My First Music Download!

There has been a lot of fancy, crafty activity in my fancy, crafty world lately!   I'm still doing the scanning and whatnot - which is cool - and I will share more of that - but, even fancier is there has been cassette tape copying!!!!!  After much research and sitting and thinking and looking and more sitting and a little more thinking and some wishing that I someone else would just do it for me, I figured out how to hook a tape player (generously donated by my boyfriend, Baron) up to my computer.  And all it cost me was $3.80.

So for my very first link to my very first download of my very own - I present you with a track from a children's album that my sister and I listened to WAY more than we did our grandma.  The album is Peter Pan from the Rocking Horse children's record collection.

There were 6 tracks on the record and the one I am posting is Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.  This was one of our absolute favorites.  I will post the rest when I figure out how to post a whole album.  Until then you can just listen to this track over and over and over.   This copy was actually made off of a cassette tape recording of the album.

Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves

I redirected the link for this track to my post with the full album.

What Movie is This?

I've had this still for quite a while.  For some reason I think someone, like maybe my sister, gave it to me as a birthday present.  Does anyone know what movie it's from?  It looks cool.  I can't even think of the name of the actress on the floor.  

Flintstones Colorforms

I'm so psyched.  I thought I might have gotten rid of this before I got my scanner - but no!  Here it is!

Man, I used to love this thing.   I remember my mom bought my sister and I each a Colorforms set before we went on this train trip to visit some friends of hers.  It was my first train ride ever - so that was thrilling - but I totally remember being super psyched about this set too.  

Here is the board that the Colorforms go on.

 And the insert that tells you what to do.

And the Flintstones!

They're kinda beat up - but they're there!  Yay!  I'd love to cut these out and make pictures with them and the background in Photoshop.    Oh - I just noticed - it looks like I might be missing a Wilma head.  Oh well.  At least I have one!  

Wow.

I've been doing massive amounts of scanning lately.  Mostly cause I just want to get rid of stuff - but also cause I want to have the stuff that I have gotten rid of (I'm in the have my cake and eat it too camp).  Crazy?  Maybe.  I mean how many vintage ads of Dinty Moore Beef Stew does one actually need?

While you are pondering that question, and maybe even coming up with your own answer, I've provided these bizarre relics from past days for you to take a look at.

 I have a pretty big collection of vintage 30s, 40s and 70s greeting cards and this one has always stood out for me.  It stood out when I was little cause it has this real little bit of rabbit fur on it and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world.  It stands out to me now for pretty obvious reasons.

I've divide up the scan into the 3 parts of the card so you don't have to turn your computer upside down to look at it.

And this ad is pretty much just WTF.

But wait, there's Moore.  Heh.  I went back on my no-pun policy.  Deal with it.

Oh, Dinty.  

Very 70s Greeting Card

Too much.

Crafty Biz Aplenty. And a Smoothie.

I call this one Spooky Smoothie.  It's just frozen watermelon cubes and not frozen cantaloupe and a bit of water.  I honestly don't remember what kind of sad life I had before my Vitamix and this fabulous melon smoothie.  I'm crying as I write this now.  Watermelon/Cantaloupe smoothie, will you marry me?  Oh, wait, I'm already married to my Vitamix?  Dammit.  I'm sure we can figure something out.

And for the crafty end of the stick I'm just gonna post some pics of a purse I made right before my birthday back in April.  I sort of considered it my bday present to myself (awwwwww).  I love this purse.  It's pretty much everything I want in a purse - roomy, long strap for shoulder slinging, reversible, cute, chickens, etc.

Here is one side with a blue and crazy pink red patterned corduroy fabric and a big pocket that has some chicken applique on it.   And a strip of cute chick ribbon/edging stuff on the top of the pocket.  Cute!

The other side is a red patterned fabric quilt of squares that I had done a long time ago and never finished.  So I just used it for this purse - and sewed on a pocket from an old purse with some chicken embroidery I had done while back.  And yes, that is Desmond hanging there on the side.  I always have him within grabbing distance now.  

So there you have it.  Craftyness at it's best.  And Desmond.  What more could you ask for?

Watch Out!

If you're easily offended by the inappropriate use of feather dusters you may not want to continue any further.

This picture is only for those that are easily amused.

I just love the look on her face.  And the feather duster.  Has she been on all fours so long that her back is dusty?  It's from the first issue - sometime in 1969 - of Derriere magazine.  Oh wait!  I have that too!!

Now, it's my understanding that it's the punani, and not the butt cheeks that is offensive.  So I think I might just slide right under the radar with these photos.   I know I got a bit of the boobie in that one - but we've seen boobies before in Craftypants Carol's Fancy Crafty World.


UPDATE 4/12/12: In honor of my upcoming birthday (not really.  I just thought I'd throw that in just in case anyone wanted to send me a present) I'm providing a LINK to the scans of this mag.  It's not the whole mag unfortunately - but most of it's there - and there's no pesky white rectangles to throw you off (cause I know you want to be on.  Right on!).  Now don't you feel lucky? 

The Mother of all Anniversaries.

And Craftypants Carol is celebrating like a mofo.

Kinda.

See, I just noticed that this is my 75th post and it happens to coincide with the fact that this blog is 2 years old.  So if you do the math that makes me an all time, super freak-out, blogging master with - ok - I just tried to do the math while I was watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and I just can't do it.  Wow.  But I mean, I think that you can just sort of imagine what the math would be though - kinda like I'm doing right now.  I'm all "wow - that's like...not that many."  But the up side of that is that you, my loyal, fanatical reader, always has something to look forward to.

But really my mofo style celebration sort of just involves me doing a blog post about stuff I've been meaning to write about for a while now.  Like my little schmos: Padraig (pronounced Porrig - it's Irish, from the TV show Ballykissangel - Baron is obsessed with it) and MacGregor (pronounced MacGrrrrrrrregorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr).  MacGregor is the white one, and I love them like nobodies business.  

Here they are sitting on our bed in the evening.  We bring them in the house pretty much every night so they can sit with us for a couple hours and watch TV.  They really do watch TV - it's funny.  I made a special thing for them to sit on cause they poop a LOT.  It's a bunch of old towels sewed together and backed with a shower curtain.  As you can see it's a bit stained.  It really is clean.  Seriously.  I just washed it on Monday.  In fact I was with Baron at the laundr-o-mat and when I took it out of the basket to fold it up I held it up and said to Baron "Oh, I washed your sheet for you." out loud.  I thought it was funny.

Here is another one where you can see Padraig sleeping while standing on one foot.  Her eye is open but it was closed before.  

I also made another batch of soap not too long ago and thought I'd let you take a gander at that.

This brown soap is made with castor oil, coconut oil, orange essential oil and Chinese 5 spice.  It's really nice.  And the 5 spice gives it a sort of exfoliating action.  The white chunks are the shavings and cuttings from my last batch (which I made around a year ago too!  more anniversary action! and there's more to come!!!).  The brown batch made 16 bars and there are still 3 bars left from the last one.  

I also finally got around to racking some wine I made recently.  The 5 gallon batch is a mix of gooseberry, rhubarb and kiwi that I started in December or January and the other is Dandelion wine I started about 2 months ago.   The 5 gallon batch should be ready to bottle in another month.  Yay!

While plotting and planning this abondanza style post I also noticed that my first encounter with the blog-love-of-my-life, Kindertrauma, was also about a year ago (you can see them mentioned in the epic last soap batch post).  In commemoration of this special moment in time I will direct you to my all time favorite Kindertrauma post.  It's about a short film called Silent Snow, Secret Snow and I just love everything Unkle Lancifer says about it.  I can't say enough about it so I'll just say just go there and read it.  The Tourist Trap post is a close runner up though.  I mean any horror movie review that can sneak in a reference of Robert Goulet AND Shields and Yarnell - holy freaking crap.  I actually laugh out loud all of the sudden sometimes thinking about it.  The Cathy's Curse review is pretty great too.  Ok - I could go on forever listing great blog posts on that site - so just go there now for crissake.  

Ok - that's about it.  See ya next year!!

mmmmm...cheesewiches.

and instant living.  

I want some instant living.  Actually I wouldn't mind a cheesewich either.

The Amazing Cosmic Acquisitions of Craftypants Carol!

So this last weekend I traveled to Portland (it's an hour drive from where I'm at) to sell some goods at a big garage sale and go to an Afterschool Special watching party.  It was a kinda relaxing, yet exhausting coupla days cause I really didn't do much.  But what I did do - sitting in the sun for a day, drinking very strong margaritas, staying up late, sleeping on a couch - all kinda turned me into a zombie by Sunday.

That's the boring synopsis.  Here is the exciting particulars!!

One of my super amazing acquisitions is this Pop Shoppe Pop crate of Pop Shoppe Pop bottles!!!

I guess they're back in biz up in Canada - but I only remember drinking this stuff in the 70s.  This stuff was the shizzzzzit when I was a kizzle.  I actually don't even know what I just said.

Anyway, when you wanted to buy Pop Shoppe Pop you had to go to a gas station or auto garage or something.  I'm exaggerating a little cause I didn't even know where we were when we bought it when I was a kid - it just seemed like it was an auto garage.  I'm sure it was a perfectly respectable way to do business though.  Plus you had to buy it by the case, I think.  But you could mix a bunch of flavors into the case (or crate) and they had a ton.  We would only get it when we went to my cool grandma's house.  She was cool cause she let us drink Pop Shoppe Pop and watch horror movies.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm gonna do with these - and I'm sure you're thinking - "Weren't you trying to get RID of stuff crafty lady?"  And you would be right.  I couldn't pass up a major blast from my past though.  I was thinking about maybe even bottling some of my kefir soda in the bottles.  That would be kinda cool.

Another olde timey piece of Portland retro paraphernalia that I picked up at the garage sale where I was SUPPOSED to be unloading my crap is this...

It's an old printing press plate thing for Sunshine milk - a local Portland biz that has a revolving Sunshine milk carton on top of their building.  It's a total landmark - and I'm pretty sure it's still there.   I really don't know what I'm gonna do with this - but it's freaking cool.


So later that night...

my sister and I went to a party at the house of a friend of her's to watch an Afterschool Special called The Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon.

It is virtually the only Afterschool Special that I remember - even though I know I saw a bunch of them.  But for some reason it really stuck with me.  It stars Ike Eisenmann (Escape To Witch Mountain - don't tell me you haven't seen it) as Duffy Moon and Lance Kerwin (James at 15/16, Salem's Lot) as his best friend.

There's a book about cosmic awareness that was written by Dr. Flamel (Jim Backus)

a bunch of street toughs

and a character called Boots McAfee.

Boots McAfee (spoiler) turns out to be a chick - Alexa Kenin  

 

who was, for me, most memorably in Little Darlings.  Actually, everything about Little Darlings was memorable for me.  I love summer camp movies of any type - and it is one of my faves.  She also played one of Annie Potts friends at the bar in Pretty in Pink.   She's also listed as being in Facts of Life but I totally don't remember her in that.  I'll have to check that out from the library again and see if I can find her.

So, the show ends in classic feel-good TV show fashion with everyone, including the street toughs, laughing for a very long time.

Ah, the carefree days of standing under a sprinkler and laughing.  

If you want to get in on the action you can start with the first part here.

That's about all the retro excitement I can manage to insert into one blog post.  For now, anyways.

Rhubarb Syrup Again

After a year of using my batch of rhubarb syrup in soda water, mixed drinks, kefir soda, and on ice cream, I ran out.  Actually I had a batch of rhubarb syurp and 2 separate batches of blackberry syrup that I did last summer that lasted the year here and here.    

I picked last year's rhubarb at the end of the summer and what I got was mostly the green stalks so the color was more of a green tinged light pink than what came out of this year's batch.  Man that stuff looks cool.  I went over to my neighbor's and picked a big bucket of stalks that ranged from very deep red to mostly red with some green.  I looked at last years recipes and did about the same thing - maybe a bit less sugar - but it just looks so much more spectacular.  

Rhubarb Syrup 2011

12 cups rhubarb stalks cut into 1/2 inch chunks

4 1/2 cups water

3 cups sugar

Simmer 15 minutes then strain through fine sieve or cloth.  

You can scale it back and keep a jar in the fridge for quite a while - or you can put this large batch up in jars and keep it in the pantry for future use.  

I also made a mint syrup (the light green one) out of, what I think is, chocolate mint from my garden.  I've had it so long that I don't remember what kind it is.  This is a close up photo of it - the leaf has rounded and purplish edges and purple on the undersides. 

The mint that I picked completely filled this bucket and it came out to about 6, very packed, cups.  

For some reason the combo of the light I have in my kitchen and my flash turns the color on my walls a weird yellowy-green color.  It really isn't that yellow.  Please don't think I'm a lunatic.  

Mint Syrup

6 cups packed mint - crumpled up and bruised 

6 cups water

5 cups sugar

Simmer 5 minutes, strain.  

I used 5 cups of sugar cause I ran out - but it definitely turned out sweet enough.

In other news... I got a Vitamix.  

For those of you out-of-the-know, a Vitamix is a super duper high powered blender that completely pulverizes everything in it's path.  I am in love with it.  And I am in the midst of devising a plan where I run away to Vegas with my Vitamix and get married by an Elvis Impersonator.   

I could name all the things I've made with it - but I'm sure you'd get bored (too late), so I will skip to the coolest thing I've made so far, which is a 1 1/2 pint jar (that's the tall skinny one that holds less than a quart but more than a pint - see below) of coconut butter.  As you may or may not know that shit is expensive and really good and I took a little over $4 worth (around 2 pounds) of unsweetened coconut flakes and turned it into this.

It's very hard at room temp cause it has still been pretty damn cold here in the morning.  But that looks like it is finally changing.   

I've been experimenting with coconut oil in healthy candies - but this seems like it will be better cause it has more substance.

Well, that's it.  I'm tired and I've got two geese on the bed that keep trying to eat my computer.]