Crap That People Have Forgotten About: Movie Edition

For the November edition I have recalled another gem for you all. Although, this may be more of a "crap people never knew of to begin with" rather than forgot about. But it is reminiscent for me. Wait a tick... it grossed $47mil in the box office. You guys know what I am talking about.

An American Tail. Tail, instead of tale, cute right?
This movie was one of my favorites when I was little, I even had a large plush Fievel toy that I would drag around.

The film is about a little Russian mouse named Fievel Mousekewitz that emigrates to America with his family but soon is separated from them, and the movie is about his adventures to reuniting with them. Uh oh, I think that maybe I have said too much.
Another important factor to note: Fievel's clothes and hat are freakishly huge. Poor little bastard. No really, he was poor, that's why his clothes didn't fit.

Why would Russian mice want to move to America? Because we apparently have an abundance of mouse holes and crumbs on our floors. They also think originally that there are no cats in America either. Which I would be totally cool with.

They obviously learn that the cat bit is rubbish. Fievel during his adventures befriends a vegetarian cat named Tiger (what are the odds right?). Tiger's clothes are too small, and I think I worry about fictional characters wardrobes way too much.

Anyways, hands down best scene in the history of scenes is when this really weird fat lady mouse with a speech impediment screams out "WELEASE THE SECWET WEAPON!". Release the secret weapon for those of you who don't read speech impediment. My niece and I still yell this out on occasion, just for a giggle.

And lest we forget the song at the end of the movie "Somewhere Out There". Tearfully joyous.

If you wish to read a full synopsis imdb can hook you up: synopsis here.
It is kinda cute, imdb has a: warning, this synopsis may contain spoilers disclaimer. Heaven forbid we spoil the ending of the mouse movie.


To follow along with past editions of Crap That People Have Forgotten About go here.

Gratefully Grateful

It is November, I am still getting over the fact that it is no longer Halloween, and I have neighbors hanging Christmas lights already. I feel as though I am being whipped to and fro in some sort of time warp.

If you are on the ol' Facebook you have received information about how 321 of your friends are grateful for a variation of:
Their baby(s), their baby(s) daddy(s), their daddy(s).
        I added (s) to all of those because they surprisingly might apply. And I won't lie, I love the hell out of my baby, my man friend, and my family too. Technically, if you met someone who hated their children, spouse, and relatives then you may want to wear a helmet or a bullet proof vest next time you are around them. Anywho - my other peeve about a flood of Day 1-30 posts is that many people have committed to doing it, and then they flake like a crescent roll. They start smashing days together all haphazardly and then your news feed is disturbingly full, disturbingly fast.

I am here to inform the masses of the other things in life. And I don't want to follow any days, I am just going to commit to making this one post and then donezo.

I am rather grateful for:

• Steam in the bag vegetables- Seriously, it's a glorious mix of convenience and borderline freshness. Birds Eye brand peas and mushrooms? Yes please! 
• Robert Kirkman- the brain behind The Walking Dead, he took my mind to a whole new level of "what the f*ck". He also prepared my mind for the most likely scenario for the end of the world. 
• Gel nail polish- this type of polish is what pulled me out of the grossly thick and long white tipped acrylic monstrosity nails that I sported for over 10 years. I will never go back. Never.
• Skinny Girl Margaritas- All the drunk and half the calories, who can't be thankful for that. This beverage was the culprit for me thinking that I could make ice with my mind on my birthday. 
• Shoes- I own too many, I have some really weird ones (zombies, zebras, buttons, mice, striped, polka dotted, leopard, etc), but I am thankful that I have an abundance of wacky choices every day. 
• Pandora- Radio that I actually like, no annoying radio personalities, no commercials, a station for every mood and whim I may have, that's good stuff people. Otis Redding radio...ftw.
• Frozen yogurt establishments- A psychologically unbalanced way to treat yourself. You pile a buffet's worth of shit on top of your frozen yogurt, and then relax after you waddle out of the joint because it was "just frozen yogurt". Genius. 
• Dead people- If it weren't for such there would be no estate sales. Additionally, I wouldn't have had half of the adrenaline rushes in the last 5 years if it weren't for trying to find them during paranormal investigations. 
• Humidifiers- I grew up with my dad having a humidifier in almost every room of the house. I now have to have them in every bedroom of our house, but we are sick way less than normal. 
• Hair color- I started going gray at 18, so, hair color is like, astronomically huge for me. 
• Vanilla flavored tootsie rolls- I am not really sure why I felt this was important enough for this list, but they are hella tasty. 
• Weather app on my phone- I check it all day long, and am so reliant on it that I actually get mad at the sky when it doesn't correlate with what my app says it should be outside. I also have Vancouver saved so I can see what the weather is like for Brett's family, and I have Kenmare Ireland saved so I can see what it will be like when I move there. (I suspect around the time that the zombies show up). 

I know, you all were probably expecting something traditional and predictable and now you are all "that was just a list of material items, odd snacks, and booze, what a bitch.". Maybe I have missed the mark, but those things in that list are pretty rad. I am thankful for things that are good. The end.

Upcycled Work - Postcard Art Edition

I wanted to post about one of my favorite upcycled projects. I am in love with my post card art, and I use all recycled/second hand materials to make them. I have made a few over the years and here is how you can to:

Supplies:
Business reply mailer/postcard
electrical tape
acrylic paint
Embossing ink
Stamp of your choice
Embossing powder
Embossing gun
Printed card stock for a matting background
Frame for finished product
Here is a pic of my material spread before I got started and made a mess of it all:

Directions:
1) Take postcard and tape of outer edges (I went about an 1'' all the way around the card).

2) Paint a thin layer of acrylic paint inside taped edges.
3) Allow to dry, and very carefully remove tape.
4) Stamp over acrylic paint with embossing ink.   --- I didn't take any pictures of the embossing process because it is messy, and I was too busy melting my fingers off to operate the camera! 
5) Sprinkle embossing powder/ remove excess powder.
6) Heat with an embossing tool gun. Please don't try to use a hairdryer, you will not get the same effect.
7) Mount card to card stock matting.
8) and frame!
9) ta da!

If you are like a few of my friends and you wish to skip through to step 9 and have one delivered to your doorstep just go to my etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/JunkDrunkJones and buy one! They would make an excellent gift. I use all recycled and donated materials for every item I make.

An Intro to Junk Drunk Jones

I feel like I have neglected the blog a little lately.
I blame my new etsy shop...www.etsy.com/shop/JunkDrunkJones

I sell upcycled items and vintage treasures. A few people have asked where I get my inventory. Which I assume they mean the vintage goods because the other stuff comes from my super awesome craft room:

But yes, the vintage goods come from somewhere. I have always loved a good thrift store, but I have a new found obsession (or rather a love/hate relationship) with estate sales. Those bad boys can be hard to find sometimes, at least for exactly what I need.
I search Craigslist for upcoming estate sales but I feel that sites should make a search option for locating estate sales for people who aren't ballers. I know estate sale companies try to add "fluff" to their postings so that it appears they are selling some super high quality shit, but let's get real here - you are just unloading some dead woman's belongings. At any rate, some of the descriptions make me afraid to visit because I don't have a sugar daddy in tow. A bit swanky for Junk Drunk Jones.

And a note to people advertising your "own" estate sale... Don't have a yard sale and pretend that it is an estate sale. If you aren't dead, or your not moving, guess what? IT ISN'T AN ESTATE SALE. I want to see that you are selling everything but the awkwardly large collection of cats that you have accumulated.

And shoppers? Calm down. I understand we are all very excited to rummage through someone's life and snag our treasures before the next person spots them, but you guys need to cool it down a notch. If your fat ass is too lazy to drag around the box of stuff you have already "scored" don't be surprised if someone else tries to peek into it. No need to yell. In case you haven't noticed there's a lot of shit piled into boxes, assuming everyone knows that one box in particular belongs to you is asinine. Now, if someone picks up your child or that stupid dog you have shoved into your handbag like an accessory, that is another thing.

I feel like I am rambling. In a nutshell - I am working diligently to craft upcycled items for people to enjoy, and scouring thrift stores and bare knuckling my way through estate sales for some vintage treasures you all just can't live without. Stay tuned! It is going to be a fun, yet bumpy ride!

Gifting Fruit to a Nut.

Today is my anniversary. 4 years, or 1,460 days, but who's counting?! I love you hunny.
Each year I get stumped on what to give Mr. Jones as an anniversary gift. I never really followed the traditional anniversary gift list. Which you can view here. I decided to give the traditional route a spin this year. My choices were fruit or flowers, or both I guess.

       After much head scratching I decided I needed to do something that would catch him off guard. Aside from unexpectedly throwing fruit at him, I figured this had to be one of those "go big or go home" situations. I decided what better way to surprise Brett than to park a bunch of FRUIT TREES inside our house for him to stumble upon. Originally I thought about strategically placing them in our bedroom, but I must say that my original plans were poorly executed.

         Scene change - I am at Home Depot yesterday afternoon, and I have to ask where the trees are (strike one). After finding the section of fruit trees they send someone in to help me, pffft...like I needed it. I tell the fellow that i'd like an apple tree and a peach tree because I am indecisive. He informs me that I must buy these in pairs so that they can cross pollinate, and different types will work best. I sigh and shake my fist at the sky saying "why are there so many rules?!". I'm pretty sure he laughed at my dismay. I then take way too long to try to pick out 4 trees, meanwhile he asks me "what do you plan to do with these?". To which I answer, "Oh, i'm just putting them in my bedroom!". The very confused man then helps me pick out 4 trees and loads a cart for me and hauls it to checkout.

          As I am paying a thought occurs to me, "sonofabitch! I am in my CAR, and I just bought TREES." I tell the workers I don't need help because it would then be more blatantly obvious that I am ill prepared for tree purchasing this day. I trudge to my car and open every single door on it. Readjust seats a time or two, and then spend about 5 minutes looking at the trees, and then looking at the car. Trees, car, trees, car. I then just start leaning and shoving them into various corners of the vehicle and quickly shutting all of the doors. By the way- TREES ARE HEAVY. Windows also get cracked so that the sporadic branch or leaf bundle can hang out of the windows for added comfort.

           I get home and I hide the tall, heavy trees in the basement. Since I wound up with 4 trees instead of 2 I also realize that placing them gently in our bedroom while he is sleeping that night isn't going to happen. Few reasons why:
1) He goes to bed later than I do.
2) Our 3 dogs may think the tall trees are intruders and bark, or pee on them, whatever.
3) Did I mention that TREES ARE HEAVY?
4) From the looks of my vehicle I can infer that they put off a lot of water, dirt, and bark so I don't want to clean my carpet.
I then learn that he is going to get us breakfast in the morning so the opportunity to set it all up presents itself. As soon as I heard his car roll away this morning I ran downstairs and furiously carried the tiny orchard into our entry way. Hello cardio.

He also got a card (Oooohhhh) which incorporates the last 3 years that I slacked on:

In case anyone was wondering, I glued some of my pictures from a Departures magazine to the card.
And yes, I do realize that in the card I spelled pollinate incorrectly. Real life doesn't have an autocorrect. Gah.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Canada's Thanksgiving Day (if the interwebs have served me correctly it is supposed to be the 2nd Monday of October each year).

Considering I am not Canadian, and my husband is on the brink of no longer being Canadian, we were confused and celebrated last night. But we celebrated with the Olive Garden so I am pretty sure that can't count for much.

I thought it over this morning and I wondered, wait a tick, what do Canadians celebrate for their Thanksgiving?
I have my theory:
     They have their feast and conversation centers around how thankful they are that they aren't as stupid as the Americans are. Since we celebrate a holiday that centers around the idea that the pilgrims and indians actually got along well enough to have dinner together. Yes, I understand ultimately it is to celebrate the harvest and a time for being thankful - as per the cartoons I recall from my childhood showing the lovely peaceful feast I would see between the pilgrims and indians. But it is a little odd to me that essentially we traded the Native Americans seeds for death. Go America.   

In actuality- Canadian Thanksgiving is apparently in celebration of some guy named Martin Frobisher who had a really crappy voyage to Canada. During said voyage half of his fleet got completely rocked, and then he threw his hat in and went back to England with what he thought were thousands of tons of gold ore, but in reality it was just a bunch of rocks, or dog poop. Your call. I am not sure who is sillier, them or us. Looks like both of us were just fishing for an excuse to eat too much turkey.

I know what they eat at a Canadian Thanksgiving feast because I have been to some family holiday gatherings for Brett's family for past Canadian Thanksgivings. It is much like ours, save that the sides are actually vegetables and not a bunch of vegetables suspiciously hidden inside of a high calorie casserole. Don't get me wrong people, I will eat the hell out of a casserole. But I think there is a reason why our region is overly obese and fairly diabetic in nature.

Another thought I had: Canadian Black Friday. Wait wait, they would have a Black Tuesday. I imagine it is heavenly. I envision it being much calmer and less aggressive than the American Black Friday. Or the intense shoppers might actually wield hockey sticks so I could be way off on my original assumption. All I know is that bitches around here take that day rather seriously.

The great part? When Adeline is older she can appreciate having two Thanksgiving feasts. Too bad there aren't going to be two Christmases.


I would like to cite my sources. Thank you Wikipedia. Yes, you should believe everything you read on the internet.

Crap That People Have Forgotten About. Illusion Edition.

I think I would like to start a series for this. Crap That People Have Forgotten About. Consider this my first edition.

I would like to take you back to 1993. So let's see, there was Jurassic Park, Whitney Houston singing I Will Always Love You, Beanie Babies came out that year (on the market, not the closet), but this isn't about any of those. Want to know why? Because those are easily googled subjects. Anyone who can't recall the excellence of subjects such as those can just plug in and find out about them too easily.

I want to bring back to your attention something a little more down played. "Off the map" if you will. I don't know the technical term for it, as google did not provide much assistance in finding it for me. We will call it the Optical Illusion Art Prints craze. REMEMBER THOSE?! Hours of fun for everyone. Dozens of squiggly lines to focus in on and find a scene in behind the fuzz. I say hours of fun for everyone, but I guess some people can't get past the squiggly lines to see the pictures. I feel sorry for those people. At any rate, we still have one hanging in our office/museum of old dirty stuff we have collected about the building. See:

As you can see, it is strategically placed near our water cooler. That way our employees can have a refreshing glass of water and train their eyes to see a Rainforest. Or have a flashback from 1993.  I recall in the 90's these prints were so popular I actually went to a store that was an entire gallery of nothing but these optical illusions. I had to stare blankly at every one until I saw the picture underneath before I could leave the store. Nerd alert. Maybe they can make a come back in another decade or so. Let's use Maybe lightly here.

And that concludes this month's edition of Crap That People Have Forgotten About. 

Disclaimer: Don't actually try to find the rainforest in my picture I posted. You have to actually stand in front of it to focus in on it. Duh.