Grandma's Sewing Room Buyout for Almost Nothing

This weekend I purchased $200 of items from a farmhouse estate sale, a low amount of money for the sheer volume of fabric, notions, various trinkets and cleanable/repairable things (about 5 full ikea bags of fabric and notions alone). This is always overwhelming once I get everything home, but I can't stop thinking of where these would have gone (especially the fabrics, and probably the trash). Grandmas sewing room didn't have very many visitors at the sale. I think of how much money grandma spent on these textiles made of linen, cotton, and silk. I think of how much I paid for a thin roll of elastic at Joanns. I think of how rare quality natural fabrics are in our world of polyester and throwaway capitalist culture. If I can change that I will. I am happy to make the effort to clean, sort, and reuse or sell these items for buyers who can't really find these anymore. It is a mixture of sadness and gratefulness that my brain is ok with being a racoon digging through grandmas messy storage and ferrying scraps and bits home.

Watch/Toy Battery Trays for Organization

My ADHD makes organization very important, and I ended up making these 3D printable watch/toy battery trays for drawer storage with large labels for instant identification and inventory. I need these for various repairs and love not having to dig through a messy drawer full of random battery packaging! All models are packaged together for 99 cents on Cults3D.

Adding Insulation to an Antique Art Deco Glass Coffee Pot

This was an interesting piece that I purchased in a rough state. Usually these coffee pots have insulation on the inside of the metal, and the red velvet interior was worn and disintegrated. I put together a few pieces of fabric into a quilted liner for the bottle that would fill in the exterior empty space and protect the bottle while still being removable if needed. The cap for the spout was missing so I siliconed a cork to the interior metal cover. It was an interesting project but will be a nice addition to someone’s collection! Currently available in my eBay store.

Mini Circle Knitting Loom

I’ve made a very small knitting loom with 14 Posts - it is about 30 mm / 1.2 in wide. I made it to play around with making tiny nets, ropes, and mini hats! I thought this would be a fun tool for knitting figurine and dollhouse hats and clothing. Theoretically you could print this at a smaller size for even more mini-sized knitting, but I haven't tried anything smaller than this size yet.

This little one is available for $0.65 on Cults3D.

Careers Game Board by Parker Brothers 1955

Careers game board by Parker Brothers 1955. The scan ended up being a little finicky but this is a fun midcentury board game relic! Participate in 1955 life by seeing a rare butterfly, maybe going to sea, or having lunch with royalty. Full size PNG also available in the Ephemera section.

Fallout Protection: What to Know and Do About Nuclear Attack

Found this December 1961 booklet Fallout Protection: What to Know and Do About Nuclear Attack today at a sale in Hubbard, OR. I've scanned in the whole booklet for your reading enjoyment/horror! Free PDF in my Ephemera page. :)
#fallout #nuclear #1960s

Upcycling a Vintage Beanie Baby for a Reusable Storage Pouch

We are currently in the era of Beanie Babies being sold in bulk at estate sales. And, as much as people viewed them as collectibles back in the 90’s, they are most certainly one of the least popular items left over on the last day of the sale. For example, I got this Chocolate moose baby from a garage sale “free” bin.

I thought it would be a fun idea to figure out a reuse case for these beanie babies that don’t involve just donating a bunch of them to a thrift store (where many of them might get thrown away). One option would be to just give the toy to someone who really likes moose plushies. Another option would be to reuse the Beanie Baby skin as something else than a toy.

The Beanie Baby designs are very cute and nostalgic, so I thought a zipper pouch might appeal to people looking to either hide money away in the stuffed animal bin inside a secret pouch or those seeking unique storage pouch ideas in general.

I’ve emptied the beans and stuffing out of this little guy and sewed in a heavy duty vintage jeans zipper. He’s simple and cute and I think he turned out pretty well! He’s now available in my Etsy store.

Repainting & Rewiring a Vintage Halogen Lamp for LED

I grabbed this lamp at a thrift store because I knew they were worth a little bit of money and I could potentially resell it after fixing the wiring. This 90’s/banker’s lamp/art deco design is fun! But, I also wondered if changing the color of the black lamp parts to something more colorful might bring some life into it.

I spent some time looking at spray paint color options and was hovering around pale pink or blue because I love 80s colors. Ultimately I chose Rustoleum Gloss Harbor Blue because it had slightly more color saturation than a pale baby blue.

After realizing how hot the halogen bulb got in such a short time I decided to swap it out for an LED version. Not knowing much about halogen lightbulb sizes it took me some time to find the right replacement but anytime I can find an LED replacement I will swap old lightbulbs out for energy savings and safety.

The wiring on this guy wasn’t too complicated, just a dimmer switch in line with the power cord. When I am not sure if I will remember the wiring setup, I just take photos as I take a lamp apart and then go backwards through the photos to put it all back together.

I had to splice and solder in in some additional length of wire coming from the halogen bulb fixture and then also do the same for the power cord to the bulb and dimmer. The original wiring used permanent clamps that I had to cut off to get the lamp apart for cleaning and rewiring. Luckily I really enjoy the splicing / soldering / heat shrink tubing application process.

In the end after cleaning and repainting the black parts, putting the lamp back together, and turning it on in the darkness I noticed the color of the glass even more (a light green) and the blue and green colors really worked together. Overall the style of this ended up looking very art deco /cyberpunk / 80s so I’m super happy!

Reframing & Re-Wiring a 1960s-ish Fair Play Scoreboard Sign

This metal sign piece was originally centered in a Fair Play branded scoreboard. I ended up with this for free because it had a broken lens, old decayed wiring, and no frame. To make this into a working hangable art sign, I’ve done the following:

• I’ve rewired the light fixtures using outdoor LED round bulbs mounted to a custom metal strip. Originally each light in this sign was controllable, but the controller no longer functioned. Now the lights all turn on and off at the same time as a decorative light fixture. ($11.87 for lights, some left over for myself)

• I added in a glass dome tail light lens (amber color) into the missing lens hole. The tail light lens has a slightly higher profile but it is a similar enough dome shape and was way cheaper than other antique lenses on eBay (difference between about $6/lens vs. $30/lens). ($5.57 per lens)

• I spliced the too-short LED light cord onto a long lamp cord. ($1 cord from estate sale)

• I made a custom wood box frame with scrap wood and painted it gray to match with the gray metal sign color. ($6 paint, $0 scrap wood)

• I added a cord notch in the wood frame.

• I added picture hanging hooks and wire to the back of the sign so it could be hung on a wall. ($1 for hooks at estate sale, $0 wire I already have)

Total cost to repair this guy was $25.44 and my personal time. I am hoping to sell it in a local auction. This was a fun and nice project to save this little piece of history from the trash. It will also be a great decoration for a baseball or basketball fan’s room!

Front of Fair Play remounted and rewired sign light fixture.

The wood frame lets the metal sign be hung on the wall while hiding the electronics.

The back is rewired with modern LED lighting.

Repairing Old Koken Barber Pole (Motor, Wiring, and More!)

This Koken barber pole was in rough shape to start, with broken porcelain light sockets, a missing light globe, loose and missing bolts, dirty interior, and dead motor. Some repairs were straightforward (motor replacement) and some were not (bulb socket temporary bracket). The nice thing about this old barber pole design is that it is fairly simple, and more repairs can be added with the future owner. This project was time and budget limited but I think it came out well! I took a lot of time researching how to do this and figured that someone might benefit from these repair explanations. The repairs are detailed below:

General notes for the buyer:

• Do not install outside

• This is not waterproofed and is meant to be used inside only 

• Consult with electrician about safe ways to waterproof/seal and wire for outside use if desired.

• New motor installed from Marvy

• Interior spiral is plastic tube (not cardboard)

• Do not pull on electrical cord, this can cause interior wiring to unravel

• New 8” outer diameter globe light installed from Marvy

• More research needed on how to authentically attach light socket

• Current solution holds light socket in place but is not original method (I have no clear reference for proper placement)

Completed Repairs:

• Added new screws to motor bracket

• Drilled into existing motor bracket for motor mounting

• Installed new motor

• Cleaned interior and exterior of striped tube

• Cleaned glass interior and exterior 

• Reattached metal “x” bracket on striped tube

• New screw in metal strip brackets that hold top cap

• Made custom mount for new ceramic lightbulb socket (barber pole attachment for the socket is an unusual length)

• New nuts for lamp globe screws

• Installed new glass globe light cover

• Wired bulb and motor to grounded plug, ground attached to metal pole via drilled hole on back

• Gathered original parts (not reinstalled) into container for return

Photos and comments:

I could not find Koken Barber Pole Model #5391 in a (brief) online search. I’ve included a sheet of known barber poles I found for reference. 

This “X” shape was rusted off of the top of the striped interior pole. I’ve reattached this with wire and had to drill small holes in the top of the post. The whole striped pole should probably be replaced in the future. 

After removing the original motor, I drilled into the motor bracket to increase the hole size for the new motor shaft to accommodate the larger top “T” shaped portion (held in by set screw and is detachable from the motor base). I also drilled into the existing motor bracket to screw the new motor into place. 

I’ve made a custom light socket holder because the new light socket (cleat style) screw holes did not match the length available for attachment to existing hardware. The attachment of the top iron cap made it difficult to put this light socket underneath the iron cap. This may be replaced in the future with a new configuration but it works for now.

I’ve wired this pole like the diagram below. I’ve added extra length on the hot and neutral wires of both the motor and the light to help with moving parts around during troubleshooting/repair. This may be useful if the buyer wants to fix portions of the pole. I am including a reference wiring diagram for a Marvy pole. I’ve added the ground wire to help with safety, and I had to screw a hole in the back of the barber pole metal to attach this. The problem with these old designs is that they are not grounded, and so the interior (including the lamp socket) should not be handled when plugged in.

Hopefully the buyer will appreciate the new fixes!

Starting indoor seeds

Empty seed packets and extra seeds sorted into pill organizers.

I am a little late getting started with some of these seeds indoors but am happy to have everything planted that needs some extra time. The main reason I am trying to plant more of our own food this year is that I am tired of plastic packaging and poor environmental practices of grocery stores and growers. Food has gotten more expensive and I’d rather spend that money investing in my own knowledge, learning how to grow food to save money and reduce my impact on the environment (perhaps even improving the environment a little?).

My current setup is a rolling tray with old baking trays as water catchers and an old broken clothing dryer as the light holder. The seeds are planted into rolled office paper tubes that have been folded in half and paperclipped together at the top. The labels are cut cardboard with sharpied names so I can just plant the whole thing when I’m ready and it will biodegrade. My extra seeds are stored in thrifted pill sorting containers (not my idea, but a good one!) The grow light is LED with white, red, and blue settings for different growth types, and the light is connected to a timer.

I’d like to have the indoor setup always growing greens because that is the one thing we consistently eat. Also no more hurrying to eat cut + packed lettuce!

Saving packaging scraps

Saving packaging and filler scraps in a bucket for reuse has saved me a lot of time and money! The trick is getting the kitty hair out. This is Soot Sprite aka “Little” digging and then laying in the “garbage.”

Patterns from Star Needlework Journal, 1920 (Free!)

A few weeks ago I went to an estate sale run by the family of the deceased in a 55+ park. There wasn’t much left in the house, but there was a box of antique needlework and crotchet magazines dating all the way back to the 1910s and 1920s. I was going to buy the whole box but because of my interest in the magazine contents the family decided to give them to me for free. Most of these types of magazines do sell on eBay but for me they are not necessarily worth the time and postage to individually go through them. Many people use them for the ads and fashion references. I thought that scanning and posting these online would keep the information in these magazines alive a little longer (they are disintegrating as we speak!) and let people access these old patterns for free. My personal favorite in this issue is the lion table runner. I also admire any craft that gets us making our own items and buying less stuff. I did check the copyright information on this issue and because it is from 1920, and I did not find a copyright renewal record, I believe this has gone into the public domain. (If I am wrong of course I will take it down.) So, I am posting the PDF of the issue as-is here, including an extra page and some missing information, for your reference, enjoy!

Vintage Tangram Game Earrings Set

I purchased these tangram puzzle pieces from an estate sale and even though they were not necessarily worth reselling as a puzzle they were definitely worth repurposing into jewelry! The colorful plastic pieces are partially neon and transparent, each with an interesting faceted surface. The light scratches and wear on the edges of the pieces (including tiny chips in the plastic) speaks to the age of the puzzle (maybe from the 80’s or 90’s based on the Hong Kong label?). They’re a cool set of interchangeable earrings that let you have 7!/(5!2!) = 21 unique pairings. The hooks and rings were purchased pre-owned from a church rummage sale and the hooks are a non-magnetic (I suspect it is brass) metal. Here’s to creative reuse! Now available in the eBay store.

DIY Table Lifts for Roomba Accessibility

I definitely recognize that this is a first world problem, but many of the used furniture pieces I buy are not Roomba accessible. This cute little (floral shaped?) table that I got for $10 at a garage sale has stabilization bars that prevent the robot vacuum from cleaning underneath it, so kitty floof and dust collects until I can get underneath there with a small broom.

To solve this I knew I wanted to raise the table, especially because it was already low to begin with. But I didn’t necessarily want to buy anything new to raise it up. I personally believe in reusing as many materials as we can to reduce our environmental impact. This goal also provides opportunities for creativity. For example, I spent several months keeping an eye out in the bins and estate sales for wood pieces that I could repurpose for this table. They didn’t even necessarily have to be table legs (I looked at four identical wood coaster holders in the bins and decided to pass). But, when we had to drive up to IKEA recently for a new mattress, I wanted to check the AS-IS section for anything we could potentially use for our house. This isn’t necessarily buying “used” but gets us farther away from buying new DIY supplies. In the parts and pieces section there appeared a set of 4 solid wood sofa legs being sold as a set for $5. I grabbed them thinking I could try them on the table and see if they fit.

After I opened the box I realized that the sofa legs (these ones) needed cutting to get them to be identical for a table, so I measured the diameter of the bottom of the table feet and did my best to try and match the size of where I cut the legs. Screws and other hardware also needed to be removed but that was fairly straightforward with my set of hex wrenches. I then sanded the cut edges.

To attach the legs I bored a hole in the bottom of each table leg and in the top of each IKEA leg and glued a dowel in between to connect them. I’m not sure if that is the official correct way to do this but I had extra dowels I purchased from an estate sale. The table legs did already have small holes from previous floor protector attachments so a few of the holes were off-center, resulting in a slightly wonky alignment of the bottom legs. Still, I like how it turned out! The table is kooky, definitely imperfect, made of reused materials, and still Roomba-friendly.

For this project I definitely needed patience, but reused items always show up eventually!

Gathering Small Scale Metal Recycling at Home

I’ve been gathering metal recycling in its own bin and taking it down to the scrap yard for several years now. Most people know the scrap yard as a place you take old car bodies and washing machines, but I enjoy bringing my small household metals in there as well. There are a few reasons why I decide to collect my own household metals instead of putting the tin cans out on the curb and throwing away the rest. First, I can’t necessarily rely on curb recycling services to always recycle properly (instead of throwing all the recycling in the landfill because it has been contaminated with wish-cycled items like diapers). Second, my curbside recycling only accepts tin and aluminum cans - and I am definitely taking the aluminum cans into the Bottle Drop myself because they are worth a dime a piece in Oregon. Third, I like separating the valuable metals and seeing the metal sorting process at the scrap yard up close. Fourth and maybe most important, I am most interested in sustainability, waste streams, and reducing wasted materials in our everyday lives.

Some items that commonly go in my small metal recycling bin at home are: cut wires (I work in robotics), metal sheet cutoffs and ruined bolts (I do robotics and our home repairs), and electronic items (I resell on eBay and sometimes can’t fix electronics I find). Having a scrap metal bin at home is also nice because I can source things that I may need later for home or work projects. I also know that saving scrap metal is a common (and not new) practice for farmers and hobbyists. When I go to farm estate sales, the piles of old metal pipes and metal farm equipment show me that many people like to save metal pieces to do their own repairs. Metal is a valuable material that takes a lot of energy to make, and lasts awhile in the right storage conditions.

While I also could argue that saving scrap metal is worth the money, scrap metal is not worth enough right now for me to actively go out searching for it. When I do gather enough metal to bring in (maybe a large trash can’s worth) it is a nice but small monetary bonus of less than $10 if I don’t have any expensive metals like solid brass. Still, collecting small metal items at home lets me be mindful of what kinds of metal “trash” we would otherwise throw away and remove it before it goes to landfill. It is a nice exercise in sustainability mindfulness.

Visible (Ugly) Mending

Mending is usually a product of necessity for many of us who refuse to purchase a new item when the existing one “still works.” When I was younger I often associated this trait with grumpy old men who wanted to hold on to their dearly held tools or shoes and refused to buy into the new fashionable things they were supposed to buy. I should be clearer that when I was young I looked down on people that did this as stodgy weirdos who had poor taste. Note that I said I used to think this way. When I was young I bought into the idea that new is better and relished the high I would get purchasing a new item, going through items I didn’t want, and then giving those unwanted items to charity. Perhaps needless to say, my mind has changed significantly since those wasteful days. Not only do I have to be way more conscious of my money, and so therefore have to mend and fix items I use on a regular basis, I believe that environmentally and socially it is the right thing to do.

The image above is from a mug I got for free from a church rummage sale. I got it for free because I asked for a discount on the price because of the repair and the seller just said “take it.” The maker, Taylor & Ng, actually made several mugs in the 1970’s ago that resell for good money if they are not damaged. I noticed this one initially because of the Taylor & Ng signature but then also quickly realized that this mug has been messily mended using epoxy or some other permanent adhesive. Initially I thought that I could remove the adhesive and redo the mend to “look prettier” but after the adhesive survived through the dishwasher and the microwave I gave in and accepted the look for what it was - something that someone wanted to keep yet was not necessarily a expert repairer. Also, it was vintage and had a cat design, which is almost an instant keep for me.

The main lessons I take from this mug (and other things I have purchased in similar shape) are that (1) broken items are not necessarily unusable, (2) something doesn’t have to be pretty in the typical sense to be worth keeping and using, and (3) visible mending is an unexpectedly powerful way to portray a dedication to sustainability. The last point is poignant for me, especially because I’ve seen the trend of visible mending in recent fashion design. Visible mending speaks to our need to use less, reuse, and repair, in a very simple way. Purposely making, owning, and showing visibly mended objects is a persuasive action.

Vintage Scotch Tape Metal Container Tin

This is a Scotch Brand metal tape container tin from 3M. It held 2 rolls of transparent cellulose tape which, if dried out, needed to be stored in a damp place or have a wet cloth placed with the tape to rehydrate (the adhesive? cellulose itself?). The metal tin is an arguably more recyclable packaging alternative to the plastic clamshell we see today, as well as a pretty storage container.

Vintage Fully Metal Huge Parts Organization Cabinet

Aluminum metal drawers with steel exterior, indented front faces for labels. Found used in the Goodwill bins, where I had to dig for all of the drawers and inserts to make sure it was complete. These cabinets aren’t usually made like this anymore, especially with the metal drawers.

Metal parts cabinet made by Kaytee Products in Canton Ohio, USA.

Tape Packaging Insert

Tape packaging insert from a 3M brand in the 1960’s. Cellophane itself is a cellulose (plant material) film and is not necessarily seen in modern office tape.

This is a Rocket Brand coated cardboard cellophane tape label from the company 3M back when they included Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company in their logo. According to O’Reilly, this logo use began in 1961: “With the new logo design comes a standards manual that contains four approved variations of the logo. This one is based on the geometric paintings of the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian.”