this thrifty weekend

This weekend, I was able to spend a couple days with my parents, and it just happened to be the weekend that my little hometown has their annual garage sale day. Sweet! I walked around town for a couple hours, and scored a bunch of great stuff, all for under $15 (that's all I had in my wallet!)

• a pretty vintage fitted sheet for a double-size bed - $1
  
• a red Pyrex mixing bowl - $3
  
• two mini muffin pans at 50 cents each - one for me, one for my sister-in-law. She also found a great new pair of Teva sandals for just $20.
  
• an antique glass knife - great for cutting tomatoes, and $4
  
• two larger Pyrex yellow square bowls - $2.50
• a vintage Christmas tablecloth - free! from my aunt
  
• a vintage white-on-white tablecloth with lilies of the valley on it - free, from my aunt
  
• a vintage white-on-white tablecloth with polka dots - free, from my mom
• a metal canister with roses on it - 50 cents. This now holds my tea bags that formerly had no home.
  

All this was very happy, especially since I carried it around town in my cute new packable polka dot reusable bag that I got the last time I went thrifting. Hooray!

Later in the day, my mom, sister-in-law, and I went shopping in a nearby city, where there's a great store called Clothes Mentor. I found absolutely no clothes for me this time, but I did get two pairs of Clark's shoes, at only $12 and $14 a pair! Sweet! One pair is the perfect shade of brown, for which I've been searching for a long time now. The other is black, and will work so well for choir this coming year. Hooray!! Thus ended the fabulously thrifty weekend.

happiness is leftovers

Leftovers stored in pretty containers are even happier.

I'm enjoying my new (vintage) Pyrex collection!

found.

My parents' home was built a very long time ago by my great grandfather, who was known in the area for his construction work. All that said, the rambling, added-onto-over-the-years house has some beautiful big rooms and tall windows, lots of crown molding with handmade dental trim, exterior stone walls and hand-hewn shingles, and all sorts of treasures from days gone by. There's an installed intercom system that looks like it's from the 50's. Charred (but still strong) ceiling beams. Perfectly light blue walls. Built in furniture and fireplaces. One-of-a-kind, irreplaceable light fixtures. In the basement, there's a room that has remained unfinished for years, and it's where we store a whole bunch of stuff that never gets used. It's where I found those blue mason jars, and this:

it's a Canada Dry soda-pop bottle crate! it's made of wood, with metal flashing at the side seams. The paint is perfectly faded, and I love it. The antique enthusiasts might yell at me, but I sanded it and added a couple of coats of shellac to it. It makes a very cute magazine holder!

antiques & bargains

Hard to put it any other way: I love antiques. They're better made, better materials, prettier workmanship, durable, functional, smart, eco-friendly.

I get rather excited about it, too. As if the above didn't tip you off!

My friend, Jami, told me last week about a shop in a cute nearby town that has a lot of Pyrex, as well as other antiques and giftables. We made a plan to go together, and yesterday was the day!

The Pyrex room was overwhelmingly stuffed with dishes of every color imaginable - great pinks, blues, lime green, florals, snowflakes; covered, divided, blue glass pie plates; we spent so long in there! I found a small blue mixing bowl and a covered pink refrigerator dish. (You'll see my big yellow mixing bowl in the background.) I'm beginning to replace my plastic storage containers with the refrigerator dishes, and the mixing bowls are irresistible. There was a whole set of pink ones (marked $55!! crazy) that I had to pass up... this time.The prices were a little higher than I wanted to pay, but I considered this part of my birthday gift from my grandfather. Yay for birthday cash!

We wandered through the rest of the store, too. I picked up a set of four vintage juice glasses. These are called "swanky swigs" and were made between the 1920's and 1940's. The floral design that I have is worn, and may have originally had green leaves along the bottom of each cup. Each floral design is slightly different, but uses the same chrysanthemum-style flower. So cute! I love them. The set was on sale for $3. Eee! Update: here, finally, are pictures.


The upstairs of the store was hot and stuffy and moth ball scented, but we held out for treasures! We came upon a small room stuffed with linens - and all of them 50% off! Hooray!! Both of us got pretty attached to some delicately embroidered pillowcases, but I resisted. Instead, I got this gorgeous hand-embroidered eyelet tablecloth! Love it...and love that it was $5.Here it is in action already:


And then I spotted these pretty "napkins" (I think they're handkerchiefs...), and had to have them! The light blue on white is so "me." They have a new life dressing up the curtains in the master bedroom and under my love bird. The set of four was only $3. For delicate hand-embroidery and lace, that's okay with me! Someone put a lot of love into these for me.

This little one is slightly out of character for me, but I fell in love:

Cheerio! Isn't that the cutest cocktail napkin? I love the scalloped edges and cute little cherry in the glass. It came in a set of two - for fifty cents!!

Sigh. I love treasure hunting!

1 out of 4 stars...

Not related, but wanted to share - my lilac bushes are in bloom!

This morning, hubby and I planned to go out and do a few errands, forgetting that it was Saturday. He found a state park for us to visit, and I packed a picnic for us. We headed off, and realized that today was the local fire department's community yard sale - woo hoo!

We stopped by and found a bunch of great things. He picked up a string trimmer, an old 1930's market scale, and a pair of cleats. There was a seller who had a wire milk-bottle holder that would've held six glass bottles, but he wanted $65 for it. Can you believe it? They were like this one on etsy (except with six sections), which sells for $10. He wanted $35 for a single glass milk bottle... crazy! We found a board game for a dollar and a pretty turquoise and white glass bud vase. We did pretty well overall! Here's the bud vase, already holding one of the first blooms from my irises:



We hit the road, passing other yard sales and heading to our first errand, which was about a 30 mins drive away. Not open?? Oh, man! It's Saturday - we didn't even think to check their hours.


Then we headed to the nearby state park, which was supposed to have a picnic area and some hiking trails. We arrived, turning onto a seasonal use highway that quickly turned into a one-lane road. There was the park sign... but it appeared to be little more than a utility road in the middle of a very thick forest. We got a bit nervous, and turned around. Sad!

We then put in the address for our third destination, and realized that it would be a 30 mile drive further south. We decided to skip it, and just went home. We were both pretty frustrated, but still enjoyed the scenery and nice drive back. We stopped at a second garage sale, where they had some large bear skins hanging up, and a couple of guitars for sale. No purchase there, but fun to look around.

Glad to be back home...

I took some pictures around our yard, and found a robin's nest! I scared her away, and I hope she'll come back for her five beautiful blue eggs.