Archive for the ‘Shopping’ Category
A trip to OKC
Posted on: February 9, 2009
- In: Family | Shopping
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Roger had to go to Oklahoma City, which gave me a perfect opportunity to go along to visit my family. My mom, Debbie and I made our usual shopping trips to Kohl’s, Ulta, TJ Maxx, and various other places. Although we have a Kohl’s in College Station, I feel like I find a better selection in the stores in OKC. Because we’re in a college town, our Kohl’s seems to cater more to the college students than any other age bracket.
Michell came down from Tulsa on Friday night, and on Saturday the two of us, along with Debbie and my niece, Kristin, went to OKC’s Affair of the Heart. My sister has gone to this for years, but this was the first time for me. If you get the chance, you won’t want to miss out on this. This is one of the largest arts and crafts shows in the United States. It’s truly unique, with booths occupying more than five buildings throughout the OKC fair grounds. An Affair of the Heart was started by eight Oklahoma women who were selling their crafts at different shows. They started talking about what worked really well and what these shows could do to improve, and they realized they had enough experience and knowledge to start their own craft show. In 1985 they held their first Affair of the Heart. What started with 65 exhibitors has expanded into hundreds over the years. If you make crafts to sell you can look into getting your own booth at the event. They hold two of these a year: one in the fall and one in the spring. My sister stocks up on Christmas gifts at the fall event. It was a fun way to spend the day. Although, because it’s a three day event, you may need the whole weekend to really see the whole thing. Here’s the website with more information: http://www.aaoth.com/.
I picked up another ‘H’ to add to my collection. I’m going to hang these above my bed, as in this photo, but using just the letter ‘H’. Of course, this will only happen once I get the bedroom painted. I also picked up two wax tart burners along with several sets of wax blocks in different scents. My house is either going to smell very nice or it’s going to give me a raging headache from all the different scents. What else did I get? I picked up a purse organizer, a toothpick holder for the sun visor in Roger’s car, and some scented crystals that are supposed to smell like lavendar, but…I’m not too sure that I recognize that lovely floral scent in my new crystals.
I bought this waterbead diffuser at Christmas. Kristin gave one of these to my mom, and I thought it was the neatest thing so I went out and bought one. It’s made by Moments by Upper Canada. You put the jelly-like beads into the glass vase, and then you add water and a little of the scent. You stir the beads to keep them moist, and you add more water and scent as they evaporate. It’s very unique, and a pretty way to scent a room.
Until next time!
Give while you shop
Posted on: November 14, 2008
With Christmas just around the corner and the news about the economy getting bleaker and bleaker, I thought I’d mention this site, http://www.igive.com/welcome/, to those of us who still have some shopping left to do.
You shop at name brand online stores at the Igive Mall and select your favorite cause (you can even add a new one). A portion of each purchase is donated to your cause. What causes? The list goes from animal rescue to community service, childrens’ health to education.
Over 700 stores are participating in the IGive donation program, including eBay, Lands’ End, Staples, JCPenney, Barnes & Noble, Overstock.com, drugstore.com, Office Depot, QVC, Expedia, Home Depot, HSN, Best Buy, Drs. Foster & Smith, Gap, Buy.com, & NORDSTROM.
Another small way we can all do our part to help someone else.
Until next time!
Here, there & everywhere
Posted on: November 9, 2008
- In: Family | Quilting | Sewing | Shopping
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My girls were home for a week. Actually, Jenifer was here for two as she’s on leave until she reports to her new duty station at the Port Arthur Marine Safety Office. We drove to Beaumont yesterday and helped her move into her new apartment. She isn’t scheduled to report for duty until the 24th, but she’s hoping if she reports early she may get a few days off at Christmas. She’s also hoping that she’ll up her chances if she volunteers to work on Thanksgiving. We’ll keep our fingers crossed!
I have no pictures of their visit or any of the places we went as I misplaced my camera. I found it right before Michell left. And then I forgot to take it with me when we went to Beaumont yesterday. I wanted to get pictures of Jenifer’s new apartment.
They kept me busy during their visit. We went to the Ikea store in Katy as Jenifer needed some new things for her apartment. I noticed that the Katy store has a bigger fabric department than the one in Round Rock. I practiced great will power and didn’t buy any as I’m trying to use up some of the fabric I have before buying any new. Wishful thinking on my part. I did pick up two small toiletry bags as mine is falling apart. Once we get home I ended up making this one while Michell worked on a tote.
We went to the Houston Quilt Festival (I wish I had my camera!). I didn’t see anything this year that really excited me…other than the new Brother Quattro machine. Very impressive! Many of the booths were displaying quilts in browns and creams. I didn’t see very many bright colors this year. Does this have something to do with the economy? I didn’t buy any fabric or patterns. I did pick up some machine embroidery supplies, and Michell and I both picked up the supplies to make Ficklesticks. These are basically fabric covered floral wire that you then twist into different shapes: flowers, people, jewelry, sculptures, wall hangings. I’m thinking this is a nice project to take on a car trip. I can make up a whole bunch of fabric tubes and then put them together in the car or hotel room.
Roger made it home from his trip on Saturday night so he got to spend some time with Michell before she left. He was happy to be home after being gone two weeks. We’re thinking about going to Houston this coming weekend. We’ve talked about going Saturday and coming home Sunday afternoon. He wants to go to the Bay Area Divers’ annual flea market, which was postponed from October because of Hurricane Ike. I’m hoping I can talk him into going to a few quilt stores (there goes my not buying any new fabric). It’s our usual trade off. I’ll go to scuba shops if he’ll go to quilt stores.
I haven’t got much digitizing done lately. I have a few weeks before the holiday rush sets in. I don’t think I’m going to make gifts this year. Of course, that’s subject to change because I may find a great project in a quilt store this coming weekend!
Until next time!
Time flies…
Posted on: October 15, 2008
I’ve been missing…again! Where to start?
We found out that our dog, Hemi, had oral malignant melanoma. We took him in to get his teeth cleaned, and the vet found a mass in the back of his throat. Fortunately, the vet school here at Texas A&M thinks they removed the whole mass during surgery; however, oral melanoma is the one most likely to spread. We’ve started him on the new canine cancer vaccine, which has a 25% success rate compared to chemo at less than 20%, and it also has less side effects than chemo. He’ll have to take the vaccine for the rest of his life, but what do you do? He’s a member of the family. Here’s a picture of Hemi is one of his more statelier moments. He’s usually got his face to the ground and his butt in the air waiting for you to scratch him in his favorite spot.
In the middle of September I had to put together a scholarship banquet for work. It’s not easy trying to get a couple of hundred college students to let you know whether they’ll attend or not. They can’t seem to grasp the fact that they need to go in order to meet the donor who gave them the funds to help with school. Well, at least that’s over for another year. I have an awards banquet in the spring that I’m just starting to plan. Fortunately, it’s not quite so difficult to get people to RSVP for this one.
‘Little Girl’ (who we finally named Missy) was adopted by a Texas A&M student who was looking for a shepherd. He fell in love with her and took her home. We’re keeping Cooper for a week. My sister, Debbie, was fostering him. He was pretty skinny when she got him, and he looks much better in this photo, which was taken a month or so after she brought him home. Roger leaves for a meeting in Las Vegas this Saturday and is taking Cooper to his new family. He is a big dog and all puppy. Roger’s driving with Cooper so I can just imagine what a fun trip he’s going to have.
In between Roger and I made a quick trip to Ikea when they had book shelves on sale. I got two of these book shelves and a desk in black and white to match. I also bought the doors to cover the bottom three shelves on each unit. They aren’t actually quite so wild looking once you get stuff on the shelves! My sewing tables are white so it all looks quite nice in the room. I’m not sure what we were thinking. As you know, we’re slowly painting the inside of the house, and we should have painted my sewing room before putting the furniture together and placing it in the room.
We spent a Saturday at the Round Top Antique Festival. We’ve never gone before and thought we’d go to see what it was like. The festival runs for one week, and we went the first weekend. Everything wasn’t open yet, and we still didn’t see it all. Although most of the places had true antiques, we decided early on that we needed to look at some of the stuff with a critical eye. We saw so many booths selling the same nautical ship wheels (nautical must be the next big thing), and honestly, you’d think people would take off the ‘made in China’ stickers before trying to sell their goods as antiques. However, it wasn’t a wasted trip. I found this old Singer cast iron sewing stool in one of the first booths we looked in. I’ve only seen one other at an antiques store years ago. I’ve cleaned it up and I’m using it in my sewing room.
I have squeezed in some digitizing. Here’s a Halloween voodoo design you can use against someone who’s made you mad…or you could just put it on a shirt. I have three more of these for sale on my new Etsy site. Look for IsleBStitching.
Until next time!
I’ve been busy
Posted on: June 25, 2008
- In: Bloodhounds | Family | Shopping
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It’s been a while since I’ve been here. Where should I start? Last Saturday we drove to Post, Texas, which is just outside Lubbock, and almost a seven hour drive from home. We delivered Coco to her new family, who drove about the same distance from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here are the last photos I took of her before she left.
Please ignore all the water on the wall in the photo of Moose and Coco drinking. Coco does enjoy a long, cool drink of water, and she also enjoys tossing it all over the floor, the wall, herself, and any other dog that just happens to be near.
On our way home we got behind this guy, and he was not happy to be in this trailer.
If you remember, a few weeks ago we took Jenifer our old washer and dryer. While we there I visited a couple of quilt stores in the area. I didn’t buy anything in the first one, but I picked up these fat quarters in the second one. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time in this shop because my ‘traveling companions’ were getting quite bored and ready to move on.
I’ve spent a small fortune on gas the last few weekends. I plan to stay home this next weekend; however, Roger’s planning a trip to Houston to see his dad. He’s planning to take his Jeep, with the top off, and I find nothing enjoyable or fun about riding through blast furnace temperatures with the hot wind whipping through my hair. I’m not even going to discuss the bugs splatting off the windshield!
Until next time!
I’m back among the living
Posted on: May 18, 2008
- In: Digitizing | Family | Holidays | Machine Embroidery | Shopping
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Roger and I worked in the yard the past few weekends, which aggravated my allergies that caused a bad, bad sinus infection. It’s been a while since I’ve had one that was this bad. The doctor prescribed a ton of medication so I feel like a zombie, but at least I can breathe again. And the yard looks nice.
I’m leaving town this Thursday to visit my family in Oklahoma. We have a few things around my mom’s house that we Roger needs to do. Of course, we’ll also get some shopping in.
One of the places we plan to go is the Paseo Arts Festival. The Paseo, built in 1929, was the first shopping district north of downtown Oklahoma City, and it has the feel of a little Spanish village. Today the Paseo is the home of Oklahoma City’s artist community. The arts festival has painting, pottery and jewelry, sculpture, wood working and wearable art. I always find something unique at the festival. There is an artist that takes old depression glass saucers and puts them in stained glass. I’ve already bought two from him, and I hope to get another this year.
On Monday, we’re attending the Memorial Day service at the Fort Sill National Cemetery where my dad is buried. The military always has a very nice ceremony. No matter how many times I go, it never gets easier.
Until next time.
Playing with redwork
Posted on: May 4, 2008
- In: Digitizing | Home | Machine Embroidery | Shopping
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I practised my red work this morning and did this floral design. It looks like art deco to me, and I’ve decided that I like this look. Kind of elegant but not too ornate.
We went out for lunch and then to Home Depot to pick up some screws to attach new knobs to the new wardrobe. We picked up glass knobs at Canton yesterday. The knobs that are on the wardrobe are a little beat up, and we think the glass ones will look nice. Home Depot had banana plants and we picked up two to put in the back yard. The tag says they produce bananas like those in the grocery store. We’ll see. Actually, we probably won’t see anything because I expect that the ‘boys’ will probably eat any bananas the plants produce! We spent the rest of the afternoon trimming branches from the oak trees and crepe myrtles. What fun!
I’m now doing the laundry, and I must pick up the house before the cleaning lady comes tomorrow. Another lazy Sunday.
Until next time!
Return to Canton!
Posted on: May 3, 2008
It’s the first weekend in May, and that means Trade Days in Canton. We had tentatively planned to go to Canton and meet up with friends from Dallas, but we never connected to make definite plans. Roger and I decided what the heck and just went anyway. As usual, we didn’t buy a lot, but we did find this wardrobe, and it was a steal! I love these old wardrobes with shelves and little rods for hanging clothes. I already have one of these that we got years ago at an antique auction. Now I have two: one for Jenifer and one for Michell. Let’s see, I also bought two shirts and a bag of kettle corn (my sister and I love this stuff). And here’s Roger, worn out, after we got home and took the wardrobe upstairs.
As I was copying my photos off the camera I found these two of Jenifer that I took last weekend when she was home. Isn’t she pretty, and doesn’t she look too young to be in the Coast Guard?
She’s on the list to go to school, and she expects to leave sometime this summer. The only problem, at least to me, is that the school is in Virginia. Once she finishes with that, she’s going to request a base on the East coast. So far away from Texas! I know you have to let them grow and let them go, but I just hope she’s aware that I’ll be visiting often.
Until next time!
Make this: #8 or I’ll do my part
Posted on: April 29, 2008
- In: Digitizing | Machine Embroidery | Make this: | Sewing | Shopping
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I’m not a rabid fanatic about any particular one of the latest causes in the news, but I do think I should do my part, however small or large that is, to keep the planet going for future generations. So I’ve decided to make my own bags to carry with me to the grocery store. As shoppers we receive over 10 billion plastic bags every year, and most of them end up in landfill sites where they take up to a 1,000 years to fully decompose.
Fabric bags, which you can make from old clothes, bedding or fabric scraps, are more durable than plastic and can be easily recycled when they become worn out. I’ve found the following sites that have patterns to make reusable grocery bags.
Brother UK has instructions for making a reusable fabric bag by recycling old clothes, sheets, etc. You do have to give your name and email before downloading the instructions.
Morsbags gives you instructions through a PDF, an animated presentation, or a Word document. Note on the front page the Morsbag tally, which shows how many less plastic bags are used each time the pattern is downloaded.
Wisdom of the Moon has detailed instructions to make fabric produce bags. Wendy says she’s used fabric grocery bags since last summer but still kept using the plastic produce bags. She made one out of an old sheer curtain, but you can use tulle or some other sheer fabric. Wendy also has directions for making fabric grocery bags out of old sheets. The cost of each bag is about $2 each. You can make these bags and add a pocket for the produce bags.
Creative Kismet shows how to use a pillow case to make a grocery bag. As an added bonus, check out her tutorial for the patchwork pin cushion. Cute!
Rags to Bags gives directions for turning old shirts, jeans and tablecloths into reusable bags. Here’s a photo of a recycled khaki work shirt made into a bag. A breast pocket on the shirt would be handy for coupons, change, etc. Rags to Bags says that many people donate their wearable clothes to the Salvation Army or Goodwill, but what happens to those garments that have defects or are too out of fashion? They fill up our landfills. And while making bags from used, recycled clothing may turn off some people, we should consider that when cast-off old clothes fill up our landfills, nobody wins.
I don’t want to come off as ‘preachy’, but here’s some additional food for thought. The Sierra Club says that:
- Reusing a bag meant for just one use has a big impact. A sturdy, reusable bag needs to be used only eleven times to have a lower environmental impact than using eleven disposable plastic bags.
- In New York City alone, one less grocery bag per person per year would reduce waste by 109 tons and save $11,000 in disposal costs.
- Plastic bags carry 80% of the nation’s groceries, up from 5% in 1982.
- When 1 ton of paper bags is reused or recycled, 3 cubic meters of landfill space is saved and 13 – 17 trees are spared!
- In 1997, 955,000 tons of paper bags were used in the United States. When 1 ton of plastic bags is reused or recycled, the energy equivalent of 11 barrels of oil are saved.
I’ve done this earth design to put on some of my bags. I’ll post it so you can use it on the bags you make.
Until next time.
What’s with fashion these days?
Posted on: April 20, 2008
I’m curious about today’s fashion. I’m looking for clothes for spring and summer, and I can’t find any shirt that isn’t a baby doll or that looks like a maternity top. And if that isn’t bad enough, half of them have ties in the back.
These are similar to what I found at Dillard’s, Penney’s and Kohl’s.
They are cute enough. I might look at the pink one in a different color (I very rarely wear pink). The green one? I’m in my fifties. Do I really want to look like I’m wearing a little girl’s dress?
Roger and I stayed in this weekend. I did a few things I’ve put off doing for a while. And I cleaned out my closet. I read that if you buy one new thing you should get rid of one old thing. I’m going to try this so I cleaned out everything I haven’t worn in the past year or so. This is embarrassing, but I ended up with two trash bags of clothing and one trash bag of shoes.
I played around with red work again this evening and came up with this simple design. It sews out quickly. I think red work does better on some things than heavier embroidery designs. I say red work, but I do change the thread color to what I need. Hope some of you can use it.
Until next time!
Flea Market shopping
Posted on: March 2, 2008
- In: Shopping
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On Friday Roger suggested that we go to the Canton Trade Days on Saturday. For those of you who don’t know, one weekend every month Canton, Texas, turns into the biggest open-air trade days in the world with up to 7,000 vendors and as many as 300,000 visitors. First Monday Trade Days takes place Thursday through Sunday before the first Monday of every month. You can find everything from animals, art, antiques, books, produce, plants (garden and home), fabric and paper, tools, clothing, and automotive supplies. And, of course, the usual junk, but, if you really look, you can find some good buys and bargains. It’s so big that you need the whole weekend to see the whole thing.
We didn’t buy much. Two new dog leashes, which should come in handy giving the dogs a bath, an old cabinet that I’m thinking of using as an island in my kitchen, and this old Ritz dye rack. Excuse the look of the photo, but it was pretty dirty, and I was in the process of cleaning it up. Underneath all the grime I found the names of all the dye colors. I’m planning on using this for my sewing thread, and these names should come in handy for sorting by color.
Roger’s mother lives in Georgia, and whenever we go see her we always make a trip to the Jockey Lot in Anderson, South Carolina. Unlike Canton, the Jockey Lot is open every weekend and has over 1500 vendors on 65 acres. This one is great because it is close to the fabric mills so you can find great bargains on muslin, fabric, ribbons, etc. It also has everything you can find in Canton, and you need the weekend to go through the whole thing.
We had a good Saturday, and I hope yours was also. Until next time.
Let’s go sew!
Our trip to Houston
Posted on: January 28, 2008
- In: Digitizing | Family | Quilting | Shopping
- 2 Comments
We had a fun time in Houston yesterday. We met up with our daughter, had breakfast, and then we went to the scuba expo. My husband picked up quite a bit of information on diving parks and resorts. He’s a dive instructor and dive master so he’s always looking for new places to go. Jenifer and I put some bids on a few things at the silent auction. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that no one outbid us. Once we finished at the dive show, we went on to the quilt shop. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything there that just sparked my interest, but I did pick up a book on needle felting, a few patterns for greeting cards, and a small kit with boats that Jenifer asked me to make for her. We ran across a Half Price bookstore and made a quick stop. I love these stores! I always come out of one of these stores with a stack of books to read. Once we finished there we found a small sandwich shop, Which Wich?, that just opened on Friday. They make the best sandwiches. You pick your bread, meat, cheese, dressing, etc. We decided that we’d have to go again the next time we’re in Houston.Today is just kind of a lazy day for us. The sun has finally come out today after two weeks of cold, clouds and rain. Hopefully, it will stay this way for a while. I’m not a winter person so I’m ready for spring to make a return. I’ve added a candy design that you can download. Just check the box.
Let’s go sew!
Isle B. Stitching 
What we’ve said!