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Neat old stuff that we love...for sale!

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Junkytown Vintage and Gift

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Duck Hunt

So a couple of months ago, while at a thrift store, I found this huge painting. I didn't love it, but its always cool to find a really big painting. So I asked Sar, what could I do with it? She replied that I should do my 8-bit thing to it. That wouldnt really work out with the framed art in question, but she got me thinking. So I spent the next couple of weeks looking for a painting or print that might lend itself to what I had in mind. Then I saw this:



Ducks? Well they dont really have anything to do with video games ... but ... wait a minute!



Obviously! I started work. And about 500 quarter inch bits later....



And the duck, closer:



So Now I am on the look out for framed art that can be made more awesome!

Also, enjoy this:



Thanks for reading!

Library Project - Dolphin Vs. Shark Trophy

So during Summer Reading, we children's librarians come up with various activities to keep the kids busy. One of said activities this summer was an on going trivia contest called

Dolphin VS. Shark - Who Will Win?

This was a fun activity, and I had a pretty good time coming up with all of the Shark questions. At the end of the summer, the plan was to give the kid who had the most correct answers a bag of prizes. Pretty cool. But, lucky for this winner-to-be, I happened to at that time be obsessed with old trophies. For example:

I got this awesome vintage trophy at the local Unique Thrift. I think it cost me 1.99. I had this on our built-ins for a while, but then my significant other noticed it and was like "Heeeeell No." Then it ended up in my workshop, where I decided to take it apart. It stayed like that, because, well, its a workshop.

So anyways, when we were talking about the prize for the trivia winner, I said offhandedly that I would make them a trophy. I don't think I was taken seriously at first, but I said it enough in the coming weeks that by the end of the summer, I was in a position which required me to produce a trophy. This is what I ended up making:

Basically, I collect a couple more old trophies, and disassembled them. Then, I bought two plastic figurines - one shark and one dolphin - and spray painted them gold. I screwed the two maritime invertebrates to the trophy apparatus, and viola, the coolest sea life related trophy this kid will ever win. Well, unless he ends up being a trainer at Sea World.

Jacobin Joe - Coincidence or Fate?

If you have been in my house, or any of my previous apartments, you know about Jacobin Joe. So when a good friend of ours got married at The Old Library Restaurant in Olean, NY - one of the coolest sites ever - I figured it would be a night full of dancing and friends, and low on eerie coincidence. I was wrong. Above the stairway going to the second floor, I found an old friend creepily staring down at me:

Creepy, but amazing, right?

Here is mine:

My friends wedding was awesome. But it made me realize that our wedding was missing two critical elements. One - Jacobin Joe was left off the invite list. Two - we should never have banned The Devil Went Down to Georgia from being requested and played. That song rocked.

Neat Old Stuff: Coolest thing in our house!

(Besides Matt, of course.)

Turn of the century wood stove from Matt's Grandma's old house

Probably ain't gonna run into one of these at the local Goodwill! Many thanks to Matt's parents for this gem. There isn't really a place to hook it up as an actual stove for now, so we're going to use it as a dining room sideboard. I love the apple green enamel! When the rest of the room is decorated to its standard, will post more pics.

Introducing Tiger Dog

Since they day I left for college, I've longed for the day when it would be feasible and responsible to get a dog. 9 years later Matt and I find ourselves with a yard and a fence - the time has come, my friends. A few weeks ago, in anticipation of the event, Matt sent me a link to this post, joking that we had found the perfect canine companion:

Introducing Tiger Dog

We had a good chuckle and forgot about it. Then we went to the county shelter and, funny enough, found this pretty little lady:

Meet Hobbes, our very own tiger dog, and newest member of our family!

Wedding Recap: Library Nods

A funny thing happens when you're trying to save money on a wedding. It forces you to think outside the box, get creative, and you find that opportunities arise to make things more personal. That's what happened when we looked for alternatives to floral arrangements for our ceremony decor.

As you may know, Mr. Casserole, my beloved guybrarian, has a longstanding ironic habit of destroying books for the sake of art. We have loads of dismembered old book parts lying around, so when I saw this as inspiration, I thought: "Dang, I can do that." I got some foam wreath forms from the craft store, my trusty glue gun, some scalloping shears, convinced Matt to part with some book pages . . . and made a pair of these for either side of the aisle.

I made a third wreath to hang on our old iron gate as the ceremony backdrop, this time using a pizza box cut into a wreath shape, and forming the paper into roses. (I actually used the rose technique used in cake decorating, but there are also many cool paper flower techniques, including origami, floating around the internets.) Brooklyn pizza saves the day once again! Check it:

Way cheaper than flowers, and you can hang the wreath in your house when you're done.

If you were there and looking closely, you also noticed that the old book pages made it into the boutonnieres (note the feathers, too - our bird theme):

And of course the once we had a library thing going, we couldn't resist using this old card catalog my dad found years ago as a guest book:

Nerdiness abounds, just like our love!

Casserole II: Return of Sarah

I'm back, baby! And I survived my first year of residency, the dreaded...internship. *Cue thunder, wolf howl, and other scary sounds.* Probably a tad worse for the wear, but boy, did I ever "build character" and develop my staying-awake skills.

Now, as Matt pointed out, we've moved on to The Cleve' so I can start my specialized training in radiology; and if any good came of working such terrible hours in NYC this past year, I totally missed the watery, plastery, warped disaster that was our new house...as far as I am concerned, unless Matt is able to provide photo evidence, it never happened.

I look forward to so many things now: starting my new job, setting up our first real home together (posts to come), getting a dog (more on that soon, hopefully!), and of course getting back to the blog and you, dear reader.

Good to be home :)

Ohio - The Saga Begins, or, By Hell or High Water!

We're back. I know that Mr. and Mrs. Casserole have neglected this blog, and its to you, Faithful Reader, that we apologize. You've waited with baited breath; you've tossed and turned with anticipation; you've checked back again and again only to be disappointed upon seeing that stupid libaby picture blog. Well, the wait is over baby. We're back.

Many of you know that the last two months have been ... "a learning experience." First, Mr. Casserole moved approximately 2/3 of our belongings out to Cleveland OH, via a quick stop in Greenville NY. It took a 24 foot moving truck and approximately 11 hours to get this done.

Highlights of this road trip were:

• Seeing a bald eagle
• Almost hitting a fox
• Not getting lost!

Upon reaching Cleveland, we found our house to be ... extremely water damaged. Apparently, the valve with manually feeds water to our boiler was left on sometime in the winter, and as the temperatures got warmer, the radiators stopped boiling the water off. This resulted in water spewing out of all the radiators throughout the house. Plaster ceilings and walls fell down, wood floors buckled, and even the front door was damaged. So Mr. Casserole arrived to find the house in slight disarray. Hell, it felt like a disaster.

Construction started on the house a week later. This was early April. The next month or so were interesting. It was awkward to live in the house while contractors - who aren't directly working for me, but need to keep me happy - are working. But things were getting done quickly, and more importantly, as far as I could tell, getting done right. I hope!

By the end of May things were things were more or less finished! I was able finally move into the whole house! Up until this point, I had been living on the third floor. Most of the stuff moved out here was still in boxes out in the garage! So being about to finally unpack boxes, put things on actual non-damaged shelves, was kind of a big deal. I could finally watch netflix in the living room, just like a real home owner!

Lots has been happening the last couple of months. This mini post doesn't really go into any detail. I tried to write with more detail, but each time it just ended up feeling like a long gripe session. So I've tried to air on the side of brevity. Next time, I will post something a little more interesting...

Well. This has fulfilled my year's quota for blog posts. See you all next year!

Library Art - Matt Portraits

Kids are always coming up to me at work and asking me for scrap paper. They take the paper and the little golf pencils and draw all sorts of crazy psychedelic things and recently, to my surprise, me! Here is some of the notable kid rendered portraits:

This little gem was drawn for the "libaby man." I especially enjoy the photo-like details the artist included, such as how the stripes in my tie clash with those on my shirt, my egg shaped head, my "hair flap," and my fingerless hands. Okay, so I might be picking on this picture a little bit, but I love it. And as you're about to see, the pictures only get weirder from here.

I've forgotten the exact conversation that accompanied this, but it went something like this:

Little Kid - I drew this for you, you're a pig!

Me - uh that's nice.

Little Kid - aahh hahahahahaha giggle hahaha

The kid that drew this is an older kick who fascinated by the concept of beards. I've actually had to yell at him for trying to touch it. So he drew this. I don't know what he means by "P.S. Slick/Slave/Shave good," or by "might be Santa or Beep."

These with the purple background were drawn by a brother/sister combo. The sister drew/wrote the bottom one. She also verbally called me a girl. I responded by saying something like "so are you." She totally didn't have a response to that! Assumedly that is me in a dress. Apparently I pull it off.

The inaccuracies in this one disgust me. I am appalled by this misleading portrayal. My laces are never, I repeat, never tied that neatly.

Thrifting Treasures - Author Signed Book

My name is Matt and I have a problem. If you helped me move a couple of weeks ago, you might have notices approximately 6-7 heavy boxes with the word "BOOKS" written on the top. And if you think that is a lot of books, please take into account that before packing I made a point to donated almost half of my collection. Books in my possession fall into three general categories: Books for Reading, Books for Crafting, and Books for Display. The Stolen Spoon Mystery by Irene Bowen, which I found in a local thrift store, falls neatly into the "Display" category.

The characteristic that attracts me to most of my Display/Crafting books is the cover. In this instances, I liked not only the cover, but also the color, and the slightly peculiar title. Upon further inspection of this book, I happened upon an interesting inscription and clip out.

So I looked at the inscription, then at the clipping, and then back to the inscription, then at the clipping, and then back to the inscription, then at the clipping, and then back to the inscription, then at the clipping, and then I realized, this "Irene Bowen" was mentioned in both, and was likely the same person! So I bought the book for $2. Then I wrote a sub par blog about it.

The End.

Library Projects - Tree Fan

Summer vaction - a time of rest and relaxation right? Well, not so much for children's librarians. The kids have gotta go somewhere during Summer Vacay, and from where I'm sitting, they go to the library.

Anyways, in order to handle this influx of children, my coworkers and I divide the kids up by grades, and then plan programs specifically for the different age groups. I got the 2nd and 3rd graders this summer. This is the perfect age group because they find everything that I do funny, which also makes this the most intelligent and tasteful age group.

Our programs basically consist of crafts and games, and the tree fan was the first project I did with them this summer. It all began when I cleaned out a filing cabinet, and found hundreds upon hundreds of unused green folders. These folders had been sitting there since the Reagan era, and I figured that odds were they would not be missed. A bit of cutting with the crinkly sissors (my name for them), and voila, I have my tree tops.

I then though it might be a nice touch if there were little apples and leaves to go onto the tree tops. By "nice touch" I really mean "a time waster" because I was already beginning to fear that the kiddies would finish this project way too fast.

Now I needed the tree trunks/fan handle. Luckily, I've managed to set a standard of doing curious things involving trees while visiting upstate, so my parents hardly batted an eye at me wandering around our yard and woods collecting sticks. I give all of the collected and cut supplies to the kids, throw in some tape and glue sticks, and alakazam, tree fans:

So that was the finished product! I considered this project a success for a couple of reasons:

1. To my knowledge, none of the kids stabbed each other with the sticks.

2. To my knowledge, I was not stabbed with any of the sticks.

3. At one point, I had 10 or so kids fanning me with their completed fans. This gave me the perfect opportunity to use my Maniacal Laugh of Supreme Accomplishment.

That basically was it for the craft part of the first program. The rest of the time was spent with them throwing pool noodles at one another, and then ended with them doing their best impression of an angry mob, chanting "cheater" at me (I showed them a number guess trick and refused to tell them how I did it.) All in all another successful program!

Wedding Recap: Paper or plastic?

Or silk? I'm hardly a world class seamstress, but I thought it would be nice (and do-able) to make my bridesmaids some cute little purses to use at the wedding. After all, there are only two of them, so I hardly had an excuse not to. After some failed attempts at designing the bags myself (they looked like silk potato sacks - real classy), I came across this free pattern!

Isn't it adorable?! And free! The best part is that the pattern only uses a fat quarter, so I had enough fabric left to complete the bags after my "potato sack debacle."

Since these were going to be a little dressier than the pic shown on the pattern, I decided to skip the button detail and used some random scraps and guinea hen feathers (the fun ones with the polka dots!) to make a little flower instead.

Images courtesy Sherry Lynne Photography

I love the way they turned out! And I totally learned my lesson about underestimating the power of a cute pattern. Especially when it's free!

Awww... and packing.

Just when you think you've lived in Brooklyn long enough to hate all of human kind, ya happen upon adorable sh*t like this.

The reason I was googling "patterned tape" in the first place is because Matt and I need a solution for packing that will make it easy for "the movers" (ie. our family and friends) to identify boxes destined for Manhattan versus boxes doomed to a year of storage before we, as Jack Donaghy would say, "flee to the Cleve"

heh.

Anyhoo, look at these fun (and like many fun things, overpriced and impractical) tapes:

(available at TapeSwell.com)

(available at Amazon)

(you had me at "Happy Tape")

... aaaand evidently I was not the first to come up with this idea.

Alas, I think we'll go with something that is available at a local store - like that colored duct tape, perhaps. (Otherwise, we'd probably double the price with shipping costs.) But if anyone has a good idea for this patterned stuff, let me know! It would be a fun way to mail a gift package, right? Or just wrap a present in general. I'm picturing a box wrapped in newspaper or plain craft paper with some of that "happy tape" wrapped around it like ribbon. On the top of the box you could "draw" a bow with pieces of the tape. Notice I am thinking about this as opposed to packing. Have I mentioned my procrastination problem?

...and then the etching cream took off my arm!

For the last couple of months I've been obsessed with glass etching. I decided upon this craft whilst trying to figure what exactly to make for my groomsmen. Although this was an easy craft (I mean, I did it, how hard could it really be,) the numerous steps involved made it very time consuming. The first step was to find an image:
Then, I converted the image to a simple black and white, preserving key aspects intact in order to keep the image recognizable:

Then, I transferred the image to contact paper, put it on the chosen glass surface, cut out the black spots with a box cutter, brushed on the etching cream, waited a couple of minutes, rinsed it off, and viola!:

Working on these glasses required all of my concentration, as well as the use of a head lamp.

In the end, I etched 23 different glasses. Here are some of the others.

Here are some old school Super Mario Brothers power ups.

Go Bills!

Final Fantasy Vii!

Cutting Instruments!

My next etching project has something to do with a previous blog post of ours ...