displaying figurines

I've had people ask me before "what is it?" "what do you do with it?", when talking about my figurines.  I didn't think they would be such cause for confusion.  Set them on your shelf with your other trinkets & bits.  Put one on your desk to cheer you up when you're feeling sad.  Set one next to the coffee maker, because you can.  It's your figurine...you can do whatever you want with it!

Anyways...this is how I display some of my figurines.  It's one of those vintage printer's letterpress drawers, that I hung on the wall.  It has a really cool drawer handle on the bottom.  There's a ton for sale on Etsy, but they're all so expensive.  $60 for an old drawer?  Sorry, no.  I appreciate good vintage and antiques, but just because something is "in", doesn't mean you can jack up the price.  Excuse me while I go buy a brand new dresser with all the drawers for $60 instead. (ok, maybe not exactly, but you get the idea)
I got this one for about $20 on Ebay. There's a small break in one of the compartments that I plan on sanding down, but I always forget it's there.  You can't even tell from afar.

It's a mixture of ones I've made, and toys the boy and I have collected over the years.  Mostly the ones I have from me, are tests or rejects.  Like the little Sundae kitty...you can't tell, but he has a broken neck!  So sad.  And that little green pocket kitty up top.  Way too small to sell.  I thought, hey maybe...but nah.  The regular pocket kitties are already cheap enough.
 I had planned on selling that lil grenade, next to the blue pocket kitty, but he just looks so cute on my shelf.  I'll probably just make more one day.

Goodwill finds

Last week I stopped into a Goodwill store. There's actually a few in the general radius of my area, but for some reason I always forget take a peek. And boy am I glad I did!
I found the most amazing dish set in a super cool aqua color. It kind of reminds me of fiestaware. I was going to take a picture of it, but I already put it away in the cabinets, and there's so many dishes, and they're heavy....and I'm lazy. Oh whatever. Lou, of course, was full of positivity when I showed him my fantastic find....telling me the color makes him nauseous. Apparently in high school art class, his teacher had them work with an aqua colored glaze for pottery that looked just like the dishes I bought. He said the smell made him nauseous. Wonderful.

Another one of my amazing finds....some sort of shadowbox that is absolutely perfect for displaying my figurines!


I've been tirelessly searching online for a display for them and focused in on typeset print drawers. They're giant vintage drawers that were once used to hold the letters that were used in old time printing presses. There's lots of little sections and I think they'd be great for figurine displays. Unfortunately, they're all $30 and up in price. While $30 isn't very expensive, I've yet to find a decent shipping price.
Anywhoo...this shadow box only cost me TWO DOLLARS and is exactly what I was looking for!


Also got a great "vintage" looking frame for a dollar that I'm going to spray paint some bright awesome color like pink or neon green.
An artist easel for a dollar, and a belt for $2.
All in all, I left Goodwill feeling like I robbed the place. Looking forward to stopping at another one tomorrow. It's payday after all......I might come home owning the whole store!

And just for funsies....darn, I wish these weren't blurry. Spike just loves to get scratches when I'm busy taking pictures.

wedding season

Wedding season is approaching! So I've been busily filling custom wedding topper orders and also making some basic sets for the shop. My craft area is a complete mess since I'm working on everything at once. Kind of assembly line style. I think I waste the least amount of paint that way. I'm trying to decide what the best accent color for my basic wedding sets would be to use, that would appeal to the most amount of people. Is there a most popular color? I'm thinking blue, red, and then just a black and white set. At least to start. Or maybe green? Coral? Burgundy? Sunflower?? Ok...enough of that.



I listed a WHOLE bunch of things a few days ago as well. Lots of kitty things. Pocket kitties galore and a handful of "lucky" golden kittehs. I'm hoping to get more of a color assortment with the pocket kitties soon. Just have to find the time!



Recently I finished up an "Easter" custom order and three of the Plinis in the group I made with little decorated eggs on top of their heads. I can't get over how cute they turned out! I'm excited to make more of these lil ones. Along with more "Peeps" and bunny Plinis too.



And finally, the other day I found the cutest wooden "house" at Michael's that I thought would be the perfect tiny display for my Plinis! I later saw on the label that it's actually a CD holder. But it's going to be even cuter when I paint it up like a dollhouse and use it for my figurines!
This photo really shows just how crazy cluttered my craft table is at the moment too! I can assure you that the whole table looks like this...

Sundays are for stuffing my face

One of my favorite things to do is use the ingredient search function at allrecipes.com to use up the random stuff in the kitchen. I happened to have a stray jalapeno, half a container of cream cheese, a plain bagel and some mexican blend shredded cheese. Even though I didn't really follow any of the recipes I came across on allrecipes, I did get some inspiration.

I toasted the two bagel halves in the oven (because Lou set fire to our toaster oven when he unsuccessfully tried to toast some bread, ugh...boys). Then I layered a generous helping of cream cheese, diced jalapeno and a mountain of the shredded cheese on top. Might I recommend NOT scratching your nose after chopping the jalapeno. You'd think I'd learn to remember that by now. But instead, my entire nose is on FIRE. Anyways, I left it in a 350 degree oven until the cheese got nice and melty on top. And wow, it tasted just like a jalapeno popper, except it was easier to eat! Am I the only one that takes one bite of the popper and the whole jalapeno slides out and burns my bottom lip? Or I take a bite and all of the cheese squirts out the back and burns my hand? Yeah, those little poppers are live hand grenades if I've ever seen it.

They might not look award winning, but trust me, freakin delicious.



Aside from food experimentations, I managed to finish up most of my craft show table display. Everything is tagged, bagged, mostly packed, organized, printed, blah blah blah, etc etc. I just have a few loose ends to tie up, a few more supplies I need to buy, and everything will be ready to go! I can't believe it's only a week away. Will I be ready???? I hope I don't forget anything.

Spike was more than willing to help with the table cover fitting, which I think came out pretty good! Folding it was a nightmare though. I hope it stays wrinkle free in time for the show! I hate wrinkly tablecloths.