New thrifty finds

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been? 
Well I haven't been to London to visit the Queen, I can tell you that! 
I feel like I've been in a sort of self-imposed exile from all of my decorating, vintage treasures, and good ol' junk-hunting. Do you ever get side-tracked into another area of interest that pulls you away and suddenly you realize you've been neglecting something for awhile that used to make you really happy?
Yep, that's me. A couple weeks ago I allowed myself to get sucked back into the world of politics - reading and commiserating with like-minded pol-junkies about some the stuff going on in this beloved U.S.A. of ours, and quite honestly it depressed me to the point where I withdrew a bit from reading and commenting on all my favorite beautiful blogs. 
Add to that a new blogging project that I launched (well, am 99% ready to launch - no, it's not a political blog! LOL)... and well, I've just been MIA around here for bit.  I'm happy to say I did a little junking today and came away quite happy: I spent less that FIVE dollars! Here's what I picked up.  
A set of two deep-green fluted vases, each about 4 inches tall, 79 cents each: 

A sweet little plate featuring my favorite Spring birdies for $1.99: 

And this 11x14 frame for 99 cents, with the routed inside edges so I can fit a painted canvas inside it. I'll be painting it off-white: 

Also, before I went on hiatus a few weeks ago, I found this gorgeous covered casserole dish for $1.99. Now I need a "covered casserole" like I need another hole in my head, but this thing has SUCH a  pretty shape, was in pristine condition, and the colors and scrolly design are really pretty. You can see the backstamp in one of the photos below - it is the Signature Collection, Queen Anne pattern, made in Japan. 

Alongside it were cups, saucers, berry bowls, bread plates, luncheon plates and a sugar/creamer set, all in the same pattern, for 79 cents per piece. I picked up 4 each of the bread plates, luncheon plates and berry bowls   - trying to leave some for someone else to discover, and trying to stick to buying what I knew I might actually use. (I actually tried to sell all these pieces on Ebay after I got them home, but no takers. That's okay - I wanted to keep them anyway!) 
How about you - what have you found lately? 
More soon,

Child's clay pottery pieces

Happy Valentine's Day! I am linking this week to one of my favorite link parties, Suzanne's Vintage Thingie Thursday. I love browsing through all the treasures! 


One day - let's call it 10 years ago - while digging through the bins of loose junk at a thrift store, I spied a little piece of glazed, molded clay. I pulled it out of the bin and quickly realized: it was a small clay "monster," obviously made by a child.

Call it PMS, but I got pretty emotional thinking that someone’s mother had likely died and their child’s handmade art got donated to the thrift store. 

Needless to say, my soft collector's heart fell in love with this little guy. So I took him home, and for the next several years I picked up "clay projects" with surprising frequency - to the point where I had a pretty impressive collection of orphaned childs' pottery. 

I actually re-donated many of these pieces after I pulled them from storage following the flood in 2008 that took our house. But I've kept the Monster Guy, and a few other favorite pieces, and thought I was done with this phase of my collecting. 
Until about two weeks ago, when I happened upon this hefty heart dish at the Goodwill. 

My daughter spied it first, pointed it out, and I actually said, "Oh, it's really nice but I don't buy clay projects anymore."  

"Are you sure?" she asked. "It's pretty big, and it's only 99 cents." At that point I took it from her and began to inspect it. It was covered in little stamped markings, probably using similar tools that made the "teeth" of Monster Guy. 

Even with the pretty red and yellow sides, and the generous size, I was going to put it back until I turned it over and read the writing on the back: 

"To: Samtha Samantha, From: Kyle with love"
Someone please tell me I'm not the only one who gets emotional over these things... 

Cleaning an antique wool hooked rug: don't try this at home

I'm almost afraid to admit this, but I decided to toss my possibly antique wool hooked rug into the washer and dryer in hopes of restoring it to some sort of less-than-disgusting condition. 
It worked... for me. But consider yourself warned: DON'T try this on your cherished heirloom rug and then try to sue me when it falls apart in the washer. The ONLY reason I tried this on my rug was that it was specifically NOT a family heirloom. It was a good thrifty vintage find, the right colors for the right price... but it has always been really, really dirty, and to be honest, I wasn't entirely thrilled with having it in the house. 
Here it is the day I brought it home... it's about 3 feet by 4 feet in size. 

This "before" picture hopefully shows you how faded, dirty and matted-down the fibers were. 

I first tried to clean this rug last year by laying it out in the yard and blasting it with the garden hose. ("Sheep get wet, and they don't shrink," I reasoned.) It took for-ever to dry, and even then I felt like it wasn't clean. Plus it had grass clippings on it. So I put it in the dryer, and it came out nice and soft, but not as "revitalized" as I had hoped from a cleanliness standpoint. 
This time around, I decided to go all in. I set the washer on cold water, put the rug in by itself with a dash of liquid soap, and let 'er rip. When I opened the washer, quite honestly I was sorry I'd done it: there were globs of loose, wet, matted wool all over the drum, and I was sure I had ruined the rug. I peeled all the loosened wool off the rug (and cleaned out the washer). To my surprise, after doing that, it really looked like the only actual damage was to a small section of the binding. So I went ahead and put it in the dryer. 
An hour later when I pulled it out of the dryer, I was pleasantly surprised. 

Yes, I ruined a bit of the binding. I believe this would not have happened if I'd thought to set the washer on the gentle cycle. These two photos show the same section of binding, top and bottom. 

But, the rug itself was soft, and clean, and smelled like a dryer sheet. The colors really are beautiful, and the loops are no longer matted. This rug is welcome back in the Mom cave, even with the battle-scarred binding.  

Again, please remember: for me this worked because I had just $20 and zero emotion invested in my rug. And I got lucky, because the "sheep don't shrink" theory holds somewhat true. 
However, the "sheep come apart in the washing machine" theory is also somewhat true. And I would hate for that to happen to your family treasure. 
More soon, 

Printer cozy part 2, and a freebie

I noted on Twitter this past week that things change quickly - sometimes daily! - in the ol' Mom cave. I recently showed a picture of the cute little cozy I made for our scanner/printer, using a finished standard pillow sham. I sewed up the corners and made a nicely-fitting box cover. 

Well, "the rest of the story" is that this is only one of two printers that we owned, and both of them were out of ink. Needless to say, we finally came to the point where we HAD to print something, and also needless to say, we discovered it was cheaper to buy one new all-in-one unit than to replace the ink in both of them. 

So - short version: we got a new all-in-one printer, but it's more square than rectangular and now my cute little cozy doesn't fit properly! 

Now it's not all bad news... the good news is that we can print, remotely, with the cozy on. We only have to remove it if we want to use the document feed on top for multiple pages, or the scanner. So while the cozy doesn't fit as well as it did on the other one, this unit is functional while still "sort of" covered with shabby roses! 
The other bit of serendipity here is that by getting rid of two pieces of equipment, I freed up the top of this very pretty antique table for a display or vignette of some sort. 

In other news, at work this week someone had set this little cutie on a table in the employee breakroom with a sign attached, "Free to a good home." My first thought was that the basket was a little too "cute country" for my current tastes, but my second thought was "spray paint." So, with the notion that I might eventually paint the basket, I snatched it up.  

I have to admit, it's kinda growing me just as it is. (Ha! get it? GROWING on me... because it's greenery... oh I crack me  up!) 
How was your week? :) 
More soon, 

Office chair slipcover - a romancey makeover

I'm so excited to be able to share this little project with you! It's one of the elements of the Mom Cave that really needed to be brought in line with the look of the room, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. In the end, I just love how it turned out. It's my office chair - a thrifted bargain at $8, with good back support and one stray wheel that sometimes slides across the floor rather than turning.

After considering a tailored re-upholster where I would actually remove the padded parts and recover them, I decided instead to go with the "slipper chair" look of a slip cover. Advantages: removable, washable, and a whole lot less frustrating than trying to figure out how to take this chair completely apart.  After thinking and studying on this for quite awhile (we're talking MINUTES, people!), I decided that I would further simplify by doing a two-piece outfit where the top and bottom just easily slip into place. Here's the result: 

Isn't she just super-cute? She looks like she's wearing bloomers!  

Fabrics were all from my stash: a beautifully aged patio cushion cover...

A standard pillow sham, deconstructed (it was this tutorial on doing a ruffle that gave me the shove I needed to go forward with this project!)...

...and an ivory colored eyelet bedskirt. 

Her top is a section of the cushion cover, sewn with slightly rounded corners like the cozy I made for my can opener in the kitchen. I sewed a bit of the bedskirt to the back. This piece, of course, fits by just slipping it over the back of the chair. 

The new seat cover isn't even enclosed - it's just a flat piece, with the ruffle and bedskirt sewn around. It fits by just tucking it in to the junction between the existing back and seat of the chair. 

Now make no mistake, I think Little Miss Fancy Pants here is adorable... but the true test is whether all this new finery has impacted her functionality as office furniture. My helper assures me it has not. 

(Gratuitous cat picture: doesn't Lily look pleased that I have disturbed her slumber?)

Doesn't it just make you want to sing, "Three Little Maids From School?" 
No? 
Maybe that's just me :) 

I'll be sharing my sweet little office chair makeover at these lovel parties: 

Feathered Nest Friday over at French Country Cottage
Show & Tell Friday at My Romantic Home
Saturday Night Special at Funky Junk Interiors

Sew Cute Tuesday at Better Off Thread 

More soon, 

Using multiple Twitter accounts on Instagram

Sorry for dumping this post into your feed... I simply wanted a place to store this info, so I could link out to it from other places. It's related to using Instagram with more than one Twitter account. So, if you're on Twitter and Instagram, maybe you'll find it helpful. Otherwise, return to your homes... nothing to see here. :) 
Okay I admit it: I have more than one Twitter account. One of them is for my motorcycle blog, and the other is for this blog and my craft and decorating life. (You can find The Painted Piglet on Twitter here!) 

Photo Credit: Wanelo

Also, I recently discovered Instagram - a photo editing and sharing app that takes a photo, lets you apply a creative filter or two, and then shares it with your Twitter, Facebook, or other social networks. (You can follow me on Instagram here!) 
The problem for me is, my biker friends are not necessarily interested in my craft-related photos, and my crafty friends probably couldn't care less about the latest chromey bit on my motorcycle. 
So, I was hoping to find a way to link my Instagram account with both of my Twitter accounts, so that when I snapped a photo I could easily choose which account to share it with.  
Unfortunately, Instagram apparently doesn't accommodate multiple personalities like mine. So I figured out a work-around, and thought I would share it in case you have the same issue. 
But be warned, it's not that great of an option and Instagram really needs to work on this ASAP. Basically what you're doing in Instagram is unlinking one Twitter account, and linking another, manually.    But first a few important reminders: 
a. No matter which Twitter account you share your photo with, on Instagram they're all going to appear on your one Instagram feed. Instagram is the place where all your photo worlds collide! 
b. The work-around has to be done before you snap a photo. Once you take a picture or load one from the camera roll, you can't go off and do anything else in Instagram (except cancel the operation) until you're done editing and sharing it. 
c. In my case, I discovered that Instagram is pulling my Twitter account information from the Twitter app on my phone (iPhone 4). So even though I use another app to tweet (Tweetcaster), I still had to make sure I had the actual app called Twitter on my phone, and loaded with all the accounts I wanted Instagram to find. I'm guessing the same will be true for you.
d. Think ahead! Be sure your Instagram app is linked to the Twitter account you think you'll be using on a given day. If I am heading off to the antique mall or flea market, I'm going to make sure Instagram is linked to The Painted Piglet. If I'm off to explore the backroads of Iowa with my merry band of biker pals, I'll make sure it's set to my biker account. 
Okay so after all that, here's the work-around. Again, what you're doing here is un-linking and re-linking Instagram to different accounts. Assuming you have Instagram already linked to one Twitter account, here's how to un-link and then re-link to a different one.  

1. Tap the Profile icon in the lower right corner of Instagram to go to your Profile. 

2. Tap the cog to access your Settings. 

3. Tap "Share Settings." 

4. Tap "Twitter." 

5. Tap "Unlink." 

6. Tap "Yes, I'm sure." 

7. Now you're back to the "Share Settings" screen. Tap "Twitter" again. 

8.  Instagram pulls up a list of the Twitter accounts that are connected to the Twitter app on your device. (See Reminder "c" above.) Tap the account you want to link Instagram to. 

Instagram will connect and you'll now see the Twitter account name off to the right again. 

9. Once the "Connected" message fades away, you can click the camera icon to return to the camera. From here you can snap a photo, or load one from your camera roll. 
Yes, you have to do this every time you want to share to a different Twitter account. Frankly, it's a pain in the butt.  Of course, if I'm out at the antique mall and I see something that might interest my biker friends, I can always snap the photo with my camera app instead of with Instagram. The photo will immediately save to the camera roll. Then later, I can go through the unlink/link work-around again and load/edit/share that picture from the camera roll with the other account. Or I could share it right away using TwitPic or Facebook or whatever, and skip Instagram altogether. 
Wouldn't it be so much easier if I could simply tap "Next" when I'm done applying filters, then tap "Twitter" on the Share Photo screen, then be shown one more screen that lists all my Twitter accounts? 
Yes, yes it would. I hope Instagram is working on that. And by the way, if YOU know of an easier way to toggle between Twitter accounts on Instagram, please Please PLEASE share it in the comments! Maybe I have just completely missed it. If so, I'd love to know the real way to do this! 
More soon,