Thrifty craftiness

Image from The Graphics Fairy

Like many of us, I enjoy visiting thrift stores.  When in Nevada, I always like to visit some of the local ones because they have great prices and the things I find are often quite different from my finds here in New England.  On this visit to Elko, my daughter and I took a few hours together to visit several of their local thrift stores.

Most of the buys she found involved children's clothes, books, games, and other kids' items.  Interestingly, most of mine involved crafting in some way or other.  I had taught Emily a couple of simple crochet stitches while we were out there, so when I found a bundle of crochet hooks in one store, it seemed meant to be.  In another store, I found a barely started plastic canvas kit with a horse design, so picked that up for one of the boys.

But I also found some fun things for myself.  This pretty pillowcase, adorned with hand-crocheted lace trim, was either 25¢ or 50¢, I forget which.

Pillowcase is folded in the photo.  It doesn't do justice to the beautiful lace.

 I noticed later that it must have had a hole or a small tear in the seam, because it has been carefully and beautifully darned in one tiny spot.  It was a toss-up whether I would decorate with this pillowcase or simply use it, but after washing and ironing it I noticed it was made from the tubular pillow case material that used to be so prevalent with home sewers.  This typically produced skinnier pillowcases that don't work so well with today's pillows.  It's so beautiful, though, that I will display it in some way.

In the same store, I found these pretty embroidered handkerchiefs.

I apologize for the wrinkles ... think these must be linen.  They were very hard to iron.

I think they aren't really all that old, but the embroidery reminds me of those gorgeously embroidered baby clothes that used to be imported from the Philippines and were almost too pretty to use.  I will use the handkerchiefs in some project eventually.  I paid only $1 for the two of them; I found them in the same bin as the crochet hooks.

And I saved the really fun buy for last -- a bag of sunbonnet girl quilt squares, hand-appliqued and embroidered.

I took the top square out of the bag to get a better picture.  The pattern was even included!

Just a few of the vintage fabrics contained within the bag.

When I picked up the bag (it was $3), my original interest was in the vintage fabrics it contained.  But I will definitely sew the completed squares together and use them for something, possibly a table runner.  I couldn't spread out all the squares (there are at least 20) to take a photo, because as I was looking them over after buying them, my daughter noticed a good bit of pet hair sandwiched in between some of the unfinished ones.   I don't want to get that all over my house.  I'm going to keep the squares contained in the bag and sew them together quite quickly, then wash them before proceeding.  I will throw the unfinished ones (complete with pet hair) away, and wash the print fabrics before storing them.  I'm hesitant to wash the squares before sewing, because they look as if they are made from flour sacks and seem rather fragile.  It will be a fun project to work on, though.

On another day, we also visited Jo-Ann Fabrics so Emily could help me spend part of a gift card I'd won in a giveaway.  She had fun buying beads, yarn, and a wonderful crochet book for kids.  And while we were in Ely, we happened upon a needlework shop that was going out of business and everything was 50% off.  There, I bought mostly yarn.  So there was lots of thrifty craftiness going on this vacation, for sure!

The Ely murals

From the description of the murals.  This one is called the Ghost Signage Mural: "The advertisements of the years were whitewashed over, then eroded into a collage of long-ago business logos."  Artist: Paul Ygartua

 I promised to post a few pictures of the murals in Ely, Nevada.  These pictures were all taken by my daughter using our camera, using the few pictures allowed by the internal memory in our camera since, as I mentioned earlier, we forgot the memory card at home and the replacement we got didn't work.  I will just add a few comments describing each mural.

Communications Then and Beyond: includes sketches of Alexander Graham Bell and the technology that has exploded since his work.  Artists: Don and Jared Gray

Ward Charcoal Ovens -- Italian immigrants built these ovens to make charcoal for smelting ore in the late 1880s.  Artist: Chris Krieder. 

Italian Railroad Workers -- a second wave of Italians was recruited to build a railroad to take the ore to the smelter and then on to market.  Artist: Chris Krieder

Liberty Pit -- see details below.  The miners depicted below "carved out the mountain to retrieve copper and other metals as shown by the rock display in front of the mural."

Liberty Pit -- depicts workers who toiled in the mine, coming from Asia, Greece. Italy, Yugoslavia and Great Britain to realize the American dream.  Artist: Wei Luan

Cattle Drive -- depicts how cattle got to market by rail.  "This wonderful mural was done in 1999 and captures the flavor of the real west here in eastern Nevada."   Artist: Larry Bute

Pony Express -- see below for the three parts of this gorgeous mural.  "Illustrates the story of the Pony Express and the telegraph lines crossing Nevada's landscape."  Artist: Don Gray

4th of July Celebration -- tells "the story of the significance of Ely's 4th of July celebration as the one holiday all ethnic groups celebrated together.  The businesses depicted were all authentic shops in Ely at one time."  Artist: Colin Williams

Hope you have enjoyed this small glimpse of the Ely Art Trail.  There is much more to it, but this gives you a good flavor of the area's fascinating history.

A few pictures from vacation

Taken at Nevada Northern Railway in Ely

I have a sad story to tell regarding our vacation pictures ... basically, we took only a few.  We brought our camera, of course, but were so busy at first that we left the picture-taking up to our daughter and son-in-law.  During our time there, we all took a road trip to Great Basin National Park and the Ely, Nevada area, and of course we made sure to bring along the camera. 

We started our trek with lunch at the home of some ranching friends.  After leaving their place, we traveled through ranch country on dirt roads for some time.  I snapped a few random pictures out the car window to just get a general flavor of the scenery.

Springtime in Nevada's ranch  country

Big Sky country for sure

Just a random ranching scene

The next day, as we visited the National Park, toured Lehman Caves, and drove up Mt. Wheeler,  I made a startling discovery.  There was no memory card in the camera!   All we  had was the internal memory in the camera, which would allow us perhaps 20 pictures.  At this point I was seriously regretting those random photos taken out the car window.  They were nothing special, and I had wasted memory in taking them.

That night our thoughtful son-in-law went to Family Dollar (the best local possibility) and purchased a memory card for us as a surprise.  However, though all of us tried that night and the next morning, we could not format the card so that our camera would accept it. 

The next morning, my daughter and I and the baby walked around Ely looking at the murals while the other kids and the guys dug for garnets.  Joanna was able to change the picture resolution in the camera to double the amount of memory available.  That helped enough so that we could get photos of some of the murals (a later post) and a few on the steam train we rode later that day.

The conductor and our family

Just a random scene along the way; the train ride was about 90 minutes long and went through copper mining country.

Approaching one of two tunnels along the route

This is the coaling tower for the railway.  Do you see the resident owl?  There were two baby owls in there as well!

We do, of course, have all of the photos taken by our daughter and her hubby, but have yet to get those onto the computer.  So for now, these (and the murals which I will share another time) will have to do for vacation pictures.  Enjoy!

Happy Mother's Day!

Image courtesy Gooseberry Patch

 I'd like to wish a very happy Mother's Day to my mother-in-law and to the mothers of my grandchildren, as well as to all my friends and family who are mothers.  As you celebrate today, take a moment to pray for those mothers who may be grieving the loss of a mother, child, or spouse, and for those dear women who have longed for children and have not had them.  God bless you all this Mother's Day.

May Goals

Not many flowers around here yet, but the bloodroot is blooming in the wildflower garden!

Since we were out of town when May began, and life has been fairly crazy since we got back, I'm late posting my goals for May.  But here they are at last:

MAY GOALS:
* Catch up with reading through the April-May portion of the One-Year Devotional Bible.
*  Read 4 chapters in The Power of a Godly Grandparent
* Continue to implement some of the ideas from the above book
* Finish re-reading Say Goodbye to Survival Mode
* Begin to implement some of the ideas and strategies from the above book
* Memorize at least 4 Bible verses and review some older ones.
* Add 4 pages to my "What Do I Know About My God?" Scripture notebook
* Keep up with my Sunday School study -- The Heart of a Woman Who Prays
* Exercise or walk at least 20 times.
* Get to bed by 9:45 pm each night.
* Limit sugar.
* Drink enough water each day.
* Keep up with Kelly's missions in homemaking zones of the week.
* Take an overnight getaway with my husband
* Post in both of my blogs as often as possible
* Reduce grocery bill by $5 per week consistently
* Spend several hours updating my A-store.
* Do research for setting up an Etsy shop (I've already joined Etsy)
* Make at least a dozen items for sale at craft fairs.
* Write at least 4 encouraging notes to friends and family.
* Clean church and set up for potluck meal
* Make gift tags from last year's Christmas cards.
* Plan and complete several handcrafted gifts for August-September birthdays.

MAY'S HEALTHY HABIT:  Exercise

WORD FOR 2014: BALANCE

And here is how April went:

APRIL GOALS:
* Read through the April portion of the One-Year Devotional Bible-- not done.  Not wanting to tote this heavy hardcover Bible along on our trip, I carefully jotted down all of the references of the readings for the two weeks we'd be gone and placed the paper in my prayer journal.  Guess what?  For the first time ever, I forgot to take my prayer journal on a trip!  Thought I'd packed it, but I hadn't.
*  Read 4 chapters in The Power of a Godly Grandparent -- not done.  I took this thin paperback along but didn't have a moment to read it.
* Continue to implement some of the ideas from the above book -- somewhat done.
* Finish re-reading Say Goodbye to Survival Mode -- not done.
* Begin to implement some of the ideas and strategies from the above book -- not done.
* Memorize at least 4 Bible verses and review some older ones -- DONE!
* Add 4 pages to my "What Do I Know About My God?" Scripture notebook -- not done
* Complete "Why Easter Matters"  Bible study -- DONE!  And what a blessing it was!
* Keep up with my Sunday School study -- The Heart of a Woman Who Prays -- DONE!
* Exercise or walk at least 20 times -- didn't exercise, but did do lots of walking on vacation and in airports so I am calling this DONE!
* Get to bed by 9:45 pm each night -- not done every night, although we did do pretty well with this.
* Limit sugar -- sort of done.
* Drink enough water each day -- DONE!
* Keep up with Kelly's missions in homemaking zones of the week -- not done.
* Take an overnight getaway with my husband -- not done.
* Travel to visit family -- DONE!
* Post in both of my blogs as often as possible -- not done; my posting for April was pretty lame.
* Reduce grocery bill by $5 per week consistently -- not done
* Spend several hours updating my A-store -- not done
* Do research for setting up an Etsy shop (I've already joined Etsy) -- not done
* Make at least a dozen items for sale at craft fairs -- not done
* Write at least 4 encouraging notes to friends and family -- DONE!
* Clean church and set up for potluck meal -- DONE!
* Make some winter banners -- not done
* Make gift tags from last year's Christmas cards -- not done
* Complete several handcrafted birthday gifts for April birthdays -- DONE!

APRIL'S HEALTHY HABIT:  Walking -- did well with this.

So, on we go.  May is a third over and I'm really not sure how well I'll do with the goals I've set, but I intend to keep aiming at something.  After all, as we all know, if we aim at nothing, we'll hit it every time!

Home from vacation!!!

Vintage postcard from RetroAmerica.com

Yes, we are home at last, after a splendid 2 weeks out west with our daughter, son-in-law and five little ones.  I had planned on blogging a couple of times while we were out there, or even scheduling some posts ahead prior to our trip, but it just didn't happen.  We were on the go a lot -- took a four-day trip to Great Basin National Park and the little city of Ely, where there was also lots to see and do.  The time never seems quite long enough, and yet it is definitely time to get back to real life and our everyday responsibilities.  We surely did enjoy this break and the time to make memories with family!