Advanced Craigslist Searching

With a huuuge new place to fill with fabulous furniture, you know I've been craigslisting my heart out over the last two weeks. In particular, I'm looking for a second sofa to be best friends with our current one - not so easy...



In the mean time I ran across a beautiful 7.5ft Fiddle Leaf Fig tree for $60 ($60!!) and had to snatch it up. Wanna know how you take a 7.5ft tree home with you?...



That's how.
The lady selling it got a total kick out of our shenanigans :)

As fun as it is to find great deals like that one, CL searching can be a total pain. Ever find something than search for it again with no avail? Yeah, their search engine is no Google...



So, today I want to share Advanced CL search commands that will make your search easier!

1. All normal CL searches are "AND" searches: If you type leather chair only posts with the word leather AND chair will show up. You'll miss out on any leather chairs for example. Darn that sneaky s.

2. Add "quotes" to find a specific phrase: if you search for "leather chair" you'll only find posts that use that exact phrase. If someone a seller says I'm selling a chair upholstered in leather it won't make it into your search. BUT this search is great for some items like paint brush. You don't want to see posts randomly using the words paint and brush, just paint brush posts.

3. Filter spammy terms with a -minus sign: Ever search for leather chair and have millions of car postings show up? Annoying. Just add -car to your search and all of those spammy or unrelated adds will be filtered out.

4. Use the pipe character | for "OR" searches: This is a LIFESAVER. I'm looking for a couch, but some people call it a sofa or sectional. Instead of doing a ton of different searches, I'll search sofa | couch | sectional and see all of the results together! (The pipe character is on the same key as the backslash \ on most computer keyboards.)

5. Group with (parentheses) to combine to your heart's content: Want to get down and dirty? If I'm looking for something pretty specific for my couch I might search... -leather (sofa | couch | sectional) oceanside "smoke free" BAM. Translation "I'm looking for a sofa, couch, or sectional in Oceanside that isn't leather from a smoke free home." Pretty great huh?



In other news, if you're wondering... here's the current state of my living room... We've got a ways to go :)

Moving Day

Well folks, moving day has come and gone [insert exhausted sigh here]. Actually, I am pretty tired, but the move went really smoothly overall. Having moved across the whole country only a few months ago, I think Tim and I are really getting the hang of this whole bidness.



A few key things in particular have made everything easier. Just in case you have a move coming up, I thought I might share them.

1. Protect Your Breakables - Well, duh right, but how? The #1 cause of something breaking during a move isn't a box being tossed, dropped, or manhandled (though those things can all happen) - it's general shifting inside poorly packed boxes. Pack your boxes tightly so that your heavy cast iron pot can't roll on top of your champagne glasses. Use brown paper or bubble wrap to keep everything safely in its spot and your trinkets are much more likely to survive.

2. Stock Up On Supplies - Nothing is worse than making a 8pm Home Depot run to get more boxes again. Buy more supplies than you'll think you'll need and just return the leftovers. Tim and I started out with 3 rolls of tape, three rolls of packing paper, 20 small boxes, 15 med, and 10 large. We used it all and even bought more boxes. Compare that to our last move where we made at least 10 trips to buy more boxes - ick. Trust me, having huge quantities up front is the better path.

3. Consider Professionals - You know I'm all about DIY, but sometimes you're just killing yourself when professionals could be a great solution. For this move, we hired 3 guys from Pyramid Movers and spent about $550 for them. Worth. Every. Penny. Sure, we could have rented a uhaul, called on dedicated friends, and crossed our fingers for undamaged backs in the end... but yeah, the movers were better. However, we did clean ourselves. After 5 hours of intensely scrubbing our old apartment I sure wished we had hired out for that too... Moving is stressful and we're all busy people - be honest with yourself and don't be afraid to hire out if you think it will be too much.



Of course, that's really just the tip of the moving iceberg. While I'm not an expert, feel free to ask any questions you might have in the comments section - I'll do my best to help!

Pretty Small Things: thrifting while packing

As I type this I'm sitting in a car leeching UCSD campus wifi on a break from cleaning my apartment. Why? Because all my stuff is in Oceanside!! Move completed!!!! More on that soon, I promise. In the meantime... just one more post with pics taken in good ole La Jolla.



In the midst of packing, I couldn't help but indulge in a little thrifting. I know that's totally counter-productive and a little insane, but I am who I am. With the cute stuff I found, I'm also glad I am who I am ;)



When I saw this little landscape painting for $4.20 I was pretty stoked. Most of the paintings I've seen around lately have been $20 or more - no thanks! This one is small and has some damage on the frame, but will totally work for my purposes. I've been trying to find a painting like this one to DIY for months. I really can't wait to show you what I've had in mind.

Also in the grab bag was this little brass bird dish. Ever since Tim and I got engaged I've been looking for a ring dish to keep my engagement ring safe and sound while I do the dishes. I saw this little lady a few weeks ago for $12 and just didn't want to splurge. It seems like she waited for me! When I saw her for $6 this weekend I snatched her right up. I need to seriously clean the brass, but that's an easy fix.



Oh and then there's a certain ceramic duck head ($5). Tim thinks it's creepy, but I think it's grand. It mounts to the wall, so I'm thinking this will make for an adorable hook for hand towels. After the eyes are changed up of course... those are a little creepy...



Maybe the most exciting find (actually, no - I was super excited about all of these come to think of it...) was a mother-load of vintage handkerchief, doilies, and table runners. Using self restraint, I left with just a few of the little beauties for a total of $9. They'll be sure to find their way into my wedding and any number of other DIY projects!

So help a lady out - project ideas for my handkerchief bounty?

Down Time Doodles

All of my crafty supplies are packed for the big move, and I have to admit... I'm going a little stir crazy. I need my fix! So what's a girl to do? Well, I thought I might turn to my extremely nerdy grade-school pastime - doodling the alphabet.



With a coffee of course. And yes, I chose my "Messtakes" mug to coordinate with my activity. Don't judge.



But, it's true. When I was younger, I would always revert to handwriting doodles if I got bored in school. I'm not sure why the alphabet became my go-to doodle, I mean there are so many other neato things to draw, but I'm kind of glad I did because handwriting is pretty great.



In fact handwriting fonts are ALL OVER the web right now, and I'm getting pretty obsessed. Mostly I get my font fixes from A Beautiful Mess and Pugly Pixel, but lately I've been itching to add my own handwriting styles to the blog. I just miiiight have to invest in a Pen Tablet....



But why should you care about any of this? Because experimenting with handwriting can be super super fun! Here's how it usually goes for me...

1. Pick an adjective or a couple of them - maybe... low and wide or tall and thin...
2. Write the alphabet in upper or lower case - don't obsess yet, just try it out
3. Take a look - which letters do I like best? which drive me nuts? why?
4. Tweak to my hearts content!

For example, below I tried a handwriting that was tall and thin. I really liked what I ended up with except for the letter a. After a little tweaking I found an a that I totally love (the bottom one there)!





If you're curious (which I'm assuming you are if you made it this far into a post about handwriting - don't worry, we'll be crazy together) my every day handwriting is the middle style in the picture below.



Also, I'm endlessly jealous of people who have beautiful cursive.



Ok, insane post about the very mundane finished! Just tell me, are you a font-aholic too? I won't tell ;)

Trying Not to Leave My Mark

If there's one thing I'm not, it's afraid to put holes in my walls. I know a lot of people who find hanging a picture terrifying because you're putting a hole in the wall. You know, damaging your house!? But I wonder... would those people be less afraid if they knew how easy it was to fix?

Since I'm moving out of my apartment and had hundreds (yes hundreds) of holes to patch, I thought I would show you how I tackled them all and was done in just a few hours.



Supplies: Drywall spackling (I used this
"lightweight" stuff from Ace Hardware and it was super super nice, especially for the small nail holes), sand paper (I used a sanding block because it's easier to hold and makes for a smoother surface), paper towels, and a spoon.

1. Clean Your Hole: First of all ew, I'm sorry. ANYways... Often, when you pull a nail or screw out of the wall the drywall/paint will pucker out around it. For example, take the large screw hole I photographed below (this was the gnarliest patch job I had to do in the apartment, so I thought it would make a great example). Since any raised area like that will be super noticeable after the hole was repaired, it needed to be smoothed out. Using the round bottom of my spoon, I pressed the drywall flat again. Some people use a hammer or sand paper for this part of the job, but I've always found a spoon gets it done with the least trouble/mess.



2. Apply The Spackling: Many people use a putty knife for this step, but I just use my finger. If you have completely flat walls, a spatula works best, but my walls are textured. My finger always does a better job of getting in the nooks and crannies. Always start by over-applying like the image below.



3. Wipe It Down: You could leave all of that excess spackling then sand it off once it dries, BUT you are making your job harder and will probably sand off your wall texture to too (making for an oddly blank spot on your repaired wall). Wipe off that excess before the spackling dries - you can always add more later if your hole is too big to fix with just one coat.



4. Add More Spackling as Necessary: Since this hole was big-ish, I needed to add a second layer of spackling. Wait until your first layer is completely dry (trust me - it wont work if you cheat the drying time, just give it a half hour or so), then repeat steps 2 and 3.



5. Extra Optional Steps: Usually my repair jobs are good to go at this point, but... if your patch is still lumpy sand just a little to even things out. Don't over sand or you will rub your wall texture right off... if your patch is too smooth and looks like a bald spot on the wall, you can add texture to your walls with spray texture from your local hardware store... If your spackling doesn't match your wall color, use spare paint to totally mask the hole. I always try to keep around a small sample container of each of my paint colors for just such an occasion.

There's a slight possibility that all of this might seem more complicated than it is because I over explained the process. I do that. It's a bad habit. But I just wanted to make sure you had all the info you might need. Most of the time, it's really as easy as dabbing a little spackling with one finger and wiping it off with another finger. It takes 3 seconds. Promise. Don't fear the holes!

I also promise to update this post if I have any trouble from my landlords about my repair work - the true test right!? I'm pretty confident there won't be a problem :)