Bringing back an old past time

As a young child, I used to enjoy making bracelets out of embroidery floss. I actually had no clue what a person would use that string for OTHER than making bracelets. What on earth could someone make other than for my fun?...lol.

And for the past couple years I've tried to explain them to my daughter. But she always had other craft ideas that she wanted to complete. Like painting misc. wooden pieces to put in her room. But recently some friends of ours had starting making the friendship bracelets and shared some pictures with us. Of course at that time she got interested in them.

We first went to Wal-Mart to try to find the embroidery floss. Unfortunately their craft department lacked the supplies we were looking for. I was looking for the individual skeins, but only found a couple kits prepackaged for kids. The one we came home with had 7 skeins of floss, and advertised that it came with instructions on how to make the bracelets.

Brianna made several from those, but quickly ran out of string. We replenished her supplies at Michael's. I should have know to go there instead of Wal-Mart in the first place. It sucks being new and not knowing where everything is just yet. But never fear, we came away with enough floss to make TONS of bracelets, and then some...lol.

my first attempt at a chevron pattern for myself

and my latest new pattern attempt, the top bracelet is a criss-cross pattern

So for the past few days, we've been making tons and tons of bracelets. I think I may need to find a 12 step program for her... :) She's been calling all her friends to ask for their favorite colors. She's such a giving child! I love her for that!

Great deals at Goodwill!!

After making the move to Texas, we discovered that without a dresser for our bedroom, that we had a lot of clothes between my husband and I that still needed homes. Our poor old dresser didn't make the move with us. It was from Ikea and had already made a few previous moves. But slowly was starting to fall apart because of the movers.

But moving on....as we were unpacking boxes upon boxes of clothes, I mentioned to the hubby that I wish we knew where a good local thrift store was. In an ingenious move, he googled our area and found a goodwill nearby. Good thinking!!

So we headed over and I instantly saw this gem. It wasn't a dresser, but oh so cute.

The price tag said $25.99. Not what I was expecting at all. Normally if I like something, it seems to be priced at least in the $40 range if not higher.

But it wasn't what we were there for. Just a few inches away was the only dresser that they had. This time the price tag was a little more steep. Ok a lot...it said $60!!! At a Goodwill store?? And it looked like this.....

Not much to look at. Faded white, stains, stuff running down the front, and dirt filled drawer corners. I was not impressed. It was well built and pretty solid, but it was obvious that it needed to be refinished. But with the cost of the supplies, I was NOT willing to spend that much.

Just as Stephen and I were talking back and forth about the potential that the dresser had, an employee walked by and whispered something. "If you take it today, furniture is 70% off". Did he REALLY just say that?? So the $60 dresser would be 70% off? OOooooh and the $25 table??? OMG!

We tore off the price tags from both pieces of furniture and headed for the checkout. The $60 dresser was now around $15...and the small table was just under $7! So for around the original price for the small table...we got both items! I was on a savings high....lol.

Once getting the pieces home, we headed to Lowe's to get the supplies we need to refinish both of them. We decided that we'd like to paint the dresser black, and add hardware. And as for the table that we could sand it down and restain.  (I was a little hesitant about staining. It was my first time. But OH SO EASY!! wow, who knew?...lol)

Loved the stain from the beginning.

So for the finished products. I totally love them both. Thanks to my thrift store idea and Stephen's idea to go to Goodwill. We make a great money saving duo.

When I really should be unpacking....

After a grueling 1,200 mile drive....we are now residents of San Antonio, Texas. We've been enjoying trying to learn the area, getting to know where all the stores are. I checked out the local Dollar Tree and Big Lots today. I may just live at the Dollar Tree. It's the biggest one I've been in!

Anything to avoid unpacking boxes!! We have the kitchen unpacked and organized for the most part. But I can't seem to find the motivation to start on any of the other rooms...other than one of the bathrooms. Every muscle in my body is hurting. I think it's the 3 weeks that we spent displaced from our home. Granted, it was spent in the best way possible, but, we weren't sleeping in our own beds for that long.

Before we left for the big drive, we went up to Virginia Beach to see our good friends, The Littles family. While there, Stephen found a great deal at the commissary on pork ribs, and made himself at home at their grill...lol. Anyone that really knows him, knows that it wasn't hard to predict. This man loves to grill.

After leaving VA, we stopped in SC to see my mom and Oscar. Tucker didn't quite know what to think of her cockatiels.lol.

And then it was off to Texas. We had an 18 hour drive ahead of us. We woke up at 2:30 am and left by 3:10. It surprised the both of us that we actually left close to the intended time. While it was definitely a long drive, we seemed to do it pretty well. Tucker didn't get sick this time. (Oh yea! I forgot to mention that our dog, Tucker didn't take the drive down to SC very well. We're not sure if he ate something bad, or was just overheated. But after throwing up 3 times in the car, he finally started to feel better and was back to himself in no time.)

Concluding this post, I leave you with photos from the drive here.

Somewhere in Mississippi I believe

Somewhere around Mississippi, we started a list of the different license plates that we spotted. I took this before Mississippi spanked Alabama's butt....lol. But we only got to see one other plate from WA state. Brianna loved it.

Louisiana

Along the drive, I saw several vehicles with names of people I know. This one reminded me of my dad, Boyd.

Welcome to Texas!

We've arrived!

Just in case you were wondering,  I'm posting this in our new residence in Texas. We left NC June 11, visited some good friends in VA for a few days, stopped in SC to see my mom for 2 days, and then drove straight through to Texas. Boy was that a long drive, but it was tolerable. We arrived around 8 or 9pm on Thursday June 17. The next day our household goods were delivered. We were SO happy to have our beds back again. After not having them for 3 weeks, it was definitely a welcomed sight!!

So, for now, we are in a house full of boxes. We accomplished most of the kitchen today. It's always a challenge to figure out a new house and where everything will go. But it will work itself out... eventually.

When I get around to uploading pictures, I will most likely have a post of just those. I didn't go overboard on the trip, but tried to capture the main parts of our road trip.

Other than a few speed bumps the first couple days, things are starting to come together. Now to just unpack some more boxes so that we can freely walk around the house ;)