Shoes - Another Obsession

 

 

 

 

Hello; my name is Deborah and I am a shoe addict. 

I've passed the phase of wearing uncomfortable shoes just because I liked how they look, but I'm not ready to embrace "old lady" shoes.  Apparently as we age, the fatty pads on the bottoms of our feet thin out, making for more foot pain.  (Mother Nature is so cruel - really - thin out the fat on the bottoms of our feet? Seems like there are more important spots crying out for thinning).  So the challenge is to find shoes that are comfortable, yet don't make us look like we've just given up.

 

If I could walk stand in these, I would take out a loan for these $775 Laboutins.  I love the signature red leather wrapped sole and heel and the platform.  No need for the loan since I'm pretty sure I couldn't manage two consecutive steps in these beauties.

 

 

 

 

 

No, my shoe preference is something low, something with some cushioning - and is it too much to ask for some pizazz as well?   I found these shoes and they meet all my requirements:

 



 





 

These Skechers are only $60, come in taupe, too (also bought those) and just found the closed toe version - got those in black, too. It's a serious case of "If the shoe fits, buy it in every color"!  These are about the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn and cute enough that women have stopped me to ask where I got them. 

 

Can we talk clogs?  I've worn various versions of clogs for decades.  Last year I found these Dansko clogs.  The sales clerk asked if I'd ever worn clogs; I resisted the urge to sound like a Certified. Old. Person. and tell her I was pretty sure I was wearing clogs before she was born!

 

 

 

 

Now for the winter pair:

 

 

 

 





Then, last week, an unfortunate event that meant I needed, NEEDED a replacement pair of shoes.  Finn decided to show his displeasure at being left alone all day by chewing up my bang-around -the-house shoes.  I've been wanting these for  ages, and used this excuse opportunity to buy them:

 

 

 

I told the sales clerk that my black floral Dansko clogs (above) were pretty tight across the top of my foot, even though they are the same size as the Sanita patent ones.  She said that since clogs (both Sanita and Dansko)  are handmade, so it's always good to try on several pairs of the same size as there might be small variations in fit.  Good to know.

I did a little research about the difference between Sanita and Dansko clogs.  It turns out that originally Dansko was the US distributor of Sanita clogs made in Denmark.  Then in the late 70s, Sanita decided to be their own seller in the US and Dansko started making their own clogs. (I"ll spare you the boring details of the protracted legal battle).   The stapling of the uppers to the sole is the same for both manufacturers.  The newer Dansko lines have a slightly wider foot bed and heel, designed to make them a bit more stable.  If you've ever done the ankle-turn while wearing clogs, this might be an important consideration.

I'm also a fan of Privo - these are the ones Finn decided to chew:

 

These are were my third pair of Privos.  They are my go-to everyday shoes - I don't feel like a total schlep if I wear these out of the house.

 

Add in flats in many styles and colors, sandals and summer flip-flops, a pair of cowboy boots and you get an idea of my shoe collection.  

 

Now - what  should be next  on my "I really need these" list?  Maybe another pair of Privos ?

"Found" Art Supplies

I recently spent an entire week clearing out my art space.    It turns out that I am

I sorted through everything and it's the first time I ever divested myself of some of my paper stash.  I sent one stack to Goodwill and have one packed in my suitcase for Montana granddaughter.  She is a serious budding artist and always needs supplies.  Here she is making great art:

I had a couple of sheets of alphabet stickers and popped out the letters so they'd be easier to store (and find!).  But look at what was left behind.



 I see stencils!  I made some sprays with a few drops of ink and water and spritzed it on journal pages.  I had previously swiped on some gesso on these pages, so you'll see some cool texture as well.



 I wanted to let the design, texture and colors be the focus on this page, so I kept it pretty simple -a few stamps and  some punched out paper scraps from scrap papers I keep on my desk and off-load the paint left on brushes and used ink left on stamps.

 I sprayed a few more pages in my journal and can't wait to play with them.

DIY Bath Scrub **Updated**

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It's a long, dry winter and I use lots of sugar scrub so I don't have the alligator thing going.    I like the combination of exfoliation and oil - lots of oil!    As I finished my last tub, I thought I could probably make the stuff lots cheaper and without all those unpronounceable chemicals. 

Pinterest is full of sugar scrub recipes.  I wanted to make some with what I had on hand, which left out ones with a fancy oil base or  essential  oils for fragrance ( I do have some patchouli oil, but while I still love the occasional trip back to the  70s, patchouli is a bit much for every day).  So I was happy to find a recipe at Freutcake using stuff I already had. 



Lots of scrub recipes call for brown sugar, but I like a coarser scrub and this ones uses Turbinado sugar that has a  much coarser grain than brown sugar.  

The recipe:

1/2 cup granulated (white) sugar

2 cups Turbinado sugar (sugar in the raw)

1 Tablespoon honey

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 Tablespoon Vanilla extract (or your favorite essential oil)

Directions: Combine the two sugars in a bowl and mix to incorporate. Add olive oil and stir. Mix in honey and vanilla. Store in an airtight jar.

Again, this is a coarse scrub, so if you'd like something less vigorous, you can substitute brown sugar for the Turbinado.  I wouldn't use this as a face scrub.

I doubled the vanilla and added extra oil after packing the scrub into jars.  I let the oil settle down into the scrub and added more - a couple of times.  ( I told you I like oil).  The scrub looks and smells good enough to eat, but let's not.

I packed the scrub into some small recycled glass jars.  Even though all the pictures on Pinterest showed the scrub in glass jars, I'm not sure that glass jars filled with slippery oil  are the smartest idea for the shower.  I'm on the lookout for some small metal tubs - seems safer.

I've already tested my scrub and love it.  Think I'm going to try grinding some lavender and using lavender essential oil for fragrance in the next batch. 

This scrub would make a great gift - packed in a nice tin and finished off with some fibers and a cute tag.  I think I have an idea for the  office gifts for next Christmas- I even found a site for the tins.

**UPDATE**  I finally made the lavender scrub.  I ground about two tablespoons of dried lavender in the coffee grinder and added it and lavender essential oil to the sugar/ oil/ honey mixture.   Most recipes calls for just a few drops of oil, but I add much more - probably a teaspoon or two.  The smell is divine!

 

Perfection is the Enemy of the Good



 



My little chair upholstery project has me thinking about perfection.  It took me two years to tackle the chair, even though I had all the old fabric off and  new fabric within a week of hauling my chair home.  I was afraid of messing it up, of  not being able to do a perfect job.  I'm happy with how my chair turned out, but perfect it is not.  It's good - better by far than it was and really the best I could do.  But what is this obsession we have with perfection?  Why are we often not happy with our best effort? 

There's a world of difference between not caring enough to give things our best shot and just driving ourselves nuts because we fall short of perfection.   When the kids were little, we had a couple of sayings posted on the fridge:
"Be the matter great or small, do it well or not at all".

and the great Martin Luther King quote;
 " If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well".   It was important to me that the kids  learned pride in a job well done, even if that job was just taking out the trash.

Neither of these quotations talk about being perfect, just about doing our best.  Most of us want to do a good job of whatever it is we're doing, but never feeling that what we've done is good enough is a burden we don't need to bear.  I just read Julia Cameron's  The Artist's Way and her take on perfectionism struck home.  She talks about perfectionism as an obsessive loop that causes us to get stuck .  "Perfectionism is not a quest for the best.  It is the pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us nothing be do will ever be good enough- that we should try again.  No, we should not".

I'm comfortable with less-than-perfect in many things:  I like the shabby look of worn and used stuff, like the grungy art look and I'm pretty sure my house has never been in perfect order.  But there are times when I'm so caught up in trying to make sure everything is perfect that I can drive myself and everyone around me crazy .  This obsession with perfection not only sets us up for disappointment, but also sucks the joy from our life.  Constantly feeling that we're not good enough is hard on ourselves and everyone around us.

It's all about balance - caring enough to do our best and be our best and then being satisfied that our best is enough.  It means we'll do things over that didn't turn out right the first time, that we don't settle for mediocre, but we won't make ourselves sick because our best falls short of perfection in everything.  We celebrate the rare moment when we get close, but are okay that those moments are not our norm .

And a journal page (clearly not perfect) to help me remember that perfection is indeed the enemy of the good:

(And in some Karmic communication, I can't delete all the white space at the end of this post about perfection).   Take a deep breath and embrace imperfection!

Ribbon Storage, Thanks to Lost

 

We changed our cable package and now get a zillion more channels, so I'm catching up on series that are new to me.  Like Lost.  Even though it keeps getting weirder and weirder, I can't stop watching.  In order to justify some of that Lost time (sorry, I couldn't help myself),  I'm finding projects I can do while watching.

Enter my ribbon problem.  I have two boxes full of ribbons and various fibers, and it takes me forever to find what I want in all the mess.  I should have taken a "before" picture, but you can imagine - two boxed overflowing with tangled  ribbons, ends sticking out everywhere.

I started out by sorting through stuff and decluttering - a fancy word for throwing out stuff you didn't need in the first place. Then I wound the ribbons around Formica tag samples and took other ribbons off large paper spools that just take up too much room.

I didn't know what I was going to use to hold all the ribbons.  Then I remembered an artist case I bought at a tag sale.  Basic, boring - hardware already removed.

 

 

 

I covered the box with some handmade paper from World Market (thanks to Montana Daughter).

 





The hardest part was putting all the hardware back !

 

 

The Formica tags fit pretty well in one of the compartments and the others hold rolled ribbons and assorted fibers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now to find another project so I don't feel totally guilty indulging in marathon TV watching.  It can't be too complicated, though.  There are so many twisting plots and flash-backs on  Lost that I  need to pay attention.  I do  have a few observations for the next marooned- on- a- remote- island series:  everyone (especially the chubby guy) should be getting thinner, since their diet is mainly fruit,  with the occasional gorge on wild boar or processed foods found in underground bunkers, and the women's eyebrows should be getting pretty ratty by season three.  Just sayin'.





Chair Reupholstery DIY

 

 

A few summers ago, Boston Daughter and I found this little chair on the side of the road, free for the taking.

 

 

 

We had to haul it home in the back of our tiny car, tied down with a pair of capri pants !

 

I had big plans to recover it, but after removing hundreds of staples

 

and the worn denim fabric

 

the chair has been sitting in our bedroom, mocking me every time I see it:  "What were you thinking?  You don't know the first thing about upholstery"! 

 

One of my New Year resolutions is to finish some of the projects around here.   Time to address the bare naked chair.   I don't know anything about upholstery, but I figured whatever I could do would be way better than the exposed stuffing look.

 

I started by painting the wood an off-white and added some distressing. 

 

Then on to the scary part.  I saved the fabric pieces I had removed and used them as a pattern for the chair back and arms.  I just stapled the pieces onto the frame  and then hot glued on the trim to cover the staples..  I made a new seat from a pillow form - a bit fluffy, but I didn't want to recreate the formed box seat. 

 

The back was a bit of a challenge.  I wanted to just slide one piece of fabric down the back, but that wouldn't work, so I cut individual pieces and used my trusty bone folder to jam them into the spaces between the wooden trim.

 

I'm pretty happy with the results:

 

 





 





 

 

I love my new chair with its faux upholstery re-do. 

Thrifted Goodies

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I haven't shared thrifted goodies in awhile.  What with Christmas and company, not much serious thrifting going on.  Then last week I hit the jackpot with this Kate Spade bag:

 

 



 

Pristine interior

 

Flipped picture can't hide the $8.99 price tag, but wait, it was 50% off day, so my bag cost $4.50.  This is why thrift store shopping is so addictive.

 

The price on this bag is an example of the wildly inconsistent pricing at thrift stores.  There were  handbags of "100%  man-made materials" - a fancy way to say plastic-  for three times as much as my Kate Spade bag.  Same thing for all categories - it seems that the pricing is up to the whim of the individual doing the pricing.  Some things are wildly overpriced, as in the Gap sweater that was $25.00 at The Goodwill.  I saw the same sweater on clearance at a Gap store for $19.99.  And then there's my bag and my set of silverware for $2.99.  Go figure.

 

Some more sweet finds:

 

 

 

Tianello shirt that retails for $110.  I had to pay full price - $6.99 for this fitted tencel beauty.

 

And a few finds for Montana granddaughter:

 

 

 

A brandie new Lands' End sweater, an embroidered jacket and a fun twirly skirt.

 

 

 

Two summer dresses - an April Cornell and a Hartstrings.

 

Now, about thrift store unpderpants - who buys them?  Even I draw the line at used underpants!  Seems weird that there's a law prohibiting the sale of used mattresses, but previously-worn unders are OK.