Boo! Eek! It's Halloween At My House

I drug out my Halloween decorations today and threw them up in the living room. Everything is clearly crammed into one corner and one corner only. I didn't think I would be able to get things out this year, but I longed to see my lovelies. I've been involved in swaps for about two years now and Halloween is one of my favorite swap themes. I've swapped with some talented ladies and I wanted to see my treasures from the past two years. So, it is up and out for me to enjoy.

Halloween Town corner. Lots of goodies. My look is certainly more folk art and vintage than it was several years ago.

This wall hanging was made by Jennifer at The Felt Mouse last year. Wicked cute!

A party hat made by me last year (and completely forgotten) with a "Boo To You" sign sent to me this year from Leslie in this year's Very Vintage Halloween Swap. (You can click on her link to see what I sent her.) An array of boo-tiful goodies including the baby on the white pumpkin - scored last year super cheap after the holiday, so new to me this year. The cool candle holder, battery operated candle and raven also came in this year's swap from Leslie aka Junkgirl. The paperweights in front are this year's creative endeavor by me.
See that baby - so dadgum cute! When I bought it it made me think of Andie's Boo - and it still does!

Here's my altered art paperweights a bit closer. They are hard to photograph since they are encased in glass, so they didn't make it to Etsy as planned. Maybe next year. I covered the backs in felt and they have rickrack trim on the edges. Sometimes I have trouble putting together a big collage in a day or so, but these little guys just come together *poof* fast.

A closer close-up. Grammatically correct, I think not. I bought an envelope full of that little girl's photos from Kindergarten to 8th grade. I feel bad making her into a witch - how would she feel if she knew what I have done to her?

The shelf of Goodies. The "BOO" banner in the center, the orange chandelier ornament, the witch's broom (it's a pen!) and the glittery pumpkin are all from Leslie.

The black cat shelf. Trick or Treat tag is from Jennifer and the skeleton is from Leslie, everything else was thrifted or bought after the holiday at 75-90% off.

The three little guys on the left and the "Boo" cupcake are from Hobby Lobby this year. I spotted them on half price day, so home they came. I love it when Hobby Lobby has specials like, "All Resin Items 50% off". That's half the store!

A sweet Bingo card Halloween card from Heidi, a painted pumpkin rock found by The Bean at the thrift last year and lots of other goodies.
Last year's crafty endeavor of pompom animals. I think she is sweet and I had forgotten about her. I made the itty bitty witch shoes the other night during "Dancing with the Stars". Actually, I never "watch" TV, my hands are always busy dong something while I watch TV. The only exception is when I watch "Lost". Can't take my eyes off Lost or I won't know what the h*ll is happening!
A set of nesting owls from my Mom for my birthday this year. I love nesting dolls, per say, and have several not including my Santa ones. These owls are particularly cute - I need to get them out and line them up.

I made this candy corn tonight. It was going to be a Candy Corn Man, but I ended up adding the buttons and rickrack trim to make it more folk art looking. I made the pattern, so I will just make a new pattern tomorrow night and make Mr. Candy Corn man then.

I made a thrift store run today after The Bean and I attended the U of A Insect Festival were we saw things like five inch long cockroaches, eight inch long millipedes, beetles the size of mice and other simply horrifying insects. My head is still itchy from just looking at those things! *Note to self - try not to think about the bed bugs, try not to think about the bed bugs......"

Anyway, back to the thrift score - one purchase only, but I think it was a good one.

A nice realistic fat pumpkin complete with vine for $1.00. It has a $24.99 price tag on it from Hobby Lobby. $1.00 is a good price for me!

Somebody Cleaned Out Grandma's House

Uh-Oh. Somebody cleaned out Grandma's 1960-70's decorated house and donated it all to the Super Cheap Thrift.

A 55¢ "Smoke and Sip" from now defunct "Dogpatch" theme park. What a better way to remember your family vacation to Dogpatch than to enjoy your morning cigarette and coffee? People do collect Dogpatch items so this is for resell.
"God Bless This Lousy Apartment" china plate. I think these old comical plates are funny. This one will be for resell as I do not live in a lousy apartment. I sold one a few years ago that said "God Bless This Lousy Trailer House". I have a collection of these old plates that I will have to share someday.
There were owls everywhere at the thrift today. Owls, owls, owls. Most were slightly creepy and oh so 1970's owls. I did like this wooden owl letter holder for 25¢ and the small porcelain owl for 15¢. The little handpainted pumpkin box was only 20¢ and maybe even made by Grandma herself!
Yes, I know. This is ugly. Four animals that are not even normally found in a natural habitat crammed into a wooden house in a cloche. It's ugly. I've already dismantled it and will reuse the cloche for some of my bluebirds and eggs. That won't be so ugly, right? It was only 55¢, so I took a chance at tearing it apart.

Speaking of ugly. Are you ready?

Yowza. Now, that's ugly. A huge plastic half barrel full of ginormous toadstools, plastic grapes, ivy, and a few sugared Christmas picks thrown in for good measure. Eeeew. But, like the cloche, take it apart and what do we have?
Really cool old toadstools in an array of colors. They are big - bigger than life actually. But pretty cool.
And, the half barrel isn't that bad once it is empty. I will add it to my Fall decor full of mini pumpkins and corn. The plastic grapes remind me of my childhood. We always had a bowl full of plastic fruit on the dining room table. That's cause we was class-y.

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My new favorite Halloween items this year are these fun vintage inspired sets of Halloween Topiaries. They crack me up and add a whimsical twist with my vintage inspired decorations. (These are not handmade - but still really, really adorable!)

(Not sure why that glare is in the first photo - sorry). I have a couple of sets for sale if anyone is interested. A set of two is $20.00 shipped.

Each one stands about 10" tall.

Funny glittery punkin' head topiary.

Fat black cat topiary. $20.00 a set shipped.

Email me at monkeybox at juno dot com if you are interested.

Thanks!

Sometimes

Sometimes the stuff from the thrift store is good.

Sometimes the box that it came in is better.

Thursday's Thrifty Finds

Thursday yard sales are my favorite. Usually if someone is having a Thursday sale, they are having it for three days. Which should, and I stress should, mean they have a ton of stuff. Sometimes this is true, sometimes this is not true. When I read the Star Shopper yesterday, I noticed three Thursday sales in my town. (Have I ever mentioned that is exactly 1.3 miles from one city limit sign to the other?) One sale was at a house around the corner where an older couple lives. I go to their sales twice a year and always find a treasure. So, The Bean and I headed out about 10:00 (after some schoolwork) to see if any treausres lie in wait.

Oh wait, I forgot I had these photos from yesterday. Before our ghost trip, I made a quick dash into one thrift to see if they had put out any Halloween yet.

No Halloween, but I did find this musical revolving "Happy Birthday" cake stand. Sort of kitsch, but I think it will be fun with one of my giant cupcakes on it. It was $1.50.

I also got this sweet vintage puppy planter for 50¢. I just love the heft of old pottery.

Okay, back to today's sales. I spent 45¢ at one sale. Sad, eh? I bought a miniature glass oil lamp in the shape of a shoe for 25¢. I tried and tried to take a photo of it, but it is clear glass and just did not show up at all.

I also bought these slightly cute, but actually more scary rubber face Santa heads for 10¢ each.

We went to two other sales. One was disappointing because it was in an older neighborhood and the sign was written in shaky old handwriting, so I thought it might mean vintgae treasure heaven. But, it was baby stuff. Ack. Avoid. Avoid. The other sale netted only an M&M dispenser for The Bean's collection. This is a double dispenser with both Plain and Peanut on it - we had seen one at the Salvation Army for $5.00 last week, but this one was only $1.00. Score one for The Bean!

The rest of my treasures came from the sale at the older couple's house. When we arrived at their house, I was saddened to see a "For Sale" sign in their yard. They informed me they are moving to Senior Housing and that makes me sad for them. They say they just can't handle the upkeep of thier home anymore. I hope they are happy, they are nice people.

I was digging in the boxes of tools and I spotted this neat old sprinkler with it's original paper tag for only 50¢. The red thing is the sprinkler head, but it looks like a flower.
Another old wooden ruler. This one was $2.00. The best part about this one is that I walked right past it and didn't see it. The Bean picked it up and brought it to me. "Here's one of those rulers you like, Mom." GOD BLESS THAT BOY.

I hemmed and hawed over this last purchase for quite awhile. It was only $3.00, but sometimes $3.00 seems like a lot and I have to do some thnking and soul searching before I buy it. Sometimes I buy it, sometimes I don't. This is a vintage tablecloth, but not my usual type of tablecloth.

This is a quilted tablecloth. It's quite large as you can see I had to spread it out in the driveway to get a picture of it. I know it loks like a yo-yo quilt, but it's not.
Each one of those patchwork shapes is large - about 3" across. It is machine sewn and a mixture of both old and new fabrics. By old, I mean 1940's floursacks and by new I mean 1970's polyester. So, even the "new" is actually "old".

The entire back is made of a printed redwork design of little girls. It's not embroidered, just printed. But, it could be used quit side up or redwork side up for different uses. I think this is a tablecloth I would feel comfortable taking on a picnic to throw on a table or on the ground and not wory about staining it or ruining it. I like it, I gues that's all that matters. And, if I knew I was only going to spend $1.45 total at the other three sales I went - I would not have thought so long about this purchase!

A Beautiful Day

A few weeks ago our family tried to go on an adventure to find a little one lane open bridge that is rumored to be haunted*. The bridge is open on the sides with nothing to prevent you from driving right off the sides into the river. The day we tried to go, just happened to be the day after Hurricane Ike had roared through our city, unbeknownst to my sleeping family. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz we slept away as the wind howled and the rain fell along with trees in the neighborhood. The next morning, we rose from our slumber, jumped in the car and headed off in search of this bridge - the Tilly Willy Bridge. But, it was flooded out and under water because of the torrential wind and rain that we had no clue had happened the night before. Zzzzzzzzzzz. We got partway to the bridge, but had to come back home because of the flooding.

So, today we rescheduled adventure. This time we made it to the bridge. It was a bit uneasy driving over it and not even being able to see the sides on each side of the car. The water was low this trip, but I still didn't want to go over!After we crossed the bridge, we drove for seven miles on a dirt road looking for a lake that we had recently read about. I honestly did not know that there were still that many dirt roads in our area! When we did find the lake, we were thrilled to be the only ones there. We parked the car, walked the edges of the water, throwing stones, looking at frogs and cutting branches from the various types of trees. This was a family adventure day, but it was also a field trip day. We cut branches from every different type of tree that we could find, a lot of weeds, flowers, acorns, hickory nuts, persimmons, mussel shells and five different types of mushrooms. We didn't pick the mushrooms - we took photos for reference. Tomorrow we are going to look each thing up in our nature book and document it. So, see, it was educational!

As we were walking along the water, we heard a car driving up the dam. I got a little worried because we were the only ones out there and we were, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. But, then I saw the car and it was a Sheriff's Deputy making his rounds. He stopped an visited with us for quite awhile, wished us a good day and then he left. So, we had a good feeling about being safe out there. We drove on to the other side of the lake, ate our picnic lunch and walked the nature trail. It was a gorgeous day with temperatures in the low 70's all day. The hills full of trees have a slight touch of orange and yellow to them. I normally am not an outside, hiking, walking on the edge of the lake kinda gal. But, when Fall arrives, I am outside a lot. I cannot get enough of the cool temperatures, the blue water, the clear sky, the changing leaves and all things Fall.

*The Legend of Tilly Willy Bridge: It's said that two fatal and tragic events took place on this treacherously narrow and decrepit structure. One story tells of a family, consisting of a husband, wife and new baby traveling home one dark late night. The baby was in the backseat began to fuss. Not wanting to awaken his sleeping wife, the husband turned to comfort the child, only to end up running their car off of the bridge. All three perished in the dark waters below.

The other is a similar tale of a woman losing control of her vehicle and as the last family did, plunged herself and her young son to their own untimely and watery deaths.

It is now said that there are several paranormal events which occur there. One is the sighting of a woman in a white dress dancing and twirling in the fields near the bridge, and reports of a green goblin-like creature skulking about by the water's edge. Sometimes a "ghost car" is seen crossing the bridge.

It's said that if you stop your car on the bridge and put it in neutral that your car will be pushed by unseen hands to safety and when you get out to investigate you'll find your rear window steamed up as if by the labored breath of your rescuers. Oddest of all are the hand prints, both adult and child-size, that are imprinted in the steam. (From Ghost Geeks. com)

I will say that after we came off the bride, we had a hand print on the back of our car, but I thought it must have been there before the dust from the dirt roads settled on it. But now, I 'm not so sure!

Opening (and Closing) of Junk Shop

I've been adding things to my shop, getting ready to open it up. I wanted it chock full of goodies to make it worthwhile. After I added my 5th item, it said, NO MORE! I can only have five items at once (for free, of course), then it is from $50.00-$250.00 a year for the shop. So, I will have to find another site to use or just make up my own. Until, then, please take a look at my shop - because it is so dadgum cute!

monkeybox Junk Shop

If you do see anything you want, (and I don't plan on selling anything with only five items up for sale), just email me at monkeybox at juno dot com instead of adding it to the cart.

I'm so sad! Love those fat little monkey dudes!

Friday's Retro Crafty Finds

Today was a beautiful almost Fall day. We headed out about 11:00 this morning with the idea of only going for a ride around town and looking at motorcycles. This is Bikes, Blues and BBQ in my area - nearly 50,000 motorcycles are in town. It is amazing to go down the highway and see a double row of 200 motorcycles coming at you with just as many ahead of you and in your rear view mirror. The people that live in town bitch and moan about the noise, but those bikers bring good money into our area and we could certainly use the boost to our economy. This is a family oriented event, no trouble makers and lots of cool bikes, choppers and hawgs on the road. I am a firm believer in enjoying what is available when it is available and having fun.

Along with the motorcycle rally, there seemed to be an overabundance of yard sales today. I stopped at two sales, spent a total of $5.25 and actually filled the back of the VUE with treasures. I bought one thing at one sale and everything else at the other sale.

The second sale had lots of odd craft supplies. Retro 1970's craft kits and supplies supplies that were not priced. (I hate it when things aren't marked!!!!!) I was looking and thinking about one or two to try on ebay or Etsy when the lady having the sale said, "Make a pile. It's cheap. Really cheap." Well, my idea of cheap isn't always someone else's idea of cheap. So, I was hesitant to go overboard.

I was looking at these Stump Kritters when she said that. A stump with a critter made out of walnuts, moss and dried flowers. Just odd enough to intrigue me. But, not so odd that I was willing to spend a lot of money on them. The lady said, "Those are 10¢ a piece."

So, I bought the case of twelve. I am the proud owner of a case of Stump Kritters. Okay, maybe not so proud. But, I still got 'em.

I also got this An-teek-it Decoupage Kit that makes a reproduction of "Morning Train to Silverton"," an Arrow Mini Kitchen room in a box craft kit and a Appli-cay Black Velvet Peacock crafty thing. The thing in front is a Didgeridoo that the lady gave The Bean. Anyone know how to play the Didgeridoo? I commented that she had interesting things and she said, "You should have been here earlier before I sold the uni-cycle."

Anyone need any Sapphire Blue Rub-on Wax? It is for antiquing and decorative painting. I thought there were different colors when I found this one, but when I got home...
I found out that I have 46 jars of Sapphire Blue Rub-on Wax. No other colors. Any ideas for this stuff?
A new in package Shrinky Dinks and a boxed set of Enameling Powders. I hope these things are all in good working order since they are 35 years old.


Two dozen fat little birdies. I love these little guys for Spring and Summer crafting.
I was over the moon when I spotted this little clump of toadstools. They are all cotton and made in West Germany. I bought some red ones not long ago and I adore them.

I was really excited when I kept finding packages of toadstools strewn about here and there. I ended up finding 13 packages of them! I also bought deer. Lots of deer. Little itty bitty deer about an inch tall and some smaller ones about one half inch tall. There were 12 dozen of the small ones and 36 dozen of the larger ones. That's a lot of deer! They would be sweet on cupcakes, a cake, in crafts, a railroad village, a Christmas Village and lots more. They will be in my upcoming Shop whenever I figure out how to take a picture of itty bitty little deer!

Despite all those things that I brought home, I am proud to say that everything above is for resale except for a few toadstools and birds that I will keep.

Here's what I did buy to keep:

This old Polaroid Land camera is for my old camera collection. Actually, the lady at the sale gave it to me when she saw me looking at it. And, I was looking at a ring with purple stones in it and she stuck it on my hand and told me to take it. Plus the free Didgeridoo. She was in a giving mood (not to mention the fact that she only charged me $5.00 for everything above). I'm kind of glad the uni-cycle was gone or I suppose we would have been dragging that home too!
This little mini picnic basket is marked Fairmont Basket Works on the inside. Handy for all sorts of things. And, cute too!
This is the only thing I bought at the first sale. But, it was worth the stop. A vintage box of Jack O' Lantern candles. I never see anything vintage Halloween, yet alone, a package with cool old graphics.
Everything was half price at that sale, but I graciously paid the entire 25¢ price tag. Love it! The lonely cupcake pick was lying in the grass at the crafty sale. I am telling myself that it was the only one and that I didn't miss out on cases of cupcake picks. And, the uni-cycle, of course. I am in love with this great old huge number stamp. I would love to know what use it had one day - it only has two digits and no dollars or cents sign, so it must have had a unique use. It is about 9" tall and the numbers are one inch tall. That's my second stamp in a week. Do I see a new collection........God, I hope not.

Have a safe and happy weekend!

What A Mess!

I just love blogs that show pretty houses. Beautiful houses with architecture, shutters, siding, a roof, you know the luxuries in life. Here's some photos you won't see on any other blog but mine. Hold onto your hat. They are some doozies.

We wanted guttering. Our house was built without guttering or an overhang. Stupid, I know. But, what can you do about a house you already bought but fix it. Really, the only reason we thought we needed it was that it was a nuisance to try and leave the porch in the rain because it was just a constant waterfall down the front of the house. So, I called our Handyman friend and he came over to give us an estimate on the guttering. Except he discovered that the front and back walls of the house had basically soaked up all the rain the past 15 years and were pretty much rotten inside. Oh, happy, happy, joy, joy.

So, off came the siding. And the particle board and part of the roof and oh, my, what a fright. My poor, sad naked little house.
Luckily, it was only the side part of the front and the back and not the two huge very tall sides or we would be in the poorhouse right now. There's a big bay window to the left of Handyman. Our house isn't very big, but this photo makes it look teeny.
Here's my sad house without part of the roof and a straight shot into the attic. Oh, we were the talk of the neighborhood, I tell you. "What are you doing?" they all came to ask. Children knocked at the door asking, "Are you tearing down your house?"
So sad. But, then it got fixed and all put together better than new with all white trim and sparkling new white guttering. And it looked nice for a week. Then, handyman came and ripped apart the back of the house Now, it's all fixed and looking good now.

Guttering! Already in need of cleaning. A new job for the Breadman.

The garage door is white now. Thanks to me and my handy-dandy painting skills. I still have to put the second coat on. The front door will get a coat of charcoal gray paint.

Back together and believe it or not, I already trimmed the tree. It is a huge tree, but we love it wouldn't have it any other way.

It's very disconcerting when the outside of your house is a wreck for the neighbors to see. I have plenty of horrors in the house, but no one can see those. Those are my dirty little secrets. You know - I mean my thrifting piles.

So, on to the latest acquisitions. Last week at the Super Cheap Thrift, I found an old Stenographers machine. It was priced $10.00, but with an Make an Offer sticker on it. I didn't want to pay $10.00 not knowing what it was worth, so I left it behind. When I got home, I looked it up and it sells for about $60.00, plus that one had the paper, cleaning kit, manual, book and lots of extras. I went back Saturday, but I only had fifteen minutes to spare to buy it. There were 19 people in line. I've never even seen 19 people in the entire thrift before! So, I left it again. Yesterday I ran back out to see if it was still there and it was. I talked the ladies into letting me have it for $5.00. I do not have a clue how anyone could use this machine. They keys are unmarked and there's not enough and there are three "S" keys (I learned this reading the manual). It came with the original shipping slip from 1969.
I found this little sugar bowl or jam pot or whatever it might be and knew I had seen it on lots of blogs lately. Apparently this is the pattern choice of the thrifting community lately. (If anyone is interested, leave a comment - it's for sale).
Two old handmade potholders with a corn motif. A sweet little scarecrow pin and a jolly pumpkin pin. 75¢ total for everything. Happy Fall, Ya'll.
An old vintage Rook game for 35¢. I love Crow stuff, so this was a neat find. I think the cards will be great in altered art, not to mention the whole Raven/13 thing for Halloween.
Three sweet vintage aprons. Love the pink gingham one and the purple one with it's funny pockets. But, I'm not so sure what I think about the groovy 1960's number. They were 25¢ each, so I grabbed all three of them.

I suppose now would be a good time to mention some upcoming news. I am in the process of opening my own store here on my blog. I have it all set up, but I am still adding goodies to it. I want to pass on the goodies that I find at good prices to people that will really appreciate them. Like YOU! Stay tuned!

And, lastly. Heidi posted a photo of a star made out of an old folding ruler and I loved it so much that I had to go copy her thatverysecond.

Love it! I've been lucky enough to find three of these old rulers for $1.00 each, so to find a use for one is awesome. I just threw it up on the old window and the big iron key for now. I have to do things when the idea is fresh or it just leaves my old noggin.

Thanks Heidi for the Junkreating idea!