Thrift shops popping up all over. Fun hunting.

It seems like everyone is opening a thrift shop in any little spot they can find these days. It's been great and adventurous for us. The pickings have been bright and colorful and even the quality has been good. We have been out twice in the last week and have had so much fun. I hope it continues. We've found items for the store and items for our personal use. What a world!

First the personal use things we found. Yes four new food saver vacuum seal canisters. All four for $12. If we had purchased new almost $50.

Canning jars are always going to find their way to my kitchen. Cannot believe I've been finding them when it seems like everyone is looking for them. Total $4.

We found two Wilhold sewing boxes full of stuff and junk including candles, picture hanging hardware, needles and thread along with stuff that went directly into the trash. I think this is the first red one we've found. We also found a wear-ever cookie gun with all the parts and couldn't resist. I think my daughter is going to keep this and use it. I had one and sold it thinking I'd never make cookies again and sure enough there's one back in our lives.

These bright colored vintage Shel-Co plastic coffee cups were a fun find. I think it's the colors that attracted us to them.

Four yellow Mikasa light and lively coffee mugs are next.

More Pyrex in the form of a cooking pot with cover.

A great collection of vintage and reproduction cookbooks and a plastic Jesus.

For linens and fabric items we found 3 yards of black corduroy, some vintage curtain panels, a vintage Vera scarf and a darling white cotton sun dress that I may take apart for the fabric if after researching proves it's not something I should sell as is. 

This was the first of the two trips we took and what fun we had. In between shopping trips was lots of baking. Yes, baking. I had half a gallon of milk sour on me and I decided to use it instead of pour it down the drain. I made several different things and found all of the recipes on Pinterest.

First there was spice cake with cream cheese icing. I made two and cut them in half freezing three pieces for later.

12 pint size jars of sour milk chocolate cake along with Valentines day cupcakes and one small cake from the batter left for eating this week.

And my favorites were the pomegranate scones. I had made scones before but not in cast iron and I just had to try this new to me pan. They were awesome. So you can see that this gal keeps quite busy. Next time those teenage grandsons come to visit there will be treats for them to eat. The second thrifting journey netted so much more and I'll be working on that post for next week. So much to do, but just living life to the fullest makes this gal very happy. Life is good.

Crafting home made pillows.

Always busy doing something. These have been tucked away waiting for completion by that  lovely lady at poetcharms.etsy.com. The hand embroidery is a fun addition to cotton fabrics that she blends with vintage fabric to make wonderful pillow covers and pillows. She'll be finishing these up and getting them listed soon.

Just love the applique work with the vintage fabric. 

More vintage fabric applique work and screen print work.

Stop by and check out her store and watch for more of these items to be listed. She is so creative. 

poetcharms.etsy.com

2014 is off to a great start.

It seems that this first week of 2014 has flown by already. We've been out thrifting once so far because we've been trying to "finish" a few projects that got put on hold because we became ill during the holidays. May have been the flu, but we're getting better. Some of the items we found were different for us.

The first different item was a toy wagon. A small pull toy that may have stored blocks but for $3.99 it has great up cycle potential and you can't even purchase the casters or wood for that price. Then there were two "nalgene" water bottles. To purchase new would be well over $10 each and these were only $1.99 each. I'm constantly loosing my good water bottles, although I do have Cuppow lids, but these were 32 ounce size so they quickly went into the cart. After looking twice at them I realized that one was an emergency preparedness kit and the other was a heat stress kit. Now, I don't know how old these are, but I will open them and check the expiration dates on the items enclosed and dispose of them if needed. I guess the items enclosed was a bonus. Checking on line these kits are not sold so it was probably a promotional item. Bandages can go in my first aid kit easily. Continuing on

we found a NIP Care Bear Cousins twin size sheet set. A fun find was a vintage wooden made in Holland puzzle and then of course two made in Japan coffee mugs. And then there were linens.

Bright orange floral pillow cases, vintage fruit print table clothes and pink and orange floral sheets. These are the fun things because we just love fabric.

The bright yellow sheet set can make any wind chill factor feel better. The pink, white and black fabric are home made cafe curtains with rings and could fancy up any vintage kitchen and who can pass up indoor, outdoor fabric for the right price. Well that's what we found on our first trip of the new year. We were happy. Really can't wait to see what some of the fabric and vintage sheets become. Happy New Year everyone. Stop by the stores and see what's new. I'll be stopping by to visit you too.