Road trip!

Guess what you guys?  I had a vacation day to take, so I made this a long weekend, and took off on a road trip with a friend.  We left St Louis Friday afternoon and made our (leisurely) way to Cape Girardeau that night by way of Kaskaskia and Jackson, MO, and we did it our way: no schedule, no agenda.  See anything interesting?  Detour!  That's my favorite kind of road trip.  Here's a quickie pictorial view of yesterday:

         

So this morning we went to check out downtown Cape Girardeau.  It's a river city on the Mississippi, like St. Louis, but obviously quite a bit smaller, and the historic little downtown area is quite pretty:

But more than pretty, it's chock-full of antique shops.  Some of the treasures I coveted up and down this street?:

 

 

I'm on a pretty tight budget for this little road trip, and have sworn to buy only that which is so fabulous, so cheap, or both, that I can't possibly justify not buying it, so after gazing longingly at so many beautiful things, I did stop in to a Salvation Army thrift store I found, and spent fifty cents (too cheap to pass up!).  Here are my two little purchases thus far this trip:

Tiny gold space man bank.

Who might actually be a scuba man instead.

Pretty/funky vintage floral fabric scrap.

That turned out to have already been partially
turned into the front half of a dress!

I did pick up one other thing today that I consider to be a real treasure, but it was free!:

It wasn't the very cool fishing net I found under a railroad
bridge over the Mississippi.  It was the smooth, flat, dark
gray river stone just below it in the picture.
I can never resist picking up a good rock!

So what about you guys?  Any great treasures lately?  If you want to see some other folks' treasures, check out The Thrifty Groove's Thrifty Things Friday link-up!

The rest of the Chicago thrifting

Hi guys!  Can you believe this?  Three days in a row I'm posting!  Aren't you proud?  So Wednesday I told you all about this past Saturday's tourist-thrifting in a few nifty neighborhoods around Chicago.  Last night I gave you a cheapskate's review of an adorably decorated but decidedly cheap hotel.  

Now it's time to show off Sunday's haul, for yes, the thrifting did continue!

We started our day from the cheap hotel far, far from the city, and, as breakfast was not included in our thrifty accommodations, we found this fabulous establishment:

That's right, we had Spunky Dunkers Donuts for breakfast!

We took our sugary bounty to go, found the Starbucks at the local train station, and ate at a picnic table in the little park nearby while wondering whether very small aliens created the lawn-circles there, or whether perhaps someone spilled weed killer.

After downing two donuts and an iced chai I was ready for some more exploring.  We had hoped to visit some vintage shops we had scoped out online in the Wicker Park/Bucktown/Humbolt Park neighborhoods, but every place we found was either closed on Sunday or closed this particular Sunday because of the holiday weekend.  Todd and I did press our noses longingly to the glass at An Orange Moon, but nobody materialized from the back to let us in for an exclusive peek and huge discounts like in my daydreams.  Still, so much to covet there!  And a wander around that nifty area was by no means a bust.  There were fabulous old businesses and lovely residential streets to wander:

And lo and behold, the lovely residential street depicted above sported an "estate sale" sign - bonus!  In a converted carriage house, I apparently learned the importance of coasters, for here is what I purchased:

A set of 6 vintage coasters with Parisian street scenes. 

My very own Stonesters!  Sorry about the lousy pic quality - I guess I was excited.

I posted here about a set of cut stone coasters I got my Dad for his birthday at a craft fair this summer.  These are by the same guy - they have the same sticker underneath, and are just as awesomely Andy Goldsworthy-esque as those, but I got these for about 1/5 the price - yay!

After the estate sale we felt the need to appease the youngster in the group who had very patiently wandered neighborhoods and waded through junk with us for so long, so we headed for Michigan Avenue so he could do some coveting of his own at the Apple Store.  As sleek technology is nice but not necessarily covet-worthy to me, I took that time to stop and smell the... well, not roses:

Flower beds on Michigan Ave.

I'm sure this is a famous building.  I just call it cool                                                     

More from the flower beds 

I so want to go to the Tip Top Tap!

After Michigan Avenue we went looking for the Randolph Street Market, but again struck out, either because we were thrown off by the North Coast Music Festival that kept getting in our way, or because it was closed that day, I'm not sure which.  We did, however, find a real live nitty gritty old-tools-and-cheap-sunglasses flea market:

And look - the sky was clearing up!

I didn't find any vintage treasures there, but, as the clouds all blew away and the sun came out full force, I did buy a pair of the above-mentioned cheap sunglasses, and this most excellent concoction:

Mango con chile - sooooo yum!

Later, without realizing we were doing it, we found our way to another amazing comfort food spot that's apparantly been there for over 70 years, never closes, has been featured on the Food Network, and (this part's just my own personal opinion based on the super nice people who waited on us) appears to be a really great workplace.  The White Palace Grill boasted really, really good food, even if you weren't impressed by all that other stuff.  The soup was amazing (they really like to feed you soup in Chicago, I think).

So after a relative bust in terms of thrifty finds up to that point in the day, we managed to find one of the many Unique Thrift stores in the area, where they were having an awesome sale, and where I found quite a few treasures:

A green vintage lampshade (stitchery bit needs redone, and
I should've turned the seam side around, but oh well!).

A really nice mid-century magazine rack.

An adorable matched pair of crewelwork kite-flying kids.

A cheaply made but awesomely printed vintage bedspread
that doesn't appear to have ever been used.

A small blue and red monogrammed overnight bag.

An old TOMY owl clock-toy.

A beautiful vintage tablecloth in bright autumn tones.

I think I picked up more at this one medium sized strip-mall thrift store than I bought anywhere else all weekend!  We went back to the big amazing warehouse I mentioned in Wednesday's post after that, so Todd could do some wheelie-dealing (he totally scored a Lane Acclaim coffee table for $40!), but what I picked up there I included in what I showed you from there yesterday.  So this concludes the thrift haulage from the weekend, and my energy for continued typing.  I suppose that means I'll spare you my thoughts on Ikea as an analogy for the road to hell.  You don't have to thank me!

If you haven't had enough of thrifted treasures yet, check out these link-ups full of folks who are lucky in thrift:  

Chic on a Shoestring's Flaunt it Friday and The Thrifty Groove's Thrifty Things Friday. 

And what about you?  Thrift anything good lately?

A cheapskate's lodging: more or less

So last night I mentioned the cutest, jankiest hotel you may ever meet were our accommodations on the outskirts of the Chicago area.  Priceline's 'name your own price' deal can be the BFF of the cheapskate traveler, sometimes landing you fantastic deals on great hotels in great locations, but the sometimes, and the great locations, are not likely to be in downtown Chicago on Labor Day Weekend, so we did a bit of hunting to find a place cheap enough to enable our fun, and since there were plans to buy some rather large items at Ikea, we looked in that area for a place, and found Hotel Bolero, in Palatine.  Not far from Ikea, and very near Arlington Park racetrack (Which I totally want to check out sometime!).  Now I admit, Hotel Bolero, and the $57/night price tag, might sound a bit iffy (and maybe also the horse track adjacent location), but every good adventure starts with a risk!

So without further ado, check out my room for the weekend.  I call it the Violet Beauregarde room, for reasons that will soon become clear:

The entrance, from between the bed and desk.

The room itself - with a wall of giant blueberries!

Sitting area, and yes, that's an actual balcony.  It even overlooked a little courtyard!

Another angle on the blueberry bedroom.

Looking in from out on my balcony.

So that's the awesome part.  I wish I'd taken pictures in the lobby and whatnot - there was much cuteness on display there as well.

The less awesome part was the increasingly evident fact that whoever did the fun, boutique renovation of this clearly former chain hotel had long since gone, and been replaced by, as far as I could tell, a staff of one very pregnant woman.  When we checked in and I asked if we could be moved to rooms closer together, we were told that they were short staffed that day, so some of the rooms hadn't been cleaned.  No big deal, our request was accommodated by giving me a handicapped accessible room just down the hall from my friends' room.  And when we left on Sunday morning for round two of adventuring, we had noticed plenty of signs that the place was not as well-kept as the wallpaper might lead you to believe, but we were still feeling great about the deal we got for such a cute place that we had essentially to ourselves.  Todd and Ryan had enjoyed the indoor pool the night before and I know my bed was plenty comfy, in my nest of many pillows.

However... when we got back that evening we noticed the rooms had not been cleaned.  Not a terribly big deal, but the towels had also not been re-stocked.  Still not a big deal for me, but for the family of 3 I was travelling with, who had used their towels for swimming the night before and showering that morning, the pile of damp, used towels that remained on their bathroom floor seemed less than ideal.  When they asked about it, they were told that no housekeeping is done on Sundays, and there were no spare towels to be had, but they were welcome to use the coin-op laundry room to wash them themselves!

So... me being me, it's very, very far from the worse place I've stayed (that one was located above a restaurant/bar in an alley in Rome and involved a swayback bed, a loud fan in the window and a really long line for the one bathroom down the hall and subsequent shower in the proprietor's brother-in-law's apartment upstairs).  But, if you hate to see prenatal child labor like the poor pregnant woman who apparently runs the place single-handed, or like having clean towels and whatnot, you might want to make some inquiries before booking at the Hotel Bolero.  Personally though, the cute, cute room and the nest of many pillows was well worth it to me.

And thus ends a cheapskate's review of a cheap hotel.  Stay tuned next time for Sunday's adventures (including more thrifting!) and some musings on the joys and horrors of Ikea.

Gettin' Crafty, part two!

Hey guys, remember Friday, when I told you all about my brilliant plan for a scruffy old stand-less globe I found at the thrift store, and some light-bright style colored pegs?

Globe

Pegs

The plan was to mark places on the globe that were significant to me with the pegs, and rig it up as a light, but all I could find around the house to poke holes for the pegs was a thumbtack, which was less than ideal, so I didn't get very far that night.  Well I worked 12 hours Saturday, so there was no time to go buy a better hole-poking tool, but I did have a screw loose somewhere (as you've probably already figured out about me!) that was about the right size to make holes for the bigger pegs, and the thumbtack made a good starter for the smaller ones, so I just kept poking and pegging last night.  Then this afternoon between lunch after church and helping my friend pick up my Dad's old weight bench and weights, we stopped by Home Depot and I bought a swag/pendant light cord/chain kit and a light socket, and I just spent the last hour or so rigging that up.  It's not completely finished; I need to hang another hook for the chain/cord, as it's currently just hanging down and dragging the floor, and the raw edge where I badly exacto'd out Antarctica could use some cleanup, and to be perfectly honest, I need to visit Asia and more of the Southern Hemisphere so I can make it look more interesting, but I'm pretty proud of it so far!

I used to have a candelabra thingy on this hook, but candles dripped everywhere
if I lit them, and my living room was way too dark.  Improvement!

I used the bigger, pointy-topped pegs to mark places I've lived: St. Louis, MO; Abilene, TX; Brussels, Belgium and Mauritius (I left out Columbia, MO because the globe is just not big enough for two big pegs that close together).  Then the smaller pegs mark other places I've been that are important to me, either because people I care for live/d there, or because I enjoyed them so much myself.  Here are a few close-ups, to give you a better idea:

Like I said, it's not perfect, but I'm pleased; my living room is brighter and there's a little bit of my wanderlust right here on display!  What do you think?

Found link-up to join for my little fit of craftiness - check it out!:
Craft-o-maniac's Craft-o-Maniac Monday.
Also linking to last Friday's Cap Creations Thrifty Love Link Party (where my fancy, fancy china was featured from last week's link-up!), Chic on a Shoestring's Flaunt it Friday and The Thrifty Groove's Thrifty Things Friday and Between Naps on the Porch's Metamorphosis Monday.