Happy Thanksgiving!

Knock, knock. Who's there? Our coffee table.

This is one of the cooler (my opinion) things we have done. It all started on morning when Sar and I were leaving for school/work. It was garbage pickup day, and there was a large pile outside of our building. So Sar and I have this habit, see, of looking at piles of garbage with this I-need-to-furnish-my-apartment sort of intent. And on this morning, while I saw nothing of note, Sar stopped me to look at this old, beaten up discard door. When I saw it I was like, "umm, we have one already, lets go" but Sar was all like "Hark, there within that refuse lies a golden opportunity!" So we stand there looking at a pile of garbage for a few minutes, when one of our building crew guys stops and asks us whether we want something (from the pile of trash.) Sar replies by saying something like "Behold, good Sir! Treasures abound! My Gentlemen caller and I desire that jettisoned domestic barricade." So after this guy is finished laughing at us, he agrees to take the door away from the pile and kept it on the side of the building for us.

"Elbow Grease!"

So Sar's idea was to take this beaten up door, and turn it into our new coffee table. The first thing we did with the door was to clean it, which we did in the alley next to our apartment building. After that, we brought it back up to our apartment (looking totally awesome as we did so,) and I began to put on a couple of coats of polyurethane. Meanwhile, Sar was busy online looking for something to use as legs. She ended up finding these awesome looking (and reasonably priced) hand-carved claw feet on ebay. I attached the claw feet using a combination of brackets and large screws. As a finishing touch, we added the door knocker from our Binghamton apartment (I wasn't the one who took it,) and viola our new coffee table was complete!

Tie-A-Thon: Week 3, 4, and 5

Tie-A-Thon is going smoothly, despite my inability to keep up with a demanding 1 blog per week. Hence today's entry.

So week # 3:

All of the above ties were thrifted except for the Whale tie, which is just too awesome to not buy new. The one on the end is my favorite because of it's ridiculous retro-ness. Its military green which - lets be honest - is my color.

And then Week 4:

Looking at this week's worth of ties makes me wish that I had the foresight to plan themes. I mean this is almost a complete brown week! With so many brown ties, its a good thing that brown is my color. The ties on the outside were thrifted, and the ones in the middle were purchased new. The outside ties are two of my absolute favorites. The duck one is knitted and is one of those ties that knot very easily. The one on the right features either two cowboys or two British gentlemen on a fox hunt. I have thus nicknamed it my Brokeback tie for obvious reasons.

And now Week 5:

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I know. But if I dont post this now, it'll take me a couple of weeks to do it. SO here are the ties that I'm wearing this week.

These ties were all thrifted. The first two are knitted ties, which is something that I'd like to find-buy-wear more of. And the last one is, well, a holiday appropriate little number I've been holding onto for a couple of months. My favorite of these three is the first one, because it ties like a dream and because pink is totally my color.

Me-likey: Mod Cloth

Quick! Someone invite me to a holiday party so I can buy one of these outfits.

All very reasonably priced at Mod Cloth, one of my new favorites!

Neat Old Stuff: Gnomes!

Today's Neat Old Stuff comes from ebay - a score for about $25 total. Vintage gnomes!

These little guys have the "Heissner" stamp on the back, the mark of the Heissner Gnome Company out of (West) Germany. My best estimate is they are from the 1960's, when gnomes were revived in plastic form. Prior to that they were made out of terracotta, but production of those fell off during WWII (turns out Germany was distracted back then). A little more about the history of gnomes here.

Someday, Matt and I will have a garden, and maybe these can hang out there. For now, though, they are harder to kill than houseplants.

Tie-A-Thon: Week 2

Another week, another quintuplet of ties!

I know what you're thinking, is that really a quintuplet of ties? Were those ties all really born in a single birth? My answer, friend, is a resounding yes.

The relentless building block video puzzle!

Impress your boss with these stunningly professional tetris ties ...

Hand painted using acrylics with textile medium.

I’ve dabbled with painting ties in the past, but it is always hard to come up with images that fit well on such an elongated canvas – the tetris design is perfect for this shape! I am going to sell these on etsy once Matt and I get our storefront set up.

And just in case it wasn't already in your head...

Dum

Da-da-dum

Da-da-dum

Da-da-dum

Da-da-dum

Da-dum

Dum

Dum

Dum

Dum

Tie-A-Thon: Week 1

One week down, numberless weeks to go! Here are the ties worn this week:

The Brown tie and the Bird tie were thrifted, I bought the black one new (before I knew any better), and I forget where and how I got the gold boring one. I probably wear the brown one the most, because I wear brown the most. That being said, the bird tie is my favorite because it is ridiculous. I only wore 4 ties this week because I was out sick one day.

Notice the craftsmanship - the finely knitted browns, the happy yellow symetry, and the life-like fear in the pheasant's eyes as the peregrine falcon swoops in for its mid-afternoon morsel.

Week One down ... how many more to go?