The winner of the first ReusaChallenge is Vanessa with a tropical lamp! Congratulations! It actually reminds me of that lamp in the beginning of Joe Vs. The Volcano. Jennie's challenge was to find a use for those empty plastic cd spools. Check out the fake awards Rachel made too! If you havn't seen it yet the Reusablog has some great stuff going on. My favorite is still the bread bag closure tab thingy used to mark your place in clear tape.

I found a really great quilt at the Salvation Army yesterday. There were two rows full of what appeared to be brand new quilts, a charity drive perhaps? But this one was made from scraps of those old polyester clothes. I really don't need it, but it was hard to keep myself from buying it:

Remember that Williams-Sonoma foaming hand soap container I was so excited about a while ago? It stopped working, the pump would get stuck in the down position. When when I opened it up to investigate a tiny ball bearing popped out and hurled itself down the sink drain. So I bought some Dial Complete foaming hand soap. The good news is that the top of the Dial container screws right off. This is good news because the Dial soap smells so horrid. It smells like an airplane bathroom. You know, that smell that makes you feel bad for all the people sitting in the back ten rows of the plane. Dare I assume it's the active ingredient Triclosan? So, I poured it out, rinsed it really thoroughly, added two or three tablespoons of the good grapefruit hand soap, filled it with water, shook it*, and now we we're back to where we started. Also, the inside of the Dial foaming mechanism appears to be pretty much the same as the one from Williams-Sonoma, so I can scavenge the ball bearing and put it in the original pump, assuming I ever get it to not stick.

* These are the directions from the WS hand pump.

We went to Ikea last night to get me a small desk to use for sewing, and we grabbed some other stuff while we were there of course. They have a bunch of bowls which come in the West Elm lime green and deep plum, we got a Groggy ice crusher and even some of the 7-11 slurpee straws. After a brief rendevous with the ice crusher I have my doubts, but I'll report back on how it does.

This really freaky thing happened to us last night on our way to Ikea. I know I complain about the traffic around here, but this wins as the Worst Ever.

There is rumor that I will be holding a small online garage sale this Saturday at 12 noon Pacific time. There is another rumor that I will be selling some of my over-zealously stashed Ginger Altoids at said garage sale.

Alex is also having a garage sale which is going on right now, and to be honest her stuff is much better than mine. And if you get the Kings Quest Mask of Eternity game I'll let you know how you can make the main character walk around wearing nothing but a fig leaf. No really.

When did Lush get a new site with a USA category and everything?

I get word that Fred Flare is having a sale in San Francisco:

"San Fred-cisco Sale:
fred flare's Summer SALE at Build!
Saturday, May 31st 11am-5pm at Build, 483 Guerrero St (Near17th St.) 917-488-8071

To celebrate their fifth year in business, fred flare designers Chris Bick and Keith Carollo are excited to launch their summer sale tour in SF at Build - a storefront performance space that Keith started way back in the 90's! fred's SF fans will be able to scoop up tons of items from the Spring/Summer collection at discounted prices! You'll find fred's quintessential guitar pick earrings ($5) and brand-new ice cream earrings ($6), pink note totes ($6 or 2 for $10), pixie composition notebooks ($4), vintage Charlie clutches (set of 3 for $6), Drew Barrymore's fave birdy notes ($4) as well as some unexpected goodies from the fred flare archives for just a buck! Shop 'til you drop to a fun electro-pop soundtrack! Rock it!"

I'm looking for a good eye cream to wear at night and during the day when I know I won't be going outside for a while and don't want to deal with the SPF stuff yet. So far the ones I have tried have not been soaking in and eventually get up into my eyes. Not stingy - but it's like having vasoline in your eyes. Any recommendations?

There was a discussion about knitting and riding in cars on last weekend's Car Talk (I can't find it on the site). The caller was concerned about impaling herself on a needle if the airbag were to deploy, and getting hurt in an otherwise non-fatal accident. I think the (not very comforting) consensus they came to was that we all have to die sometime.

There is now a PDF format Knitty flyer if you care to participate in a little "kamakaze marketing" on Knitty's behalf!