Tag: basket

Apples for Auction

I volunteered again this year to work on the basket from our church to be auctioned off at a fundraiser for a local retirement village.  This year I had more than two days notice to get it ready, I had almost a whole month.  The baskets are also wanted much earlier so they can promote them better prior to the auction.  I did the basket from last year all by myself, and I thought that was going to be the case again this year, but I ended up with help.  I asked one of the other ladies from church if she’d like to help and she agreed.
I didn’t have a definite theme in mind and neither did Susan so we began our shopping at an antique/flea market to get ideas.  I had a lot of luck here last year and thought it would be a great place to start.  We wondered up and down the aisles, looking for inspiration. Several items caught our eye but we kept looking for more things that would bring a theme together.  The theme we finally settled on was Apples.
We found a cute small-ish bushel style basket and a set of four cups and saucers with apples on them.  At different stores we found dried apple slices, apple juice in cute bottles, caramel apple coffee, apple dip mix, apple pie spice, a cinnamon apple scented candle, and a hot pad with apples on it.  We couldn’t find any towels with apples so we bought two red hand towels to line the basket with.

Apples Themed Auction basket from wandasknottythoughts 2015-10-27

Can you believe I forgot to take pictures of our prizes until after I had it wrapped???  So this is the best picture I have.  I also found some decorative green apples at the Dollar Store.  I spray painted them red, which turned out great as they looked more real this way.  I added them to the basket, too.

The bushel basket and apple theme came about by what we found at the flea market but it worked out well for another item as well.  It happens that Susan has published several books, the latest being “Bushels of Nostalgia” with a bushel basket of apples on the front cover.  She was kind enough to donate a signed copy of her book to put in the auction basket.

Apples for Auction with Bushels of Nostalgia book and tatted apple bookmark from wandasknottythoughts 2015-10-27

I didn’t get a picture of the book by itself, I was trying to get an interesting picture of the bookmark.

 From the beginning I planned to put something tatted in the basket but was waiting to determine the theme and color.  Now I started looking for patterns with apples.  I found a couple but not quite what I had in mind so came up with my own.

Apples for Auction tatted apple bookmark from wandasknottythoughts 2015-10-27

Apple Bookmark © Wanda Salmans 2015

I’ve never tried layering rings like this before.  I’ve seen it several places on the Internet but I’m not finding the sites now – of course. I didn’t quite get the shape I was going for but with the leaves I think it still looks like an apple.

 

I was very happy with the basket we came up with.  The auction was last week but I have no idea who won our basket or how much it went for.  It doesn’t really matter – whatever it went for and whoever got it – it was all for a good cause.  I’m hoping that the winner is enjoying all their apples.

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”
George Bernard Shaw

Side tracked

I have a whole list of things I need to be doing:
finish the pigs
make another pig for a friend of mine
tat several edgings for table runners
tat snowflakes
tat earrings
tat more snowflakes
For the last two days, instead of getting any tatting done at all, I was side tracked into putting together a themed basket for an auction.
In our community we have a retirement village that is in part sponsored by most of the area churches.  All of these sponsoring churches were asked to donate a themed basket to be auctioned off at a yearly fundraiser that is later this week.  This basket was brought up at our congregational meeting this last Sunday – and the basket has to be turned in today (Tuesday.)  As no-one else was inclined to do it, I volunteered.  So, for the last two days I’ve been hustling to find items for the basket and get it put together.
The theme: “Tea”
Yesterday I went shopping for the items I wanted in the basket.  The church gave me a set amount of money to spend and I had to come up with enough tea related items to fill a large basket, enough to make it worth bidding on, within that budget.  I am the only one that made the decisions on what would go in it *hehehehe*
I started out at Prairie Harvest, a local store that is a kind of a health food store but also carries loose teas.  I also bought some of their homemade peppernuts and some colorful candies to put in.  (I bought some wheat free peppernuts for me while I was there – yummy!)  I went next door to Kitchen Corner for a tea infuser and tea bag rest.  Then down the street to an antique and flea market to look for tea cups.  I found a set of two cups and saucers with pink roses on them that I liked, as well as a hanky that I thought would look good in the basket.  Then to a secondhand store where I found a basket I thought would work.  Then to the Dollar Tree where I picked up the filler paper, flowers and cellophane to wrap the basket.  Then to Wal-mart for a few more choices of cookies.
[I was not compensated in any way by any of these stores.  I just went to the ones that I thought would have the items I needed]

Whew! That was a lot of shopping in just a couple of hours.
Then home to start trying to put it together.
This morning I made the tag with the church’s name, theme and contents and finished putting everything in the basket. And, of course, it had  be decorated a bit, too.  And then it had to be delivered.
I did include a little bit of tatting.  I found a bookmark I had made a while ago in Lizbeth Pink Cocoa that fit right in with the pink in the cups and hanky.  I also put a tatted butterfly on the front of the tag and a couple of simple tatted flowers on the back.

 This is the back before I added the flowers or included the bookmark to the list.  I added a little tea bag to bring in the basket’s theme to the tag.

The tea cups that I found.
The filled basket before I added the cellophane.

The completed, wrapped basket.  I couldn’t find a cellophane bag to put it in that didn’t have all kinds of decorations on it so I had to buy a roll of cellophane instead.  It was fun putting it around the basket – okay, not really.
I thought it came out well.  I don’t know that I will ever find out who will eventually get the winning bid on it, but that’s okay.  I had fun putting it together and it’s for a good cause. 
Now I need to get back on track with my tatting.  Where did I lay those shuttles down??
“Even if you’re on the right track you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
Will Rogers