On The Road Again
Getting Sandy
We snuck off to the beach over Memorial Day weekend to spend some time with John’s family (at their amazing beach house near Bethany Beach, Delaware) so we thought we’d share our house-related adventures. A while back a reader (thanks Ann!) recommended checking out The Old Screen Door in Lewes (about 30 mins from Bethany), so we took a drive out there and it was the cutest little town (which boasts that it was the first town in the first state). Here’s the front of the shop:
It’s not very big inside, but there’s a collection of really fun old stuff going on (mixed with some new stuff to keep things interesting).
And Clara loves bikes. Well she loves lots of things (birdies, duckies, doggies, kitties, cars, blocks, her stuffed giraffe that she affectionately named Gee, etc) so it was no surprise to us that she honed in on this cool metal tricycle as soon as she saw it.
So like typical parents with no willpower we bought it for our office (since it’s really not meant for riding, but it’s fun to look at and we’re all in there all the time). At thirty beans it wasn’t exactly free but we like to pick up one or two “house things” whenever we travel (that way they have a vacation memory attached to them, which seems to make them more special). Here are some better shots that we snapped of it back in Richmond yesterday:
We don’t have a specific spot for it in the office yet, but we figure once we add more storage and cabinetry it’ll look pretty sweet in there. Of course, no sooner had we put our purchase in the car did we look at each other and simultaneously realize that it kinda reminded us of the creepy tricycle from the Saw movies:
So even though it should give us the heebie-jeebies it somehow makes us laugh (and thereby love it a little bit more). Ah random quirkiness – gotta have some of that to make a house a home.
But back to our visit to The Old Screen Door. I was also head over heels in love with this tiny outdoor chair (it was the best weathered gray color) but at $65 (which isn’t bad, we’re just cheap) we decided to leave it there for the next baby to enjoy.
Then we drove over to downtown Lewes which is a gorgeous tree-lined street full of shops and goodies (like a store called Cake Bar). Clara had a ball in Kids Ketch (a toy store packed with fun stuff). Here she is perusing the monster collection that hung from a clothesline across the entryway:
She especially liked a small green doll called Groody. Let’s just say that Groody’s tag cracked us up (if you can’t read it, it says: Groody is a pretty relaxed, easy going, energetic, stressed out, moody broody mess! Aaaaaahhhhh! Did I just close that door? It was a ghost! Did I send that e-mail to the wrong person!!??? You get the picture. If you are willing to help him on his quest for inner peace he will help you on your quest for whatever dealio you got going. His first though).
Hilarious. Oh and remember snap bracelets? I wore one as a scrunchy in grade school. Oh yeah, I was that cool. Anyway, they had snap bracelet watches that brought me back.
But we left without Groody or the snap bracelet watch (sometimes it’s just fun to window shop and spend a few bucks on ice cream as you walk around). Oh and speaking of window shopping, I spied this cute little pig planter through the window of a flower store. Totally my idea of a good time. In the words of A.C. Slater, “oink, oink babe.” <– audio clip here
One of the most fun places that we popped into was this little alley marked “Antique Mall”:
Inside were some of the most amazing collections of cool stuff that I’ve seen in a while. Like these pretty oversized mercury glass finial-like accents and the fun antique bronze porthole mirror:
And this insane to the membrane (well, to mine at least) wood horse. He was $250 firm, so I hugged him and then moved on. Not without telling him I loved him first (see, he made me go crazy).
I also fell in love with this amazing print about Kalamari (at over $200 I had to pass it up, but I still daydream about it for at least twenty minutes a day):
And this tin whale thingie was, in the words of my girl Bethenny Frakel, amazeballs. It’s hard to explain but you could rock the whale back and forth and the mouth would open and close and the eye would move from left to right. In short, he was cooler than my snap bracelet scrunchy.
And then there were these baskets. I loved how tightly they were nested (the whole set was muy expensive, but they also sold them individually).
What did we get? Well, right as we were about to leave we noticed a little stand of iron birds and sea turtles for $6 a pop. And you might remember that I have a thing for sea turtles thanks to our moving-day experience and a certain necklace from Cougartown (more on that here). So we decided to take this little guy home with us.
So our total spent for the day was around $40 (including our $30 bike, our $6 sea turtle, and some ice cream to enjoy while strolling around Lewes). It was a good day. Oh and there were such cute houses too. Like this one with not one but two giant concrete dogs out front (we were driving so I only caught one):
And this inviting little beach palace with crisp white trim and a picket fence:
And this guy complete with gargoyles guarding the hydrangeas:
Of course we also had our fair share of family time and beach hijinks. Here’s a little slice of that for all you Clara-loving folks (hi mom):
And for some reason Clara really enjoyed yelling at the ocean, so we snagged a short iPhone video of her royal loudness (John filmed it with his own extended arm, so that explains the odd cropping):
Oh and I read a lot of Bossypants aloud to John (he’s the driver for our road trips, so I’m in charge of entertainment while Clara and Burger are in charge of sleeping) and we both thought it was hilarious. So I guess I’ll fill in where Oprah’s Book Club left off and recommend it.
That’s all she wrote. What did you guys do for Memorial Day? Any other beach trips or window shopping excursions? Anyone else who wore repurposed a snap bracelet as a scrunchy?
Psst- Creepy saw tricycle image from here.
Psssst- We announced this week’s giveaway winner. Click here to see if it’s you.
Easter Bid-ness
We’re pretty sure Clara has a new favorite holiday (although it could be that Easter is just the first major holiday that she’s finally old enough to really enjoy). Either way, someone had a fantastic Easter weekend.
Her love of Easter could also be skewed because as far as she knows, the festivities stretch over at least 5 days. We actually kicked things off last Wednesday with an egg hunt at a local park with her older cousins Jake (who turns 13 today! Happy Birthday Jake!) and Olivia (age 10), since they’d be spending Easter weekend with their dad’s side of the family this year.
She found two eggs (aka, Sherry and I handed her two eggs that my dad had left out in the open for her and her 18-month old cousin Emanuel to find). It was love at first sight. Literally, she couldn’t take her eyes off of them.
She refused to put down her beloved eggs as we continued to play on the nearby playground. Apparently the only thing better than swinging is swinging while holding an Easter egg.
That was Clara’s first of three Easter egg hunts. On Saturday we happened to be at the grocery store while they were hosting one (in the paper towel aisle, no less) for kids under seven. Clara left with one egg, a balloon, and a giant smile. But that of course was only another warm up for the official hunt that ensued on Easter morning.
The scene: the yard around my parents’ beach house in Delaware.
Clara’s mission (which she happily chose to accept): collect nine eggs.
Since her love of Easter eggs was still fresh from her previous hunts, we actually let her do some of the grabbing this time around (though most of the eggs still needed to be pointed out by Sherry and me). And since she has recently become fond of putting things away, dropping the coin-filled eggs in the basket came pretty naturally (though one egg always stayed in hand most of the time).
Her egg-huntin’ bucket was actually her Easter “basket” for the day. It was a tin from Target that we found for a few bucks and not only does it fit in with her nursery colors, it also fits in with her love of buckets (which probably slipped down a notch thanks to her newfound romance with Easter eggs).
You can read more about how we assembled a baby-friendly Easter basket right here on BabyCenter today (complete with details about those wooden Easter eggs that Sherry dyed with food – no kidding).
We also tossed in a bunch of Clara’s other favorite things (from cheerios to a big pile o’ ribbon, which always ends up exciting Clara more than the actual present that it comes with) so you can check out all those deets and some more pics here.
Oh yeah and of course we remembered to snap her weekly fabric-background picture, and we couldn’t resist giving it a bunny-esque slant. Yes that’s a real carrot. The girl loved it.
But as much as Easter baskets and egg hunts and bunny ears rocked Clara’s little world, perhaps the number one reason that Easter takes the cake for her is sand.
Since we enjoyed the weekend at my parents’ house near Bethany Beach, Delaware and we were graced with 80-degree temperatures, Easter involved an impromptu trip to the ocean (on both Saturday and Sunday, actually). Though the breeze on the beach meant it wasn’t quite bathing-suit weather, we definitely still had some good old fashioned beach fun.
Saturday’s trip got Clara reacquainted with sand, of which her only previous experiences involved being six weeks old and completely unaware of it and then having it blow in her face on our Valentine’s Day trip to Rehoboth Beach (which she didn’t like at all).
This time it was straight up sand love at first sight. There was lots of pinching it between her fingers, throwing it in the air and, yes, even a bit of “what does this taste like” going on (luckily the verdict was “not good” so that ended soon enough).
Sunday’s trip was a bit more dynamic (since it was already established that sand = friend, not foe). So there was a sandy crawling session…
…a hunt for seashells and apparently surfer boys (though neither were quite as exciting as the hunt for eggs hours earlier)…
…a brief fashion show (involving her new sunglasses from the nearby outlets, which were tolerated for about 10 seconds)…
…and spending some quality time with her mommy (who ditched her usual uniform of black shirts) and her fellow baby cousins (Emanuel and my sister Emily on the left, John and my sister Katie on the right). And yes, this was the most flattering picture of three babies on a windy beach that we were able to achieve. They’re squirmy little things.
Of course, all of adventures that made Clara fall in love with Easter also meant that it was a pretty darn good weekend for us grown-ups too. In addition to all of this, our cousins/BFFs Cat and Travis (who we mentioned here last week) had their baby! The Easter bunny stork dropped off Edison Dean on Sunday afternoon, so we were even able to swing by the hospital on our way home on Sunday night for a brief meeting. Everyone’s doing well by the way, including new big sister Elsa.
Oh and after all of that what-does-this-have-to-do-with-your-house stuff, Sherry and I were actually able to make some progress on our next big project all the way from the beach: patio planning. My dad is also planning to add a stone patio to the back of their beach house, so we helped him brainstorm a few shapes to choose from and even sketched out a general plan for the one that we’re going to tackle momentarily on the side of our house behind the carport (it’s accessible from the sliders in the living room and the sunroom). I’m sure we’ll be blabbing a lot more about that as we go, but we’ll leave you with these photos of the side yard where we’ll be adding some fencing (for privacy) and a paver patio (for a lot more outdoor living space while keeping some of the green stuff around for shade/beauty):
Here’s our little sketch of the plan – at least as it stands today (Sherry had some Photoshop fun):
It’s only early days though, so who knows where we’ll end up with it. All I know for sure is that Clara’s party is less than three weeks away and my charming-but-sometimes-a-bit-too-optimistic wife thinks we’ll be done by then. Should be interesting. But enough about us (at least until this afternoon’s post) – tell us about your weekend. Were there egg hunts and Easter baskets and bunny ears and prop carrots involved? Are there other born-on-Sunday babies that you know of?
Keeping It In The Family
Sherry, Clara, Burger and I took our little home-improvement-hungry hands on the road this past weekend to help out a few family members in Northern Virginia who, by coincidence, have also moved recently. There must be something in the water – or at least in our gene pool – that has us all relocating lately. First up was my little sister Carrie, who we managed to get zero pictures of so here’s a random shot that she sent me after the fact (that guy on the left is her boyfriend, Robert, who will be making another appearance momentarily).
Carrie just rented a new apartment in Northern Virginia last month (you may remember us helping with her first apartment in Philadelphia and her second one in NoVa). She’d been planning the move for a little while, so back around her birthday in February she hinted that she’d like help painting as her actual gift. So Sherry and I wrapped up this little token of our commitment (a painting stir stick with a paint can opener on the end) as her official “present.” It reads: Redeemable for 1 gallon of Olympic Premium Paint And Painting labor – may be exchanged for a Starbucks gift card at any time (since we figured Carrie deserved an out if she decided to forgo painting – or if her moving plans fell through).
But all systems were go, so we arrived early on Saturday morning to look at the space with her and help pick colors. She and Sherry had chatted about how she wanted a taupe-y tan with a smidge of gray for the bedroom (to match the curtains that Carrie already owned and would later hang). The verdict: Benjamin Moore’s Ashen Tan, color matched to zero-VOC Olympic Premium Paint. We gave her that brand as a gift because we love how pure it is (even the colorants are VOC free) since the bean was with us (we switched off watching her in another room while others got their paint on). We landed on Ashen Tan because it would cozy things up and add some warmth to the otherwise basic white box of a room without feeling too dark or crazy (since Carrie wanted something soothing and classic). Here’s a pic of the space before we arrived:
And here’s Robert and me in full on painting mode on Saturday. Robert earns major points for helping me roll the room while Sherry cut in and switched off with Carrie as “babysitter.” Forgive this terrible iPhone picture that Sherry grabbed in progress:
The two coats of paint that the room needed took about two hours to apply – almost less time than it took us to navigate rainy day traffic from her apartment to the nearest Lowe’s (which, lucky for Carrie, was next to a Starbucks) and back. When we came back the next morning to help put the room together again (once the walls were dry) the freshly painted room was looking much, much homier thanks to the warmer walls:
Carrie would be annoyed with me if I didn’t emphasize that she still has art, pictures, and curtains to hang (maybe we’ll share an update pic in a while). She also plans to gradually replace some of the Ikea furniture down the line with pieces that are a bit less common (perhaps a craigslist find or two). But we still think it looks quite nice for just moving in a few weeks ago. Isn’t it amazing how even something subtle on the walls can take a room from “generic rental” to “cozy home”?
Carrie also already owns a lot of great accessories that help add a happy splash of color here and there (with more to be hung, like art and curtains) so the room still feels vibrant despite the muted wall color. Because you know Sherry went nuts feathering the heck out of Carrie’s nest with things like the blue throw over the chair and the pillows on the bed and these colorful accents on her side table before we snapped any after pics. The girl can’t help herself.
Even Carrie’s cat Duncan seemed to be digging the cozier vibe. Something he didn’t dig very much? Having to be trapped in the bathroom while we painted. Thanks to his keen interest in the process (he kept trying to rub up against the paint can and tiptoe through the paint tray), it seemed like the best plan (but not to him, of course). As for Burger, he voluntarily camped out in his crate (aka, his home away from home).
Of course, my favorite picture from the day is this one – which I jokingly snapped while Sherry adjusted the side table. When she heard the shutter clicking and asked what I was shooting, I lied and said “just white balancing.” I figured I’d get a laugh (or at least an eye roll) when she spotted her less-photographed end in the day’s photos when we uploaded them. Never did I suspect that she’d let me put it in the post. Her response “oh why not, we’ll keep it real.” Best wife ever.
Carrie’s still planning to paint her living room, but the size of the apartment kept us from being able to clear two rooms at once. So it’s gonna have to wait a bit. But we did use this trip to help Carrie select a cheerful artichoke-y green color for those walls.
While Robert and I rolled (and rolled, and rolled) the ladies settled on Fennel Splash by Valspar (sorry, I’ve got no clue which one that is in the pic above). And when I say “ladies” I do include Clara in that group. Look how much interest she takes in paint swatches. That’s my girl.
After all of the Saturday painting adventures at Carrie’s new apartment, we headed about 15 minutes away to my cousin Travis’ house. Travis and his wife Cat and their almost-2-year-old daughter Elsa also moved last month (Cat is Sherry’s best friend of 11 years who we introduced to Travis, then they got married, and the rest is history). They needed a larger house because baby #2 is expected to arrive any day now (although Cat’s hiding it well in this pic we snapped, she’s actually due next week).
They’re a stylish bunch, so we’re excited to see them get more settled so we can eventually officially House Crash them. Even though they’ve only been in their new place about four weeks, we were already loving things like their new yellow and gray bedding (from Target) and the fun yellow rug (from Garnet Hill).
Sherry even found herself helping Cat with a small house project on Sunday morning – hanging a collection of frames in one of their spare rooms. Leave it to my wife to happily take a hammer to someone else’s walls.
Since it’s the last visit we’ll have with those three before they become four, Sherry also used it as a chance to deliver her homemade baby book for Myrtle (the placeholder name they’ve been jokingly using throughout Cat’s pregnancy). They haven’t found out if it’s a boy or a girl, so the book had to work for either one.
Sherry made it the same way that she created Clara’s homemade baby book (the template is free for you guys to download here). It’s basically just colorful scrapbook paper (from Michael’s) slipped into a sleeved scrapbooking album (also from Michael’s) with home printed labels on each page (from this template Sherry made) for listing lots of memorable moments. Like events and trends from the day he or she is born (for Clara’s we put The Snuggie and Justin Bieber hair)…
… and mom and dad’s predictions for baby’s features, firsts, and favorites (which we witnessed Cat and Travis fill out right then & there) – among other things like developmental milestones and all that good stuff.
We didn’t assemble all of Clara’s book until after she was born, which meant that creating one for a bun that was still in the oven required a few placeholders – like these little footprint cutouts that Sherry made (which will be replaced with the real thing once the baby arrives).
Despite how much we enjoyed all of the painting, picture hanging, food eating, baby watching, and competitive board game playing* – this was perhaps our most favorite moment of the weekend: when Elsa snuggled Clara and Clara leaned over and nuzzled her right back. And how miraculous was it that I actually had the camera on hand? Maybe that’s why I got to put Sherry’s butt in this post. I earned some major daddy points for capturing this cute Clara-Elsa cuddlefest.
*We mentioned board games as one of our oh-yeah-we’re-wild weekend activities with the fam (there’s nothing like blowing off some room-painting steam like a rousing game full of smack talk and competition). This time our game of choice was Apples to Apples, and we accidentally invented a fun slash weird variation that we thought we’d share. In each round we blindly threw in an extra red card from the deck for the judge to consider (we started calling this non-existent extra player “The Computer”). It’s surprising how many times the random card was chosen over the ones that us human players thought long & hard about (which created a fun everyone vs. The Computer rivalry and a few “I can’t believe that was random” moments when The Computer played the best card). In fact, The Computer nearly won the entire game but Travis narrowly beat it in the end by just one round. Crazytown. Do we know how to let our hair down or what?
And speaking of keeping it in the family, we’ll leave you with this video of Clara and Burger that we took after we got home. Just because it’s our favorite thing ever. Could our kids (both of the four-legged and two-legged variety) be any cuter? I don’t think so.
To Grandmother’s House We Go
A few weeks back we packed up the car, went over a few rivers, and through a bunch of woods to go see my 89-year-old grandmother (aka Granny) in Huntington, WV. It was primarily a weekend of eating and baby holding (is there anything better?) because we were joined by my parents, my cousin Erin, and her 2-month-old son Finn. But we managed to squeeze in a few side adventures that we thought you all might enjoy… which we would’ve shared sooner if most of the pictures weren’t stuck in photo purgatory on our old point-and-shoot camera (we finally found the camera cord that we lost during the move this weekend).
Here’s the obligatory “Clara with her great-Granny” shot. Aren’t they cute and purple-tastic?
We were only there for around 36 hours, meaning that Saturday was our big day packed full of stuff – like walking around town, shopping, going to the park, and getting ice cream. We even got Clara a new friend at a fun gift store called Mug and Pia after finally stumbling upon the giraffe Jellycat that we’d been looking for, oh, only the last ten months. As you can tell, Clara was super excited about it.
Mug and Pia also had these cool frames made from recycled tires where you could see all of the scratches and imperfections from their previous days on the road. The matte finish was actually really great.
Perhaps the most interesting adventure of the day was hitting up an area of town called Old Central City that’s bursting at the seams with antique and vintage shops.
And even though the outside makes it look kinda like an old western ghost town, the shops are crammed with cool stuff (and even the occasional person).
There were a bunch of beautiful / weird / quirky things that caught our eye in the half dozen or so antique shops that we popped into. For example, we thought these ornate white candle sconces were fun (and could probably rock a bold color like teal or plum).
And of course Sherry was attracted to just about every ceramic / glass / metal animal that she spotted, including this open-mouthed horse head (she finally proclaimed it “too grinny” and moved on)…
…and this big iron alligator (which was the favorite by far, but at nearly $30 it just wasn’t priced to come home with us).
I was more into things like these old books, which managed to look graphic and cool even when they were about boring topics like concrete. These could almost be mounted right to the wall (or popped into a shadow box) as art. Actually blowing up those covers and framing them or even getting them made into oversized canvases would be amazing. Boo on me for not buying them.
I’m also a sucker for old bottles and retro packaging, so this shelf of old timey toiletries and “snake oils” caught my eye. Although I was a bit grossed out that the Grenadine Syrup was still full of thick gloppy liquid. Nasty.
And of course, how could I not gravitate toward oversized typography like this art deco sign. It reminded us a lot of the letters in Chuck’s studio from this house crashing (second pic from the bottom). If the letters A, B, O or T had any special meaning to us I seriously would’ve tried to cram one into the car.
The one purchase we did make was this set of oversized decorative keys. They were 8 bucks for the whole set, and once Sherry gets out the ol’ white paint we hope to work them into our hallway frame gallery (pics when we do).
And no trip to an antique store is complete without seeking out those weird and wonderfully quirky items too. Like this beer sign that we laughed about hanging over Burger’s crate. It reads “You’ll like Burger: the beer you can stay with.” I don’t know why Clara wasn’t cracking up too. Probably because she can’t read.
One shopkeeper turned a vintage cheese grater into a light source by just stuffing some Christmas lights inside. Not a bad look, actually (we could picture a string of them placed down the center of a rustic old farm table).
And if you want to relive some political campaigns of yesteryear, these retro buttons have you covered – especially if you were a Carter / Mondale fan (there were TONS of those). So funny and random.
If trophies with chickens on them is more your speed, I left these two behind for ya. I liked pretending that someone won them in a series of weird competitions like “Most Chickens Carried During The 400-Yard Dash” and “Rooster Relay Semifinalist.”
My favorite discovery in the weird category was actually this blast-from-the-past sign that hung at the register of one of the shops. It’s a flyer from Yellowstone National Park warning visitors about buffalo attacks. My family actually got one of these when we visited Yellowstone in 1998. I thought it was so hilarious (maybe inappropriately so) that I saved it and hung it on my dorm room door in college. For some reason I was extremely entertained by the idea of my friends being warned that in my dorm room “many visitors have been gored by buffalo.”
I no longer have my copy (and this one was sadly not for sale) so if you ever come over to our house and are gored by a buffalo, my apologies that you were not adequately warned.
We continued the weird theme into lunch when we opted to grab lunch at Hillbilly Hot Dogs (not to perpetuate any West Virginia stereotypes or anything).
They were quite creative with the hillbilly theme – so if you’re going for that vibe in your house, start taking notes. Some of their more unique table options included one where you sat in a bathtub with a shower curtain around you (the fold-down table was even supported by a plunger). Another was an outhouse where your seats were – well, I’m sure you can guess what you’d sit on in an outhouse. On the right you can see my mom modeling the outhouse with baby Finn:
Oh, and if the decor isn’t enough of a reason to go, the hot dogs were definitely worth the trip. They’ve got a menu full of different options and toppings like pepperoni, eggs, bacon, slaw and salsa. Insane. But better than they looked (because we can admit that this picture might not convey the level of deliciousness that was enjoyed by all).
Now that we’ve shared photos of meat garnished with meat, we oughta wrap this up. Oh, and if anyone was wondering how Clara did during two 6.5-hour car rides just days apart – she was a champ. There was far less sleeping than the last time that we did the drive (back when she was 2.5 months old) but she managed to entertain herself for most of the trip. And we listened to her favorite CD (from baby music class) whenever she got grumpy. Let’s just say “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round The Mountain,” while appropriate for the scenery, got old. But Clara was happy, so all was well.
Actually, the only “rough” part of the trip was when Sherry accidentally sprayed the inside of the car with a must-have-previously-been-shaken can of Fresca from Granny. I was a case of Grandma sabotage I tell ya. Just kidding, it was most definitely an accident. Lucky for the rest of us, Sherry’s pants bared the brunt of the assault. Gotta love Señorita Sticky Legs for taking one for the team like that.
So that’s the latest on our travels. Have you guys been anywhere fun? We’re always looking for new places to check out so we’d love any and all suggestions. Especially if they’re within driving distance. You know we love a good road trip…
Psst- Check out our favorite road trip ever here.
Beach Bums
Remember we mentioned on Monday that we were taking it easy and enjoying some family time? Well we were actually at the beach! We snuck away to John’s parents’ beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware for a nice long weekend of R&R (while the guest bedroom took care of itself- just kidding it was just as messy when we returned, darn). We had lots of fun going on long walks, eating seafood, getting our thrift on, and bringing Clara down to the beach on a particularly warm day (it was 65+ degrees on Monday!). So we thought we’d share some of our adventures with you guys. First, we hit up our favorite secondhand shop in Bethany, Beach Plum Antiques (also seen in this post of yore).
A few things that caught my eye were these $10 woven lamps (I think I would have spray painted them bright canary yellow or emerald green to take them from beachy and rustic to bright and ca-razy).
I also loved this huge woven ottoman.
Oh and this cute $20 bench reminded us of our $7 thrift store bench makeover a while back.
This side table was just $5. I would have grabbed it and tossed a fiver at the owner had there been another one to match for our bedroom (or even one that looked mildly similar). But alas. There was just one.
Here’s what I did grab after tossing a fiver at the owner. Yup, this geometric eight sided mirror was just five beans. Mine. I was so enamored I didn’t even remember to haggle him down to $4. Hah. Can’t wait to paint it something glossy and fun (lime? plum? I guess time will tell).
We also did a bit of non-thrift shopping along the boardwalk in Rehoboth.
At first glance this extra large calendar full of vintage map prints still seemed pricey at $20, but after flipping through it and adoring every page, we realized it was just $1.60 per print. And we can’t wait to frame them all and display them en masse. Seriously, there was a happy dance associated with this find. And it went on for hours.
We I also skipped to the cash register with one of these adorable $18 paper lantern pendants for the playroom. We knew I probably could have picked up a white paper lantern for around $5 and attempted to DIY my own painted hearts, but we reasoned that eighteen bones wasn’t too bad for such a smile inducing lantern that would probably surpass anything crafty that I could attempt. Especially since Ikea sells light kits for $5, so we’ll end up with an entirely new playroom light fixture for just $24 total.
Then it was back to the thrift stores & antique shops that abound. We stopped at this cute place called Millsboro Basaar Antiques…
… where I found these two crazy ceramic horse book ends for $2.50 a pop. No doubt the price break was thanks to their zany orange and black glaze, but I’m thinking I might just spray paint these babies for a whole new look. Maybe white. Maybe something bolder like navy or yellow.
This frog butler was just insane so I had to snap a pic. It reminded us of that funny Modern Family episode where Jay gets the life-sized dog butler and Gloria hates it.
This $15 guy was kinda fun, but I passed. Let’s just say John wasn’t as enamored as I was.
Oh and this $22 stuffed bear head was wall-mountable. So funny! We briefly considered it for the playroom but decided it was better left behind for someone with a woodland themed nursery (like Clara’s boyfriend Will- although word on the street is that his nursery might have a new inspiration when he moves).
Oh and this little $12 luggage rack was kinda perfect for the guest room makeover. So I snatched it up (and haggled them down to ten bones). We’re definitely planning to replace the ribbon that stretches across it, and the jury’s still out about the color, but it’s fun for now.
We slipped through Goodwill, just for kicks, but didn’t leave with anything. We did see some cute things stuff though, like this $2 bowl, which would be sweet for storing jewelry (I picture stacks of bracelets) on a dresser.
The funny thing about this $1 find is that it’s the exact same glass container that we bought a while back and used to create our T-giving “Thanks” jar.
Here’s another $2 bowl that could look charming holding anything from keys to jewelry or even all those extra buttons you get with shirts and coats. You save them out of fear like I do, don’t you? What if you need them someday? I never seem to, but you never know…
And here we are having some good old fashioned beach fun. First there’s beanarina and daddy looking pretty darn happy.
Next we have Clara showing off her two adorable front teeth. What an accomplishment! So proud.
Oh and here she is playing in the sand. Trepidatiously. But still sort of playing none the less.
Good times! I’ll be back later with a breakdown of everything we actually bought home with us (we gave ourselves an $100 thrifting & shopping budget and we came home with 12 items – well, 23 if you count our calendar as 12 prints, since we’ll be framing ‘em individually). Wahoo. More on that in a few hours…
