Dear People with Kitchens Rugs:
Who are you? What do you do? Do you have animals? Do you actually cook? Are you just insanely neat cooks who never spill anything on the floor? Do you wash your rug? Does it fit inside your washing machine? Please explain the logistics of this! Let me say that I don’t mean this post in a mean way. Truthfully I want to be you, so please help me. I would love a sweet little rug in our kitchen to liven up the area. I just have a feeling that with our habits the rug would go from sweet to nasty after the course of one meal.
{Young House Love}
{Bower Power}
I’ve read that natural fiber rugs work well in the kitchen, but I can’t help myself from thinking that various drippings would inevitably stain it and cause it to smell. Does anyone want to give us any advice? Has anyone tried this and had a bad experience? Please fill us in.
I’m not sure if this is a nationwide phenomenon or if it’s just Austin’s eco-conscious mindset, but it seems like every time I turn around clothing swaps are popping up on social calendars. I’d never heard of a clothing swap until recently when a friend told me that it was a recessionistas answer to the economic downturn. Basically everyone brings things they don’t want, everyone exchanges clothes and you donate the leftovers. Hmm, so I meet up with all my friends and we trade clothes? That just sounded preposterous. I mean, we all have different body types and if we want to get rid of it, wouldn’t our like minded friends want to get rid of it as well?
I remained skeptical until I heard of a clothing swap with free cupcakes and wine. I’m not a girl who turns down a free cupcake, so my friend and I grabbed some old clothes and drove to the event. When we got there we saw racks of clothes divided into categories of t-shirts, tank tops, tops, skirts, purses, jewelry, jeans, shoes, etc. It was heavenly. The girl who was hosting the party gave a quick thanks and we all raided the clothes. She had a dressing room set up but everyone inevitably ended up changing and traded clothes in the bathroom, hallway, and bedroom–basically anywhere that wasn’t in front of the giant wall sized window in the living room.
There was no fighting over who got what, instead all the girls were so supportive. Someone would turn around and say, “Oh I don’t know if this fits,” and everyone would counter saying, “No you look awesome!” Girls would see each other trying on something they’d brought and without even a hint of jealousy exclaim, “OMG that looks so much better on you than it ever did on me!!” It was such an amazing event and I met so many great women and tried on some beautiful things. Free Seven Jeans-uh, yes please. I returned home with number of diferent goodies and a smile on my face.
For those of you who need photos, here is one of my favorite tops that I brought home.
I got a few more, a couple dresses, and a scarf. It was like Christmas all over again.
This weekend Austin hosted its 2nd Annual Women’s Clothing Swap. There were free haircuts, an alteration center, and lots and lots of free clothes. It sounded too good to be true. I went with the same friend that accompanied me to the last event and I have to be honest: we were really disappointed. I really want to say we loved it, but the clothes were more outcasts from Goodwill than great finds from Buffalo Exchange. In addition, the girls in attendance were nowhere near as communal. People were territorial and giving everyone mean looks. It was terrible. I grabbed a few things like an ugly suit that may have a salvageable skirt and another skirt that is literally four sizes too big. I figure its cheaper to learn to sew using free clothes as fabric than it is buying some from the store.
So, what’s the take away from this post? I think clothing swaps are a good idea, but in the future I will probably opt for the small-medium sized ones where I know the girls and people are actually interacting with one another. There’s a lot of fun to be had at these things, I just think it was lost in the masses for the event this weekend.
And just for fun, here are some recommendations on what to wear if you opt to go to one yourself.
- Think of it like being in 7th grade gym class all over again. Save your sexy underwear for another time. You’re going to be changing a lot. I wore tights and a sports bra, but then again I’m pretty shy and modest.
- Wear shoes that you can slip on and off easily. You don’t want to be tying and untying your shoes but you don’t want to abandon them either. People tend to think items that are left alone are free for the taking.
- Choose things that you can layer clothes over and still get an idea of what an outfit looks like. This helps minimizes changing time.
- Don’t wear a dress. Skirts are good, but dresses leave you searching for a top to pair with the bottoms that you’re trying on, which means that you lose valuable time.
- Bring a huge bag to stash your new finds.
If you’re not as modest as I am then a lot of the advice above may not apply. And because I’m an absolute dork, Peter took ridiculous pictures of me wearing a good ”Clothing Swap Outfit.” I wouldn’t usually recommend a cardigan because its just one more thing to keep track of, but I get cold all the time so I usually don’t leave the house without one.
Okay, yeah I’m officially the biggest dork ever (and no, I don’t follow the no pairing black and navy fashion rule). Anyway, have any of you been to a clothing swap? What was your experience like? Did any other Austinites make it the one this weekend and have a completely different experience?
This is about to get really personal: somehow both Peter and I have a knack for tearing holes in jeans. I don’t know how each of us does it, but it happens. The worst part is that the last time I ripped a pair of jeans, I had no idea it happened until I was digging in the laundry to put them on again. Now I have images of myself walking through my office with all my co-workers whispering behind my back…. Hopefully the washing machine is at fault. Anyway, while out and about on one of my Target excursions I happened upon these:
Iron on patches seemed much easier to use than having to sew patches myself, especially since I’m still so new to my sewing machine .
I had these with the mystery tear.
And a pair that tore a long time ago. (This tear was too massive to not notice when it happened.)
I’m happy to say that the process was quite simple and it worked like a charm. Basically you just turn the clothing inside out and arrange the hole so that the ends of the fabric meet. Press it throughly with a warm iron, taking extra care to press the edges down well.
I think they turned out really well. I was worried about wearing them to work because I was afraid that the patch would fall off and I’d be stuck all day trying to hide my bottom, but everything has worked out OK. I will say that the patch on my Rock & Republics is starting to come off around the edges on the inside os the jeans, but I also had to piece together three separate patches to cover the giant hole. Overall, it has stretched the life of my jeans which is definitely worth the $3 that I spent.
What inexpensive things have you found to facilitate your life?
Written on January 29th, 2010 by Peter6 comments
The majority of home improvement blogs tend to present the viewer with a very carefully constructed representation of continuity. In short, most blogs show a visitor something that the blogger has found which has been overwhelmingly positive; a force in their life has been discovered and utilized in way that makes not only home improvement, but life in general a more noble and harmonious pursuit.
We, however, prefer a more honest approach and are more than willing to familiarize you, dear reader, with our cock ups, as John Cleese might call them. We want to tell you when we screw up, because we think mistakes in homemaking are productive. Mistakes help us learn and by sharing our failures with you all, we can help you learn in a more honest fashion.
So here is an epic fail:
It began so innocently, with a beautiful, sunny Sunday afternoon of thrift store shopping. My betrothed and I found what might be the best antique store in Austin, a little place called Out of the Past, after the masterpiece of a film noir with your favorite bad boy and mine, Robert Mitchum. We paid this place a visit, met the store’s wonderful proprietress, and purchased two beautiful silver pieces for use in our upcoming wedding. As with most vintage silver one may find, these pieces were tarnished. As we were leaving the store the owner called after us, “Now don’t go buying any of that silver polish! It smells! Use toothpaste instead.”
Well, I attacked this project full bore, thinking it would give me an opportunity to share a thrifty tip with our readers. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Yes, a man was wrong. Somehow the planets aligned and the forces of nature turned against the human race: a man was wrong. The toothpaste did not yield any results. I then tried soaking the silver in warm water and baking soda. Again, nothing.
The picture above serves as both a before and an after. I did manage to remove one microscopic spot, but I would assume that scrubbing furiously for an extended period of time using oatmeal could have produced the same result. (No, I haven’t read any evidence that oatmeal can polish silver.)
The moral of this story, unfortunately, is that some home remedies are sheer quackery, like the nineteenth century elixirs of life sold at medicine shows across the U.S. This did not work, so by all means, use your toothpaste and baking soda for, respectively, personal hygiene and troublesome stomach ailments, not for imperfections of silver.
When I was visiting Clay, he showed me a quick trick for cleaning grimy faucets. You will need is baking soda, vinegar, a plastic bag, and a rubber band.
Pour some baking soda and vinegar in the plastic bag until the mixture starts to bubble like a volcano. Then attach the bag to the sink using your rubber band. Wait awhile–we forgot about it for a few hours but I’m sure an hour would have sufficed.
Remove the bag and enjoy a cleaner faucet! It’s that easy and look at the difference!
Don’t you wish you had a friend like me to post photos of dirty places in your house? 
Thanks Clay!
