6 hours, 5 thrift stores

Thrift Finds #4

While my DH was at a conference all day, I decided to ask my MIL if she wanted to go thrifting. We ended up going to 5 thrift shops in about 6 hours. And stopping for lunch at this great local 50's diner...called the 50's grill. Had a wonderful burger, and can't leave there with out having a slice of cake or pie. We split a piece of lemon supreme cake.

Here are my finds for the day. Did not find much, the stores were really busy!





What I found:

• A great wire basket
• Ruffled trim with 1234 blocks in blue running along the edge
• Wide eyelet lace
• a ruler (for my mom who collects rulers)
• a letter game (for scrapbooking)
• small bingo cards (had to buy the whole kit, but I just kept the cards)
• My new loves these old cards, that are small note size, but I love how they are printed and the paper they are on
• a hankie for a girlfriend
  
• and some jewelry... Rhinestone pins for my collection and a bar pin for my mom and a great retro flower
  

Using buttons in scrapbooking and another idea

For years I have been collecting buttons (see here). I find uses here and there; for Doorknob Bags, for the centers of paper flowers or for use on my pennants. I really wanted to find a way to use them in scrapbooking. When we needed a display for our shop, this is what I came up with.




Isn't my mom cute!



Button flowers.

ATC Book and Nametag

Since I started this whole ATC card making club, I wanted to create a binder to hold all of my cards. And It would be very un-jen like to not decorate it so this is what I did. It was just a plain 1" black 3-ring binder.




And as a requirement to join this club we needed to create (and wear) a name tag.... here's that too.



(old bingo card under a piece of vellum, stamped piece of twill, letter rub-ons, flower with brad and scrap of ribbon, and old library card for my addictions.)

Finds #3

So I ended up at a couple thrift stores this weekend. One because my girlfriend and I ended up getting lost (no, not lost... going out of our way). While trying to get to a scrapbooking crop. We found this really cute thrift store with unbelievable prices. We also stopped at old reliable Salvation Army. Here's what I found:



Great old corsages, the one with white and pink flowers is made for a expectant mother to wear at her baby shower, it's made of baby socks. And the other one is just way cool. I'm not sure what I am going to do with them, but could not pass them up for 99¢.



Two Glitterville Dept. 56 hat boxes. Department 56 made this line for Halloween (but you could keep these out all the time), I have found quite a few pieces while out thrifting, and now seem to have a small collection. For 25¢ each, brand new in the box.



My other "could not leave the store with out" finds.
Pavlova Linen wall hanging, great graphics and wonderful pink color.
Glass bunny
Old mini pastel Easter baskets
Fuzzy pink duck
50's Heart game
Postcards
Small ABCDE chalkboard
Wrislets used for holding wrist corsages
Warning...utilitarian purchase, Fiskers paper trimmer blades

...and that cool old "look what we found" dry cleaners bag was used at one of the thrift stores for wrapping up breakables (I should have asked if I could buy a few from her).

Watch Face Brooches

Have you seen this? What a wonderful project that I found over on Just Something I made. I tried it last night here's how mine turned out.





So I wanted to try it. I did mine a little different. I had an old wrist watch face with the glass. I dug around all my collections of things and found a few little items to put in it, like a "j" charm, a old watch face, and some crystal beads. I glued a bright piece of paper in the background with mod podge, and then layed all my pieces inside. I used Diamond Glaze to set everything (if you get any bubbles make sure to pop them right away, this also needs to dry overnight). After it was all dry I added a few buttons and little things unglued (so they would move around). I put the front glass piece back on and pushed everything back together. I attached it all to a large pin I had and added some ribbon that matched the items inside. I purchased my old watch at a garage sale a while back and just know I would use it for something someday. I have a few smaller watch faces (as well as a pocket one like the web-site I found this idea on) that I am going to alter.

I hope you try this. It was a lot of fun and it made a keepsake that will last forever.

What I love and collect...

and only buy at thrift stores and garage sales.

Flower frogs (ideas for uses here)

Birds (mostly Goebel)

Cows from plastic farm sets (just the cows)

Hand painted pictures of houses and buildings (under 12")

Hand painted pictures of cats (under 6")

Shiny Brite ornaments

Things with cherries on them

Martha Stewart Magazines (I have almost all of them, missing first 2)

Caldecott winning childrens books

Fransican "Starburst" pattern dishes

Anything with the entire alphabet on it.

Charm bracelets (someone's entire collection)

Crystal brooches (only clear/white)

50's holiday decorations (christmas, halloween... etc.)