Dear Neighborhood Magic Makers--

I'm offering you a chance to shine, and to clean your closet while you're at it.

I have one of those narrow "alleyway" access yards --when my kids were little I told them it was our secret passage. Now they are not so little. I am in the middle of a big construction, remodeling and landscaping project right now building an ADU to move in my parents, landscaping a new multi generational garden, packing up my parents' stuff, and revamping my own home so it doesn't just look like a big shitpile in front of a nice new garden and ADU 😆--which is involving packing up a lot of my kids old stuff.

So that's how this literal side project was born. ***THIS IS FINALLY THE RELEVANT PART FOR YOU, MY NEIGHBOR AND READER***
I am turning my long narrow utilitarian access yard into an alley of memorabilia mosaics, found art, repurposed stuff, basically for the sole purpose of amusing myself, keeping some nostalgic items too broken to donate, and just to create a magic kid space for my nieces and nephews, my neighbors kids---if it turns into something really cool I would throw it open for local kids a couple times per year like a little gallery. Note: I'm not a creepy creeper, no kid without an adult and vice versa like Fairyland.

THE POINT: I need your junk! I'm not a master crafty up-cycling machine, so your junkiest junk please keep to yourself. I'm looking for shells, shiny beads, marbles, broken ceramics, old picture frames, magnets, cool waterproof decal stickers, planter pots, dollhouse furniture, odd salvage that might have no use but look cool in a jar, stuff like that. See-through plastic boxes and thicker, safer bottles etc that can be mounted with glue and turned into display cases would be incredible. Old toys--I already have a bunch of dragons and knights who finally found common ground at the jaws of my dog. Any rare earth magnets, spray paints for outside, landscaping glue, extra gloves or tarps or tile cutters would be awesome. Suncatchers, windchimes, garden statues. Cool rocks. Weird, weather proof stuff. Driftwood burl. Succulents and plants that can survive in SERIOUSLY TINY containers with mostly shade and only rain water. ONLY stuff that can survive the rain without turning into a child-terrifying horror show. ONLY things that are not super fragile, ie ceramic or heavy jars vs thin glassware . I am fundamentally lazy AF and I don't want to be out there dealing with broken glass and rotting dolls, you know? Obviously nothing sharp, and I might keep any especially weird, cthonic or inappropriate decals (or anything) but I am obviously not going to put that shit on a wall meant for delighting kids.

My dad is a gardening, fixit DIY kinda old school guy, who has Alzheimer's. I envision spending a lot of time in the yard working on this project with him, so it's not gonna happen overnight. But I think it's going to be fun and I hope some of you might have fun with it, too.

I really, really appreciate your donations. I do still reserve the right to refuse anything because 1. I have a vision and maybe we're just massively incompatible, 2. Again, I am fundamentally lazy so I'm making a lot of decisions based on a scale of Easy to Fun, and 3. I have met human beings before so I know how a lot of you are.