Showing posts with label thrifting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thrifting. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Economizing Measures ~ Thrift Store Buying

I have written before about buying things you need from thrift shops like Goodwill, Salvation Army and a myriad of others you may have in your local area.  I thought I would bring up the subject again just as a reminder to those of you who don't usually shop these goldmines or have never thought of it.  I'd also like to clear up some confusion some folks have about these shops.

The items in charity thrift shops are usually donated by local people when they declutter or clear out after someone has passed away.  Sometimes local stores donate unsold items that are brand new with tags still on them.  A local motel donates used but very serviceable sheets to one of my nearby stores.  What I am trying to show is that it is not all junk no one wants or worn out clothes only fit for rags. 

Items I have gotten include 2 beautiful jackets nearly new for $17 that I am positive would have $75 or more each retail,  2 new corner shelves for a kitchen redo for $1 each, brand new books with the dust jacket in pristine condition for $1 each, peruvian wool yarn, enough to make a sweater for $5, a stack of about 20 or so cross stitch patterns to resell, some brand new, a box full of evenweave linen in various colors for cross-stitching, some still marked at $20-50 per piece and I paid $20 for the box full.  Several 
really nice shirts at $3 each and a vintage basket to keep my knitting in for $5.

Think about what you need and before you go off to the local department store or big box store, check the thrift shops first.  You may not always find what you need but sometimes you do and always at a rock bottom price.
One blogger I like to read set out to not buy anything new for an entire year and they are still mostly living this lifestyle.  They have discovered the joy of the hunt, the mystery of what can I do with this?, the satisfaction that they are reusing something that might have ended up in the landfill and the blessings 
that come from giving your money to a charity that uses it to help other people or animals.

Why not try your local charity shops this week.  You may be able to cut your Christmas present budget and not use that credit card, you can feel good about where the money went, you can even use it as a tax write off!

Saturday, September 17, 2016

New Page for the Blog on Saving Money

I am closing down one of my blogs and have put all those posts on the Economizing Measures page which you can access by clicking the link in the right hand side bar.

There is a lot of information there on frugal ways to do things and you are sure to find something of interest.

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

How I Spruced Up a Pillow

I have a set of two of these gorgeous pillows with beading and a matching throw, beads & all that I found at a thrift shop years back.  They are really nice but the backs are plain and sometimes you just don't want matchy matchy sets.
About a year ago I found this piece at a thrift shop for 75¢.  It was a small wallhanging and in a 10 x 12 room I have no walls left.  But I had to have it, it has peacocks on it!  I have a thing for peacocks, always have.  Anyway, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it and I finally thought about my pillows. 

So I removed the backing pieces and hanging rod.  Then I put Fraycheck along the edges because it is that kind of fabric, probably rayon with a metallic silver weave.
You can see from the back where the red & blue were woven just how much this would probably fray.  I pinned it in place and stitched it down by hand.
I think with the hawks, peacocks and elephants it was most likely made in India as a tourist souvenir.  I'm thinking it might need some trim but I will have to see if I find anything when I go into Abilene sometime in the next couple of months.  

And except for a handful of wool pennies, that was my stitching for the week.  I've been a bit preoccupied doing Ebay listings while I had some free ones and learning to cook meals for my newly diabetic father.  It's a learning curve for this meat and potatoes/pasta/noodles/bread family.  But I'm sure we'll all be healthier for it!

Monday, December 14, 2015

Vintage Look Santa Toy Thrift Shop Find

I found this great Santa toy while looking around in a local thrift shop.  

He's not antique, just a repro but he's definitely fun!

When you push or pull the round knob on the right the reindeer move back and forth, the little boy's arm & hat move and the upper half of the little girl moves too.  
I just had to have it!

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

How To Repair a Book Cheaply

I recently picked up this lovely old book for a $1.  It's not falling apart but it does have some loose places like this:
The threads will eventually break and the pages will start falling out.  So I repaired it to stop that from happening.
I used a neutral pH pva glue that I bought several years ago for 50¢ at a thrift store and some cut pieces of acid free paper I bought for 99¢ for a pack of 50 at a dollar store several years ago as well.
This method is not for valuable books, those should go to a professional book repair person.  
I ran a small bead of glue on each side of the crack, on the page itself, and used my finger to spread it thinly.  Then applied one of the strips with the ends hanging over.  I had used my thumb to run down the strip first, making it curve and then gently fold lengthwise.  This glue is reversible with water and I used a lightly damp rag to clean up any glue residue and carefully shut the book for about 10 minutes.
Then I opened the book to make sure it wasn't sticking the pages together, trimmed off the repair ends, closed it and let it set up before moving on to the next crack.
The inside of the covers got the same treatment.
At this point all this cost me was time as I had all the items I needed.  
If I could have found it, I have some white rice paper also picked up at a thrift store for about 50¢ and it's very thin but really strong.  But it's packed away somewhere with other crafting supplies since my move.

You could easily use acid free scrapbooking paper, especially for endpapers.  You would need to thin down the glue and brush it on to do large areas.  I have used regular all purpose glue on newer books that have no real value but I prefer using the neutral pH glue on older books.

This cheap repair will keep this book readable for many years to come without worrying that it will fall apart.




Tuesday, October 27, 2015

The 4 Seasons Cross Stitch Done & Framed

The 4 Seasons are finished and I thought I would show how I mounted  the piece.  I used a piece of foamcore board cut to size (15" x 15") and centered the fabric.  Then I used silk pins to hold it in place, working from the center out, opposite sides first to keep it centered.
I stuck the pins into the foamcore about halfway and about an inch apart.
Then I went back around adding more pins about 1/4" apart, then once again in the center of those spaces.  Always checking the alignment of the weave against the edge of the board.  When done all the pins got pushed all the way in.  I had bought a box of 450 pins and had about 1/3 of them left over.
I could have stopped there and just folded & taped the excess fabric but decided to lace it as an extra measure.  I used doubled pieces of quilting thread, corner to opposite corner first.  Taking 3 stitches for each lace end.  When I ran out of thread, I used an overhand knot to connect the new thread to the old and kept going.
Lacing all one way.
Then the other way.  Pieces like this really should be laced and not pinned but I had read that the pinning worked so nicely with little chance of rusting pins so I thought I would try it.  If I had not used pins that stay in the board, I would have sewn a stronger twill tape to the edges and then laced.  
Not perfect but it's hard with linen.
And here she is framed in my Goodwill $3 frame that was a perfect fit.  No glass as there was no room for it.  A little orange oil polish and the frame looks like new!

The back got a dust cover and sawtooth hanger.  Now all I need is a place to hang it!



Tuesday, October 13, 2015

How To Make A Marble Covered Bowling Ball


If you are like me you have seen bowling balls like this on Pinterest.  I love the colorfulness as it brings such a bright spot to the garden.  Plus I am doing a round/orb theme to the front garden.  So here's how I made mine...
I bought my marbles, it took 15 bags to cover a regular bowling ball.  I bought the marbles at the local dollar store but Walmart carries them too, $1 each.  It says 50 but one is the larger shooter which I set aside.
I bought 2 tubes of GE all purpose clear silicone that is waterproof, we already have the caulk gun to put it in.  See this post to see how to keep your large tubes from drying out.  I did not use all of the second tube.
The bowling ball I picked up at Goodwill for $2, it is a solid black one.
I glued a canning jar ring to the ball where the finger holes are and filled in parts of the holes that showed with silicone, the ball was hole side up for this part.  This makes a nice stand for while you are working on it, it won't show in the garden.
Once the base was dry I flipped the ball over to stand on it.  Then squeezed glue in a small area on the top and started pushing the marbles into the glue.  I worked in a circular pattern and tried not to have very much glue squish up between.  I worked in small sections as I came down the sides, sometimes you have to push the marbles back up into place but they will hold as the glue gets drier.  Do try to use different color marbles next to one another if you can.

After the top was done I waited until the next day to work on the bottom.  Same scenario but I worked from the marble edge up to the ring base.  This was a bit easier as the marbles could not slide down now.
And here it is completed.  The silicone glue made kind of a frosty colored grout in the gaps.  I'm not sure what it would look like with a multi-colored bowling ball but any solid color I think will work well.

Now to find the perfect spot in the garden.


Sunday, July 19, 2015

Yard Saleing & Thrift Shopping

I managed to sell some items on Ebay and Etsy this last week, yay!  I had spent 4 long days working on almost 100 items.  That includes photographing, editing the photos, adding the items to my inventory list, researching their worth and finally writing up the listing.  But hey, if Ebay is going to give me free listings I won't complain.

I also went through my old jewelry stash of crosses and put together the sterling silver ones with chains for a complete necklace.  I bought these years ago in lots off Etsy for a good price and never got around to doing anything with them.  Anyone else have that problem?  Of course everything had to be cleaned and polished first.  Last week was super busy doing all this.  Everything is on Ebay right now and most is already in my Etsy store as well, so if you need or want a cross necklace please visit my Etsy store!

There were several promising yard sales here this weekend so off I went on Friday after mailing 2 more things at the post office.  I hit 4 yard sales and Goodwill.
The picture frames, jewelry and Darth Vader were from yard sales.  The story on Darth is that I was looking at it when a boy of about 10 came over and showed me how it worked by pressing a section of his chest.  I asked what does it do?  And he said gum balls came out if you filled it.  When I went to pay my whopping 25 cents, he asked if I really liked his Darth Vader.  I said yes and that I was waiting for the new movie to come out.  He said he didn't really like Star Wars (!?) but he loved GUM!  Hahahahaha.

The cowhide day planner by American West, coyote and flask came from Goodwill.  Looks like the day planner will be worth about $45 at least.
 All of this came from Goodwill, the figurine is about 10" tall, made in Japan and looks to be worth around $20.  The rest were in a grab bag of $1.99, would you believe the 1970s egg timer is going for $20 on Ebay?

The best part of the yard saleing was the 2 bags of home grown tomatoes I got for $5...especially since ours are still green.

Friday, April 18, 2014

Local Thrifting Treasures

I stopped into one of 2 local thrift/resale shops we have here and found a couple of treasures.  This smiling sun is about to be painted in some cheerful colors and will be hung on the wall under the back porch light.  He's about 6" x 8" and made of plaster so I will probably use a sealer even though we don't get much rain here.  He was a whole dollar.
Then I spied this treasure.....
Yes it was only a dollar as well.  That's the Tower of London in the center.  I have red transfer-ware dishes with British castles on them and this little plate will look nice with them, I thought.  Then I flipped it over....
Yup, it's a Wedgwood piece!  I looked it up and this is the under-plate for a gravy boat, a complete set sells for over $40 on Ebay.  I have a red gravy boat and plate already so I won't need another, this piece will stay as it is, a little serving plate.  

I love bargains, don't you?

Monday, July 1, 2013

Refrigerator Organization & Keeping It Clean

My refrigerator needed a good cleaning not only to get rid of garbage but to actually clean it.  Vinegar is my weapon of choice as it has anti bacterial properties.  
I also took the opportunity to organize things and to try out something I read about somewhere on the www.

Use plastic placemats to line your refrigerator shelves.  If your fridge is like mine you have wire shelves and goo drips from one shelf to another, yuck.
I got a variety of place mats at the thrift shop for pennies.  The vinyl ones I found were a perfect fit from front to back and I only had to cut a piece of one to make it fit side to side.  I did not tape the liner to the shelf as I want to be able to take it out to clean without having to remove the shelf ( a pain in the rear.)
I used Duck Tape (the handyman's helper) to connect them.  I taped the tops wrapping the tape about 2 inches to the back.  Then flipped them over and taped the back seams.
My top shelf is actually 2 separate ones but since I leave them at the same level I had to cut a notch out at the back to make the liner fit.
And here it is with all the food put in and it has room for more.
I put most of my newly acquired organic baking stuff on the bottom shelf.  I don't need much space for regular food so half dedicated to keeping my flours from going rancid is ok.

Now I need to come up with something to keep the smaller and skinnier containers in the door from falling out.  

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Colored Bottles

I've been searching the thrift shops for canning jars nearly every weekend and not finding much, just one or 2 here or there.  However I have found some great bottles.
click photo to enlarge
A nice green gallon jug, a Watkins vanilla bottle, several blue gin bottles in various sizes, 2 bottles with caps, a square green bottle, a clear round one and then an antique green bottle, the larger one on the right. 
I'm a sucker for glass bottles and jars, the light just looks so pretty through them.  I remember Mom having glass bottles with colored water in them when I was a small child, maybe that's where my love of them comes from.
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Most of these were $1 or less, the capped ones were $5 each and I can use them for some herbal vinegars.  I do wish they had left the caps on the gin bottles but I can always use them as vases or use a cork.
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Do you like colored glass bottles too?

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Grocery Store Markdowns

I don't normally shop at Kroger, only once in a while because they carry things I can't get at other stores or because they have a good sale on something.  This past weekend I just felt like it was time to go to Kroger but really had no reason why.  I'm glad I did!
I picked up the above items all marked down on clearance.  
I think the best bargain of the lot was the St. John's Wort capsules, 100 for $4.99 (the plastic bottle was dented).  I keep those around to help with the menopausal moods swings.  The other bottle is vitamin E which I was going to need for making my salves anyway.  The flax seed meal was 4.99, $2 less than normal so I thought it was a good deal too.  I don't normally buy pasta roni, but for 49¢ said ok.  The 3 cans are dented which I will only buy if I am using right away and I may actually re-can the pineapple into half pint canning jars.
Since it was a holiday weekend I picked up some things as a treat so I didn't have to cook.
Again, stuff I would normally not buy.  The pasta salad was fabulous, I may make it homemade next time.  The cole slaw salad is pretty good, still working on eating that one.  The potato salad is ok, not my style but not bad.  The hoagie rolls are half gone, made some cajun roast beef sandwiches and a chicken sandwich today with provolone cheese, yum.
Kroger seems to be the only grocery store here that marks things down like this, they even mark down produce but all they had was one pkg of corn on the cob with black mold on the ends, uh, no, I have my limits.
So check your local grocery store for the hidden clearance section.  You may find some bargains too!


Monday, January 30, 2012

Salsa Time!

No, not dancing, I'm afraid my dancing days are pretty much over.  I made salsa today and canned it.
This is my big Anya pot.  My dear friend Anya gave me this pot and it holds a humongous amount.  It's a really nice stainless steel pot with a heavy bottom and a lid too.  I actually had one batch in the pressure canner already when I remembered to take this photo, you can even see the steam rising.  
I use a lot of canned tomatoes, especially Rotel tomatoes and salsa.  It gets expensive even if I buy the store brand so I decided to buy the #10 cans of tomatoes and some jalapenos & onions and make my own.  I roughly chopped 2 large onions and opened the #10 cans.  The tomatoes were whole so they had to go in the food processor with the onions.  I had gotten 3 large and 2 regular size cans of tomatoes marked down because they were dented so those went in too as well as 2 jars of marked down chopped jalapenos drained and 2 fresh jalapenos seeded and chopped.  I did add some salt and some garlic powder.
This was all heated in the Anya pot.  As I filled the jars I added fresh chopped cilantro and half a spoonful of citric acid as you can never tell about tomatoes anymore having enough acid.  It took pretty much all Sunday afternoon but I now have 22 pints of salsa and 3 quarts of tomato veggie juice.  The juice was the nearly 2 quarts of juice from the #10 cans and 1 ice cube of beet juice, 2 ice cubes of greens juice and about a pint of carrot juice from the freezer.  I froze these when I had a juicing day a while back.  I added salt and garlic and onion powder to the juice.
Here's the salsa, the juice was still in the canner when I took this photo.  
Counting the cost of all the ingredients I spent about $16.  Rotel tomatoes come in small cans and it would take over 2 to fill a pint.  Just figuring on 2 per pint this would have cost about $44 for Rotel.  If you consider this is also salsa, this would have cost about $110 for the same amount of decent salsa.  I like my $16 much better.  And even if you figured in the extra $14 I spent on 2 dozen jars it's still cheaper.  And that's not counting the 3 quarts of juice which will be pretty much like V8, have you priced that lately?  I buy the store brand at Dollar General and its nearly $3 for a 2 liter bottle.
And yes, you can see my previous canning jars in the back ground, I still need to reinforce the shelves to store them.  With all this it will be a priority for next weekend.
Saturday I also canned 1 pint of leftover beef roast, 4 pints of leftover beef noodle soup and 3 pints of leftover sloppy joe beef.  Now I have some easy lunches or dinners.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Why Do People Throw Away Books?

I love books, all kinds of books in any condition, but especially old books with that old book smell.  
I don't even want to count how many books I own or how many I need to photograph to resell on etsy.
I know the books in these photos are mostly old and ratty looking but they are still readable and have wonderful deckle edged pages.  One of my neighbors put a crate full of these books and more out for the trash man to pick up the next morning.  
SHOCK  HORROR  NO  NO  THAT'S JUST WRONG
Why would someone throw away perfectly good books rather than at least donating them to the charity shop that's only a 1/2 mile away?
So I stopped and scooped them up pronto.  This is only half of them.  There were several on wilderness survival I am keeping and even one from the author I collect that I rarely find here in Texas, Woo Hoo!
The only downside is that where-ever they were kept someone must be a chain smoker.  They reeked so badly I didn't really want to bring them in the house.  In fact the other half are still in the trunk of my car.  I put 4 dryer sheets between pages in each book and sealed 3 each in a ziploc for a week.  Seems to have worked fairly well.  I will probably continue to let them air out for a while before trying to sell them.
This is right up there with the people who burned a stack of braille books simply because no one was there that read them anymore.  Why do people not think about someone else anymore?  Why is it so hard for some to stop, on their way to the grocery store, and donate stuff to a charity?  I must be getting old, I just don't get how some folks can be so very self centered.  At least I saved these books and several already have a nice home - mine.  :-)  

Saturday, May 14, 2011

A Perfect Saturday

Today is a perfect Saturday.  The weather is warm in the sun with a wonderful cool breeze blowing through and low humidity...a rarity on the Gulf Coast.  So I am enjoying my afternoon now with some iced tea, no sugar please.  
The photo above shows how I make my tea.  Microwave 4 cups of water for 5 minutes, drop in 2 big Luzianne teabags and one of a variety of flavors, this one is a floral tea Mom sent me.  Steep for 5 minutes and pour over loads of ice.
I only make 4 cups because it gets bitter if it sits too long and I don't drink tea every day, mostly I drink water.
I went thrifting this morning to 3 of my favorite charity shops and 2 garage sales, though neither was in anyone's garage, actually not a garage in sight at either.  One was at a church and the other was at a resale shop.
I picked up this luncheon size plate as it matches my dishes, Old Britain
Castles by Johnson Bros.  If you enlarge it you can see it was originally $20 at some antique store, marked $8 at the charity shop but on sale ½ price today!  Perfect!
At the same place I found this small icon with a French inscription...LW help me out here with a translation!  This will probably go in my etsy shop.  Again ½ price, along with 2 rubber stamps I spent all of $4.75 there.
added: LW says this translates to 'The heart of God is upon the earth'.  Now to find out more on this icon I have never seen before.
At another shop I picked up about a dozen decorating magazines, a paperback book and a triple CD set of 1940's music all on sale ½ price, $3.79 total.
At the 2nd charity shop I went to they were also having a ½ price sale on everything (must have been a get together to decide this) and I really scored big time.  I went looking for pint canning jars but found none anywhere.  What I did find was this...
It is obviously antique, the glass even has those funky bubbles and ripples in it.  Slight water damage to the upper right corner and a couple tiny boo boos, but it is gorgeous.  Sorry for the glare, that's with no flash even.  And He's a good size too, 16 x 20 not including the frame width.  I'm Orthodox, not Catholic, but I just love the religious artwork, especially the really old pieces.  How much was he?  
$2.00
Really!
Talk about a perfect day, even better than the day I found the large framed icon of the Theotokos here .  I think I paid $5 for that one.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Thrifted Sterling Silver Jewelry

I have gotten some sterling silver jewelry on my various rounds to thrift shops and they are up for sale either on eBay or in my Etsy store.  This beauty is an amethyst glass and marcasite ring, much sparklier than the photo shows.
More sparkles in this ring, probably crystals or CZs in a pretty leafy pattern.
A lovely purple stone of unknown origins.
Ever popular dolphins!
A  too cute for words Koala!
A funky teddy bear...
and vintage screwback earrings.

Mom sent me a box full of vintage stuff I need to sort and clean, and there are several of the popular owl necklaces in it, one of which is HUGE.
Check out my Etsy store for new Saintly Images pendants too!

A Quilt Repair While I Was On Vacation

 I went to visit my parents for a month and while I was there I repaired a quilt. Sorry the image is not very good, it was taken with my pho...