Thrift Finds

It was planned. Yes I found a need to go to a Church sale. It came to me that my rosemary plant was being squeezed between my basil and not growing as it should so the need came up for a larger pot to transplant the rosemary and add to my container herbs growing here at the townhouse. We had no intentions of getting up this past Saturday to search this sale, but I refuse to pay top dollar for what we can pick up for nearly nothing. Call me cheap, call me frugal but I prefer to be called thrifty. I was very successful. I found two twelve inch dirty flower pots with saucers and they were $1 each.

Here they are after being scrubbed clean and disinfected with bleach and the rosemary now has a pot of it's own and is doing much better. I may cut a few stems to propagate new plants so I have some growing inside through the winter. 

It looks so very happy doesn't it and I am ready to harvest a little for cooking and when it gets a bit larger I'll dry some.

We found a Martha Stewart colander for $1 which will be used for our cheese making and a few more canning jars. On the way back from the Church sale we stopped at a thrift store and found the lime green desk lamp and vintage sheet.

The Church sale was over loaded with books and my daughter found a couple she liked. The wooden doll she spotted on the first table just inside the door. She brings home many new faces. The apple corer, shot glasses and cookie cutter she got at the thrift. The apple corer is heavy plastic/Plexiglas with red handles and is very strong. She got this item because she saw that she could cut potatoes for baked french fries and have a more consistent size. 

Lastly she found many vintage patterns at the thrift store. She chose several coat patterns and a foundation ware pattern. She also found the large Georges Briard plate and two suction handles. One has been added to the shower for my benefit. I get the help I need from them getting my old knees and bad hip in and out of the shower. One handle she attached to her cutting ruler for a more ergonomic way to use it cutting fabric. Works great. So for something that was planned, but not intended we found what we needed and a few extras to make living easier along with a few items of pleasure and store inventory. Thanks for stopping by and visiting. Have a great week.

Thrift finds

This past weekend's adventure took us to a church sale and we found some great items. Some that we will add to our home and some to sell. It was a huge sale with furniture and everything under the sun. I was amazed at how organized it was and the amount of people working it. They were friendly and helpful. I will watch for this one next summer. They seemed to be experts at it.

We found the spice shelf that was in good condition, but the bottles, salt shaker and pepper mill were not useful. It was the shelf my daughter wanted so the bottles were re-donated and the salt and pepper were recycled. The stacking doll was imported from Russia and there were six dolls altogether. I found a Georges Briard linen towel and a couple other vintage linens and a new package of sewing wax.

The large enamel kettle was $2 and I couldn't have been happier. I got it home soaked it well and it came very clean. The handle on the top has been replace, but I cook in the pot and it didn't matter to me that it wasn't original. Now the universe can bring on the tomatoes because I have something to cook them in. We found vintage glassware of all kinds and she's already had requests for the staircase shelf.

When we find these vintage plastic shopping/beach bags they are usually broken or not in good shape, but this one was in very good condition. We found valentine's day, new in package, cupcake liners along with a canning jar and a hand embroidered brush and comb holder that has grommets for hanging.

This was our favorite find. It's a vintage metal plant rack that my daughter will put in her "coming to her soon" home with plants in vintage planters. It is in excellent condition and sturdy. We had a wonderful time rummaging and it was great to find things that we know we will enjoy and use. Even though we are not out thrifting often we are having a great time.

Thrift finds.

We headed out to do errands this past Saturday and for a break in the routine we visited three thrift stores. Lots of stuff in the stores but we continue to be selective about what we're buying. It was just a fun hour and a half fit in to a routine trip, but what good finds.

We found this darling set of bowls that are decorated with Shamrocks. We will add them to our St. Patrick's day decor. My favorite thing about them is that they are small and fit right in with our small space. We found yet another lime green Pyrex 024, 2 qt. casseroled bowl. My daughter now has three for her collection, but she may use it to trade for something later.

We found a Pyrex butterfly gold casserole bowl that was in very "baked on" condition, but it got a basic cleaning and is now listed at https://www.etsy.com/listing/229071083/pyrex-butterfly-gold-large-casserole?ref=shop_home_active_5 and we always pick up Pyrex covers for future Pyrex discoveries. The aqua bowl has no name but my daughter has a collection of them that we use for soup and snacks so this one made number nine in her cupboard.

We found a large bundle of wooden and plastic pant hangers that we will sort through and clean up to list on the store and a vintage Strawberry Shortcake pillow case.

As we walked in the door and traveled to the first aisle of another thrift store there was an abundance of 8 oz canning jars and one lonely quart jar. I walked back for a large shopping cart to put them in. Conveniently there was a very large basket sitting next to them and we loaded it up and set it in the cart. If they are priced right they come home, get cleaned up and put away for when I need them. We actually found more, but didn't get them. We are following the sale tags and will wait for the right color to come up and if they are there when we go back they are, if not they weren't meant to be ours. Not a bad lot of finds for a short time looking. We are going out with friends this coming Saturday to search a few more thrift stores after we have breakfast. This is such an addiction.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope all your thrift shopping is as much fun as ours.

Thrift finds and more great economics.

The snow is starting to melt here in the northeast. The mile high mounds of snow and the ice formed on the roofs are causing flooding and leaking all over the place. To escape on Saturday after all the errands were done we stopped at a thrift store. Findings were slim, but our wants have become slim. We narrowed it down to what we can use.

My daughter makes the purchases and she is addicted to fabric, but so am I and we found a few we could use. There was a gray and green bed sheet, an aqua floral sheet, tan and purple corduroy, a vintage red tone stripe and best of all for the grand total of $1.99 a bed skirt with some wonderful off white 100% cotton. 

We found a deep wire basket that once attached to the back of a door with Command Hooks will hold light weight winter hats and mitten. Also found were two more canning jars at $.29 each, a bag with four boxes of new magic birthday candles, several mini metal buckets that will help with my garden and 20 spools of 100% Egyptian cotton thread. There were several books added this week also. Gardening books we always took out of the library, but now they are growing on the shelf and books to make us more knowledgeable about the little things we can do.

We had two more $10 off a $10 purchase coupons this week. Scott bath tissue is $12.99 for the 20 roll package and combined with a $1 manufacturer's coupon I got it for $1.99 and tax. The second coupon we put towards a $13 package of packing tape so we had it for shipping and packing things up. Lastly a york peppermint pattie free from Savingstar.com last weekend. Not a bad haul for a little bit of work.

Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful week. 

Thrift finds and some freebies.

We have a favorite place we like to visit when we need sewing or craft supplies but we don't go to often because it can get quite costly with all the wonderful finds. It's called Craft Bits 'n Pieces and it's in Fairport NY. We went on a recent Saturday because we had things we wished to donate. This is a second hand shop where people donate their unused craft supplies and they resell them to the public to support their senior citizens. Well, they couldn't take our donations because we were unaware that you now needed to make an appointment because they don't have enough volunteers to accept them and run the store. If I lived closer I would volunteer, but I am to far away to help.

This is a very very small amount to leave there with. We usually find so many pieces of fabric that we fill a bag, but we've been very selective about what we are buying. Yes, my daughter even found a new hair clip and at .25 for a package of double fold bias tape we got those too.

Besides going to make a donation the most important reason was to see what we could get for thread. This is what we found and the prices were .25 to .50 a spool. We usually select specific colors, but this time we took whatever we thought we would use. The thread rack in the back was purchased at Savers for $1.99 after we shopped at Craft bits. We had the donations in the trunk and needed to unload them somewhere and we got a discount card for making the donations.

For thrift finds there were crocheted coasters (Craft bits), canning jars ranging in price from .29 to .99 and amazingly two pillar candles for .99 each. They always seem to mark them at $3 to $4 each.

We found this brand new Kay Dee linen owl print towel, a lime green Pyrex pie plate, along with an aqua coffee mug and vintage towels and linens. The vintage deer with her fawns is plastic but looks so nice on our shelf.

Part one of our freebie economics, my daughter has been cutting down fabrics and sewing, creating lots of extra pieces and scraps. She has a friend at work who also loves to sew and she takes these scraps to her to use and enjoy. Well one day a week ago she took a bag to her and we've been excited to get a little more out to be used and shared, but the universe on the very same day showed up. Another co worker arrived in her office with a large box of fabric. This is the bundle she brought home, but she shared about one third of it with the other co worker. We were happy because they were solids and not prints so we could use it to back sewing projects. 

The freebies from grocery apps included two boxes of baking soda and two boxes of brown sugar. Due to the weather and not needing to many of the offers this is all we've done lately. I'm sure there will be lots more in the future to share.

Thank you for stopping by and have a great week. 

Thrift finds

January and February have been busier than usual thrift months. We've been on a quest to find canning jars and when we have we've either purchased them or followed them according to tag colors and sale dates. 50% off is always better. We've been lucky enough that they've been on the shelf still when we go back as much as a week later. That to me is the universe saying they were meant to be ours.

It seems that more have been available in January than in past months and we've wondered if it's because everyone was donating at the end of the year to get taxable donations. These are more that we added to our stash and we've found all sizes. The two aqua Mikasa bowls were an extra because they match my daughter's set she has been building.

Another Saturday stop yielded us four dozen more jars including a brand new case of old stock eight ounce jars with lids. Again it was a nice variety of sizes.

Living in a small townhouse apartment doesn't actually give you a lot of room for storage, but my daughter used a target gift card she received for Christmas and bought a shelf that fit in an empty corner. It was perfect for all the jars, crock pot and some of her collectible Pyrex. She made the curtain from a vintage "thrifted" sheet to match her color scheme for the dining area. She says she has enough to add a border to a table cloth she wants to make. I have a good supply of jars to keep me going for a while and yes, I've already used some.

There were other thrift finds too. Candle making supplies, Wilton silicon molds for her soaps and lotions, books on herbs and aromatherapy, double pointed knitting needles, Popsicle molds, fabric, vintage sheets, Vera scarfs and a vintage roll of whimsical kitchen wall paper.

Books had taken a way back seat for the two of us. We both enjoy reading and we had resorted to using the library because storage space for books was scarce. However we have rekindled our love of owning a few good books and started picking up those we can use or read and move on, but some will stay on the shelves here. My younger daughter took me to a book sale and I came home with only 10 books because I was quite choosy. I also have a difficult time carrying heavy items so I limited my selections. My favorite find has been the American Woman Cook Book from the Culinary Arts Institute that was printed in 1938. Found at Good Will for $3.98, but purchase at 50% off. It is a complete encyclopedia for the time. I am enjoying it so much, but I haven't tried any recipes yet.

This cutie is a hand made ceramic. The painting was so wonderfully done and yes he was a thrift store find. His face just spoke to my daughter and his color pallet matched her decor so home he came and sits lovingly on her shelf. I think this may be the first in a new collection of Gnomes.

I say that because of this. She has a vintage shelf with collected and thrift store Angels and several other thrifted collections around the townhouse. The wooden Angels on the bottom are hanging from the shelf and the sign says "Angels Gather Here". Yes they do and it's so wonderful to have simple "small" collections to brighten up our home. 

Thrift finds.

It's been a while since I've posted any of our thrift finds. So much fun doing other things and just plain doing less thrift picking.

Lately we have been getting a few items that we find for ourselves. Here are two Kokeshi dolls my daughter will add to her collection, a yellow bath towel, Tupperware Popsicle molds along with a vintage sheet and some tart pans. 

We're finding fewer and fewer pieces of good Pyrex, but this one came home with us along with a miniature Tupperware juicer, egg separator and grater. This is a stacking set that has a small cup and cover. Still more Tupperware measuring cups, a hand held grater along with a flower shaped cookie cutter for those lovely lemon lavender short bread cookies.

Here's a collection of some of the Vera scarfs we've found on recent adventures. It's a nice variety of colors and shapes.

The vintage ice cube trays are wonderful. They don't make them like they used too. The muffin tin will be added to my collection of mini tins, the hooks are to improve storage in a closet and the wonderful vintage plastic letter/mail organizer has found a place on the wall near the door to take care of business. I just love vintage organizers.

Last but not least are some fun Christmas napkins and fabric, yes that is a suction cup handle for the shower. As I'm maturing these little safety items are helping. We found some quilting magazines that we enjoy looking at, story books and greeting cards. There's so much stuff out there to rummage through and we do have a great time doing it. We usually find something, but it's not until I take the pictures and post to my blog that I realize the wonderful finds we acquire. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend. I'm off to check out my bread that is rising and maybe do a little weekend house work. 

New thrift finds and oh those freebies.

We stopped by a local Savers and Amvets and found a few items plus the townhouse complex had a garage sale. Kind of a flop because out of 200 units maybe a dozen participated. The universe on the other hand thought it would be good to us and send many freebies our way. Counting our blessings.

The only item I found at the garage sale was the Coleman camping lamp. Great price and after new batteries it works wonderful. I'm putting that with my camping gear. At the thrifts I found a 10 inch pot for more peppermint that I am propagating. I would love to dry the leaves and have enough for tea, extract, sugar and syrup. I think I may get plenty off the original plant. I found two wire bail pint size canning jars at 49 cents each, another bread pan for 99 cents and a plastic bag of emergency candles that had a hand held fan with it. That's the blue item between the jars. Unfortunately it was broken and went in the recycle bin, but not before I salvaged the strap for future use. 

Other finds included a green Wilhold sewing box, a NIP yellow daisy queen size sheet, a large green Cinderella Pyrex bowl, a red Pyrex casserole bowl, some small embroidery hoops for small craft projects, straw trivets and a lovely pair of cast iron floral star candle holders. These will probably be spray painted.

Linen finds included a pair of orange poppy curtain panels, a purple and pink floral bed cover and the bright pink is a home made house robe that has lots of yardage to it. Yes the imagination is working.

The freebies from the universe this week were exciting. Different, but we will put it to use or sell it.

First up:

Top left: Many dollars worth of watercolor paper.

Top right: Many more dollars worth of watercolor paper.

Bottom left: A metal cutter, two dollar store mesh strainers and two wooden apples.

Bottom right: Large fold of cotton batting, 25 new wooden blocks, a variety of sponge and paint brushes and a wooden card box.

Next up:

To the left a free clamp on lamp and bubble wrap and to the right more bubble wrap. We have discovered that appliances purchased for the townhouse complex are shipped and sometimes are wrapped in bubble wrap. We picked the recycle bin for it and we put the word out that we'd reuse packing material and it's starting to roll in. Needless to say there was quite a variety in the freebies and quite a lot so when I say we are counting our blessings, believe me. It's been an awesome week here. 

Happy Fourth of July to everyone. Thank you for stopping by.

Findings from a rummage sale.

We hooked up last weekend with my sister-in-law for an early morning breakfast and a church rummage sale. It was the last day and the deal was fill a bag for $4. Just plastic grocery bags but we filled four of them with some keeper items and store inventory items. After the rummage sale we headed down the road to a brand new Good Will store.

We found a lot of small vintage nick knacks along with a heart shaped baking pan, green Pyrex bowl (found at a new to the city Good Will), a wall hanging basket, a summer hot pink straw purse and what would a summer day be without a joke and riddle book. A very vintage joke and riddle book.

The crochet items I just saw and put in the bag. It wasn't until I got home and looked over our treasures that I realized they were hand crochet collars. Orange seemed to be the theme of this rummage. We found a vintage orange napkin holder, an orange cast iron frying pan, an address file full of address cards and alphabet cards and my favorite was a set of vintage playing cards with a blueberry print.

Those bunnies are just so cute. They are Josef Originals. The coffee cup tree and mugs we found at the Good Will store along with the set of J.R. Tolkien books and the "NEW" coffee bean grinder that I got to grind my dried herbs from the garden. The aqua dish has two small chips, but my daughter loved it and is keeping it. 

Getting back to orange, and yes we got this in a bag, was this practically new fondue pot and lazy susan. We've seen parts from these before but never a complete set. It's for sale here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/192527722/on-sale-retro-bright-orange-lazy-susan?

We found a Liz Claiborne skirt and some lace curtain valences. These will be up cycled into something new. There were clothes galore and after poking through we found a Super Mario t-shirt and an owl shirt that will become pillows. My daughter said the orange coffee cup just fit well in her hand so she added it to her kitchen and we found a set of seven vintage jelly jars. I'm so tempted to use them for all the wonderful jams and jellies I've been making. 

This is what the treasure hunters found this past week. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend.

linking to: We Call It Junkin

Recent thrifting. Personal use and store inventory.

We've been busy like everyone, but we took some time to thrift shop. Just letting things happen and it's working out better than trying.

On my searches I look for canning jars and last week I found some quarts and pints for 49 cents each. I use these for storage as well as canning. I made bread croutons and vacuum sealed them until I could make stuffing, I store vacuum sealed leftovers in the refrigerator for a longer shelf life and in the back are my pickled eggs, which are almost ready to try. I found more food saver containers and each container had a hose inside. Two were new and one was bad and went in the recycle bin. We found a Danish fish trivet/cutting board and some woven trivets and another statue of Mary. We have a shelf of them and I know they are in just about every sale you go to, but we look for the unique ones or the misfit ones.

This past week I made my Memorial Day/4th of July cookie mixes and yes, I vacuum sealed them until I baked them. They looked so nice as a decoration too. So many uses for those wonderful jars, but I also reuse spaghetti sauce jars and any jar with a rubber ring on the inside. 

We found a Georges Briard canister set. Just love the bright orange. They are not without their bumps and bruises, but enamelware doesn't die easily. These are still in very good condition.

These are a few of the small odds and ends that we picked up. Some for personal use, but a few for inventory. The small cutting board I am going to sand down and refinish for my picnic basket, the mini muffin tin I will add to the others I found, and the chicken roaster and Tupperware strainer will find lots of use in the kitchen. The fishing creel and fisherman planter was made in Japan and the selection of coffee cups include a Strawberry Shortcake Butter Cookie and Jelly Bear mug along with four Scandia Stone mugs. All in all it was fun to get out and look, but it was even more fun not to be looking for anything special and letting them find us. Thanks for stopping by and I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Don't forget to check out my Townhouse Homestead Tuesday posts which may become a weekly feature. 

Couldn't stay away.

I know we have lots of stuff to get organized and listed on the store already, but this week we were side tracked when we made a trip to the thrift store to make more donations. Down sizing is time consuming but it feels good to know some one else can use the items. Yes we ended up going into the store itself and had some great luck.

The most exciting find was these rare mint condition Mikasa cups and saucers. They are called "Playmates" and are kumquat colored. It is a set of six. Currently listed on etsy. They looked lovely with the hand made Easter egg shaped mug rugs listed on etsy.

We found the brightest Granny apple green vintage made in Japan fondue pot. etsy

For those persons who love vintage bar ware we found this cocktail shaker glass complete with recipes. etsy

The trend toward pink lately has been connected with those lovely ladies who enjoy glamping. Pink is a popular color choice when they decorate their vintage trailers. We found this lovely and unique dish made in Pedro, CA. etsy

We also found a great selection of vintage 1970's cotton and linen calendar towels. Some are signed and some are not, but they sure are fun. etsy  See them all at poetcharms.etsy.com.

One cute find that could not be left behind was this vintage made in Japan cat figurine. The wide eyes on this cat screamed to come home with me. etsy

It was just a short trip in and out, but the lesson is if you're already there take the time to look around. Thanks for stopping by and have fun checking out the stores. From this addicted thrifter, have a great week everyone.

Linking to/We call it Junkin