something up and noticed mildew around the bottom edge of the tray. Zach undid some of the screws and pulled the tray out.

It was horrible.

The part that we couldn't see from the outside was COVERED in black mildew. Looking in further we could see more of the gross black mess. Zach ended up having to take apart the rest of the washing machine so we could clean all the mildew.

I felt pretty dumb when I dug the manual out of the filing cabinet and found the maintenance guide simply outlined on two pages. This probably would have prevented all the dismantling, scrubbing, soaking, and bleaching.

Have a seat and a bowl of soup

S: I went into Crate & Barrel the other day to pick up some soup bowls, my first non-gift purchase from that store. It's not that I don't like what they have to offer, and I certainly appreciate how wonderfully organized the store is. It's just that I know I can almost certainly find similar items elsewhere, for less. But back to what brought me to the store...the soup bowls. Oven-to-table soup bowls to be exact. Surprisingly, Crate & Barrel wins out on this one, offering them for less than Target or even Walmart.

While there, I saw this chair:

Image: Crate & Barrel

I got this one for free when my grandma moved:

Crate and Barrel loses this round.

So even though the soup bowls were a great deal, I don't foresee many more trips to this store, unless I find $1,099 underneath the chair cushion.