Left Behind

As much as I love treasure hunting at flea markets and thrift stores, I'm almost as happy to find something great for free in my very own backyard, or apartment building in this case. Recently I made myself the owner of two great things that some of our neighbors left behind. After the guy in the apartment above us moved out, I decided to take a peek up there to check it out. I just wanted to see what the upstairs apartment was like and check out the view, which I figured was better than ours. On the counter among some random cleaning supplies was this seashell box.

I love seashell boxes, especially old ones, so I asked our other neighbors (who plan to move into that upstairs apartment) if I could have it, and they said sure and that they were just going to get rid of it. And another upstairs neighbor moved out a few weeks ago and left a cute off-white bookshelf in the garage. I waited a few days to see if they were going to come back for it, but it was still sitting there after two weeks, so now it has a new home. I'm so excited about my new finds!

For Free!

This weekend I found this green metal pint-sized desk on the street! And now here it is in our garage waiting for me to make room for it in the baby's room. The desk would better suit a preschooler, but still, for now it will just look cute until the little one is big enough to sit at it. Now I just have to decide what color to paint it. All the furniture in the baby room will be white, or shades of white, with splashes of brighter colors like red, yellow, blue, green, etc. I actually don't mind the green because it's the exact green as my card rack stand, which is going to become a book rack for baby and kids books. But I may want to change it. The wood needs some TLC for sure. Any suggestions for sprucing it up?

Help from Lynda

Here's my first little InDesign experiment--illustrated party hat kit instructions (I'm working on making party hat kits, by the way). I probably shouldn't even show this because it's a very rough draft. (I know the pictures need to be larger, etc.) Still, I'm proud to have gotten this far by myself. I recently learned about Lynda.com, an online training library that offers tutorials and books on a variety of design software programs such as Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. I've been meaning to learn these things for years, but whenever I try to fool around with the programs on my own, I don't get very far. I think these tutorials are just what I needed, and it's much cheaper than taking a class. It costs $25 a month, and you can cancel any time.