Saturday

UUGGHH!  We are having a heatwave in Perth.  It's horrible.  I feel like I can't breathe.  We need relief NOW.  Power here is costly, so we use our air conditioner very sparingly.  We usually have it on fan mode, which is just blowing warm air around.  I don't know what's worse, the warm air blowing around in the house or the heat outside.  Both are horrid, both are giving me a headache.

But I will try to sound energetic, happy and cool for you now.  

Only because of my love for wood, did I buy this lovely John Jaques wooden chess set with its own wooden case.  No chess board available though.  Found for $3.99.  Who knows when I will get an urge to play a little chess?  I can make my own tacky looking chess board easily.  ;)

The bottom felt was coming off a little from some of them, but I just glued them back and they look as good as new.  :)

Saturday

My latest wooden ducks find... for 50 cents each.  :)

This guy was 99 cents...
 

Op shop workers CANNOT price thing properly.  They are sloppy and odd in their methods of choosing a specific price and each shop varies so much.  I went to one the other day which had reasonable prices, whereas another one (from the same chain of stores) had astronomical prices.  Why? I just don't get it.  Gone are the days when it was about helping people, and buying something used at a great price.  Now most of the used items you find, you can find new at nearly the same price!

Now it's become a money making scheme, hardly anything to do with charity.  And what does most of the money go toward?  I bet it's for advertising, paying the op shop workers wages and upgrading / prettying up their stores.  

Having said all that, the best times to go are with somebody you know that has a government pension/concession/student card because they get a small discount on Tuesdays (at least most of the op shops have this in Western Australia) or when you know they have half price days.  Half price days can be hard to find because a lot of them don't advertise it.  But, you will know it's half price day when you get there - they usually have a big sign on the window or a worker will tell you when you walk through the door.  It's pot luck really when you think about it - and with all that money they are making, why can't they advertise it??

Well, that's my op shop gripe for today.  But of course, I will never stop op shopping!  Not even if I become a millionaire (as my husband insists that's what we'll become after he completes his new 'invention'.  LOL.  Oh it's all very hush, hush, so I can't talk about that... sorry.   :/

Thursday

It was in the early 1990's when I met a good looking, tall, gold prospecting guy.  Just to be clear, the guy is not my husband today.

On our first date we went out for coffee, then a movie.  The strange choice was 'Aladdin' - the animated version with Robbin Williams as Aladdin's voice.  This was not a pre-thought out thing, but rather a choice of whimsey.  And there was nothing else great showing at the time anyway.

For our second meeting, I invited him to my flat;  he was on the road around my area so I thought, why not?  When it was time for him to leave we both knew there was a big attraction.  As I was walking with him to his car, he told me that he was going to visit his parents in Margaret River straight away and stay there for about a week, and he also had some prospecting business to attend to.  He BEGGED me to go with him!  As you can well imagine, I was a tad shocked, speechless and lastly, excited.  A tonne of things were going through my mind; who's going to look after my flat?  What do I tell me parents? Who's going to pay my bills?  What am I going bring/wear?  I kept giving him every excuse under the sun for minutes on end.  Until he broke me down.  I agreed to go.  

He then told me that he was going to arrange a plane flight for me for the following morning.  This is because he had a friend that flew domestic planes and lucky me, I got the princess treatment by being flown all by myself and for free!  Believe it or not, it was my very first time up in the air.  It was a four seater and it was so loud I had to wear ear muffs.  I started feeling a little queezy in the stomach and was not at all happy.  By the time we landed, I had full on nausea but as I was driven to his parents house it had settled somewhat.  What an experience!  All I could think of was 'never again by domestic plane'. 

I met the parents, the boyfriend was already there and I settled in nicely enough in a strange place.... it was almost like a dream when I think about it now.  By what I saw in the house, the mother was a dolphin freak.  Lots of dolphin pictures on the wall, dolphin books, ceramics etc.   Apart from the fact that I thought she was a little obsessed, she was a pleasant lady.  One particular day she took me around town and to some beaches while the boyfriend had some business to attend to.  We generally 'hung out' for most of the day and I think she enjoyed my company, as I did hers.

When it was time for us to go back to Perth, the boyfriend drove me back in his land cruiser.  It was a very long drive, but I don't remember much of it.  I must have blocked it out of my mind because it was such a long and boring drive.  We were on the road for HOURS.

The stranger thing is that after we got home, he dumped me a few days later.  It wasn't an ' I don't like you ' dump, but rather a ' things don't seem right ' dump.  I instantly thought the whole ordeal was very odd, but I accepted it graciously even thought he could tell I was very disappointed. 

A few months later I received a letter from his mother stating that she was sorry that it didn't work out between me and her son, which I thought was rather nice.  Inside the letter she had popped in a little book mark with a dolphin on it.  It did make me smile.  :)  A few weeks later, I got a phone call from the guy to see how I was doing.  He had told me how sorry he was and asked if he could come and see me.  While visiting all he could do was apologize, while I was simply aloof the whole time he was in my flat.  I think I was numb because I had blocked out the bad experience and just had absolutely no feelings toward him.  He then left and we both got on with our lives.

Years later I married.  We decided to go stay in a Margaret River chalet for a weekend.  I think there were about 12 chalets altogether and each one was named after a wine.  I can't remember what ours was called, but I do remember that I had never heard of it before and I hadn't ever again.  The place bought back a few fond memories and some bad ones, but I never let the bad ones ruin the time away in gorgeous Margaret River with hubby.  On the last day of our stay before heading back to Perth, our last stop was the Fudge Factory.  We certainly indulged in some fudge but boy it felt so good to be back home that night.

This is one of the little treasures we bought back with us.  A wooden dolphin.  :)

Tuesday

We all know today is, right?  Here's a hint --->

I may not know you, you handsome beast.... but Happy St Val's day anyway.  ;)

A few months ago I decided that I needed some extra storage in my work room.  

So I browsed a well known online mag and found this for free!

 

 It's the Aneboda Wardrobe you can find at Ikea, or at least used to be able to.  

It only had the clothes hanging apparatus and one top shelve inside but I really needed more in there.  So I put my newly acquired woodworking skills to the test and made my own chipboard shelving for the bottom of the wardrobe - 2 shelves to be exact.  Clever me!

Sunday

I'm terribly happy to report that I've finished the oil painting frame.  Apart from the gold oil based paint which set me back about $8 from Bunnings, the whole thing cost me;

Oil painting (found on somebody's junk pile) - $0.

Wooden frame (found on somebody's junk pile) - $0

Wood coloured varnish (already had it from years ago) - $0

Wooden molding (already had it from years ago) - $0

Wood, nails, framing accessories for the back (already had them) - $0

Total - $0!

Tuesday

A little sweet cabinet found for free.  Absolutely nothing was wrong with it - apart for those odd mismatching handles.  I did replace them with two of the same eventually.  I keep my little crafty bits and pieces in it - just perfect!

Free Childcraft books from the 1970's or 1980's.  I did see more of these (possibly the whole set) in the junk pile, but they were water damaged due to the fact that it had been lightly raining a few days before hand.  Oh well, four are better than none, right?

And lastly for today.... A free old top, turned into cute art.   As you can see, the top was stretched, a little faded and too ugly to wear so I salvaged and saved poor Winnie the Pooh in a frame.  How cute is that?

Friday

Dear fellow free pickers, junk collectors, op shop finders and all other sorts of thrifty people,

It's finally come to that crucial point.  I've less to show you these days, yes that's right!  This past year or so I had been showing you all the cool stuff that I had accumulated these past few years (some much older) and now that I've been 'collecting' less because of lack of space for it all in and outside of my home, I'll have to blog less than usual.  

But don't fret my fellow trashies and treasure finders, because there will be a time in the near future when I'll gather more.  But in the meantime...

A good assortment of freebies found:

Magazines passed onto dear hubby.

No attachments with this Kodak camera where found, but easy enough to find.

Tee shirt in new condition.  Not my style, but for some unknown reason I'm holding on to it for now.  The sleeves are a little tight and it has an odd fit.  Maybe that's why they trashed it.

Are you looking at me, punk?

 It's plastic and I love it.  My mother has one just like it and I like to think that I found it's twin.  I might change the plant to something more lush to hide the ugly brown pot inside though.

Simply 'a fish'.  Wooden and golden and ready to hang somewhere, like in my car.

Sunday

Cute things found for $1 each!

Ceramic hello kitty

Mother goose egg cup

Wooden egg cup

Sweetest little plate

Friday

Don't you just love Friday?  What comes to mind on a Friday for me? ;

- Going to bed late (then sleeping in late).

- Playing heaps of Zelda Skyward Sword (I've been playing for weeks but I seem to enjoy it more on a Friday night).

and...

- Lots of munchies to fatten us up.

 

Back to my groovy finds.  I found this cute spoon holder for $3 months ago and had forgotten all about it up until now.  I seem to be doing that a lot in my old age.  ugh!

Monday

Egg cups.  Can't get enough of them.  

I didn't set out to buy anything like this though but there it was, a wooden egg cup set of five glaring at me for $4.99.

After some research, I found out that the artist 'Orna Shachar' is still happily painting away here in Perth.  Check out her work HERE .

Wednesday

Free books and more free books..... along with the obligatory free wooden shabby chic style books ends!

 

It's always good to be corrected and informed...

Looking forward to mixing up a few drinks...

Not a language I understand, but full of great movie photos... but mostly in black and white.  

Just in case somebody I know is bleeding profusely, has been knocked down by a truck or struck down by lightening...

 

Very old novels.... 

I love potatoes.... 

 

Mr Walker (and I never liked his huge set of dentures and his thick 'n' hairy upper lip) doesn't interest me that much, but I now own his book...

I really do need to cleanse my insides quite thoroughly...

Say no more!