THRIFTY THURSDAY: Finds and ATCs

This is a combination entry--First I'll show you the treasures I found this week, and then two ATCs I made using one of them.

 

Above are my treasures. (I also got some sheet music, but am not showing that, for no good reason.)

I was most excited, I think, about the spoons. They were in a ziplock baggie with a bunch of other stuff in multiple patterns, mostly cheap stainless. The estate sale people wanted $15 for the bag, but I wanted only the spoons. They're Mama's pattern, Oneida Brahms, and in a whole 'nuther class from the rest of the flatware. So, holding my breath so to speak, because you really can't talk while you do that, I asked the lady if I could just buy the spoons, and if so, how much they'd charge. She pulled them out, looked them over, said something about their being "cheap stainless like the rest", and I was given a price of $1. Not each. For the three of them.

Do you know what those puppies cost at Replacements.com? I do. They are $30 each! It was all I could do not to tell the people at the estate sale what a great deal they'd given me. But discretion is the better part of valor, and I did not.

The next most exciting items were the old books. Here they are, opened to show a couple of pages. The one with the line drawings is what I got Tuesday's Take Out from, the lovely watercolor ladies. The other one, the geography book, is full of maps and illustrations, and I used two of the maps to make the ATCs below this photo.

That's it for today. As usual, I'm up a lot later than I intended, so I will now trundle off to bed, and sleep the sleep of the Very Tired.

Good night, and God rest on your pillow.

THRIFTY THURSDAY: Do You See What I See?

This Thrifty Thursday is a little different from what I usually do: I decided to take you shopping with me!

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” (Marcel Proust - French Novelist and Author, 1871-1922)

I spent some time today helping a friend with her mother’s estate sale. I love estate sales, especially this kind, where the estate belongs to someone who’s still alive, but has moved. I spent my time almost exclusively standing in the basement, answering questions, and making sure nobody stuffed something in his or her pocket and walked out with it.

While I performed the task of “basement sitter”, I vividly remembered a trip to a thrift store with my Mama and two aunts. I was busily filling my cart with bits of this and that when I heard Aunt Charlotte say, “I’m just going to follow Anitra around and see what she puts in her cart.” I laughed and said, “But if you do that, I’ll get all the good stuff before you can get to it!” Aunt Charlotte told me it would be okay, because I was seeing possibilities she didn’t, and she wanted to learn how I did that.

It occurred to me that my Aunt Charlotte might not be the only one who’d appreciate a lesson in “seeing with new eyes”, so during those moments when I was alone in the basement, I turned on my camera, and took a “voyage of discovery”. What would “new eyes” see? Junk? Or art supplies?

The first photo is easy. It’s a pile of actual art supplies, proving estate sales are art supply stores, too. But do you see the bag o’ bottles? Those went to someone who planned to use them as bud vases. I see them on a window sill, with a single daisy in each.

Look it’s sputnik! No, it’s an octopus! No, it’s the framework for a solar system!

Just what I need—a wire-bending jig for heavier gauge wire:

Hmmm…these tiny figures of a king and queen would be the perfect start to a handmade chess set:

And what have we here? The world’s ugliest necklace?

Or some really cool brass beads?

Are these napkins?

Or the start of a pair of gauntlets?

These were just some of the hidden art materials I found in a single room. Now I wonder: What will you rescue and turn into art, the next time you look at something and see, not what it is, but what it could be? I’d love to know!

THRIFTY THURSDAY: Lovely Handkerchiefs

Yesterday, just because I was mere blocks away from it, I stopped into one of the thrift shops I frequent. (PACs, on 108th & NE Halsey, for those in the Portland area.) As I parked, I realized the date was the 16th, just one day past their tag change day, when everything that hasn't sold for half-price drops down to a mere twenty-five cents. Yay!

So, okay. The handkerchiefs above weren't on sale. But full price was fifty cents apiece; I got the whole ten for $5!

And while I didn't take pictures, I also got three LIFE magazines from the 70's for twenty-five cents each, plus several vintage childrens books, and a novel by an unfamiliar author, all for a quarter apiece, plus one tee shirt for me that I spent a whopping dollar and a half on. Oh, and four really pretty note cards for fifteen cents each.

Do you have a favorite thrift shop? What sorts of things do you look for when you go?

THRIFTY THURSDAY: MORE Buttons!

Whoo-hoo! Another jar of buttons at the same Goodwill as last week! This was a smaller jar, but it was priced at just $2.99, so I didn't even hesitate. Off the shelf, and into the cart.

First, an apology for the photos, which are blurry. Must be time to recharge the camera batteries. But I think they're clear enough to show how really cool they are, even the brown ones:


Some really great black buttons, too, especially that one with the red rhinestones:


Interesting white buttons:



A number of clear buttons were in the jar, including the two larger, cupped, buttons. I realized when I picked those two up that they're glass:

These red buttons are a lot prettier than they appear here:


Ceili (KAY-lee) thinks they're Very Interesting!

Oh! I have to tell you about Mama's score at the local thriftstore yesterday! They were having a bag sale--anything you could get into the bag they gave you, for $5.

I think I remember what she got in her $5 bag:

• An old fashioned pitcher and bowl set
• Two pieces of Depression Glass, one in Lariat pattern, the other I can't remember
• Two pairs of shoes
• Three unopened packages of tissue paper, in gold or silver
• Two pair of earrings, one heart-shaped, one jade
• A linen-look blazer
• A dress
• Four gift bags

My Mama rocks!

How about you? Picked up anything wonderful/cool/super-thrifty lately?

THRIFTY THURSDAY: BUTTONS!

Feel free to call me a cheapskate. I've been known to turn down a $5 jar of buttons because I thought the price was too high. I almost did that just the other day, but...but...it was a quart jar, and the buttons weren't all white. In fact, there was quite a lot of color visible, and a vintage button or two, too. I put the jar in my cart. Still, I thought about putting it back. Several times.

I'm so glad I didn't! The photo at the top of the page is all the buttons, poured into a 13X9 cake pan. Here are pictures of some of the more special buttons:







I'm a happy camper!

By the way, did you notice that little green button kind of to the left, in the green bunch? It has three holes, something I've never seen, ever. There were a number of those. Have you ever seen buttons with three holes before?

Tomorrow is another day in Dundee, taking care of my six-year-old granddaughter. Sweet happiness. Time to go downstairs and decide which projects to take which materials for. Hmmm....

THRIFTY THURSDAY TREASURES

Don't you just love thrift stores, and flea markets, and all the other places where you can gather treasures on the cheap? Here are some of this week's finds.

I got the beautiful box above at the best price ever: FREE. Somebody threw it away, and another person rescued it and passed it along to me! Awesome. And it is a box. Here's the mirrored inside, with metallic gold painted compartments:


Also picked up this beautiful purse, with its shantung "silk" lining, which has a drawstring and forms that lovely "pouf" at the top. It was 40% off $4, which means I got it for about $2.50. The brightly printed tin next to it was $0.99. Don't know what I'll do with it, but for a dollar, it was too pretty to pass up.


Last, this darling little angel, less than three dollars, and the beautiful dish for fifty cents!


The angel is for my bedroom, which already has twenty or so. Or I might give it to Mama, who also has a thing for vintage angels. The dish will, I'm pretty sure, become the base of a Mega Blossom--can hardly wait to get creating with it!

Eeek. Supposed to be somewhere in forty minutes! May all your days contain JOY.