Tag Archives: travel

Yummy Trading Party

  April 8, 2013 - 9:26 pm | blog
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On Friday morning Katie and I headed on a road trip to Rye NY with our two boys. We had decided to leave Friday morning since the drive was a little over five hours and make a fun road trip out of it.
When we finally arrived at our hotel Friday evening we were greeted with a goodie bag from Candy Rox filled with treats. The Yummy Trading Party was on Saturday so we got up and decided to park on Purchase st which is where the shop is located, such a cute little area! We had breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien which was really good and then walked up and down the street a bit before heading to Candy Rox. Everyone at the store was so sweet and nice, they had gone all out with yummy treats for everyone who attended. They bought treats to match the yummy keychains, and even set out the greek paper coffee cups for hot chocolate & coffee. There were balloons, coloring pages, a bunch of items to be raffled off, and even costumes!
I wasn’t able to take photos once the event started but thankfully Katie nabbed some photos for me with me camera & phone. The elementary & middle school kids in Rye are mega yummy keychain collectors. There are rumors flying about what is rare, rumors about what the next series might be, and questions galore. These kids were so awesome! I loved being able to talk to them, sign their keychains & shirts, and hear all their great suggestions for what they think should be made into keychains. The place was packed, and it was amazing and I am so grateful to everyone who came out. Candy Rox said they had over 110 rsvp’s!!
There was one boy who was very serious and asked “Is there a turkey or purple burrito keychain? Because my friend says he has both and I don’t believe him!” Of course I had to break the news that there was no turkey or magical purple burrito in the yummy collections.
There was also a ten year old girl with her mother, who was surprised as her daughter pulled a long strand of yummies from a small bag and said “You told me you only had 20 of them!” to which the daughter said “I have 56″ We loved that she knew the exact number, and goodness…56!!! Really the kids here are super collectors, and most had their yummies clipped onto stretchy hair bands that they then wear around their wrists. The parents told us that it’s a big thing in all the local schools, and has just sort of exploded over the last couple of months.
It was a really fun day and I am so glad that Candy Rox asked me to come and visit. In the evening we went ahead and started heading toward PA, we just wanted to knock a few hours off the trip, and stayed in New Jersey. Then Sunday took our time heading back and drove through Lancaster for Shoo-fly pie, the Christmas Museum and a few antique shops. We did make an attempt to stop and shop at The Golden Nugget fleamarket in NJ which came highly recommended. But when we tried to stop there on Sunday morning the parking situation was a total nightmare. Instead of a parking lot, it was more of a “park-wherever, if you can” arrangement and after weaving our way through cars with many stops and backing the car up, we decided to give up. Maybe if you arrive really early parking isn’t as much of an issue, but it was too anxiety inducing for my tastes haha.

Road Tripping

  July 20, 2012 - 7:00 am | blog
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Road trips mean road food, and of course when we are down south we have to stop in to a Krispy Kreme! We don’t have any of the storefronts around where we live, so we get excited about watching the donuts come of the conveyer belts. I picked up one of their birthday mugs and tin of donuts for us all.

Once in South Carolina we went to Mitchelville beach with my parents. When the tide is out it is the best for finding shells and watching the wild life. You have to walk out so far to get to the water, its wonderful! We saw horseshoe crabs, millions of little sand crabs. You can also find huge amazing shells..but most of them have little creatures inside so you can’t keep them, but I always think it’s kind of fun to check.

We saw a lot of great neon signs on the road, I think’s its funny when restaurants have cute cartoon versions of the animals they serve…poor little joe! My other favorite pig is of course the Piggly Wiggly mascot. I was excited that they had coffee mugs this time.
On the drive back home we had to stop in to South Of The Border. It was getting dark so all the great neon signs were on. Our favorite thing though was a little mine craft creeper someone had attached to one of the buildings. B said it just made his night! It was a crazy fun road trip though, lots of hotels (and swimming in the hotel pools!!) Lucky for me Heather did all the highway driving (I had made a deal that I would rent the car if she did the driving, I think I lucked out)

Thrifting Thursday – Road Trip Thrift Shopping

  July 19, 2012 - 7:00 am | blog
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Last week I left on a six day road trip with my sister Heather. She had asked me months ago to take a trip with her to Savannah GA because her son wanted to visit SCAD. He’ll be a senior next year like K, so we’ve got college visits in the works (I cannot believe this is happening!) She really wanted to drive so we could stop places along the way, so we rented a SUV and headed out. Her, her oldest son, and my two boys.


We had mapped out some thrift shopping along the way. The only really hard part about this is you never know what the thrift shops are going to be like. We did make a stop in Staunton VA because it was right off of 81 south. We stumbled across Wright’s Drive In, which I remembered seeing in Jenny Frecklewonder’s instagram. It is the cutest drive-in! You can go inside and sit and order from a phone at your table (which is what we did) and the kid’s meals come in a little cardboard car.

We also checked out the antique shop downtown that Jenny sells her goods at, its a beautiful shop and worth checking out for sure! The photo at the very top is from the antique shop.
The day we left on the trip happened to be 7/11 also known as free slurpee day. We could of really taken advantage of this on the drive, but we only stopped at one haha.
Besides thrift shops we had to make some roadside america stops, like this beautiful coffee pot shaped building outside of Buena Vista VA. It used to be a fish market, but it closed now. I’d love to live in a house shaped like something else!
So back to the thrifting—I think I broke every “thrift while traveling” rule, most of what I bought was glass (luckily nothing broke), I also bought a record even though the temperature got pretty high on our trip, and I bought a paper item that could of become bent. Luckily everything survived! Besides thrift shops, we also stopped to see my parents who live in South Carolina and spent some time at the beach. I have a few more photos to share tomorrow.

Pittsburgh PA

  November 13, 2011 - 8:07 pm | blog
11 Comments

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My whirlwind trip to Pittsburgh this weekend was a lot of fun. My most favorite thing in Pittsburgh has to be our friends Tracey & Greg (Tracey is one half of the amazing Friend Or Foe plush monster makers)

I made the drive out to Pittsburgh the day of the show, which meant leaving my house at 4am. My craft-show friend extraordinaire Katie was going to come with me for a road trip, but her and her son were sick. Being sick isn’t fun in the first place, but being sick and on a road trip away from pajamas and hot tea? would be no fun at all. I kept myself company by listening to a book on cd by Miranda July that I have had for awhile. I read the book before but couldn’t pass it up when I found the cd set for $1. It made the time go by quickly.

I had some pretty sleepy moments during the show, so if you came by and said hello while I was mid-yawn I’m really sorry about that! At the end of the night I checked into my hotel which was Shadyside Inn and Suites. I got it for a really great price, and it turned out to be a renovated apartment building so my “room” including a living room, dining room, 2 bedrooms, kitchen, and bathroom! It was pretty much wasted on me since Tracey took me out to dinner for some amazing vegetarian mexican food. Then I came back to my one night apartment rental and crashed. But it is good to know for future stays.

The next morning Tracey picked me up and took me out for breakfast and then to the Phipp’s Conservatory. It was beautiful there, I wanted to take a photo of every plant, flower, and tree. They have a room with orchids, one full of chrysanthemums, another with cacti. I imagine it would be an amazing place to visit in February when the Pennsylvania winter just won’t seem to ever end. They were still in the middle of decorating for holidays. I really loved the plant in the bottom photo (but of course cannot remember the name) it had beautiful green leaves and a back stem. We also saw bananas, lemons, coffee beans, cocoa beans, and kumquats growing. A perfect way to spend the morning.

Then I started the drive home, picked up B from his cousins and got back in the early evening. I cannot wait to see Tom tonight. He had his own trip to Chicago this week/weekend and just landed at the Dulles airport around the same time I was arriving in Pittsburgh on Saturday–so I miss him so much. Lucky for us the next trip we are taking will be together!

***Shop update news I have lots of goodies to photograph and add to the shop, and something extra special for all orders over $50 (cant wait to share that) but it is going to take a little while to photograph and edit everything. So I am planning the update for Monday Nov 21st so I won’t be rushed and miss anything. I’ll make another announcement the day before to remind everyone.

Crafty Bastards 2011

  October 3, 2011 - 12:56 pm | blog
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A huge thank you to everyone who braved the weather on Saturday and came out to Adams Morgan for this years Crafty Bastards show. The weather was gloomy, cold, and it rained the whole day long. It was bound to happen with so many years of perfect weather, but I was still surprised by how cold the day was!

The only real bummer about the rain to me was I had purchased 8 cardboard displays, and my plan had been to set them up on the floor. 4 in a row on either side of the tent. Unfortunately with the rain we just managed to get 3 together and put them on the tables in the corners. Of course no one could reach anything on the top shelves and we had to get up on a chair, or stretch really far to get the stuff down. But it still worked out okay. I am excited to try them again at my next show.

We had to rig up a tarp to the back of our tent, and luckily our nice neighbors let us borrow the front side of their tent, so we ended up looking like we were inside a cozy cave. I think it’s time we retire our old blue tent because there are a lot of pin sized holes in the top which leak, it does not have sides, and since it’s dark blue (which is fine on sunny days) it makes it really dark inside when it rains.

There were still plenty of shoppers, which was awesome. I only walked around once with K. It was just easier to stay snuggled up in the tent and keep dry. Thomas and K came to help out for the day. K walked down to get us jumbo slice, Tom made a coffee & chai run and got himself a burrito. Saw lots of old friends, and had a good day despite the weather.

When we arrived home all the luggage in the back of the truck was soaked, but thank goodness I had all the leftover plush in plastic bags and they remained dry! I however couldn’t seem to get warm for the rest of the night, and now have ended up with a bit of a cold. We had out of town friends over on Saturday and then Sunday was K’s party so the weekend was packed! Today I am in a million layers of sweaters/scarves/wool socks etc and keeping up with my cold medicine & orange juice ;) I’m going to stay in bed and go through all the photos I took at the skating party. I’ll be updating the shop later this week with anything leftover from the show, but I’ll post an exact time and date soon.