Effective Real Estate Marketing.

You know me.  I’m always ready to lend a helping hand.  That’s why I would like to take this opportunity to tell you how to effectively market your real estate listing. 

What better way to teach you than by illustrating with pictures?  (Okay, there’s a lot of better ways, but you say to-may-toe, I say hush.)

Exhibit A comes from the lovely Lake of the Ozarks area.  Thank you to alert reader My Dad for sending the picture in.

There’s no need to hire a realtor with his thousand dollar words like “picturesque,” “financially attainable,” or “charming” when “steep and cheap” says it all!

Exhibit B comes from the building across from my office.  That looks normal enough.  But wait!  What is that?!  Why, I declare, I believe it’s another super-effective marketing strategy staring me in the face!

I know you can’t read that sign, so I was nice enough to get a close up for you.

I have to admit, the sign was much more inspirational before I got my new contacts and I thought “TRAINS” would be a good potential use for the building.  Traing just doesn’t seem nearly as exciting. 

And, THAT, is how to successfully advertise your real estate.

Stitch Your Child’s Drawing

I’m working on a large embroidered collage project and wanted to include one of my daughter’s drawings on it.

I first saw this idea a few years ago and have just been waiting for my daughter to get old enough.

As far as projects go, this one was pretty easy.  I had Shelby draw a picture (that says “Shelby” not “by Shel”), then I scanned it in and printed it in mirror image and used a heat transfer pencil to trace over the design and iron it on to my fabric.  I find that is far easier than trying to trace directly onto the fabric or on the back of the pattern using a light box.

I stitched over the pattern using the exact colors that she used in her original drawing.  I think it turned out well and she’s impressed that her artwork is included on the collage.

Merry Christmas from 1957!

I think I’ve mentioned before how I feel like I would have loved living in the 1950’s when everything was good for you and nothing would harm you.  Except the Russians and Sputnik, things like that.  But no American made product would ever bring you to any harm.

From 7-Up (and Coke Classic) for babies …

To beer to help nursing moms beat the baby blues and nourish their child with healthy nourishing essential hops …

Even Santa got in on the act.  Somehow, he drove that sleigh and landed on all those roofs without ever even having to take the cigarette out of his mouth.  And he never fell asleep and set anyone’s house on fire.  Look how jolly he looks! 

Lucky for Santa, the manufacturers of Camel and Prince Albert had tobacco products for all your Christmas gift-giving needs.  A can of snuff for Grandma and a huge ass box of smokes for your honey.  (Nothin’ says lovin’ like a huge ass box of smokes.)

    

Shoot.  It was even safe to buy your wife a vacuum cleaner for Christmas!  The world is a different place now and I’m pretty sure the World Health Organization and most consumer safety groups advise against that.

You could even have a revolver in the house when you gave your wife such a gift and it was still safe!         

And why not matching bb guns for the whole family?  You could shoot at each other and then Mom could vacuum up all the bb’s (made of lead, of course, because it’s good for you) with her brand new Hoover!

 

Okay, so I can’t really say anything about the matching bb guns since I seriously considered matching his and hers NRA memberships for our anniversary, but was told that would be way too mushy; so I only bought one.

Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Only All Dogs Expunged Play-Doh.

Do you ever ask yourself, “Self, I really want to get my kid the worst gift in the world; what could it be?”

If not, then I can’t help you.  But if that’s the burning question you have, then I’m here for you, my friend.  And if you answered “Snuggie,” then you would be wrong.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

When I first saw this, I thought it was one of those SNL skit commercials.  It’s not.  No, sadly for all humanity, it’s not.

When I first heard the description of “Doggie Doo Game”, the focus was on picking up the “doggie doo.”  I thought, “That’s disgusting.”  But then the description continued.  (NO, I am not making this up!)

Apparently, during play, the children feed some sort of dough to the dog.  The “winner” (admittedly, I’m taking liberties with the word “winner”) is the one who finally makes the dog poop.  He or she gets the dubious bragging rights as well as the poop shovel.

This is an actual excerpt from the actual website (still not making this up) www.doggiedooogame.com:

Around 15 years ago, toy inventors at Lund and Company Invention created a pooping dog game that made loud farting sounds as you squeezed the dog’s leash! Since most kids on the face of the earth find humor in all bodily functions, Lund was sure this pooping dog would be the next craze of the late 90’s. All they needed was to find the dog a master — a “toy industry expert” to adopt the concept and turn the dog into the next mega hit game!

Time after time, day after day, the game was reviewed and passed over by those so called experts who believed that it just wasn’t a “proper” fit for their company. After years of trying to find a taker, the pooping dog game was left in the dog house.

Seriously.  What kind of honky-ass-non-thinking-marshmallow-brain-so-called-experts would turn down this awesome concept?!  It was a crime, I tell you.  Luckily, Goliath came in and saved the day.  Thank you, Goliath.  And by “thank you,” I mean, “What the hell, Goliath?”

So if you want to be the one who ruins Christmas, then I highly suggest you rush right out and purchase the Doggie Doo Game.  Seriously, do it.

How to Terrify Children This Christmas.

Are you looking for that last minute Christmas gift to terrify the children in your life?  Then have I got the game for you!  Well, I don’t, per se.  But Target, Wal-Mart and/or Toys R Us probably do.  DOCTOR DRILL ‘N FILL!

Now your children can have hours of fun pretending to drill cavities out of a bodyless man.  Then, once they’ve had their fill of that, they can yank all his teeth out!

“Darling, if you don’t brush your teeth, the Baby Jesus will cry and a kitten won’t get her wings.  Oh yeah, then we’ll fill your head with putty and let the dentist drill your teeth like so much cheap sheetrock!”

That should scare them straight.

Santa Thinks Your List is Funny!

I made yet another altered canvas.  Because I have a problem.  “Hi.  My name is Mary and I can’t stop putting crap on canvas.”

Thanksgiving Button Tree

I have to make a confession.  Anytime I go to a thrift store (which is embarrassingly often), I make a bee-line for the button bin.  I love collecting buttons.  I just don’t like talking about my buttons because … well … to be honest, it’s a little boring to look at peoples’ button collections.

So I won’t show you my (vast) button collection.  But I will show you something I made with my vast button collection!

I am sincerely hoping that, since I didn’t make you suffer through a tour of my buttons, you will forgive my pictures being dark.  I keep forgetting to take pictures of this during the day and indoor winter photography is very hard for me.

But I digress.  The tree template is actually a Halloween quilt pattern from my friend Missie at The Quilt Stop here in town.  http://myquiltstop.blogspot.com/ 

I took a 5×7 frame from Dollar General and removed the glass.  Then I glued some background paper to the back part of the frame, glued down my tree and then buttons and finished it off with a “Happy Thanksgiving” sticker.  Which is all pretty self-explanatory.  Have fun making yours!

 

Weird Evangelism.

I found this book in the coat closet at church.  Which, in itself, is a little weird since I can’t imagine a single one of my fellow United Methodist congregants passing out religious tracts …

I was struck by the cover.  I mean the homeless guy is obviously losing hope in the young boy’s Jesus-Tract-Passer-Outer skills.

So I flipped it open and the first page I came to was this …

Which is actually an excellent suggestion.  If the question is, “How can I get my ass arrested by Homeland Security?”

(No, this wasn’t published in 1954.  It was published in 1986, for your information.)

Considering the dog problem in my neighborhood, I thought this one was particularly fitting …

I would actually hang a hundred booklets from the dog’s collar if I thought it would make people quit letting their dogs run loose.  And quit barking.  “Oh look, honey!  Rover brought us a tract!  It must be a sign from above to quit letting him bark day and night for hours on end every single day!  I have seen the error of my ways!  Hallelujah!”

I’m almost certain that it would not occur to the dog to scratch it out and eat it because, if there’s one thing I know about dogs, it’s that they would never ever eat a foreign object!

And the next one answers the age-old question of, “How can I passive aggressively share the love of Jesus while still condoning theft?”

That’s right.  If your fingers don’t touch it, then you technically didn’t distribute it.  You just pointed it out.  Am I right?

This one is actually an excellent idea.  Especially since my child can’t even ride the 3 minutes it takes to get across town without asking me 12 times if we’re there yet.  Tracts as baby-sitters!

And my all-time favorite … drum roll please …

Let’s “bait” the trash collector like he’s a hungry rabid squirrel!  Because, obviously, he has time to stop and read every piece of paper he picks up along the way!

Illustrations that get honorable mention … Or 2 answers to the question, “What is the easiest way to get arrested for littering?”

The book is great for one thing besides being a how-to on getting arrested …

The pictures would make whimsical Christmas cards to send from the clink!

Google Eye Specimen Art.

I will admit that I am probably playing fast and loose with the word “art” here.  But specimen art is all the rage now and I just had to join in. 

I used an artist canvas about 3 inches square and I spray painted it with purple spray paint then glitter paint. 

Then I just tacky glued my google eyes on and put a ribbon around the edge to finish it off.

I know you’re jealous!

Bat Silhouette.

I’ll just get right down to it because I see no way to be more descriptive of this than “bat silhouette.”

I got the 4×6 frame at Dollar General (I usually have a stash of them because they look fairly nice and only cost 2 bucks) and took the glass out.

Then I cut my background paper to size and cut out a bat silhouette.  I got the template from MarthaStewart.com.  You should really check it out – she has hundreds of Halloween silhouettes.

I finished my bat off by outlining him with silver Stickles.

As far as Halloween crafts and decor, I don’t see how you can get easier or cheaper than that!

(I’m not going to insult your intelligence by posting a tutorial picture of my scissors, glue, paper, and Stickles.  You are welcome.)