I was a member of my company team again this year, which is definitely the way to roll! As a member of a large team, you get a private team bus to take you to the starting point, and you get a private team tent to party under at the halfway point. Every year there is a contest for the best-decorated team tent. Our team picked a decorating/party theme of Mexican Fiesta this year, so our tent was decked out with colorful decorations, maracas and sombreros!

Our team mascot is a banana, so I decided I’d make our mascot into a pinata to go along with our theme!

First, my dear husband created this amazing 3-dimensional cardboard base for me. I filled it up with candy, added a strap to hang it up with, and taped it shut.

Next, I covered the cardboard base with a layer of newspaper strips. I used a paste made from flour and water. It’s messy, but washes off easily.

Then I wrapped this with a layer of crepe paper (it’s the stardard stuff on a roll that you buy at party/paper supply stores). I used the same flour paste on this.

For the next layer, I made slits in the crepe paper before I glued it on in order to get that authentic pinata look. For this I used YES! paste. I think it’s really designed for scrapbooking and book arts, but it worked swell for this. It’s a little thicker, allowing me to apply more accurately than I can with the flour paste, so only the non-slit edge gets glued down to maintain that “fluffy” look! I also added on arms and legs made from twisted-together pipe cleaners. I just poked holes in the pinata and stuck them on with gobs of glue.

Finally, I added facial features, hands, and feet that I printed on a laser printer. I printed two of each hand and foot as mirror images of each other and glued each set together with the pipe cleaners in between. The face parts were laminated before I glued them on to make them more sturdy.

We named him Juan! When he was hung in the middle of our tent, a sombrero was added, and maracas were taped to his hands. The kids on the team had a great time busting him open and eating all the candy goodness inside! It was a fun addition to the party.

So here are some favorites from today:

1950’s Better Homes and Gardens Magazines (2 for $1) - These have great vintage advertisements and illustrations! Love them!

Heavy pedestal made from an old newel post ($30) - My husband and I both liked this and thought it would look nice in our basement when we’re done with the remodeling. We’ll probably use it as a plant stand.

1982 Stuffed Talking Meow Mix Cat ($10) - This was a little spendy for my taste, but this thing has a pull cord on it and it talks in the cutest voice! It kind of sings a tiny little bit of that Meow Mix song, like it was the precursor to that.

Vintage Kittens book ($2), vintage tiger-striped cat figurine ($3) - I have a bit of a collection going for books that feature vintage cat illustrations. I love cats.

In addition to this stuff, I got some cookbooks, some DVDs, a few craft supply items and such.

One thing I enjoy on the sly at garage sales, are the opportunities to peek into other people’s lives. Each sale is like a little mystery. The clues you get are the items for sale, the idle chatter of the people running the sale, the state of the garage/house/yard and maybe a peek through an opened door. It is interesting to find out what family members live together in the house/apartment, what sort of things they like to do, what topics they are interested in… You can see struggles that people have gone through, things they have given up on. Commonly: diet books, exercise equipment, furniture that has been poorly re-painted, furniture that has been partially stripped and given up on, car parts that never made it onto a car, dusty sporting equipment…

We went to one sale in a house that looked like a duplex, but it was really a small apartment building with 4 separate little apartments. The sale holder was a tough-looking old fella, I’d guess he was in his 70’s. When I first walked into his apartment, I’d pegged this as a more typical, average sale with old VHS tapes, exercise equipment, some old clothing… But the sale extended into a few of the bedrooms in his place. In the first bedroom we went into there was a stamp collection in albums and as I started flipping through it, the man came in and said that it was his wife’s and that she was Japanese and the stamps were saved from her correspondence with friends. I was struck by how he referenced her in the past tense. I did not want to inquire, well maybe I wanted to, but I didn’t think it would be polite. Then I noticed on his walls some framed certificates regarding service in the US Airforce. Perhaps he met his wife in Japan when he went there on a tour. In the next room, there were some Japanese antiques for sale, and as I admired them he talked about how he and his wife had returned to Japan three times when she was alive, but that she didn’t want to live there again. She loved it here (in the USA) because it was less crowded. At this point, I started to feel a little sad. His wife was definitely dead, and he seemed so alone. Even though he had pictures of some smiling grandchildren on his walls, he seemed so lonely, so alone to me. His face didn’t look like one that smiled easily, so worn, so tired. I don’t know how long his wife had been gone, but I imagine it wasn’t that long–among the items for sale were things like a plastic shower seat, various mobility devices. There were two lidded teacups with writing in Japanese, one said Grandma, the other Grandpa. I felt like he was selling memories. I felt like he was desperate. There was a sign on the wall over her stamp collection in the other room, and the price was crossed off and reduced 5 times. As I had casually flipped through it, he’d said he would take less. He said that regarding everything I touched or looked at. It made my heart ache a little bit that there wasn’t really anything I needed or really wanted to buy.

They are not dated, but I would place them in the late 50’s or 60’s. The Birthday Seals being the oldest… back when gay meant happy, festive, jolly. Inside the front cover it says “USE Gay, Colorful Eureka Seals…”.

Next up, I found this bunch of humorous linen embroidery kits for 75 cents each. We have: Next week we’ve got to get organized, Plan Ahead, Home Sweet Home, No Job Is Finished Until The Paperwork Is Done, and Don’t Worry About Your Station In Life - There Is Always Someone To Tell You Where To Get Off.

They each include the pre-printed design on linen, instructions and embroidery floss.

Finally, this fanciful red stuffed lion. Maybe from the 60’s? It’s about 6.5″ tall. There’s a little cloth tag that says it’s made in Japan. It is very well stuffed, not squishy at all. This cost me $5, but I’ve never seen one like it and it was so cute and retro, I decided it was worth that.

To make these, we spread cheap shaving cream on a plastic bag (surface protectant), dripped thin acrylic paint on the cream, and then swirled it around using various implements (fork, chopstick, spatula…). Then we took a piece of cotton muslin and patted it down over the whole mess. Left it to soak/set for about 5 minutes, then peeled it off and rinsed it under running water. I liked making swirl patterns! These aren’t quite dry yet.

I think I’ll do some cool random stitchery over these later on…

Cross-posted at Thing-a-day

Thing 1: A crystal ball made from seed beads and Swarovski crystal beads (4mm size). I’ll probably make another one of these on another day, so I can make a pair of earrings.

Thing 2: My husband is off on a business trip for a few days and I miss him a helluva lot. He’s a hardcore retro gamer, so I thought I’d do a little pixely cross stitchery in his honor.

Itsa me Mario! With fire power!

Cross posted at Thing-a-day