Photo of the Painted Hills, John Day, Oregon, and More

Sometimes it's not about how much you find out thrifting, but the quality of the things you find. The other day while out at my favorite 2nd hand store, my son and I, found only two items. This was fine because I don't need tons of stuff, as I am looking mostly for decor for my house. This allows us to be very selective. In fact I had been at that same GW two days before and came away with nothing.

 This was our first find and such a score indeed! It measure's 20.5" x 30" and is a photograph on aluminum of the Painted Hills, John Day, Oregon. This is a wonderful fine art print and the closest I could come to one like it were a couple of similar photo's done by professional landscape photographer Mike Putnam. His photo's of similar size on metal sell for $650, and are as stunning as I think this one is, some even more so. I wish I could ascribe this photo to him but sadly it is unsigned.
I will include his website link here so go check it out. His photographs are amazing! https://mikeputnamphoto.com/
Apparently GW still hasn't figured out just how expensive this type of photography process is, so I was able to pick this up for $14.99. I wish the above photo gave it justice. It looks like you could step right into it.

 The other fun thing that my son found in the toy aisle was this nice, still in the package, Star Wars die-cast toy by Hot Wheels. These are not old but from the newer movies. Still, they seemed well made and at just $2.99 he thought it worth buying, so I did.

Here we have the remodeled version of a Barbie skirt I purchased for a few dollars the other day at, Wally World. It had decided issues when I bought it, being too large around the waist and rather straight with no styling. I should have taken before and after shots for you, but I forgot. This was the only skirt I could find in pink that I knew I could remake for the smaller Draculaura Monster High doll that I showed you in a prior post that I bought, minus her skirt.
I cut off the old elastic waist with scissors, which made the skirt pretty much a simple tube. I took a child's or doll sized narrow hairbando and stretched the skirt and it, wrong side out over a bottle. This made it easy to roll the top of the skirt fabric over the hairbando and stitch it inside. I removed them from the bottle and, zippy skippy, I had a tinier waist-banded skirt. I thought the skirt still looked too boring, so I ran a running stitch up one seam on the side, and gathered it up toward the waistband, creating a nice affect. I slipped it on the doll, and it fit perfectly.

This is the version of the doll from Wally World, complete with its very cheap looking skirt.

This is my doll with the remodeled skirt. If you ask me, I think my remodeled skirt much more fun and interesting. Still, if my granddaughter wants one just like the original, it shouldn't be hard to make. This was a quick, fun little sewing project, and I look forward to making more. It reminds me of making clothes with my Sis, when we were kids, for her plethora of Barbie's. Truth be told I only remember making a few funky felt slipper boots for her dolls, she was much more into her dolls, and making them clothes, than I was. Sorry Sis, I should have been more helpful. Now if we'd just had dolls that looked like this!