Secrets to Thrifting - 5 Items to Snag

 I mentioned yesterday that I LOVE to go shopping for second hand items to decorate my home.

 

I look forward to it like some people look forward to going to the mall.

 

I guess what I love most about it is the thrill of finding something unique -- something that everybody else won't have.  I mean, anyone can march into Ikea, Pottery Barn or Target and slap their credit card down to buy a new serving bowl or a piece of art to hang on their wall.

 

But when I find a cool architectural piece that someone thinks is junk and sells it at their garage sale for $2 I feel giddy inside.  When I hang it on my wall and people who come over ask where they can buy it, I feel like I've just gotten the very last pair of size 7 1/2 killer stilettos.

 

Not only do I love that I have something unique, but I also love that I have something with a history.  I love wondering where the object -- no matter how small -- came from. 

Who were its owners? 

What is its story?

 

 

I feel the same way about my clothes.  Yeah, I still shop at "traditional" stores like Gap and Banana Republic, but I treasure the clothes I find at vintage boutiques and the Salvation Army. 

 

It can be overwhelming the first time you walk into a store, like The Salvation Army -- a rainbow of clothes sorted by color -- a half off color of the day and walls filled with seemingly useless junk.

 

One thing that helps is if you KNOW what you're looking for. Sometimes you're on a mission -- like the time I was searching specifically for wool sweaters in creams to make my felted wreath.

 

But other times, you might just want to browse. 

 

Either way, there are certain items I always look for when I'm thrifting.

 

Here are my top five home-relate items to buy second-hand:

 

1. Apothecary Jars
 

                                                                                               Source: houzz.com via Ginnie on Pinterest

 

These are great for decorating - you can add fun elements for holidays, seasons etc.  You can also use them for storage in your office, bathroom or bedroom.




2. Mason Jars

Source: bridefinds.com via Amy on Pinterest

Mason jars are one of the most useful items I have in my house. I don't think I could ever have enough of them.

Not only do old mason jars make fabulous vases, but they can also be used to hold silverware for a casual dinner or barbecue.  They can be used to store dry goods, like pasta or beans.  They can also be used as votive for candles. 


3. Christmas Lights

 

                                                                                                   Source: google.com via Kati on Pinterest

 

As I mentioned on yesterday's video, it's inevitable every year . . . no matter how careful we are in storing our Christmas lights . . . at least one strand won't work when we go to decorate our tree.  I have repeatedly found Christmas lights in their original packaging for $1-$2.   I've never, ever, regretted buying them.



 

 

4.  White platters

 

 

 

 

 

I don't mind if the platters are a little chipped - it gives them character.  I mainly look to see that the platter is a nice shape with a fairly smooth surface.

 

I like to find platters because I like to monogram them using my Silhouette (for myself or for gifts).  I also like to put vinyl messages on them for the holidays.  Oh, and they are also great for actually serving food!  I'm not much of a colored-dish kind of girl - most of my dishes are white. I like to see the colors of the food stand out on the platter.

 

 

5. Interesting Picture Frames

 

 

 

 

As you can see, I don't  even care if they have the glass. I look past the color too; this one was an ugly gold color when I found it but we spray painted it black at one point and then white.  

 

I love unique picture frames.  We have been collecting frames and painting them white to create a little gallery of black and white photos up our stair case.  Maybe some day we will finish it.

 

Those are the top five items home-related I look for when I'm thrifting.  Of course I find other things too but these are the five things that I'm sure NOT to pass up if I find them. 

 

What would you add to the list?

 

 



Home-Related Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving!!  

 

First off, thank you to all of my dedicated readers who continue to read my home endeavors, despite the fact that I am inconsistent. 

 

I appreciate each and every one of you.

 

I hope you all have a warm, relaxing holiday filled with delicious food and loving family and friends.

 

I made a little video for you!

 

Enjoy!!

 

 

 

Butternut Squash Pumpkin Soup Yummo

 

I got a little talkin' to from my sister last week on how she thinks I should blog more.

 

I don't know if I've ever shared how much I look up to my sister with you before but if I haven't, I should have.

 

Here's the most recent photo I have of Dee, me and Noah.  I'll have to get some pictures of me and Dee when she's up for Thanksgiving in just a few short days (I can't wait).  For the record, we're not always all fancied up when we see each other.

 

We're usually all scummed out in our sweatpants lounging around, which is why we never let anyone take our pictures.

 

In this picture, we were going to a wedding.

 

 

 

 

 

My sister Dee (some say Deej but no one who knows her well calls her by her birth-given name, Diane) is four years older than me; she is my only sibling.

 

My whole life she's been right about just about everything.

 

From the boys I used to date whom she said were dorks (they were)

 to the black lacquer furniture I used to decorate my first apartment that she told me had to go

to how my fashion follows hers five years later . . .

 

So when Dee tells me to do something, I listen.

 

So last week she said I should blog more - even if it's about something small, like a recipe.

 

I could get into all of the excuses on why I don't blog more frequently

 

like how I have two kids who suck up a lot of my time

 

or how I have a stay at home husband who needs a break from all of the home-related stuff

 

or how my company went through a round of job cuts last week and I was stressed out (I kept my job)

 

or how my computer is ancient and makes blogging a giant pain in the tush.

 

 

 

But the truth is, I LOVE to write

 

I love to blog

 

and I love to share my life with all of you

 

(and I hate when my sister proves me wrong).

 

Oh and this little blog was just featured on HGTV's website! 

 

Yup, you read that right.  My winter mantel was featured last week.  If you head over to HGTV (But don't leave this web page until you see what I've got for you)  and click on their winter mantels, my mantel was on slide 16. 

 

Imani wants to know if that means I'm famous . . .

 

 

Anyway, I decided to ease back into this blog thing by giving you a little recipe for Thanksgiving.

 

But first, I need to let you know we didn't dress up this year for Halloween!!  Can you believe it?  It's the first year we haven't dressed up in a long time.

 

Imani choose to be Darth Vader this year simply so that she could dress her little brother as Yoda. I think it was the first time EVER that I purchased costumes and didn't make them myself.

 

Although I was a little sad about these costumes, I gotta say, those moms who drive to Tarjay and swipe their credit cards to get their kid's costumes are onto something good.  This was the easiest Halloween 'evah! 

 

 

Imani had fun as Darth Vader and Noah did make a cute little Yoda.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now onto that recipe.  This weekend, I made one of my favorite things to make, SOUP.

 

I love soup so much - I could live on it.  My family . . . not so much.  They all like to have more of a "main course" so I usually end up serving it before dinner.

 

I love soup so much that my sister Dee bought me and Jason a Cuisinart Soup maker for Christmas last year.

 

I'm not really into kitchen gadgets but that soup cooker is one of the best things going.

 

It heats up so you can sautee in it before adding other ingredients. Once all of the ingredients are added, you can turn on the blender portion of the machine and blend everything together to make soup.  Then you just set the timer for how long you want it to cook.

 

It's a little piece of amazing.

 

Here it is if you want to get it for some soup lover like me for Christmas. 

 

 

 

 

It's a bit pricey though - listed as $270 online. I found one on Amazon for $122.36 if you are interested click here.

(I am not receiving anything for this post - this is truly just a gadget I love!)

 

 

 

I only wish it were bigger because I like to make BIG pots of soup.

 

 

Anyway - on to the recipe.

 

Since it's Fall, I've been trying to eat as much squash as possible. I love it and both of my children hate it.  While most moms might be upset that their kids don't like a vegetable, I'm secretly happy because that means more squash for me.

 

shhh. . . don't tell them because I'm forever ACTING like I want them to eat it.

 

Naturally, since I love squash and I love soup, I figured I'd experiment with a butternut squash soup recipe.

 

This one's a keeper. 

 

First off, it's super healthy because there isn't any cream in this soup.

 

It has a rich Fall flavor of butternut squash with a hint of pumpkin.

 

 

 

Butternut Squash Pumpkin Yummo

 

 

 

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into one inch cubes (I started with a 2-3 pound squash)

 

2 tablespoons of butter

 

1 medium onion, chopped

 

1 clove of garlic - chopped

 

4 cups of chicken stock

 

1/4 cup pumpkin puree

 

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

 

salt and pepper to taste

 

Directions:

 

1. Heat butter in a large pot

2.  Sautee onions until translucent

3. Add the chopped garlic and sautee for a minute more

4. Add the squash cubes and chicken stock

5. Bring to a boil

6. When squash becomes soft, dump into a blender

7. Add pumpkin puree, nutmeg and salt and pepper

8. Puree soup

 

9. Serve with a large salad and warm bread (the bread in the picture is homemade . . . I am OBSESSED with this recipe for homemade bread. It's super EASY and delicious.   I discovered it a few weeks ago.  No need to knead this bread - you make the dough on the weekends, throw it in the fridge and make fresh bread in less than five minutes whenever you want it over the course of the next TWO weeks. )

 

I told you it was easy.

 

Apparently, there are additional books out on different versions of this bread.  You can bet those books are going on my Christmas list.

 

If you try the soup, let me know what you think.  I was thinking it might be good to put applesauce in it too!

 

Enjoy!

 

 

Winter Love

I keep hoping the Groundhog is right and that Winter is nearly over. 

And then we get more snow.

So I figured instead of complaining, I'd celebrate what I love about Winter to get me
through these last few weeks.



Hot cocoa

Knitting

Freshly fallen snow resting on pine trees

Making snowmen (this was a couple of years ago . . . in APRIL. Let's hope we aren't making snowmen in April this year).

Taking walks in winter (though I don't go as often as I'd like)

Putting a coat on Maggie

Seeing streams peaking their way through the snow

The joy in Imani's face when she plays in the snow.

Hearing the crunching beneath my feet

And seeing that another creature walked the same path before me.

Imani's obsession with feety pajamas, even though she's ten years old.

What do you love about Winter?

Today's the Day!

Yes, it's the day that Verizon FINALLY will be offering the iphone 4, although I'm still not sure I'll be  getting it because now I'm addicted to my Droid, but you never know.

But today is also the day my parents brought me into this world more than 30 years ago :-)

Don't ask me why I have a Mohawk . . . My parents swear they didn't cut my hair that way but it does

look awfully straight, doesn't it?

In celebration of all things Stephenie, I am going to list 25 random facts about myself

(because really, I still feel like I'm 25).

1. I am a HUGE chocolate lover. I consider it a food group and eat at least one piece every day.

2. I played basketball, softball (and soccer briefly) in high school.

3. I originally went to college to be a journalist.

4. Then switched to teaching

5. And somehow ended up in sales.

6. I am always thinking of opening my own business.

7. Before I met Jason, I was a single mom -- an experience that gave me
more strength than I ever thought I had.

8. I prefer natural, unmedicated childbirth but I don't judge those who choose medication.

9. I am seven and a half month's pregnant with a little boy, who is still nameless.

10. I've always wanted to learn to downhill ski.

11. I loved to roller skate as a kid (my best childhood friend Jennifer and I RULED the roller skating floor with our backward skate!)

12. I have one older sister whom I adore.

13. I secretly want to stay home instead of work but I have a good gig and have trouble giving it up.

14. I love to read, but don't read as much as I'd like.

15. I'm an avid knitter.

16. I won a Home and Careers Award in the eighth grade
 (but I wasn't really crafty until I was inspired by magazines and blogs).

17. My husband and I love to work out and eat fairly clean
(except during this pregnancy and my chocolate each day:-)

18. I'm very social and like to host parties.

19. I love shoes.  They are my favorite part of any outfit.

20.   I like to dress up and wear make up.

21. I wish I were a morning person and have tried on several occasions to make myself one without success.

22. I believe in God

23. I tell my daughter not to wake me up before 10 am on weekends
(which will quickly come to an end once the baby is born!). It doesn't mean I sleep until 10 every weekend,
but the rule is in place in case I want to! 

I cannot believe I just shared that. 

Yes, I'm spoiled.

24. I don't really watch television but often wish I could get more into it
so I wouldn't feel out of the loop!

25.  I'm lucky. I win a lot of random things.

Thanks for letting me share 25 things about myself with you on my special day.

I hope you'll eat something chocolate today.

New Year's Traditions

Happy 2011!

Every year, we are invited to a few New Year's Eve parties and every year we decline.

Part of the reason is that I don't like to be on the roads on New Year's Eve.

But the bigger reason is that I really enjoy our family traditions.

Jason, Imani and I bring in the New Year quietly . . . with just the three of us watching Dick Clark's
New Year's Eve party.

And eating a whole lot of junk - chips and dip (which I only eat on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve), soda, shrimp cocktail and whatever Christmas candy we can find.

This year we added Candy Cane Valley and Sprinkle Delights to the menu.

And Imani and I prepare three cups of confetti for the big countdown.

 

And Jason gets three glasses of bubbly.

 

Which is really just this. . .

And when the ball drops, we celebrate with our confetti and drinks . . .

 

And then we head into the kitchen to make ice cream sundaes.

 

They taste better than they look!  I made mine with Reese's Peanut Butter sauce and chocolate this year.   Imani loads hers with as many sprinkles and cherries as possible.

 

New Year's Day is spent sleeping in, taking down Christmas decorations and watching The Twilight Zone Marathon on the Sci-Fi channel.

Happy New Year! May the New Year bring you lots of

warmth

love

success

. . . and sugar.


I'd love to hear how you bring in the New Year!

Gingerbread House Workshop

One of my favorite holiday traditions is making gingerbread houses.  Since we aren't having a Christmas party this year, I decided we'd have a small get together with family and friends to host a gingerbread house workshop.

I supplied the gingerbread and icing and I constructed the houses in advance so that they would be dried and sturdy for decorating. Each family brought a variety of candies to share.

We ended up having an abundance of candy!   Each family was given an egg carton to select candies they wanted to use for their construction.

So we turned on the Christmas music and each family planned their house.






And began decorating.

And their visions of gingerbread houses began to come to life.

The finished products looked delightful.

There was so much candy left over that I was able to send it with Imani to school for their Gingerbread House party.

If you are not feeling up to making gingerbread, you can buy the pre-made kits, but they are a bit expensive and they don't offer a lot of candy options.  You can also find the pre-made gingerbread pieces in the bakery or bulk-food section of the supermarket (which is what I used). They are less expensive than the kits (the pieces were $3.99 at my local supermarket).  The kits were $12.99.

Or if you want to skip the gingerbread all together, you could use a paper mache house and spray paint it brown like Eddie Ross did here.

His finished product could fool anyone! It's perfect.

 

Have fun!

Keeping the Cape

As many of you know, Jason and I put an offer in on a big house out in the country and it was accepted.  The house was beautiful -- it was a renovated 1840s colonial and I was excited to have found it.

The entire process of listing my house and putting it on the market was far more emotional than I thought it would be.  I never realized just how attached I was to this little cape.  But we forged ahead, excited about our new venture.

To make a very long story short . . . as beautiful as a house might appear at times, what matters most is the home's structure.  Unfortunately, the home we were about to purchase had major structural problems.  Sometimes, when you want something really really badly, you try deny reality.  I was denying reality for quite some time in the process, but it became very evident that the structure had more damage than we were willing to take on and we decided to back out.

We thought about looking for another house, but after such an emotionally draining experience, we began noticing all the things we love about this little Cape and we've decided we love what we have.

Grace, at Sense and Simplicity is hosting a little blog party to list the five things you love about your home, and in looking around . . . I realized there is a lot I love about my house.

My house isn't overwhelmingly unique or awe-inspiring like this barn that was converted to a house (one of Jason's favorite type of houses by the way)

contemporary exterior design by dc metro architect Blackburn Architects, PC

contemporary exterior design by dc metro architect Blackburn Architects, PC

contemporary exterior design by dc metro architect Blackburn Architects, PC

And my house isn't some 1800s Tudor revival mansion with a manicured lawn

traditional exterior design by chicago architect Eifler & Associates Architects

traditional landscape design by chicago architect Eifler & Associates Architects

My house doesn't have any incredibly fancy amenities, like an infinity pool.
 
(Who in the world owns these places and what do they do for a livng?!)

tropical pool design by hong kong architect Original Vision Limited

contemporary pool design by George W Girvin & Associates

contemporary landscape design by vancouver landscape architect THOMAS KYLE: Landscape Architecture

 My house is just a cozy little Cape Cod in a small town in Upstate New York.

I know, we have GOT to do something with those steps!

So, in looking around, there are a lot of things I love, but I will narrow it down.  You'll find that I'm not that difficult to please.

Probably one of the single best features about my house is the enormous family room with cathedral ceilings.

 

With skylights, sliding glass doors, plenty of windows and a big bay window where we sit and watch unusually large herds of deer roam through our backyard, what's not to love about this space?

 

But the best part about this room is that at Christmas time, we get the biggest tree we can find!
 

Another feature of my house that I love is my deck.  It's not big or elaborate, but I enjoy sitting out there and having a cup of coffee in the morning or reading in the afternoon on the weekends (sorry for the rain in this photo . . .)

Another feature of my house that I love is the gas fireplace in our sitting room.  I have to confess that we cannot use it to actually have a fire because, although it's new, it sets the smoke detector off every single time we start it!  We need to address that this year, but I still love having it. 

I love the slate tiles Jason put in and I enjoy having a mantel to decorate (which currently needs an update).

Okay, the next thing I love is really silly and Jason will likely make me remove the photo if he reads this.  I love the marble tile he installed in the entry of my house.

Jason didn't really have any experience tiling and I picked out marble for the entry.  If you know anything about tiling, which we obviously didn't at the time, you'd know that marble is difficult to cut.  It is very soft and breaks really easily.  What should have been a small project turned out to be quite costly because of the many cutting mistakes.

To make matters worse, Jason wanted to just lay the tiles all straight and perpendicular.  I, of course, wanted a diamond shape in the center with little tiles bordering the center tile.  I haven't laid a single tile in my entire life and I am not the greatest at math with angles and cuts so I had no idea what trouble my idea would cause.  All I knew was that I saw something similar in a magazine and thought it'd be cool to have it in my house.

Jason argued with me that it was too difficult, so being the brat that I can sometimes be, I said, "Fine Jason. Just don't do it.  I'll just hire someone who can do it the way I want it done.  Forget about it."

But my good husband set out to tackle what he didn't know how to do and, in my opinion, it came out great.  I love this tile;  Jason hates it.  He sees his imperfections, but every time I look at it and see that diamond, I see my husband figuring out how to make my wish come true.

Like my bubble-gum pink toes dangling off that step?!  That pedicure was a celebration that recently, I survived lay-offs in my job .. . but I digress!

Back to what I love about my house.  Of course, I love my new tiled bathroom . . .

with a pebbled-floor shower. . . .

But what I love most about my house isn't any particular room.  I love that this house sat on the market forever and everyone laughed at it because it was so hideous and smelly.   But I had a vision, and Jason made it happen.

Every inch of my house has my husband's time and love poured into it.  He obtained his degree in Fine Arts and I often complain that he isn't doing anything with it but when I wake up each day, I realize his art is all around me. 

Our house has been his canvas.