not your bubbe's menorah

well, maybe your bubbe's vintage wooden thread spools....

These were fun to make.  I used scraps of barn wood salvaged from a 1750 barn in Huntington, Massachusetts, dropped vintage wooden thread spools onto screws (the spools are removable for easy cleaning) and topped the spools with hex nuts to secure the candles.  The wood was treated and polished with paste wax, and voila!  Happy Hanukah!

for the mathematically challenged

Snap these beauties up at Maker's Market at the Parlor Room in downtown Northampton November 22nd and 23rd.  

creepers!

Today was the kind of New England fall day where you feel like you are in a Yankee Magazine article.  Heading up to the Ashfield Fall Festival, where men proudly wear tee-shirts emblazoned "eat more kale" and kids decorate pumpkins and eat maple cotton candy (ok, adults, too), we stopped at a tag sale that was held inside a covered bridge.  Right?  

I spied not one but two service station creepers.  Along with the creepers (two for the price of one!), I learned that the guy who sold them to me used to have long hair, which got stuck in the creeper wheels when he worked at the now defunct Norm's Service Station in downtown Ashfield.  That story just increased the value of my creepers a million fold.  And makes me think I really need to remove the head rests....

I am envisoning coffee tables.  And you?

"an untuned car is trouble"

"smash proof"
that's a relief

all sorts of bucolic

gratuitous shot of Gus mastering the ladder climb

kindred spirits

I will always love a good tag sale, but sometimes you have to go where the kindred spirits are.  If you are lucky like me, you have such places close to home.  Loot has long been one of my favorite shops, and I was lucky enough to sneak in after a long morning at housing court last Friday.  But I truly cannot believe that I just today, for the first time, discovered Studio second Canal at the beautiful Paper City Studios along the canal in downtown Holyoke.  A friend alerted me to the Craigslist posting and I was intrigued.  I got there and I was astounded.  I ogled.  Then I bought, and chatted with fellow collector, reclaimer and repurposer Barb Hahn.  It's such a nice feeling when you can buy an entire box of test tubes without a sideways glance, and your vintage suitcase collection looks tiny in comparison to what's in front of you.

For your viewing pleasure, here's what I scored from 1 old and 1 new favorite shop.  

golf ball basket upside down
providing a hint about its reuse

right side up

this...

...came with this

putting those test tubes to immediate use

According to IMDB, Marvin Digs is an animated short
about Marvin, a teenage ball of fur, who gets the idea to paint the entire city in groovy, psychedelic colors.  You will
not be surprised to know it was released in 1967.

coolest lazy susan ever?

it's hard to say what's cooler - the film reel
or the MGM engraved box it came in

Do you see inkwells?
Because I see shammes.

these are apparently textile bobbins, but they
look like clown accoutrements

yes, crutch tips
Holyoke produced a lot more than paper
back in the day.

crutch molds

barn wood

I have a barn guy.  I love that I have a barn guy.  And this amazing barn guy, also know as Shaun Garvey, the owner of Berkshire Barns, brought me some barn wood.  I've never seen planks this wide - some of them 18"! - and they are going to make the most amazing studio flooring.  Ever.  The wide ones are hemlock from a Huntington barn from 1750 and the narrow ones are from an 1800's Hatfield tobacco barn.  They are even locally sourced!

Tomorrow's "day off" will include some power washing.

helper #1

helper #2, also tasked with sweeping (see below)

hinges, latches, true love

This is the hardware for the new studio.  It was all sourced by my husband.  He got excited.  About hinges and latches.  If that's not true love, I don't know what is.