thrift junky chronicles

Does that even make sense? Like thrift “addict”. That is what I meant. Seriously, though, I am addicted. Mom arrived today and we have thrifting on our to-do list, too, so I just keep fueling the fire.

Recent finds…

Some neat white photo boxes ($3.99 for set) to replace my mismatched ones. One of the tags said “1930’s and 1940’s” and had negatives in it! The checker took them out! I should’ve been bold and asked if I could keep them… though I don’t think they were that old – I imagine negatives were a bit different back then.

By the way, don’t be afraid to heckle a little bit at thrift stores. The photo boxes, for example – one had a busted lid, but there was another one that was not taped together with the set so I asked if I could swap out the broken one for the non-broken one and the checker said, “I don’t see why not!”. I also saved 33% on my tripod for my lamp, just by making an offer and pointing out that one screw was missing. I have also compared frames before, i.e. “This frame is $4.99 and this frame is smaller but it is $6.99… will you lower the smaller one to $4.99, please?” That one worked, too! It never hurts to ask!

Mom was coveting my cheese cloche like this so when I saw this one, I snagged it for her.

Random little green plate. Will make a great catchall… I think I will put it near my jewelry.

Ikea stuff is usually pretty affordable to begin with… scoring it at the thrift store is like a double-bonus! I love these pitchers – I already had the smaller one that matches it.

That was the bulk of my thrift store treasures as of late. A couple other ideas to share…

I have a little window at the top of a 1.5 story wall in our ‘great room’ (it is not big, trust me, but it is a kitchen/dining/living room with cathedral ceilings). There wasn’t really a way to do window treatments for this weird little window, so I came up with my own way of dressing it up…

I saved my centerpiece bottles, stole some more from friends and family (we don’t drink wine), and kept a few sparkling cider bottles, and put the whole group of them up in the window. I love the way the light shines through them! And they all looked about the same until the light shone through; there are actually several different shades. I am a little concerned that we might look like winos from the road but we’re not, so I guess I won’t worry about it!

Then I stole/modified an idea from Young House Love. They send themselves postcards from every vacation and then display them in a vase.

I had a leftover fish tank (is it just me or does it take a long time for Bettas to die?), so I rounded up our postcards while reorganizing my photos and putting them in the new boxes. I think it is so cute to have them out and so fun to read the old ones as I found them. We had actually sent ourselves one postcard and my mom had kept one or two we sent her from our honeymoon and given them back to me at some point. We also had one from when our friends went to Florida! Definitely a new tradition that I plan on keeping around!

Well that’s all I got for today… except for this little dose of Susie in the sunshine…