What is a monkeybox?

When I was a little girl, we had a pet monkey named Amanda. My Dad worked in the produce business, so each night he brought home that days culls in a big box - spotty cucumbers, pithy apples, limp celery, moldy oranges and the like. We called it a monkeybox. It was really just trash, but my Mom would take each piece of fruit and trim it, pare it and cut it up to make a beautiful fruit platter for Amanda. Even though it was deemed trash by one, it still had life left in it and was good for the purpose we needed it. That's how I live my life - thrifting, yard saling, looking for another's trash to be my treasure.

Sunday, October 09, 2011

Stuff I've Made

*I hit a ton of sales yesterday, including four different Rummage Sales within 1/2 mile of my own house.  I haven't had a chance to take photos yet.  So, the junk shall wait.

I love to make things, but I really only make stuff during the holiday months.  Of course, the "holiday" months" means from Halloween to the 4th of July, so that only leaves a couple of months that I don't create.  I'd love to be one of those people that makes Halloween stuff in July, but I've never been that organized or clever. 

I participated in Sarah's Halloween Swap this year.  I had to make 11 Halloween ornaments.  I am completely enamoured of the old wooden beaded  Crib Toys from the 1940's.  Barbara at Oodles posted this pattern a while back and I have been searching for beads at thrifts and yard sales all summer.  I've made a crazy amount of them now in all shapes, sizes and colors.  I love them all.  Now, I see beads everywhere - just yesterday I found two great old garlands of pastel beads for an Easter Tree.  I cut them apart and now I have a nice bag full of pink, blue and white faded beads for making more beaded babies.

For Sarah's Halloween Swap, I made Black Cat Trick or Treater's.  I thought buying a big bag of black beads would be an easy task, but apparently no one uses wooden beads much anymore.  So, I had to do some thinking.  We have a $1.00 Jewelry Store here that has some seriously gaudy and tacky stuff and some not so bad stuff too.  I had remembered seeing some long strings of black beads with wooden crosses on them a few months ago, so I went back to see if they still had any in stock.  They had four necklaces, so for a total of $4.00, I got all the beads I needed to make all of my cats.  I added a pipe cleaner tail and ears and at the last minute, drew on some whiskers, which I think was the perfect finishing touch.  I ran out of black pipe cleaners, so I took white ones and colored them with a Sharpie and they looked just fine.  Now I am thinking of all the custom colored pipe cleaners I can make!  Stripes!  Patterns!  Colors!

I have two special little ones in my life - twin girls that are 16 months old.  Their Mom dresses them in tutu's nearly everyday and they are stinking adorable.  I like to send them little surprises in the mail like books, but I wanted to make them something from my heart.  They needed something for Halloween from Auntie Shara. :)

First, I found black tutu's at the store and bought white onesies.

Since I was already in a black cat making mood, I hand cut out these cat faces, trying to make each one the same.  Here is #1.
 And this is #2.  I think they look pretty similar.  I hand sewed them onto the onsies.  I've never sewn anything so tightly and with such small stitches before - I wanted them to be baby safe!
I also made black headbands with big orange Gerbera Daisies and their initial in the center of each flower.  I can't wait to see the girls in these outfits.  I hope they like them.  I had fun making them, but I won't be doing much clothing making again. 

I've got some things on the way to get me started on some fun Christmas crafting too.  It feels good to get my create juices going again!

What have you made lately?

9 comments:

  1. Adorable beaded black cats! They look just like the vintage ones. And those little outfits are darling--those little girls are going to be precious in them!

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  2. Oh those black cats are so cute! I wish I were crafty! The little outfits are beyond adorable! You are so creative!!

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  3. Cute little black cats! You should see my stash of beads (and I agree with black ones being hard to find).

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  4. I love your festive Halloween header (and is that a Magpie Ethel creation I spy? I just brought out the ones I've gotten from her and I have quite a few just for Halloween!). I think the last thing I made was a necklace and earring set for a friend, and I also made a Marilyn Monroe ATC for someone else. My grandniece has one of those gigantic flower headbands--it's half the size of her head and every time I see it on her I bust out laughing and scare the daylights out of her!

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  5. I haven't made much of anything lately, but I love those black cats!

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  6. i missed a day or so. how would the glass look inside the barbed wire wreath?


    this is the glass i got for my 40th birthday! i didn't get any purple, but i did get a bunch of pink!

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  7. Love the little outfits!! Those black cats are darn cute, too. And that was a creative way to find the black wooden beads.

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  8. I loev the kitties! And I am very happy that I actually have one. :) And those outfits are too cute, love the kitty face.

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  9. Great kitties...really love the beaded ones! Happy Halloween to you and the Bean.
    xoxo
    Pam

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