YOU call it spring cleaning ~ I call it roadside Christmas!

I am a huge fan of yard sales, thrift stores, Kijiji, Ebay and anywhere you can get used goods for a decent price. Lets face it too many landfills are getting crowded with items that will take decades if not centuries to breakdown again, so if something can be refurbished and reused I'm all for it!.

Now I know what your thinking, what does all this have to do with spring cleaning and roadside Christmas????. Well friend, I'm glad you asked!! Because here is where "green living" meets "cheap bastardry" in a big way!!!. If you have ever been in an Archeology class you would have most likely been given the talk that all Archeology really is~ is going through peoples old garbage, In fact there are sects of Archeology that actually go through old out houses and dig deep into landfills to find out little things about past peoples diets etc. If you didn't get that talk in your Archeology class then may I suggest a course at Vancouver's Langara college :).

**ahem***~ To get back on track again, This week it was spring clean up. The magical time that only comes once a year where people take all the stuff they are too lazy to drag to the dump or to a thrift store and just leave it sitting on their curb for a few days until the large trash pick-up comes to collect it. It started with a few small piles in the grubby neighbourhoods, old retro televisions, broken planters ~real garbage. At this point I was able to resist the urge to peek into a few piles.

All this changed however a few days later while walking our dogs around the block, the number of the piles were growing, the items getting bigger.....better. I walked by and caught sight of an old gold picture frame. With a bit of black spray paint I could frame one of the art prints I have sitting in a shipping tube at home I thought to myself. I walked over and snatched it, Chris just shook his head and pretended he didn't know me as I walked home with my prize. Unfortunately once you find one treasure the "garbage fever" takes hold, the desire to make more great finds begins to claw at you. What if we found something else useful, something that would be an easy fix?.

I'm not sure if it was fear of my raging pregnant hormones or just a strong sense of love but I was able to convince Chris to drive me around on a treasure hunt for reusable goods. What was meant to be an hour long trek turned into an entire days worth of driving and hauling goods. In fact we even needed to make two trips back to the house to drop our 'goods' off at home to make room for more!!. Some finds included an old radiator cover an antique dresser (which we will spruce up). A glider rocker (nicer than the one I'm currently reupholstering), A table, an old 1930's photograph of a man and a big box of mirrors. As we begin to refurbish our finds I will keep you all updated on my home reno blog brazen babes home delights.

The highlight of our afternoon was meeting a local folk artist (the guy getting rid of the mirrors) When we asked him why he would throw them all out he told us how he just nabs the frames from the mirrors to use on his art pieces. He invited us into his home and into his art studio out back to check out some of his work!. Turns out he has been able to make a decent living on his art, it being his sole source of income since the mid 80's. Its really great to meet people who are able to follow their passion and make a living through the things they love. Apparently he is on Facebook so look him up also here is a quick link to some of his work David P Stephens.