Valerean

I failed my second attempt to get back into reading romance for pleasure, but I'll blame my disappointment with romance in general lately. Also, reading has been difficult for me until I got my new glasses this summer; now I can read with no problem. Still, to try a third time seems like an exercise in futility, but I'm nothing if not determined. I'd also like to try to journal again while I can still write. While we were at a local antique mall I spotted two reasonably priced blind date with a book (doubles, in fact) along with a scary fantasy novel and even a little handmade junk journal. This might work. The junk journal and fantasy novel will help me on my quests. I love junk journals, and this one is small. I should be able to fill it up in a couple of days. I invested in these blind date with a books because they were quite cheap and I love the mystery. Let's see what I got. The seller tucked some nice little bonus items in the folds, to...

This brand-new stuffed dog that I thrifted had Valentine's Day tags on it and smelled of chocolate (a nice change from the usual thrift-store smell.) From Dollar Tree I bought two skeins of chenille yarn in orange and green to make a little pumpkin costume for him. I didn't follow a pattern but made up my own, fitting the pieces to the toy as I worked. I also stuffed the pumpkin body with a little fiberfill to plump it out. The pumpkin puppy turned out better than I expected. Again the pieces are removable, so he doesn't have to be a pumpkin forever. I'm quite pleased.

As I mentioned in my food frugality post I'm making things at home more often to save money as the store-bought variety becomes more expensive. That includes dry coffee creamer, which has almost doubled in price over the last year. I went hunting for a simple recipe using nonfat dry milk and found this one , which I began tweaking by leaving out the powdered sugar. One envelope of dry nonfat milk and about one tablespoon of liquid coconut oil are what I use now to make my own creamer. Here's a side-by-side comparison with storebought on the right and my homemade version on the left. You do need to keep stirring the homemade creamer as the coconut oil can settle in the bottom. The nice thing is I don't have to use a lot of my homemade creamer; just a spoonful works (vs. two spoonfuls of the storebought variety.) There's also zero chemicals in mine, always a plus. Disclaimer: if you're lactose intolerant like me you will need to take a lactase pill ...

Now that they've had a bath and dried, it's time to start altering these thrifted stuffed animals into Halloween decor. For the pig I thrifted a butterfly stuffy, from which I took the wings (the rest I'll recycle in another project. Chenille stems bent in half and sewn into the wings allowed me to bend them a little. I covered the wings' raw edges with scrap black binding and sewed them together. I also made a little mask to hide Mr. Pig's true identity. Here he is, all ready to trick-or-treat. All the elements are removable, so Mr. Pig can fly around to get treats on the big night and then go back to his regular life.

Six dollars and change won't get you a lot unless you opt to thrift. Then you can find a used hardcover cookbook ($1.99) and a paperback (.99) like I did last week. How about an adorable, gently-used baby quilt? This is a gift for my nephew's dog when they move in at the end of the month (she likes to sit and sleep on quilts.) It was made by a local quilting group, too, so I'm happy to give it a second life. Here's my receipt.

Since I didn't win any of my wannabuts last time I bid, I'm trying again. These are items I want to thrift but only for a set minimum price. This brooch lot is bigger and nicer than the one I just lost, so I went a little higher with a max bid of $14.00. Lately jewelry is really attracting bidders so I'm not very optimistic. For this vintage linen lot I bid $10.00 as my max. These lots are 50/50; sometimes they get no bids and other times they attract bidding wars and last-minute snipers. I doubt I will win this big yarn lot for $10.00, but you never know. Stay tuned to the blog to see how I do. :)

I'm trying to decide if I want to pull the plug on Netflix, and looking around to see what's worth watching. I also want to watch some new Western productions because I am pretty biased against them these days. Although it was pitched as a one-run mini-series, the outdoor cop thriller Untamed has been renewed for a second season, and with good reason. It's the best crime show I've watched in a long, long time. The premise: In Yosemite National Park a federal agent still grieving the loss of his young son in the park must solve the inexplicable death of a young woman while coping with a new, inexperienced partner who has her own troubles. This case leads to drug running and murder for hire, and reopens several wounds of the past for almost everyone involved. Set in Yosemite the series is visually beautiful (most of the time) and very different from the usual cop thriller. Eric Bana, who plays Kyle Turner, the grieving federal agent, is almost unrecognizable -- ...

Ten Things We're Doing to Be Frugal with Food Adjusting Expectations: We prefer to eat at home over going out, but we also realize we can't eat like we're millionaires even when we're making it ourselves. We've both been looking for ways to save money on our grocery bill and stretch food farther. I will make anything myself if it's cheaper than store-bought, like safe-for-me low carb bread, like the almond flour variety I make for my breakfast toast . My guy watches for sales wherever we go, and if I ask will take me to a market on the other side of town where we've never shopped to check out their sales (their chicken is the cheapest and best quality in town.) Couponing: The other night we got two footlong subs from Subway for $12.99 using a coupon from a phone app, as we haven't been getting the print variety in the mail. Now we're starting to look for more electronic coupons, too. Halfing and Reducing: Our appetites are definitel...

My ten dollar bag of vintage scraps needed to be hand-washed and picked through before I could use them, so I spent an afternoon last weekend working on that. This is one of the recycling chores I do that I really enjoy, as it's a little mindless and gives me time to think about other things. I've worked with a lot of vintage textiles over the years, and I knew some of the scraps were so old they would have disintegrated in the washer even if I put them in a lingerie bag. I don't mind hand-washing them, or drying them on towels on the back porch table. It's weirdly soothing for me. Once the scraps were clean and dry I needed to pick out all the snipped thread pieces left in the old hems to make them usable again. This is my favorite part of the process. To illustrate what I mean, here's a green scrap with those threads snips from the original stitching still stuck in the folds. I pick them out using the tip of my seam ripper, or use a piece of ...

Without a doubt The Calling is a Canadian film that showcases religion gone wrong, in this case creating a serial killer. As a formerly faithful Catholic I'll say upfront that it's not a movie for the easily offended. I found it mildly interesting, especially with the deeply flawed protagonist. Inspector Hazel Micallef (Susan Sarandon) is not having a great life. She appears to be addicted to painkillers and alcohol as she works as a police officer in a small Ontario town. While checking on an elderly resident who has been out of touch she finds her murdered, and her remains manipulated to make it appear as if she is still screaming. That leads to another murder with the same distinct manipulation. As Hazel and her small police force track down more victims, and discover why the victims have been posed, that reveals an archaic Catholic prayer ritual which supposedly has the power to raise the dead ala Jesus and the resurrection. I've always apprecited understat...

Last weekend my guy and I stumbled across a lovely antique mall in downtown Oviedo called The Coop Antiques , which has more smalls than I've ever seen anywhere. The regular-size stuff is also very cool; I scored this glass pumpkin treat jar for just $5. One booth had genuine feedsack for sale in yardage, which is almost impossible to find. It's not cheap (my yard here was $13.00) but I'm thrilled to have a big print piece in a pretty green print. A gallon size ziplock bag of vintage scraps wrapped up my purchases for $10.00. These were either harvested from vintage quilt tops or were waiting fifty years to be made into some. If you're ever in Oviedo, check out The Coop Antiques -- you'll love it. :)

My gigantic lot of Vera Bradley bags arrived, so let's dive in and see what I got. Thirty-five different bags came in the lot, so more than I counted from the auction listing pics. I will have to look up patterns and prices, but vintage Vera Bradley bags in good condition average about $25.00 each resale on sites like Poshmark and eBay. A few that came still have their original price tags attached (this jewelry organizer cost more new than I paid for the entire lot plus shipping.) Some of the bags do need a bath, and a few will need some repairs. Remarkably most do not have any significant damage other than soiling. Abut two-thirds of the lot are in unused or brand-new condition and will just need to be laundered to get rid of the storage smell. I thought this was a child's hat. Nope, a little drawstring purse. So how much did my major Vera lot cost me? I paid $50.00 for the lot, which comes out to $1.47 per bag. I do have my work cut out for me, ...

For the last couple of months I've been posting twice a day so I could stop extending my pre-published content for months into the future. Today I've finally reached the point where I am just one week ahead of myself on blog content, and that's how I will try to keep things henceforth. Being *only* a week ahead of myself is a little scary, frankly. But it's also good for me to curb my tendency to pre-plan everything to the point of ridiculousness. I hope to be more spontaneous and enjoy writing my content as life happens. Hopefully you'll like it, too.

While repairing and upcycling the bags I've thrifted, primarily for my own use, I've started to notice antique mall vendors reselling lovely, pristine Vera Bradley bags, generally for about a third of what they go for new. I'd say the average price is $25.00, and most of them are retired patterns, so resellers are the only source for these. I have about a half-dozen bags now that are in mint condition, like this lunch bag covered with pups. It will be a summer gift for my favorite person, but I can't help wondering. If I keep thrifting these bags, should I consider a side hustle in reselling the like-new ones that I don't intend to keep or gift? I seem to have really good luck with finding rare, retired patterned bags in pristine condition. I've had a lot of luck in assembling sets of them, too. It's an interesting prospect. I know just where I would set up my shingle, too -- my favorite local junk shop, as the owner and I have become fri...