Tourist in My Own Town

Last weekend we had some warmer weather in Chicagoland, so I decided to knock off one of the items on my 40 before 41 list and collect some Mold-A-Rama figures that I didn't have. (They are plastic blow mold souvenirs, similar in popularity to those pressed penny machines you see around.)

My first stop was the Willis(formerly Sears) Tower, where the goal was to get a blue mold of the Chicago Skyline and a mold of the tower itself. They are in the Skydeck gift shop on the lower level, but you do not have to purchase an admission to go to the gift shop. Once you go through security, you can ask to be guided through to the gift shop. I personally chose this option, mostly because I am terrified of heights, but also because there was a good deal of fog that day and there was zero visibility on the Skydeck.

My next stop was the Christkindlemarket and Macy's to look at the window displays. Word of advice: do not go to Christkindlemarket on the weekend. Seriously. I was there right when it opened, and you could barely move in there. 

After looking at the Macy's windows, I walked up Michigan Avenue to Water Tower Place for a white skyline mold. 

The machine is located on the seventh floor in the Sports Museum gift shop, next to Harry Caray's. Just look for the Holy Cow.  ;)

Next stop was Lincoln Park Zoo, so I hopped on the bus. I was on the hunt for a green Santa Claus mold in particular, since this is the only time of the year I can get holiday-themed molds.

I found the Santa in the primate house, and made a couple for myself and for possible trading purposes. In the process, I caused several parental headaches when their kids saw how cool these machines are, and started demanding their own Santas. 

Santa acquired! I also picked up the orange piggy bank mold they have in the children's zoo while I was there.

Five new Mold-A-Ramas for my collection! There are several more locations in Chicago for me to visit to be up-to-date on all of the molds, but the rest require museum/zoo admissions. I'd say this was a pretty successful outing, though, wouldn't you?

Two Years Later....

I've decided to dust off this blog and give it another go. There has been some rebranding to reflect the new direction my business has taken, and *hopefully* I can find enough to talk about and keep it going.

(I've promised some of my friends that I will write tales about family trips and "mercy pickles", so that's something...) 

Upheaval, Making Changes, and Collies

So, it has been a loooooonnnngggg time since I've posted on this blog, due to a large amount of upheaval in my life. In the past year and a half, I've changed jobs twice, replaced my car, mourned the loss of a loved one, and am currently unemployed(aside from my Etsy shops). Whew! (Or Ugh. Whichever you prefer.)

I'm currently taking a medical billing course to expand my job search options, and working on my jewelry and vintage shops. (Unfortunately, the shops are not currently busy enough to be my sole support...working on it though!) I've also applied for, and will hopefully be vending at, several fairs and markets this year.

Not everything is gloomy, though. In the past year and a half, I have also adopted a darling, lovely, smooth Collie named Mia. Who is not supposed to be on the couch. :)

So, I'm hoping to get back into the swing of posting on this blog at least once a week, which I think is an attainable goal for me. :)

I Love (hate) Love Ikea...

I have a serious love/hate relationship with Ikea. I recently (finally) decided on their Leirvik bed frame for my bedroom, since I have up until last month had my bed sitting in the middle of the floor in an unfinished room. Well, that and my dad kept asking me why my room looked like a crack den every time he stopped by. (Just kidding.)

Now, I have been raised to be a do-it-yourself kind of person, which is a really good thing, because if you've never had the pleasure of assembling an Ikea product, these are their instructions:

Yep.

There are no words, only pictures. You get to figure out what everything is and how exactly it goes together.

So, I shoved everything over to the side of the room and put down a blanket (because God forbid I accidentally dent the new floor) and started putting it together.

(Yes, that is the oldest phone jack known to man on the wall--I'm not even sure it works anymore)

Now, I understand that the instructions with the little blob people are telling me to NOT do this by myself, but really, who actually pays attention to instructions? (Let's just say that it was a REALLY good thing that I put down that blanket!)

I got it to this stage when I discovered a slight problem...

This stupid piece wouldn't screw into the other. Seems that there's a small piece of metal crud clogging up the threads. Hooray.

It all worked out okay though, because Ikea has a bin of spare parts by their return desk, and while I couldn't find the exact piece I needed, I did find one that did the job, and was able to finish putting the bed frame together:
Now, if I could only sit on the edge and actually have my feet touch the floor, life would be perfect...(turns out it's a very high bed.)

I'm baaack....

Well, I've finally got my computer put back together, and can finally get online. Hooray!

So, anyway, I've moved from my hobbit-hole apartment....

To my sister's house, which is on possibly the quietest street with kids that I've ever seen.

Don't get too excited for me yet, because my sister decided that she wanted to put the new floors in at the same time as I was moving, so this is still what all of my stuff looks like:

Yep. Still living out of storage three weeks into my new digs. But at least I have a bed, and now that the floors are finally done, I can start moving some of this upstairs.

I hope.

Countdown to Moving Day...

The photo above pretty much sums up what life has been like the past few weeks... endless boxes in preparation of my move this weekend. Can you believe it took *nine* of these boxes just to pack up my kitchen?

The sad part is, most of it is going into storage. My sister bought a house last year, a rather big house with many "projects" to complete. She's also never lived by herself before, so now she's a little lonely. I'm moving in with her to help her out in terms of company, and having a little extra cash to fix it up. Which means I have to go through twelve years of stuff that's accumulated in my apartment and decide what goes with me, what goes to storage until I have my own place again, and what just needs to go. Very tough choices...

Last week I tried to get rid of some furniture by calling Salvation Army to pick it up...turns out they don't do pick ups in my area anymore, even though there are three stores within a 30 minute drive of my apartment. After a couple of days thinking that I would have to figure out how to haul the stuff there myself, I remembered the wonderful thing that is Freecycle! It's truly amazing how many people will jump at the chance for free furniture, no matter what the condition(my couch, in my opinion, was a little worse for wear), and are happy to come and take it off your hands. I now have these big empty spaces in my apartment where my furniture once was... slowly being filled with more boxes.

iPhone photography

Who says you can't be artistic with a camera phone?

(Images created with TiltShiftGenerator and CameraFD apps for iPhone)

Expensive Tastes...

While I was out the other day thrifting, I decided to stop by one of my favorite antique malls. Even though it is definitely on the pricey side, I love walking around and exploring the different booths, as this mall carries only antique and truly vintage items. Nope, no booths full of Smurfs or Beanie Babies here.

Anyway, when I came across this gorgeous setee, I just about died. It's blue, it's French-inspired, it's tufted, it's perfect...except for one thing.

It's $2500.

I can only hope it sits there for ages and gets marked down......or I win the lottery......

I plan on stalking this booth for some time to come......

New Year Resolutions

I don't generally celebrate the traditional New Year, simply because I'm still recovering from Christmas, and I highly prefer the Lunar New Year (longer celebration, plus it seems to have more tradition & meaning to it).

However, I do make resolutions for the beginning of the year. Here is (more or less) my game plan for 2010:

6. Post more often on my blog (which has been very much neglected since I started it)

5. Participate in more craft shows this year & explore getting my work into shops

4. Improve my photography skills

3. Learn how to reupholster a tufted chair

2. Get myself back into shape (I'm become a bit of a couch potato this year)

1. Keep all of the above resolutions in effect for the entire year. :)

What are your resolutions for 2010?

Hope everyone is having a happy Thanksgiving!

Why I Love Autumn...

It's the leaves.

I love going to my parent's house in autumn, simply because they have a large wooded lot, and every autumn their yard is FILLED with leaves. Seriously. You can't even see the grass anymore. Raking is an all day activity.

And they have the *best* leaves, too... their yard has leaves from oaks, chestnuts, and a wonderful red maple in the front. I love the fiery red dotting the brown and orange carpet of autumn.

I know I should really be there to visit with my parents, but I can't help finding excuses to go to their house before they get around to raking just so I can play in the leaves.

What do you love about autumn?

Thrifting...

On a whim, I stopped by Goodwill on my way home from work today and perused the furniture section. I normally don't find anything that appeals to me (or I see it being carried off by some lucky person as I walk in), so I was pleasantly surprised to come across this guy:

While it does have some issues (the original cushions are disintegrating under the icky-colored slipcover, and a couple of the support springs are a tad loose), it was sturdy and fit nicely into my mid-century aesthetic. And it was only $10! How can you beat that?

I'm currently researching where to find new springs, but the cushions are easily replaced, and I've already found a great fabric for them (Amy Butler Martini):

(I'm still trying to decide which color scheme I want....)

Sadie has given it her seal of approval, I have a feeling I'll be fighting her for this one. :)

Naptime...

The perfect blustery Autumn day activity.

Smurfs, Paint and Puppies

I spent this past weekend at my sister's house painting the bedroom I will be using when I move in with her in March. This weekend I also discovered that I have absolutely no talent for painting.

This is my "painting glamour shot", the photo that says "I am a master painter!"

Well, at least I picked a great shade of blue. Isn't that the happiest blue you've ever seen?

Here I am actually painting. Wow, I really look like I know what I'm doing, don't I? Well, you can't see the back of my shirt...

or the bottom of my pants...

or my socks...

or my shoes...

or... well, you get what I'm saying.

By Saturday night, I looked like an light blue Smurf. I even had blue paint streaks in my hair, no clue how that happened. My mom had a nice chuckle over that one.

This is the part of the room that caused the most problems (yes, that is a sink in the corner... don't ask, 'cuz we don't have a clue...) I kept backing into the walls when I was painting this side of the room, hence the Smurfiness...

This weekend I also got to meet this gorgeous guy, Kody. He is a rescued white collie that my sister is currently fostering and will most likely be adopting. His coat is a little short (it had been shaved before he came to my sister's house), but it kind of suits him right now, giving him a rangy, wolfish look. I am completely smitten with him!

The search for the perfect paint color...

I'm moving to my sister's house in March, and have been told that I need to paint my room now, before it gets cold outside. Apparently, paint won't stick to cold walls. I learn something new every day...

So, today I went to the various home improvement stores in my area looking for a suitable paint color that I can live with indefinitely. I figured this task was going to be pretty challenging, as my sister's house is two hours away, so I can't paint chips on the walls and see how they look.

I absolutely *love* this Dutch Boy Crayola display! I wasn't really loving the colors they had, but how cute is this display?

I wasn't having much luck until I got here:

This is the magical, wonderful wall of color choices that Valspar had...oh. my. gosh.

These are my final paint chips, narrowed down from the bazillion choices available. I eventually chose a deep sky blue color called Lyndhurst Celestial Blue.

9-9-09

I am so excited about the new remastered Beatles CDs that were released today! I've had the opportunity to hear some of them already, and they sound sooo much better than the old CDs. I've already put all of them on my Christmas list!

(I debated about adding the Rock Band game too, but that may be getting a little obsessive, since I haven't owned a video game system and since my uncle gave us his old Atari.)

Anyway, about halfway through my team meeting at work today, it struck me that I had subconsciously dressed for the occasion... this is the random shirt I pulled out of my dresser this morning:

Controlled Chaos

My current studio workspace... aka the coffee table.

My Weekend Catering Gig...

This weekend I was the caterer for a convention...

...of mosquitos.

Apparently I taste **really** yummy...

This is only a small fraction of the bites I discovered on my legs after coming inside...these are also the small ones...there's one the size of a QUARTER. I kid you not.

I'm going to be stocking up on insect repellent today...and a lot of calamine lotion.

Tilt-A-Whirls and Tornadoes

Yesterday I took the kids I work with to the Lake Villa Fun Days carnival...

Of course, they had a Tilt-A-Whirl...

We had to leave because it had started raining, and around 5pm we noticed these clouds...

Unfortunately, my camera doesn't pick up exactly how low and fast moving these clouds were, but it was pretty impressive how they were cruising along.

Later on we heard that there had been a tornado somewhere to the west, and that those were the remnants of it. Whatever it was, it was an impressive bit of nature!