Home Hair Color Update!

My palms are sweaty and I am having some mild panic attacks. Lu needs her hair colored for the play. Dark Red. Her hair is normally a brownish reddish color. We have colored it before. We have never done this at home before.

I bought Clairol Natural Instincts in Cinnaberry color which is a medium auburn brown.

Anyone done this before? Am I crazy? Should I not do this? Make an appointment at a real salon? Or is it really not that big of a deal?


UPDATE:
I am VERY pleased to report that this was SO not a big deal whatsoever! I don't know the last time I was so nervous about doing something...but it was so easy. And the color is a truly gorgeous red...and she LOVES it!

Tomorrow, tomorrow...

As promised, here are some costume pictures. Lu is going to be in a production of Annie and we had to find some clothing, so of course went thrifting!

Four dollars bought everything pictured here except for the pair of boots, which were purchased the night before at Goodwill.



A cardigan sweater for at the orphanage...we were both pleased that she can (and will) wear it again after the play is wrapped. She has a weakness for American Eagle stuff.


This was a woman's long dress that I cut off and then sewed to hem it up. And this was my best sewing! Which is sad.


A gorgeous dress for when she is living at Warbucks...


That just HAPPENED to be a Hanna dress!


And a nice coat that could have come from Bergdorfs...


The red Annie dress is being made for her...but I bet if it would have been around Halloween I could've found it at a Thrift store!

What Is It?

I want to say Napkin Holder...but it is so little!

Oh, Whitman, How I Adore Thee...

I have been really, really good about mindfully purchasing the past few weeks. But I am weak and only human when it comes to Whitman published childrens activity books. So very, very weak...

Vintage Coat Love

Lu is going to be in a play next month and we spent Friday night at Goodwill looking for very specific clothing that she needed for her part. She found nothing. Actually she found a pair of boots for the play, but we needed a lot more than that.

*I* however found THIS:

A Vintage Fantles Department Store Coat With Faux Fur Collar! Here is the front...




And the back...






This coat is so ugly it is FAB-U-LOUS! And it doesn't seem to have ever been worn! I am in love.

The next day I took Lu to a different thrift store that I like to think of as my personal secret clothing store. And they were having a $4 bag sale! And we found every single item she needed within 10 minutes! My favorite part of that shopping experiance was when I said to Lu "We need to find you a coat that will work" and heard a saleswoman say to another saleswoman "Where do you want me to put this coat?"...I turned around, saw the old 20's style pale blue pea coat in Lu's size that she was holding and said over the rack of clothing "WE'LL TAKE IT!"

Ahhh, Mother-Daughter thrifting...

Did I Mention I Am A "Ripper-Outer"?

I don't hoard or keep magazines for very long, but I sure do rip them apart.

I clip recipes...ideas for stuff to make, someday...decorating ideas...articles I love...pictures I love...clothing ideas...the list goes on and on and on.

And then I kind of sort them into piles and put them in these fabulous old wire baskets and put it on my foot rest so when I head upstairs at night to tuck Bud in and Hubby and Lu are trying to beat eachother at a card game, I get cozy on my chair, tuck a blanket around me, put this huge pile of clippings in my lap and look through them.




I love my paper clippings! The clippings I keep in my wire baskets are what I refer to as 'recent clippings' from the past 6 months or so. After about six months of playing with them, they get put into boxes that look like these:




It takes quite a lot of love to make the final cut that goes into those boxes!

Paper clutter can freak me out, but there is something about those wire boxes that just soothe my soul.

Someday I Shall Learn To Sew...

Then maybe all these sewing books and magazines I seemed to have scooped up over the past few years will actually be used.

Or put them on Etsy!

I am also trying to mindfully be aware of my vintage cookbook obsessions (as I know so many of you adore as well!) and have been walking away from many different kinds. These, however, stuck out:



The graphics inside are simply fab!


I am a sucker for Holiday recipe books:


All Meat, All The Time:


And as hard as I try, when I see these hardcover recipe books that hold old newspaper clippings, I can't walk away. It is like I am on a one-woman mission to save a cook's culinary dreams!

Christmas Sphere's

Maybe sphere isn't the right word. But my brain seems to be a bit muddled this morning, so we are going with 'sphere'. Prism shaped? That sounds better. Seriously...this ice storm is starting to get to me.

It isn't always easy to find Christmas thrift during later January, but when you do find it, it has a tendency to be marked down quite nicely. Won't these look fab on a vintage wreath?

Mindfully Purchasing

One of my goals in 2010 was to work on Mindfully Purchasing while I thrift. Too often, far too often, it is easy for me to say "Well, I can just put it in the booth if I decide I don't loooooooove it. And now I am trying to decide whether or not I loooooooooove it while I am shopping.

For Instance...this weekend, I went through all of the children's books. We have a lot. And there were a whole lot that made their way to Memory Lane on Saturday:



And this is only a section of them. I know...I know. I have a hard time saying no to books and we have been collecting them intently for about 12 years now.

So when I stopped by Goodwill yesterday and started browsing the book aisle, I was proud of myself for only picking up 5 books! And then...wait for it...I put 4 of them back! After I had the books in my hand, I realized that I truly only needed one of them. Or wanted one of them, let's be real about this.

One last thing before I head off to tackle some projects today...My Valentine Wreath sold at Memory Lane!



Goodbye, my dear shiny brites! I hope you love your new home!

OH Gratitude, Where ARRRRRRE You?

Doing my extensive research using google and the 45 seconds I have this morning before we do our typical shotgun start to a Monday, The picture of the man is Grace and the woman is Gratitude...I totally had that backwards in my mind!

And since so many of you haven't seen the woman before, I thought I would show you a picture of her:



These pictures are so soothing! Obviously I could use a bit more Grace and Gratitude in my life.

Grace And Gratitude

Do you remember this?

We had the picture of both the man and the woman in our kitchen area when I was growing up. And when Mom got rid of them years ago, I never imagined that I would want them some day.

So when I came across one of them at the thrift store, I snatched that picture up so fast, brought it home and hung it right in our kitchen area.

I know that the woman will find it's way to me at some point.

Valentine's Day Wreath--FINISHED!

Welcome to Dime Store Thrift! If you are finding me from Pinterest and Google, I am so glad to have you here...




I am rawther pleased with how this turned out. So pleased that I decided to make another one:





And now I have TWO wreathes hanging by the front door! I think I will keep the first one (Hubby's favorite) and the other will be heading off to Memory Lane today.




To make these, I used a heart shaped grapevine wreath from Michael's and then wrapped it in some tinsel garland bought at Target during their 75% off after Christmas sales:







And of course dipped into my stash of vintage red and silver balls to go with the pink yummies:



And then I fired up that high heat hot glue gun, went into a trance-like state and stayed there until every last ball was glued on...it is never good when you come out of that that trance like state and start thinking about home improvement projects that you might be able to do using a high heat hot glue gun. Just Saying.

I have one more wreath and one more strand of garland and many, many boxes of red vintage balls left...so there will be an all red heart shaped wreath in my future!

Pink Christmas Decorations!

My friend Deb who also has a booth at Memory Lane, gave me a wonderful box of yummies for Christmas:




And today they are going to become the base of a Valentine's Day Wreath! I wanted to let you know in case you don't hear from me the rest of the week...you'll know I am becoming one again with my hot glue gun. (Actually, I should be able to show you the finished product later today, so be watching for an update!)

It's A Beautiful Cold...

The pictures I took do not do it a bit of justice, but yesterday morning we woke up to a winter wonderland throughout the tree's due to the plummeting temperatures during the night. Everything was completely white: