Rusty haul

Hey all!

Wow! It's been so long since i last posted! And now that i finally sit down to blog, i find i have a million and one things to talk about. Things I've done that i take pics and tell myself i need to blog about this, but just don't get to the 'sitting down and doing it' part. So much happening with life that this just hasn't been happening. So, the plan is to split this up into three posts. This is the first one (which'll end up at the bottom), and I'll blog here about the haul i just got.

So, gas hit 1.40 here yesterday. This is the highest it has ever been here. As someone who is concerned about both the environment and their back account, I realize it is most definitely past time to start rethinking the idea of constantly using your car. I took a good first step today and walked to work :). The weather was so beautiful, i just couldn't keep the grin off my face on the walk home. The wildflowers growing secretly in the middle of the neighbor's lawn, the first bursts of tulips here .... it has been far too long of a winter (here in saskatchewan, the first blooms are just starting to peek out, not like you lucky temperate readers out there).

On the way home, i ran into a garage sale sign. How exciting! I love garage sales. There's something about wandering through, picking out treasures from other people's stuff that just appeals to me. Cheap, social and friendly... what is there not to love :).

I hit a bit of a gold mine here at this one for a mixed media artist. The seller was an old farmer (?) who was selling oodles of old tools, odd hardware bits and pieces and random rusty bits and pieces. While they would be junk to some, i loved every bit of it. From the rusted horse card hitches, to the old door knocker, to the dinner bell... there was so much there that i wanted but simply don't have room for.







I did score a lot of stuff there that i did have room for. One of my two favorites is a pair of rusted, old style tin snips. They may not look like much, but they are strong. They make me think fondly of my grandmother and the day her and i spend together playing with art stuff. I still say she is the tin snips queen. I am thinking if i can find a really neat, even older and rustier style of tin snips i may make her a shrine using the tool as a feature... maybe with some cool crown attached to them or something?

My other favorite piece was this very cool, beautiful leather clasp. Two thick straps of leather, roughened by weather and time... you just can't get this kind of cool in stores. I hope to one day create an altered book worthy of this clasp for holding it closed.

so, as you saw in the top pics, i also got a bunch of other random metal stuff. Two round metal balls that were once part of a horse-cart harness, a strange door hinge, a horseshoe, an odd spinning electrical piece and some strips of metal now reside within my art cabinet drawers. How fabulous :)