Thrift finds

It was a whirlwind weekend here. A three day for us. It started Friday morning. A dear friend was in town from the west coast and it was only a few days before she was heading back, but this was a scheduled event and we wanted it to be fun and relaxing for her. We ate out, thrifted, rode around, gabbed and got caught up on everything. 

We filled the townhouse with two days of fun finds. We found this set of casserole bowls for my younger daughter. She likes the green floral and they were actually quite a deal for $2 each. We later saw them selling for $10 and more in some shops. 

The green Pyrex Cinderella bowl completed a set we were building. The orange dot Pyrex was the most exciting find. My daughter will also be adding these to her collection. I use the small Pyrex clear dishes while baking and never seem to have enough. We found two more mushroom canisters. These are small and one has a small fracture, but is very usable. The mushroom and mice glassware are a salt and pepper set and a jelly jar. They are Japanese and so irresistible. Just love them.

We love to pick up the dishes for lazy Susan's. We mix and match them and have fun with them. There was more Pyrex, an enamel skillet, another set of Japanese mice salt and pepper shakers and the owl in a tree stump planter. I believe it may be a Josef Original.

Saturday brought about another day of thrifting. This time with my sister-in-law who we hadn't seen in a while  and she suspected we had fallen off the face of the earth. Umm...nope, but she doesn't use the Internet so we had catching up to do. The vintage finds were all over for us this past weekend. Here we found three strawberry print drinking glasses, another new in package Humpty Dumpty Avon product bank for the store, a music box baby carriage planter, and the Gemco/corning glass juicer. 

We found some odds and ends that include some notebooks, cookie cutters, an ice cream scoop, birthday candles, linen napkins, books, there's a bagel slicer that the plastic spoons are in and the plastic bag in front is full of small bottles for lip gloss. Looks like we want to be busy.

I'll finish this week with this funny fabric panel. My grandchildren have two English bulldogs and we could not pass on this piece of fabric. We couldn't stop laughing when we saw it. I think it will become a giant pillow or center panel for a quilt. This is only about half of what we found. Some still needs some cleaning up and I need to move some on to the store. Being in a small space we have to shuffle things around to work. Sunday was not quite so busy, but we caught back up with our friend from the west coast because on her adventure with us she found some view master discs, but no view master. It turned out my younger daughter found one and she dropped it off so it could take a long plane trip back to California. Then it was back to getting ready for the new week ahead and some sitting back. Thank you for stopping by and I hope everyone has as much fun as we do with friends and family thrift shopping and junking. 

Thrift finds and thrift economics.

To start this blog out I'm going first to thrift economics. I received a pressure caner for Christmas and it has earned it's keep already and it's only April. However, it did not come with a second shelf so that I can stack jars. The manufacturer says that it's okay to put the jars directly on top of each other, but that wasn't pleasing to me and I wasn't spending $12 plus shipping to get one. I searched high and low at all the thrift stores we went to and kept hoping I'd find something that would work even if it was a small pizza pan that needed holes drilled in it. Well everything was too large or too small until...

some imaginative sorter at a VOA thrift store put this wire rack together with a Pyrex pie plate. It was the correct diameter, but I only wanted the rack, but for $4 I took them both home and rushed to see if it would fit the caner. Needless to say it did. The rack has a one inch rail on one side and a half inch rail on the other. I used it in the caner with the one inch up and could put 7 wide mouth pints on top. One short but that was okay. I now had my extra rack, a holder for the pie plate and when I took the jars out of the caner I reversed it so I had a cooling rack one inch off the counter for my jars. I think I got my $2 out of the rack and imagine using it with vintage glass for a table centerpiece. Now about the pie plate. Yes it's Pyrex, yes it's vintage and I didn't really want it, but it happens to be an 11 inch pie plate. The retail value on line runs between $8 and $24 dollars. I'd say that this was a great find and I am keeping the pie plate.

After a great early Saturday breakfast out we headed off to spend the day thrifting and having fun. The findings included some doilies, plastic Easter egg rabbits, a stacking doll, vintage snowman and the most important find was the wooden shelf. It's been on the list for months. My daughter wanted something heavy duty enough to hold her essential oils and there it was. For $2.99 and with a little spray paint it will do the job. We also found a vintage red bed cover a very large yellow bath towel and a bright floral bed sheet. The color scheme here is yellow, orange, green and aqua. Can you tell?

We found a few books. The "Putting Food By" book I already owned, but it was 50% off and a big update from my version. We found wooden pant hangers, zippers, iron on patches and knitting needles and that bright flowered scarf. 

We came home with four dozen more canning jars. Here some have been washed, others in the box to be cleaned and as of yesterday and today twenty of them have been used. 

My favorite find was the heavy duty aluminum colander. It was $2 and now I have something to strain large amounts of food instead of a little at a time. There's the pie plate and rack under that wonderful Pyrex Butterfly Gold divided dish with a cover and we found another set of vintage lazy Susan pieces.

And look at the wonderful score of other Pyrex pieces. Cinderella bowls, regular bowls, another cover, and refrigerator bowls. I think it was an awesome day out and I think we found a well rounded assortment of goodies. Thank you for stopping by to visit and I hope all your thrift finds are good too.

Townhouse Homestead Tuesday

We had a very quiet Easter here at the townhouse. Caught up with a few people we hadn't heard from in a while and just relaxed. Dinner was peaceful and it was prepared a bit ahead of time so it too was not time consuming and flowed smoothly. To brighten up our Easter dinner table we used some of the Pyrex collection and my daughter loves to collect misfit lazy Susan pieces. With the vintage table cloth that is by no means in perfect condition it made a setting for a lovely early Spring/Easter dinner.

This townhouse homesteader is trying to create a meal planner and build a stock so it is easier to combine the work schedule and have the best meals we can. This week the only addition we made to that stock up was onion rice mix. I made this with my home made onion soup mix and while I was putting it together I decided that this will be a side for roast pork. The fragrance spoke pork.

I put this up in 8 ounce jars. With just two of us one cup of rice is a lot so we can get four servings from each jar and of course they are vacuum sealed for a healthy shelf life. That's all that's new as far as the homesteading side of the townhouse for last week. We've done plenty more and have plenty more we can do. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful week. 

Recipes here:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/461970874252980526/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/461970874249489880/

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. 

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. 

The latest thrifted finds.

Exciting vintage ephemera finds from last weeks hunt, but to start some vintage linen napkins.

A bit of a variety, but a bundle of spring joy. 

There was a wonderful pair of red, made in Japan, pillar candle holders and a package of vintage four inch red candles. Lots of Christmas finds this week.

There was this package of vintage ribbons from JCPenny and then some metallic honeycomb ribbons.

This is a large bundle of vintage Christmas cards, tags and foil decorations.

How about the bright colors in these vintage cards. There's birthday, Easter, gift cards and some are new in the box while others are used. Just couldn't resist these.

The best vintage Christmas card collection ever. These cards are as large as nine inches and are so colorful and festive. They are from the fifties and sixties. The quality of these cards amazes me. In this time when cards are not sent as often and mean so little and the art of communicating with them is almost gone, it is wonderful to remember a time when technology didn't rule. 

Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful week everyone.

Linking to: We call it Junkin

This weeks thrift picks.

Yes I said picks. It seems that as I'm growing with the reselling I'm getting picky about what I'm buying. The items are out there, but I have to consider how long I want them to sit on a shelf with storage room getting to be less and less. I'm trying to buy items that may move faster and at the same time I have a personal list of items I would like for myself. So here are the picks for this week.

To start there was an awesome aqua and lime green floral sheet. It is new and in great condition. I will never pass pant hangers. They not only work well for clothing, but add a unique way to hang art. The bright yellow red and orange Vera scarf is in good condition, but needs a good soak and finally a wonderful plant hanger that allows you to hang three items from one spot. I don't think it would hold anything too heavy, but my imagination is running wild right now.

I found a lovely piece of sheer fabric that I will use for a light summer shirt or dress cover. I haven't decided yet. There were three enamel plates that are vintage made in Japan and three very cute glass dishes that I can't tell you what they are used for, but wouldn't they make great tea bag holders.

For my personal use I found two mini muffin tins. I wanted these to make holiday candies and small baked goods for gift giving. These are small, but they fit in my toaster oven and make it easier for me to use. I found two blue and green vintage coffee mugs and some vintage made in Japan porcelain items. One is a ring holder and the other is a small oval box with legs. I think I'm going to keep those also. 

For the rest of the week I spent time just working the stores and sewing. I had work for others and sewing for myself. (Fun time)  Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful week.

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

Thrift finds and the fun continues.

As I said in my prior post we have small shops popping up all over. We got an email from my sister-in-law stating that she found another one while she was driving down a popular street here and couldn't wait to tell us. This past weekend my daughter purchased a new to her vehicle and I envision us doing even more thrifting. With information coming about new pop up shops in the neighborhood it looks like we are going to have a great year thrifting. Here are some of the finds from last week.

Always linens and scarfs. I think we look for these items first. This collection includes a vintage plastic floral Kleenex box and amazingly a vintage sheet with the same colors, a towel, scarfs, and crochet doilies. Some will be used for sewing projects and others will be listed on the store. Towels we seek out for our vintage bathroom. 

Plenty of vintage linen napkins. These are just some of what we found.

There is a vintage vinyl bag which can hold those wonderful vintage thermos bottles, a Mikasa tea pot, a Pyrex double boiler, and my favorite finds are the stainless steel coffee pot and the vintage Christmas items. 

The Mrs. Santa with extended arms hugs a candle and since there was only one we knew she had to come home and be added to our collection. I have to take a minute and share a fun moment about one of the new pop up shops. We saw the sign outside that said 50% off and got excited about a possible hunt. When we got to the door it was locked, but the sign said open. We knocked and got no response. A minute later the partner to the owner came up behind us and apologized. He had run next door to the 7-11 for something to eat. He was left alone to move a counter to the front of the store and empty boxes. I didn't ask why he didn't have help. I just started to rummage. After we found so much we couldn't hold it any more we told him we were ready to cash out, so he proceeds to write up a slip because he didn't know how to use the cash register. The only job I could find after losing my job in 2008 was cashiering. I wasn't thrilled, but I needed income. I told him I would look at it and help him and he got excited. Well it was just a simple adding machine style register and he knew a couple of steps and I rang up a couple of customers for him to show him the final steps. He had it down by the time we left. We got our items rung up and I think we came out of his shop with close to $90 worth of merchandise for $10. We tried to convince him that it was worth more, but he insisted that the sale was final. He was grateful for the help and as we were leaving at least six more customers came through the door. We helped him and he helped us and business picked up for him. Amazing how that works.

Some more finds included Pyrex, vintage paper party napkins and cups, a turquoise teapot, jelly jars, mugs and a toy VW bug.

The wooden recipe boxes are awesome. To see some one's cooking history and think about the meals that were prepared from the recipes in the boxes has been so much fun. This person even added pictures to her cards for excitement. There were Aladdin thermos bottles and an American Flag themed candle holder. I think that may get painted. 

We found baskets, Wilhold pattern boxes, vintage plastic Christmas table clothes, NIP paint by numbers, signs and framed pictures, cook books and vintage pinking sheers still in the original package along with vintage contact paper.

Then the new desk chair. Yes, there is plenty more and this weekend we visited one thrift store and found so much more in the way of linens. It's been a great year so far. Having the time of our lives junkin'.