Santa Ornament

In the pile of "Christmas trash" I bought at the thrift store the other day was a vintage, red Christmas Tree ball ornament.

Not long after, I saw a neat-looking, very easy craft on Pinterest, making a Santa ornament using a red ball ornament.

All you need - besides a red ball ornament - is black electrical tape and a soda can tab.

I measured the width around the ornament, which was about 7-inches. Cut about a quarter-inch longer to give yourself some play room.

Slide the tape through the holes in the soda can tab. Being tape, it likes to stick to itself, but luckily electrical tape isn't terribly sticky and can be pulled back apart fairly easily.

 Voila'! Shiny! Easy! Cheap!

More Thrift Store Shopping

I had to run an errand but told myself I needed to lay off the Thrift store(s) for a bit, until I could get rid of some things around here before I kept bringing more in.

 (For those that don't know, I'm very nearly a Hoarder and have been working on trying to get out from under all the clutter around here. So, when I bring stuff in, stuff has to go. I've gotten a little behind in the "go" lately.)

I did well avoiding most of the Thrift stores I passed (within the vicinity of), until the last one.
I hadn't been in it in awhile and - I can't remember all the other justifications I gave myself at the time - but anyway, I stopped in.

Found these Vintage Blow Mold plastic lighted Jack-O-Lanterns for 50¢ each.

I hung them in my front, kitchen windows. (The Jack to the right is 2-faced, so he looks both in and out at the same time.) (I take terrible pictures, but they look awesome!)

This teeny, tiny Nativity ornament was 25¢. (The pen is for size reference.)
They had several other, larger Nativity sets, around $3.00 to $5.00, but unfortunately I couldn't bring them all home with me. 

This is a dark, navy blue (not purple, as it appears on my screen) New-With-Tags dress in my size. Not sure what the material it's made of is called...not Velvet...Velour, maybe? It's fuzzy-feeling and soft.

It originally retailed for $44.00. It was marked $7.00 in the Thrift store, then eventually put on the $1.00 rack, where I found it.

$1.00!!  Paired with some silver-toned Bling will make for a nice Christmas-y look. 

Thrift Store Shopping

A couple of weeks back I visited a thrift store and found this pile of "Christmas trash".

Vintage plastic/flocked/kitschy Christmas ornaments to use in some future Retro Christmas crafts. 
A couple of the pieces are broken, but I'm sure I can use them in a way that hides the break.
Anyway, only the one light colored deer is really broken. I can glue the elf back together, and the rest of the stuff is whole. 

Thursday is 50% off shoe day at this particular store, and I found these boots for $1.75.

When I had first visited this thrift store and found the above "Christmas trash", I had asked how much for it and the lady said that usually ornaments are 25¢ each and up, but since the stuff I had was broken and kindly shabby looking, I could get it for $1.00.  She bagged it up for me while I continued shopping.

On another shelf not near the shelf where I found the other ornaments was some more of the flocked deer ornaments, not broken, and I passed them up because I didn't want to pay 25¢ each for them.

Aaaargh!!
I knew I had made a mistake before we even left the store, but I kept talking myself out of going back for them...because I didn't need more stuff, because I didn't need to spend more money, because, because, because.

I regretted not getting them and wanted to go back for them, but then we went on a Fall Family outing up to Chattanooga, and I ended up catching a bad cold and didn't go anywhere for over a week.

A couple of days ago I was finally able to get back to the store, and of course, the deer were long gone.

I hate when that happens because then afterwards I end up buying everything I'm even remotely interested in for fear I'll regret it later if I don't.

On account of that, I ended up buying a Santa salt or pepper shaker, 2 plastic spin-face toys, and some sort of sporting sling thing I probably really didn't need or want.

I was happy to get a pair of the house shoes I wear constantly for 75¢, and a snow blanket for $1.00.

I was glad to find a couple of small Nativity sets that I was looking for to go with my Putz/Glitter house projects.  One set was $2.50, the other 50¢, along with a small plastic angel for 10¢.

I had bought a 6-piece Nativity set at Michael's to go with this Nativity Putz I'm working on, and it wasn't enough. The figures are so tiny they don't take up much space. But I figured I'd never ever find any others figures the same size, so I was surprised (more like amazed and astounded) when the $2.50 set ended up matching with the size of the ones I already had. 

I made my Nativity based on the vintage Shiny Brite Nativities from the (1960's?). I remember my Great-Grandmother had one (along with Orange Slice candy in a glass bowl on her coffee table).

Via Pinterest

Even after using a couple of the figures from the $2.50 set, there are still enough left to make another Nativity Putz house, so that was great. Like getting 2-for-1.

Thrifty Finds

I had to go to the store for some grocery items and decided to venture into some of the local Dollar and Thrift stores and check out the new stock.

Old stock is on sale at Dollar General, 70% off Summer time items.
I bought these plastic terra cotta pots for 30¢ per 2-pack, so 15¢ each pot.

I found these items at one of the thrift stores.

(2) Scrabble games. I don't know if all the pieces are in them, but it didn't matter because I was particularly buying them to make Pinterest crafts with the letters that are in them.
Got both games for $1.00 (50¢ each).

The fire-hydrant-ashtray was 25¢.
The fire hydrant first caught my attention because, firefighter family, but then I noticed that it was an ashtray, rather than a knick-knack dish or whatever.

As smoking/cigarettes are slowly being phased out, I predict that one day ashtrays will be one of those "things of the past" no one has anymore, like manual typewriters, dial telephones, or those little figurines that changed colors with the weather.

I haven't been going out of my way to collect ashtrays, but I'm hanging on to the ones I end up with.

The little pink dish was also only 25¢.
I didn't know what it was - if it was anything at all - but it looked like something, so I decided to take the chance.

The writing on the bottom was hard to read, even for my eagle-eyed kid, but a bit of googling told us that it's Cemar, a California-based pottery business ca. 1935-1950's.

Cemar items sell for quite a bit more than 25¢ on eBay.

Little Scary Dude Halloween Decoration

To make a mini-trick-or-treater, you need a child's old or outgrown t-shirt, long-sleeve shirt with a hood, and pants.

I made this (sometime prior to 2006) when my youngest son was still small and used some of his old clothes. If you don't have any little ones, check thrift stores, yard sales, or ask a friend or family member is they have any old or unused clothes they will give you.

Attach the t-shirt to the pants at the waists. You can sew it with needle and thread, or use safety pins.

For the head, I cut two pieces of white material into a circle shape with a "neck" extended down and sewed them together and stuffed with fiber-fill, then attached the "neck" to the neck of the t-shirt.

Alternatively, you could stuff the hood with a plastic bag stuffed with more plastic bags or newspapers.

Dress the clothes in a child's Halloween costume, approximately the same size as the clothing you used to make it.

Attach the mask to the "head" with the elastic piece, and cover the "head" and mask edges with the hood.

Until today, my Little Scary Dude just didn't have any eyes. I found some eyeball-ping-pong balls at the Dollar Tree the other day that I bought for another project, but then decided to try a couple of them for LSD.
They slid right in behind the eye holes and are held in by the "head" and mask. I didn't glue them, but you could if you prefer.

Also, my little dude is still shoeless.
I had planned all those years ago to safety pin some little old sneakers to the bottom edge of the jeans, but I guess I had packed him away before I got any shoes and just never did it.

No one seems to even notice it's (footless).

Putz/Glitter House - Log Cabin Christmas House

For my next Putz/Glitter house project, I decided I wanted to make a log cabin with a tin roof.

I found a pattern for a house I liked - which is actually a spooky Halloween train station - at Little Glitter Houses.

I knew I needed corrugated cardboard for the siding, but my attempts to extract it from the cardboard boxes around here just made a mess. I finally searched the question and learned that people were able to separate the cardboard/corrugated by wetting them.
Smaller pieces I held under the kitchen sink faucet and worked the pieces apart, larger pieces I put in the bathtub to soak a part. Then I hung the pieces out on my clothesline to dry.

I started out trying to make the house out of a piece of cardboard with one of the cardboard sides still attached to the backside of the corrugated, but it didn't work out too well for me.

So I scrapped that idea and built the house using cereal box cardboard,

Then cut a single layer of corrugated to fit and glued it on.

I used single layer corrugated turned sideways for the tin roof.

I added trim pieces on the corners, an extra chimney, and turned the covered train station platform into a front porch by adding a small base and posts.

I base painted the entire house white, then used Nutmeg Brown for the siding, and...I had bought Pewter Grey for the roof, but it was too dark so I added white to lighten it. I probably could have mixed white and black and got the same results.

The chimneys are Flaminco Red, and I dry-sponged some Barn Red across the roof for a rusted look.

My kid insisted it needed snow. I didn't want to have to go buy some snow-blanket, but luckily I had some plain white felt in my craft stash. I just cut and carved some random snow-falls.

Not sure why I added my embellishments before glittering....guess I got excited, when I had an idea, I wanted to do it right then.

Closer up of the "vintage aluminum Christmas tree with German glass globes" on the front porch.
Silver-tinsel pipe cleaners I found at the Dollar Tree, and a jar of pink glass beads that say "Made in Germany" I had in my craft stash.