Stampin Up! and Picking up Hobbies in Driveways.

I woke up late Saturday, and just rolled out of bed early enough (10:30) to meet Giraffy at the Irvine Farmers Market - which deserves a post of its own.  But, there went my plans to frolic garage sales and look for old sewing patterns, which is a tragedy that must be fixed.  After all, last weekend was camping in Utah, and nobody holds garage sales in the desert sand dunes, so, I'm having withdrawals.

We got up at 6:30 (a new record) because somebody advertised an antique sewing machine - and, logically - where there's a sewing machine, there's a larg(er) chance of sewing pattterns.   Jesse doctored me up a thermos of tea (with lemon and fresh mint leaves from the Awesome Farmer's Market), stopped for a Starbucks for himself, because he claims their mochas can not be replicated in a home environment, and I can't argue because he makes me thermoses of tea at 6 am..  and off we went.

The antique sewing machine didn't come with patterns, but there was a black top and jjill skirt I fancied (and dragged home for a $1) as well as some pin striped Gap wool slacks.  They're beautiful, and I can't limit my wardrobe just because the weather in SoCal does not cooperate with my wool/suede/leather obsession.  Not when it's hung in front of me for a $1, anyway.  Plus, we visit my mom in Chicago fairly often.

We were off to the next place, where 'antique' stuff looked promising - I like old sewing patterns, and old things tend to hang out together, and antique and old are often interchangeable, especially where CL garage sales ads are concerned, so, again, promising.  I never found out, though, and will have to live another week with my current stash of patterns (and since currently I make one dress every 27 years, this shouldn't be a problem).  What I DID find, though, was a lady selling parts of her giant and awesome stamp collection.

Do I stamp?  Nope.  I own some stamps, because I've always wanted to, in the same way I own a guitar and two surfboards.  It's a pretty small collection of 5-6 items that Michael's Dollar Bin had to offer.  But this chick had, like, cases of stuff.  Two boxes, and a table, and a tower thingy.  Jesse went to look through the electronics box, and I didn't look up for 15 minutes.  

I n t r o d u c i n g..  my new hobby :

I started out with half that, but ended up going back.  So many colors.  Flowers.  Bubbles.  Must.  Look.  Again.  When we came back, I mentioned that I was going to make my own wedding invitations, and I was nosing around for flowery things that would go with the theme.  C, the owner of all the awesomeness offered to look through her 'upstairs stash' of wedding specific stuff.  And we did.  And she let me pick some out.

I love the 'going to the chapel' stamp!  Yeep! 

"C" makes cards and they were pretty amazing.  The kind of cards you see in little boutiques, I wish I had gotten a couple or at least have taken a picture.  They were adorable and so well made and pretty..   I did, take her phone number though.  She mentioned getting together to may be watch her make cards, so I was pretty stoked.  But, it could have been, like a, "OMG, get out of my driveway already, what ELSE do you want" kinda of thing.  Hard saying.  Still, stoked.

My first handmade stamp card!

After a little while, I moved on from paper.

I've had a collection of sand dollars from NorCal's sand dollar beach sunning on my porch for a while now.

May be I could just send sand dollars as invites?  Might require bubble wrap..

I kinda wanna go back and see what other stuff she has I may have missed.  Is that bad?

Jesse walked away with a little Ipod speaker thing that he's been looking for camping (falling asleep to tent music?  Yes!!)  

It appears that it's in good working order, he was dancing along to some obnoxious 50 cent songs in the garage today, moving stuff around.  Camping AND garage speakers.  Score.  And some headphones.  $2.  I love that he can hang out with a box of electronics and driveway scenery the time it takes me to space out at shiny things, tour somebody's home, and find more things (that weren't even for sale) to drag home and play with.  I think I got lucky with him.  I mentioned the thermos of tea, right?

Sewing pattern fail.  But then I remembered how I scored this for 10c in a driveway couple weeks ago, and it all became OK.

I might sacrifice a few of Jesse old shirts for this one.  Blue?  Pin Stripe?  That is, if tomorrow's Walkaway Dress Debut goes well at work.  If not, I'll call "C", get some stamping tips and forget this sewing thing ever happened.  Hee.