All posts by thecraftysisters

Lanterns and Fortunes and Dragons, Oh My!

collections, garage sale finds
McDonald's Special Promotion
Lanterns, banners, dragons and even uniforms from McDonald's sauces promotion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another weekend has come and gone. It was over way too quickly. But, Lynne and I hit some interesting garage sales this weekend. If the sales don’t seem to be going very well, I have a game I like to play. I try to find the item that the seller puts out and says, “Go ahead, put it out, someone will buy it”.

To me a garage sale is a safari, or a scavenger hunt. My mind is going a hundred miles a minute trying to figure out what I will do with the item I just picked up, how does it fit in with what I have?  Do I have any idea what I may use if for? Garage sales are not for the weak willed.  A lot of thought goes in to any object you pick up, often, it is exhausting. After a summer of sales, I am usually glad to see them end and give myself a rest, and then, after a few weeks I am back to craving sales again.

Each week I would like to document the strangest, oddest, or neatest item we have found at a sale. The one for this week is a real doozy. After a bit of research I found out that in 1986 McDonalds had a promotion on their McNugget sauces. The sauces were Teriyaki, Sweet and Sour and Hot mustard. The nuggets included a carry out box and chopsticks and even a fortune cookie. For some reason, I do not recall this, as I really am a McDonalds Freak. Anyway, at a local sale, I found 4 oriental uniform shirts, 2 large paper dragons, 4 oriental hats, 2 banners and 10 paper Japanese Lanterns. The lanterns were what really sold me.

One of my boys promptly confiscated a dragon and put it on his ceiling in his room, and it looks really good.  As for the rest of the items, I think I will use the lanterns in my room, and I will probably keep the rest packed, until I decide if I can sell it or hang on to it for posterity.  After all, they really don’t take up a lot of space. (Keep telling yourself that Cheri).

-Cheri

No Crying Over Spilt Milk!

garage sale finds

My best garage sale find.

My Fisher Price lunchbox
My Fisher Price lunchbox

My most fantastical garage sale find ever has got to be the small lunchbox barn that I found at a church rummage sale.This small little lunchbox offered me a chance to relive my youth and feel vindicated all at once. Double whammy.

I was rummaging in boxes when I spied something that looked a little familiar. As I picked it up things went swoosh. I’d swear it really was a swoosh. I was taken back to the kitchen of our house where we lived when I was  4, holding a toy lunchbox that looked like a little barn. It had the usual wonderful decals that marked it as Fisher Price, it was red and it had a little handle to carry it and inside of the top lid was a play thermos that looked like a silo. It was just too utterly awesome.

The first thing I did was take the thermos/silo out and fill it with milk, and put it back under its little hanger in the lid. I proceeded to go to imaginary work, on an imaginary construction site, until imaginary lunch. I picked up my little lunchbox and opened it. Was I ever in for a shock. My thermos/silo had become a gooey mess, the milk had leaked everywhere and I remember thinking in my little brain, “what did I do”? Things get a little sketchy after that, the silo was thrown out and milk had gotten on the decals.

As I flashed back to the present, (swoosh again) I picked it up and held my breath, I slowly opened it. Nope, nothing. I breathed a sigh of relief and silently forgave myself and every other kid who been silly enough to think they could keep milk in a cardboard silo. Needless to say, I snatched it up, and it reminds me of the simplicity of being a kid because seriously, if it looks like a thermos, It ought to be able to be used as a thermos.

Regular lunchbox versus FP lunchbox
Regular lunchbox versus FP lunchbox
No crying over spilt milk!
No crying over spilt milk!

-Cheri

OK Corral for Markers

craft, ,

Marker holder
From electronics charger to marker holder

I’m still up to my ears in markers. It turns out that there are all different kinds and I want to try them all. These are permanent markers and I use them a lot with colored pencils. I like to lay down the broad areas with the markers and shade with the pencils.

I was having a hard time finding a suitable place to put them while I was working. The rose bowl vase and BBs work with the longer watercolor markers but the shorter markers are swallowed whole by the vase. Not to mention that I would have to go buy more BBs and that doesn’t fit in with my ‘make do’ doctrine.

I found this charging dock at that great garage sale Cheri and I went to last week. I’ve always wanted one of these for my electronics, but it turns out that nothing I have now really fits very well. I think things are slimmer now, but larger overall.

Since I wasn’t using it for charging, the dock was sitting on my table until I could decide what to do with it. I needed to shift the markers from the side table next to my recliner to the large table in my studio and I shoved them in the dock for temporary transportation. And voila, marker holder extraordinaire! I am able to see the color of the markers and it is easy to take them out and put them back in. The cord port in the back holds the pens I am using the most at the moment and there is still room left to park my phone while I am listening to an audio book.

Back view of the dock charger
The cord corral corrals my most used pens.

I always love those ‘aha moments.’ It’s great how things work some time and it’s even more fun to never know when an idea will come along.

-Lynne