Trash Makes Great Gifts

This is a photo of the booth Kelly and I rent at Qcumberz.

Do you see the flowers in the corner on the wood frame?

I love wearing flowers in my hair, so I thought it’d be a good idea to collect bunches of silk flowers and make them into hair bows.  I spent a few days putting them together.  With my handy glue gun, I attached the flowers to clips I purchased at Michael's craft store.  I also added vintage buttons to the center of each flower. 

I loved how they turned out.

I marked them at $5.00 each.

Next, I found a vintage frame.  I glued 4 strands of thick ribbon up and down the frame.

A perfect way to display my flowers.

In a rush, I placed a price tag of $5.00 on one flower, assuming both store owner and customer would know it was $5.00/per flower.  

You can tell where this story is going, right?

Yes, the entire collection of flowers, including the frame, sold for $5.00.

In my defense, most of the time I look like this.

Or better yet, this.

I literally have a kid hanging/attached to me at anytime through out the day and didn't/couldn't take the time to label and price each flower.

What did I learn?

That I can’t assume anything.

On the bright side, some lucky customer purchased the deal of the day at Qcumberz.

I like to think of it as my gift to her.

Trash makes great gifts.

My mom, Sarah Hinze, is a wonderful author of many books, including We Lived in Heaven.    Her friend, Kimberly Clark Sharp, author of After the Light, came into town for a quick visit.  I met Kimberly almost 15 years ago while serving a mission on Temple Square and hadn’t seen her since.  I was so excited to see her again and wanted to give her something special.  

Kimberly is such a beautiful person and her style is a combination of shabby chic meets earthy.  I thought about what I could give her, than ran to my eBay pile of clothes.  I remember a linen cargo skirt from FLAX I’d found while thrifting.  New, a flax skirt runs around $65.00, so I was confident this would be a great gift, classy and stylish.  It’s easy to see how much she loved it.

 Plus I was able to capture her hilarious personality.

Trash makes great gifts.

Last week, Reef turned 3.  It was a week long celebration, ending with a carnival at the elementary school.  He looked so cute face-painted as a puppy.  

I captured him the night of his birthday, cuddled up in bed with his birthday gift; a fire truck I’d found a week earlier at a garage sale.  

He loves all the sounds; sirens, 911 dispatcher and fireman, plus, the ladder is so much fun. 

Trash makes great gifts.