look what I found

Finds, Finally!

2009-02-26T14:26:00.000-08:00

I went to an awesome estate sale today, yes today, as in mid week... I felt a lil crazy going in the middle of the week, but hey, I have the day off and this one actually started today. I just had to take advantage of first come first serve snooping, plus this was a home of a glass collector. I was surprised to see a lot of people at the sale - for being a Thursday morning, but then quickly realized that everyone was trying to get in some shopping before work hahaha. There was soo much glass, soo soo soo much. I silently took bets with myself to see if anyone would break some glass, and yeah, it happened. I just hope they didn't break anything cool.

and now, my finds...

a lil radioactive bowl

some cute googie-ish pyrex

California Pottery Planter

and the rest!

Whyyy?!?

2009-02-03T08:19:00.000-08:00

I fell in love with this house a few months back when it was up for sale. It was this picture of the fireplace/wood panel combo that did it for me. When the house sold so quickly, I assumed the buyer really loved the house and its mid-century appeal.

Fast forward to yesterday, Keith links me to a house that came on the market. (we are into looking at new listings for fun) He goes, "this home has nice bones, looks like it can be cool".... so I look at it, and it looks so familiar.... I remind him about that cool house I saw a while back, and notice it's on the same street.
I find the old listing and show it to him. It's the same address! They flipped it! They took down the wood paneling and granite/stainless steel-ized the kitchen. Who do they think they are? oh and they are asking 305k more than their purchase price back in October. At least they kept the fireplace.

penny slots

2009-01-03T00:29:00.000-08:00

It's nice and cold here in Vegas which is very sweet, except every casino thinks they should have their indoor temp set to about 78 - 80 degrees... wtf? Well in other news I saw this awesome video-slot machine game which I had to share. It was the crappiest thing to waste $1 on, but I had to play. I even waited for this older rotund man to finish playing it just so I can have a shot at Kitty Glitter.

weeeeeee! or better yet, wiiiiiiii!

2008-11-21T13:10:00.000-08:00

We Won, We Won, We Won!!!!!!!!!!!!

http;//www.welcomewaggincontest.com

I'm soo excited today, I can't handle it.

it's been a while

2008-11-19T11:07:00.000-08:00

I've been busy making stuff in ceramics, and hopefully have some cool pieces for gifts, cause I know everyone wants a goofy mug for Christmas, right??

We also entered Bella into Nintendo's animal crossing "welcome waggin" contest, which entails dressing your pets up like one of the animal crossing characters in hopes of winning a wii system and a copy of the game. I already have a system, but this contest was right up my alley, so I couldn't resist. I painted the background and made her little outfit, which she actually didn't mind wearing. Whats awesome is that her picture was featured on their website, so we are keeping our fingers crossed! We should know the results by this weekend, hopefully . She could be a member of the animal crossing welcoming committee! hahaha We also learned that Bella (our cat) is such a ham!.. well if you give her many treats she will pose like crazy for you. Oh and you can see the pic we submitted at http://welcomewaggincontest.com, and scroll through "furry faves".

I think I have video games on my mind...

I'm published! (well kind of)

2008-10-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it pays off to take pictures of my estate sale finds - like being asked to use your picture in a magazine! A couple months ago I was contacted by the Director/Publisher of CA Modern magazine. It seems they were putting together an article on aluminum Christmas trees for their fall issue and liked my photo of the colortone wheel I took a while back. I was very flattered by all this, and they even sent me a printed issue of the magazine. You can check out the online version of the article here (oh and look for my name in the photo credits)!

Keep Out

2008-10-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

Today I made these "wood" boards for our front windows. They are made from styrofoam, which I cut (with my new and awesome styro-cutter) then painted to resemble wood and they turned out a lil cooler than I thought!
I hope they stay up... I used command strips for garage sale signs to hold them in place, and I've usually had luck with those.. we'll see.

drying... Giuseppe kept wanting to walk over them

and After! sooo creeeepy! I'm a dork

and some other styrofoam creations, along with cheese cloth
the dark stain look is created with diluted Speedball black India Ink... it gives the perfect dirty look

It has begun

2008-09-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

The time for Halloween Decor is now official. I claim September 30th official OK to put up Halloween decor day, so pull out those Halloween boxes! I've been crafting out all kinds of neat new things this year, and I've already made use of the cheesecloth I scored last month at an estate sale. One of my favorite creations this year are these spooky floral arrangements. There are 2 of them, but this one is the second one I made is better :P (practice makes perfect?)
The vases used are from the spring collection at Michael's... weird, but awesome since they were a clearance item. I guess the trick is to buy non-halloween items to make things, it will be a lot cheaper. More posts to come.

our new bar

2008-09-21T11:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's estate sale finds come from across the street. It makes our house feel good...Thanks.

I'd rather see a banana split?

2008-09-02T13:54:00.000-07:00

Estate sales were pretty darn good this past weekend, besides the nasty humidity and rain.. yucks! Liz joined us again as we hit up 2 sales in Spring Valley.
The first one looked creepy from the outside, since the house was in an industrial area. I thought we had the wrong address- we were a lil creeped out to go inside, but good thing we did! (junk city).
Keith scored a super pong tele-games system, which he then spent the rest of the weekend trying to get to work (we got it to work for like 1 minute, then it went dead). I got this super cool bowler-monkey picture- I'd like to think its an omen to how awesome I will be at bowling.
The second sale had all the cool vintage clothing. Liz got some cool sunglasses and this gold metallic jumpsuit, which fits her perfectly! I got a turquoise rhinestone polyester dress, which I can't stop staring at, oh yeah and a beaded cardigan in perfect shape! I was a good Saturday!

we WILL get this to work!

Liz, modeling her new look

This dress needs a beehive and a hot toddyp.s. each item was $1

I have the secret

2008-08-29T11:39:00.000-07:00

I have the bowling secrets book... and started bowling classes. I'm gonna kick ass. Watch out.

Santa Empire

2008-08-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

I'm building a Santa Empire, Christmas will never be the same. I scored not one, but three Empire plastics Santas this weekend, for under $10! It could have been four, but I'm not crazy...ha. I've seriously wanted a plastic light up Santa for who knows how long, - theres just something about that creepy glowing Santa face that makes my heart melt.

So yeah, estate sale hunting was good this weekend, even though it was only 2 houses.. and the first one sucked (waaaay overpriced). The second one was awesome! They claimed to have 4000 records, and I believe it! This house had a room dedicated to just records. This is very good conditions for record searching, since most people glanced into the room and went "oh records", then went on their way. Most of the time you have to search through a box while you have a dude leaning over you to look at something else.. very annoying.
I also obtained some craft supplies, (yesssss) as well as 6 packages of cheese cloth - which will be used for Halloween decorations.

Santa Empire

a couple of the many records we got, can't pass up an Elvis Christmas album...

cheesecloth! I love this stuff

some crafty supplies, they will be used, somehow

look what I didn't find

2008-08-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

I didn't find anything cool at the estate sales this weekend, but one sale was kinda neat... only if you were looking for World War 2 memorabilia, telephones or pipes. Oh, and I did find this cute bunny on the way to the crafts center.

One cool thing of the weekend though was getting the space mountain piece back! I'm really pleased with how the glazing worked out. This one lady in the crafts center saw my piece and told me it looked like a spaceship ( I was like yesssssssss)
The "red" color on it is produced by using a green glaze (the green as seen on my last couple pieces), then overlapping it with a white glaze... weird and awesome.

I also recently started to work with porcelain, which is alot harder than I thought it would be, yet I managed to make these guys.... anyone want a little vase?

hello friday

2008-08-08T10:10:00.000-07:00

I threw this piece a few weeks ago and thought it was incredibly ugly, so I had it sit around in a bag for awhile. It originally looked like a bad attempt at a nice vase... this was before I finally got around to carving it last night and realized I can turn it into this masterpiece, for me at least.

Keith thinks it looks alive, and might start to walk away.

complete

2008-08-07T13:18:00.000-07:00

taa daaaa! These three are finally finished, but the space mountain piece is still awaiting its trip to the kiln. I love the way the 3-footed thing turned out, especially the glaze, (the specks in it are from the minerals in the clay).
I'm not too crazy about the bottle though. The glaze I used on it turns darker with each coat applied, so thats what the weird ring around it is .. whoops

kitsch level : high

2008-08-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I scored some cute kitschy Christmas items from a good estate sale in La Mesa, and awed at the amazing bathrooms in a just-ok estate sale in Point Loma. I'd have to say that these two neighborhoods are my fav stops for estate sales. I've had the best luck at finding cool stuff in both and have been able to tour some neat houses, which is the BEST part of estate sales. It's kind like Disneyland for nosey people.
I was able to get a few pics of the bathrooms in the Point Loma house without looking like a complete weirdo. Keith and I both agree that these bathrooms would be perfect in our dream home, one for him and one for me, as you will sort of see in the pictures.

Satin ornaments, but not just your typical round ones

6 little elf guys

bathroom 1 check out the cute tile detail
bathroom 1 - super cool floor and cabinets

and bathroom 2 - Pink for girls!! I just stood in there and stared at the wallpaper

longest weekend ever

2008-07-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

Comic-Con was crazy fun, and made the weekend feel like the a looong vacation, so would this be considered a stay-cation? After comic con is over you kinda get a sensory overload hangover and need a day to recover, seriously. Some of the highlights of the weekend:
- getting way too much free stuff, I actually enjoy seeing people push and shove to get a free key chain or eye patch.
- Lego booth with cool things to look at.
- Keith meeting Dave Hill, whom he kinda has a man-crush on (shhhh), I took a picture of them together and Dave's film crew happened to get footage of it, you can see Keith's 1/2 second of non fame here (link! click) you see a split second of Keith at about 30 seconds into it! woooo
- neat costumes (and some not so neat costumes) oh, and making Keith take picture with them... well the costumes he approved of.
- buying lots of cool comics, I especially like the new cat comics I bought, my new fav "cat nation"

Keith with Dave Hill (how cute!)

nasty blob monster thingy

Keith and a Storm Trooper guy (one of the many)

wtf

Cat Nation!

comic-con day zero

2008-07-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was preview night for the comic-con and it was crazy! The line to get in was the long, loopy, and confusing - but we managed to get in eventually. The best part about standing in line forever is the conversations you overhear. I heard this one dude in front of us brag about how much laserdisc anime he owned, it was awesome. There was also this lady in front of us who loved to mention (as much as she can) how she has been attending comic-con for the past 20 years, and she even had to let security know this when they tried to direct her in line on where to go, she snapped "I've been going to this for 20 years lady, I know where to go!"... comic-con snobs.
Once we got inside, I wanted to head over to dark horse comics in order to enter the raffle for a yellow domo kun, and Keith wanted to check out the octagon global recruiting booth - which was packed.
I didn't win the raffle :( but at least I was able to get my badge early, which is pretty much the main reason why we went to preview night. .... this will be a fun (long) weekend.

check it out

2008-07-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

Just some new pieces I've been working on.
check out those feet, I spent Friday night carving them... exciting.

This is one of my new favs - I originally was going for a flying saucer style, like the kind from a good 50s sci-fi film ... but I think it looks more like space mountain now.... and I looooove space mountain! It will look even better once I get to glazing it, ceramics is a sloow process.

I found some stuff

2008-07-19T15:52:00.000-07:00

Eyes had to be serviced this morning, so Keith and I were only able to get out to one estate sale today, but I picked a gooood one. It gets a 9.
This sale had a great selection of mens clothes, so I was able to pick out some sweet duds for Keith including this uncle Rico inspired sweater-shirt! Keith was embarrassed to post pictures of himself in it so here I go...

Some of he things I found were:

I found a colortone roto-wheel, now I just need the aluminum tree to go with it

some glass coasters (kinda looks like the roto-wheel? )

Samsonite luggage box, I love this color! (and for $1)

3 new records for the collection, -"The Partys on Me" includes hits like the Hockey Pokey and the Bunny Hop... party time? oh, yes

and... a neat glitter spool holder

now I'm off to Disneyland, peace

krispie plastic chairs and new kicks

2008-07-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

On my estate sale scale-of-coolness , I'd rate last weekend a ........ 7. I did pick up some pretty cool Christmas ornaments, and I love Christmas. I didn't even realize how amazing this one set of ornaments were till I got home - but they seem to be hand blown glass, and if you can see by the picture, have tiny individual "flutes" going into the center... I originally thought they were just dimpled from the outside.
I also scored some sandals which is rare since I always have a hard time finding either my size, or finding a matching pair in good shape.
but.... The coolest find this weekend was a pair of plastic chairs. They aren't in the best shape since the previous owner kept them as outdoor chairs, which made the plastic get kinda crispy. Keith and I are looking into how we can fix this... possibly with some plastic spray paint like krylon fusion or rustoleum for plastics. hmmmm

It's hard to see from the pic, glare city

close up pic of a few other ornaments I got

lensbaby baby

2008-07-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

I love my lensbaby lens! I've been wanting one for some time now and finally gave in a purchased one. A lensbaby is basically a lens mounted on a flexible tube, which then can be bent to create awesome optical effects. The lensbaby brings experimentation and randomness to the digital picture world, without things like photoshop or other very expensive gadgets.
I spent like 2 hours yesterday playing around with my new baby and took some sweet pictures of my camera collection. Theres something about pictures of cameras... I can look at them all day.
Finally, no photo shoot would be complete with out a pic of "Face" from the A-team.
I picked up Face about 15 years ago (whoah) at a thrift store, and he has become one of my favorite models. I remember I did a whole photo shoot of him back in high school in my photography class... those were some good photos.
I have more pics from my lensbaby on flickr

scooter time

2008-07-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

For the past three days Keith and I have been dog sitting my sisters new pup Scooter. He's some sort of a basset hound mix. Everyone has been voting on what hes mixed with, everything from a beagle, to springer spaniel, to a dalmatian, but I think he is half pointer.
Scooter is a puppy with lots of energy - which I'm not used to being that I have a 12 year old schnauzer (Giuseppe) that sleeps all day. For the most part, the two guys have gotten along, except for when Giuseppe gets jealous of scooter and takes his things.
Yesterday they even slept together, awwwww!

Scooter, Giuseppe... Giuseppe, Scooter

holiday weekend

2008-07-06T16:20:00.000-07:00

Hmmm... let's see, 4th of July was a foggy weird day that made my hair frizz - and since it was a holiday weekend, the estate sales were far and few between... but!, the point loma one that was soo cool last week was continued this weekend! I knew the stuff would not be so great anymore, and I wasn't expecting much. I did however score a really cool painting that I wanted last week, but the asking price had been too much... half price this weekend! I'm so glad I got it... I had been bummed about not getting it last week.

I was also able to get some glazing done for a couple of my pieces in ceramics, wooo!

July 4th, the fog just kept pouring in from the coast, it was like the mist, but without monsters, just frizzy hair (note: this pic was taken at about 5:30pm!)

The painting, I'm stoked

spaceships!

ceramic time!

2008-07-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

This evening Keith and I hit up the UCSD crafts center to check on our clay creations. The crafts center is a totally cool place to take classes like ceramics, jewelry making, metal working, photography , and even a neon class! I convinced Keith to start taking classes with me and now hes hooked. Oh, whats also great about the ceramic class is that you have access to the studio 24/7 just as long as it doesn't interfere with another class.
New session starts next week and I'm excited. I'm hoping to start making my sci-fi themed pottery.. lets see if this works out. I got the idea for it when I accidentally squished a dent into a vase i was carving, so instead of trying to cover it up and make it look smooth, I continued the dents all around the vase... which then resembled a space ship.. sorta... well I think so :)

the only sucky part of ceramics is trying to find your peice amongst the rest after the first firing

my glazing creation today... next week we will see what it turns out like.. ooooo

mildew fashion show

2008-06-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

Saturdays estate sales were awesome! Even my sister Liz (pictured here modeling her new sweater) came along for the trip after working a twelve hour shift at the hospital all night. Luckily she was able to keep her energy going with coffee, red bull, and shopping.
The first two houses we went to were pretty good... meaning actual estate sales and not just garage sales. At that point I was pretty happy, since I wanted to make Liz's first trip with us to be a success.
The third house we went to was lame, it was just some junk thrown out on a persons driveway, c'mon people, estate sale means we get to snoop inside the house, and the quality of junk is A+
Our last stop on the list was out in Point Loma. This was the BEST estate sale EVER! I mean ever. The house was packed with neat stuff and TONS of clothes, not just tshirts and jeans, but the kinds of clothes you would find in the thrift store before there was ebay, and those boutique vintage stores. I felt like it was 1995 all over again.. polyester dresses, sequins, it was overwhelming. What made this sale even better was the prices - my damage was $11, and Liz's $3.
Heres just a few pics of the finds ... - didn't find a red typewriter (Michele), but I'll keep my eye out for it.

tiny ceramic fawn

pyrex bowl & box of white crayons

owl candle holder

I call this my computer clock

5 boxes of "icicles" and an old box of scoopy's straws

owl purse

a few the sweet outfits I found, check out the sequin dress!

When we got home, Liz modeled all the outfits for us and we had a "mildew fashion show" (hey, old clothes get musty). I'm bummed I didn't get pictures of her in all of these...

I'll cross my fingers

2008-06-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

Every weekend Keith and I go hit up estate sales - which has quickly become my new obsession. I look forward to every Thursday when the sale ads start to pop up online and in the newspaper, it's pretty much the most awesome day of the week, no? I hope to find some killer treasures this weekend , a few weeks ago I hit the jackpot (well for me at least) and found these items

tiny shriner dude

owl bank & sweet pepsi bottle

amp meter (can't pass up electronic test equipment)

light meter, and my most prized find by far...

Styrofoam Santa!!!!

blogs are fun

2008-06-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

I usually forget what I did the week before, heck, I forgot what I did yesterday. I realized that blog might help with my horrible memory. I kinda of feel bad when people asked me "so kristen, what have you been up to lately". I usually kind of stare a bit and go, ... oh not much. People must think I live in a cave or something, but its really because I absolutely can't remember a damn thing.

So, here it is, the Kristen blog, taaaa daaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!