I totally wear hats

When I saw the [ad for hats at Target] this autumn I had to giggle. I thought it seemed like me because "I totally wear hats." and while I more frequently wear the same three (which oddly I did not photograph), I am amassing quite a collection.

The straw hat with the bow I bought on a trip to the beach. I got hit on wearing that fedora and waiting for my coffee at Starbucks. The black and white reminded me a bit of Audrey Hepburn's hat in the racing scene of My Fair Lady. The other three were gifts.

The blue one below was a gift also, but the black one belonged to my cousin's mom.




This is my great uncle's top hat. He had a much smaller head than me. :)

Don't know if you've noticed, but most of my hats are hanging from (or sitting on) candle holders. Got all those candleholders out of my way and works great too!



Be sure to visit My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday to see what treasures everyone is showing off.

A thrifted rescue project

A trip to Goodwill on Saturday yielded some fun results (also, this creepy head which you already saw if you follow me on twitter) like this travel bag.

I house-sit a ton and packing up all my toiletries takes 3 bags. Yes it really takes that much to make me beautiful! Ha ha, actually I am usually gone so long everything I take has to be full size and that stuff will not fit in a tiny travel case. This bag should fit it all no problem! Except...
when I brought it home I realized...





Crappa dappa.

Was this bag a drug mule or something? Why would there be this huge slice in it?! And HOW did I not notice it at the store? And why didn't the tag specify as-is? SHEESH.

But it did not go through the lining...


And as you can see the bag was only $3.99. Honestly I'd much rather have the traveling capabilities over the four bucks store credit so I decided to see what I could do to fix it. I mean look at all this space!




And all these slots for my bottles (like my Latherati perfume or my Threla facial mist)


So I did what any desperate person would do. No I didn't use duct tape. I did, however, use glue; E6000 to be precise. The sides are a sort of stiff foam and sewing didn't really seem to be an option. I'm terrible at sewing so that also helped my decision along.

Once it was glued and dried I still have this knife fight scar to deal with. I scrounged some black fabric to cut "leaves" from (I freehand cut them, so don't judge too harshly) and I found a lovely rose patch I've had for years and never used. I stuck them on with liquid fusible web by the fantastic Aleene.


Now the scar is hidden and held together at the same time.
(And just in case you're wondering, I sanitized this bag to bits.)

Just in time for me to take off house-sitting again!

Linking to:

The Shaby Chic Cottage's Transformation Thursday

See? I hoard supplies for a reason.

I wanted to wrap up some Christmas packages but realized I hadn't put any thought into giftwrap this year. Oh well, I'm a craft supplies hoarder! I went through my stash and thanks to it...(and a cup of hot chocolate)





I was able to put something simple yet workable together.


Brown kraft paper, plain tags, 50 cent spools of ribbon, ink pads and one dollar stamps saved the day!
I really do love using the brown kraft paper (or package/mailing paper as you might know it) - just think of it as a blank canvas that you can decorate with anything!

Mosaic Monday - sunrise, sunset

Click image to enlarge.

In the winter it seems like the morning and evenings are all pink; which is perfectly all right with me. :)

And now that [this song] is stuck in your head you may as well listen to it.


Be sure to visit Little Red House to see all the beautiful mosaics!

My L'Amour haul

After [this] recent post about my amour for L'Amour, the man that started it all brought me two grocery sacks stuffed full of books to add to my collection.


This necessitated some moving around on the bookshelf - which really needed it anyway. I am such a book nerd though! I LOVE re-arranging a book shelf.


So the second shelf is now all L'Amour, all the time.


You can see how the right side is stacked and stacked in every way I could think to fit them all in (left side is a series, you see why I can't mess that up). Thing is, I don't think I'm even close yet, to having every book the man wrote.


And no bookshelf of mine goes undecorated. Here I've added a photo of my grandfather from whom I got my other copies of L'Amour. I added some old bottles and keys he and my grandmother found in the desert. Some rocks I've collected, an old magnifying lens in a protective case and some Queen Anne's lace I dried over the summer.

I once asked a friend if she knew anyone who decorated their bookshelves with items that had to do with the book title's topics. She said, "Yeah." I was surprised, "You do?" "Uh-huh. You." Ha. Ha.