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Monday, June 8, 2009

Thrifty weekend finds



This is my first time to join to join others in their weekly postings. I chose Rhoda's Today's Thrifty Treasures at Southern Hospitality for my inaugural plunge into blogging. I had a small blog at Christmas, but just posted photos to share with some cyber friends on a forum. I have been reading and admiring all your posts since then. Thank you Rhoda for letting me participate today.

I love thrift store shopping and yard and garage sales. So, this is a very appropriate first plunge for me. I used to laugh about my Mom spending hours in Goodwill, the Salvation Army TS, and at garage sales. Now, I have become my Mom! I feel very close to her as I make my weekly rounds. I even run into one of her friends often and we have a good laugh together.

I have found a new passion in dishes and tablescapes. This is like an addiction to me and I am happiest when I am looking for something new to add to my collection. Unfortunately, dishes and the centerpieces have to be stored somewhere, so this brought about a new problem for me. I have a large cabinet that my late father-in-law made as a storage place. It is in my garage and was filled up rather quickly. I had everything from dishes to glassware, centerpieces, etc. in it when I first started around the first of the year. I quickly outgrew this cabinet and now have dishes in two large kitchen cabinets that used to store my electric appliances and my baking goods. I also have a china cabinet that is full.

So, Saturday, I set out to find some type of cabinet that could house glassware. I didn't have room for this in the house, so needed something that I could store in the garage. I went from estate sales to garage sales, to yard sales and even hit all of the area thrift stores. I was about to come home without a cabinet, when I noticed a sign for a sale that was out in the country. I decided to make one last stop. I am so glad that I did, because I found a great cabinet for only $12.50!

Everything was spread out across the yard and then into a barn like building. I spied the cabinet alongside an antique bed and dresser. I started not to even look at it because I figured it was a set or too expensive. However, I was shocked to see the price tag on the cabinet. I hurried into the barn area and told the woman that I wanted to buy the cabinet. She immediately told me that this other woman standing there had just asked about it and that she had to go check the price.

I was deflated. I had found another cabinet earlier in the week at one of our Goodwills that someone bought while I was standing in line to purchase it. It was $29 and not nearly as big as the one I found Saturday.

The woman came back inside and said that it did have a $12.50 price on it. Then her husband laughed and said he guessed we'd have to flip for it. I was so sad and told them that I just couldn't seem to have luck with a cabinet because the same thing had happened earlier. The woman who was interested in the cabinet looked at me and told me that I could have it. She said that she really didn't have room for it without moving something out.

I was shocked and sooooooooo happy.
$12.50 cabinet
Thifty Cabinet



Inside of the cabinet
Inside of cabinet

Here it is loaded with glassware.
Loaded with glassware

DH will add one more shelf to this---maybe two if I shift things around and can use shorter glasses on one shelf.


I would have been content with only finding my cabinet for the day's work, but I also picked up lots of other goodies. Take a peak.

Watermelon cookie jar from a yard sale. It was marked $5, but I stopped back by on Sunday to check about something else and he let me have this for $3.

Watermelon cookie jar


At the same sale, I noticed this pretty purple silk floral arrangement and I asked about it. I got it for $1. I have several sets of dishes that it will look great with.


Purple flower

My favorite glassware find is this darling pumpkin teapot. It looks great with a pumpkin soup tureen that I found in a thrift store recently.

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These animal print looking dinner plates were only $2 at the Crisis Center Thrift Store. They were having a 50% off sale on all glassware. I have four salad plates that look great with them.

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Also from the 50 off sale were these amber colored glasses. They were marked 75 cents each. I picked up eight of them.

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This little basket has a fruit motif on the actual basket, but it was the large pineapple and other fruit that I liked. I found it at Goodwill for $2.

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I have been looking for things to use on a patriotic table and found these blue dishes at our Goodwill. Someone had pulled the tape apart that had linked the 4 dinner plates, salad plates, and bowls together. The long pieces of the tape were still attached to the DPs. I gathered them all up and took them to the front not knowing the price. I got all of them for $5.

I hope you enjoyed seeing all my amazing bargains this week. Be sure to go over to Rhoda's blog at Southern Hospitality to view her bargains and to find links to all the others participating.

I just realized that all my photos are off center and the right side cut off. I don't know what happened. They look fine in the preview. The photos were so large that I used Paint to reduce them. I use this to post photos on other sites by using the Stretch/Skew function and reduce both to 20%. This means that every photo has to have this done and it be resaved and renamed. Now, I realize that it didn't work and messed up the photos. Is there an easier way?

6 comments:

  1. So happy you got the cabinet...I've been a couple minutes too late on a couple of pieces myself that I really wanted and then to see the amazing price it sold for...double whammy. You got some great finds.
    Toni

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  2. I was admiring your arty photos and thinking I need to start taking pictures that show just part of an object!

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  3. Welcome to blogging! I'm so glad you joined my party as your debut. You will love blogging too & what a thrifter you are. Big congrats on that $12.50 cabinet, that is a deal!! And all the other things are great too. I hope you'll come back next week & join me again for the party.

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  4. Oh, and if you want an easy way to post on your blog, check out Windows Live Writer. It's a Microsoft product that you download & use with your blog. I have a whole post about it, if you do a search in my Search box at the bottom for the subject, you'll find it. It's great for loading pics.

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  5. What a great find, it looks like it will be perfect for storage, I would have to say my favorite is the watermelon cookie jar.

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  6. great bargains... I love the teapot best too!

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