Tuesday things n’stuff

So today I walked to Michael’s (the craft place) on Colorado. Yay for another 11-mile day. I found nothing but linen thread there (which I hope to use for sewing some books); they don’t carry contact paper anymore, and I was also looking for some adhesive stuff to use to make book cloth, but they didn’t have any of that, either. I can’t hold that against them too much since it’s a pretty small Michael’s. Still, I did have to walk five and a half miles to get there*. On the way back I stopped by my favorite place to shop: the hallowed “99cents Only” store. Their stock changes constantly, but that’s one of the reasons I like it. Sometimes they have organic soy milk, or organic applesauce, or organic canned things, V8- for a dollar or fifty cents each! Sometimes they have good energy bars- two for a dollar! Or Kashi cereal, or Nature’s Path cereal, or a number of other organic, overpriced cereals that you find for four bucks a box at Whole Foods. But at the dollar store, guess what? They cost a dollar! Huzzah! Unfortunately, to really take advantage of the deals, you have to go about once a week, because stuff can come in and be gone within a couple of days, and it all depends on what happens to not sell in other stores. Anyway, so I sort of lucked out there today- got some energy bars, a large can of organic tomato sauce, one of those boxes of organic Swanson veggie broth. I didn’t want to let myself browse too much, though. It was already half past 1pm, and I wanted to have some afternoon left when I got home.

New paragraph time. It surprises me how little text it takes to make a big paragraph on this blog, so since the above one appears rather large in Word, it will probably look gigantic once posted. Oh well.

Along my route was a Target, so I went there and found contact paper and some washable glue, which I’ve been wanting to get for a while.

Then I rocked the last three miles home. Ahhh…I was so exhausted. It’s really one thing to walk eleven miles throughout the day, but all in one go, without any real downtime, is pretty tiring! Ah well. It’s all part of my sherpa training :)

I put some of Belle and Sebastian’s “Dear Catastrophe Waitress” and LCD Soundsystem’s “Sound of Silver” on my mp3 player a couple weeks back. Those songs are fun to walk to.

So the contact paper is for a number of projects. First, I’ve been working on making pots for plants out of used yogurt/cottage cheese containers. I did some designs on butcher paper, and finally finished one I like, so I wrapped a yogurt container in it, and then covered it with contact paper to protect it and give it some shine. Now, there has to be another container nested within the one with the decorative covering, because if the pot just sits in a dish, any water that leaks out of the bottom (for drainage is essential) will be sucked up into and through the paper, thoroughly ruining the design. The contact paper is not waterproof, so there would be no way to prevent water seepage. So the nested carton has holes poked in the bottom, so water will be able to drain into the outer container. So then the plant, the container and even our dear little planet will all be happy. I hope to put it (and others, once I make them) up for sale on etsy. I would love to hear feedback on this idea. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, because I have been a serious yogurt/cottage cheese consumer since my youth, and always wanted to hoard the empty containers, you know, for some amazing project :)

Hmmm…ok. One last bit of news for now. I ordered some samples of paper from Neenah paper (you get ten free samples of paper (a single sample consists of ten sheets of paper...so 100 sheets total), and pay nothing but shipping- about $10!), and they came today! The paper is very, very pretty :) The colored papers are also a tad sparkly, and others have different textures. I am looking forward to using these, and will perhaps order more in the future.


*No. Taking a bus is never an option- not unless I’ve already walked something like 11 or 12 (or more!) miles.