New Year, Old Stuff

Sooo...first week of 2012, who has kept their New Years Resolutions? Sounds early to start doubting folks, but most resolutions end within the first couple of weeks of a new year. So far, my resolution of blogging is going strong!

This entry is all about old stuff.... in particular, me.

My birthday was this past weekend. I'm 29, YIKES!!! It's the last birthday that I plan on admitting my actual age. The rest of my birthdays will be the anniversaries of this one.

This year, I decided to cash in on as many freebies as I could. My frugal-ness ends up being a project in itself, and this was no exception. I found this great website that lists all of the restaurants and stores that have birthday freebies. 

For most of these freebies, you sign up to receive emails from the company and they send you a coupon by email on your birthday. Since I work in downtown Indianapolis, it was pretty easy to get some of these great deals. My favorites were Sephora (free lip gloss), Noodles and Co (free entree), and Einstein Bros (free breakfast sandwich).

My birthday celebration started out at Fountain Square Brewing Company, a great new microbrewery in town.

Good beer, cool location in an old Fountain Square warehouse... this brewery is going to do well.

Lindsay and Carolina came to celebrate my bday and sample the beers. Nathan....ruined this picture, haha.

Laurette and I.

Next stop, Revolucion for tacos, and as you see in the next picture, tequila.

After that, New Day Meadery. I'm not totally sold on mead, aka honey wine, but it's still cool place to try out if you're in the Indy area.

After that, it was on to White Rabbit Cabaret for a burlesque show. Little risque, but hey, it was a birthday party! And it was right next to the brewery so we thought "why not?" Well, it ended up being a cool show. If you've never been to an old-timey carabet-type place, I recommend checking it out.

White Rabbit had a photo booth in it, I love those things!

Laurette and Jon

We attempted to fit 6 people in the photo booth. It worked, sorta.

On my actual birthday, my dad and stepmom came to Indy for the day. We had a good time shopping, my stepmom and I especially had fun shopping for crafting stuff at Archiver's. If you like scrapbooking, you will LOVE this store. It also has letterpressing and card making supplies, which is more of my thing. 

I didn't actually work on any projects, but I did want to highlight a great example of turning an older item into a new project. Laurette showed me her cute new purse. Can you tell what it's made out of?

It's made out of old fireman's gear! Yellow stripe and all. I love it, what a great example of how to upcycle old materials. Laurette couldn't remember the name of the shop, but it was one of the downtown shops in the small town of Nashville, IN. Check out your local small businesses, you'll find the best stuff!

**Update- The name of the shop is called Moonshine Leather Co. in Nashville, IN**