My. Fifty. Cent. Find.

VINTAGE Catherine Holm Yellow Lotus bowls. BOWLS!! TWO of them!!

I was at a garage sale last Thursday, several hours after opening. I didn't think I'd find anything, but I was killing time in town so decided to stop and have a looksee. Only a few tables, mostly puzzles, games, clothes, and some knick-knacks. I spied these and wandered over to take a better look. Very good shape. VERY GOOD SHAPE.

Huh.

No price tag.

The seller was talking to someone else, so I patiently waited. And waited. And waited. (seriously, if I'm holding something and obviously want to buy it could you stop talking gossip and wait on me??)

Finally they wrapped up their discussion and I was able to ask her the price. I fully expected to have to write a check for the bowls.

She said, "fifty cents for both of them."

I could NOT get the quarters out of my wallet fast enough.





I’m linking up with Nester’s I {heart} Yard Sales party!

Garage sale finds....LONG post

This weekend was the city-wide garage sale in our town. It started Thursday, when the weather was much nicer than today. I hit two or three sales on Thursday and 10 or so on Friday.

Here's what I bought...I spent less than $80...

Cute as is, although I may paint it a different color. I'm planning on hanging in my laundry room.


Picture one letter on each of these tiny plaques, spelling out a name, then lining them up in one large frame.


I've been looking for one of these so I can quit borrowing from my friend, my sister, my church. This even has the optional 3-pan server!


I've been looking at different options for bedside lamps, but haven't liked anything. Until I saw two of these. Perfect!



I also found two bedside tables that will work much better for both of us. Here's mine...


and here's his...


I few weeks ago I found an oval frame, and the plan was to have a mirror made for it. Instead, I found this larger oval mirror. All I have to do is spray paint the frame. I'm thinking turquoise...



Not sure where I will put this scale, but I fell in love with the patina and the numbers!


An old baking powder tin from the K. C. Baking Powder company. Love the colors!


Ugly, I know. I want to spray paint it white and use old stencils for a personalized welcome message.



Call me crazy, but I LOVE this baby scale! It is sitting on my kitchen table filled with loaves of bread.


Nice sturdy laundry cart with a shelf to hold up the bag when it is overflowing!


And the absolute BEST. GARAGE. SALE. FIND. EVER.........





From the Paramount Theatre....currently resting on my property....

SCORE!!!!!

Thrifty Thursday

Do you ever buy something without having a place to put it?

No?

Never mind.


I spent $7 at a garage sale last week.




I don't know where to put them. I don't know if I should paint or stain the bench. Ideas??

Thrifty Thursday, updated

Frames made years ago by my Grampa L.

Memories made by us.

Thrifty Thursday

or-what-to-do-when-your-kids-are-sick-for-the-second-time-in-three-weeks-and-you-want-to-use-what-you-have...






more pictures shortly...

Thrifty Thursday

Not a lot of BS on this one.

We've been looking for a couch.

We almost came to blows at one point, and are not afraid to admit it. We went back to one store three. different. times. to look at the same couch.

Then we bought it.

Thirty minutes later we returned it. I am not joking.

Furniture shopping stinks.

Two days after that fiasco, I saw an ad on craigslist. My hubs happened to be in town, so I emailed the seller, asked if the couch was still available and gave him my hubs cell phone number. Then I left to run my own errands.

My husband bought the couch and picked it up the next day.

I still hadn't seen it.




I think he did a pretty good job!

Daybook 02-07-11

Outside the window... cloudy gray sky, cold air, good weather for hot chocolate-coffee and staying indoors!

Getting an earful of... Wii games. My youngest has strep throat and is living on the couch.

Grateful For... Urgent Care facilities less than 10 miles from home.

Reading... A Biblical Walk Through The Mass. Highly recommend! This is based on the new translation of the Mass beginning this Advent season.

Creating... a clean, healthy home. I'm trying!

The Learning Room... Term 3. We need to change things up a bit. Last week was horrid.

Liturgical Year... St. Josephine Bakhita, St. Appollonia, St. Scholastica, Our Lady of Lourdes. Lots of tea party material!

Hoping and Praying... my son recovering from strep, my friend and a successful pregnancy, my niece and a successful pregnancy, my mom's upcoming surgery, another friend's wife and her treatments, my BIL, several other personal intentions.

The Kitchen... plenty of leftovers from two days of birthday parties, so no cooking today!

Favorite Things... being home with my kids. I know I've stated this before, but it is at the top of my list.

Plans for the Week... Catholic 101 class, Parish Council meeting, wrestling, 6th grade Religious education, Homeschool coop, and dance. Of course, attendance is dependent on my sons recovery from strep throat!

Thrifty Thursday, continued

Because she asked... 5 large shelves!!

Thrifty Thursday

So I thought today was Wednesday.

That's what happens when you are a family with two children and then one night you encourage six other children to come and stay for two nights and days. We are having a great time....

On to the BS.

I think my Father-in-law (FIL) wishes he had Caller ID so he would know when I'm calling. Our conversations usually start with me asking what he is doing, then asking if he'd like to help me out, and then describing the predicament/situation I'm in.

I could be stuck in a ditch during the day.

I could be broken down on the side of the road in the middle of the night.

I could be at a thrift store and need a truck to haul the fabulous but ugly cabinet I just bought super-duper-cheap....


He generally says yes, and then comes to help. Sometimes he gives me looks, and shakes his head, because he thinks I bought something completely ugly and useless.

But I ignore him, because I see the potential.


Kitchen Pantry Cupboard, purchased 2005

Clarification

The item in my Thrifty Thursday post is truly a cookie jar. Here are a few more pictures...

Thrifty Thursday

Sorry, no furniture this week.

Last August I happened to be driving through a town I worked in many years ago. I knew the grocery store was in the next block, and since I needed a few things, I decided to stop. It wasn't until I walked in the door that I realized it was no longer a grocery store, but a thrift store.

There were some very cute items, but the minute I saw this, I knew I had to have it, no matter the price.

I paid 2 dollars. And it's always filled with cookies!

Thrifty Thursday

I've been so busy all day that I never had a chance to take pictures or write a post, so I'll save that item for next week.

Instead, I'll show you what I just bought this past Sunday. I made a donation and popped in to see what they had.

Score!

This is an Otagiri turkey platter. They've been discontinued for years and very hard to find. I recall seeing one on an online auction a few years back for over $90.

I paid $1.99.

Thrifty Thursday

Okay, here's the Back Story (the BS, remember?)...

I believe it was the-summer-of-the-dresser, and we were in town one day with my future in-laws. As we drove past a storage building for the cement company, I noticed a sign in front of the door which read "Men's Garage Sail." That is not a typo, it was really spelled incorrectly.

We had to stop.

Inside were various items needed for a man cave, like thingamajigs and whachamacallits. There was a table in the back covered with hand tools ~ hammers, pliers, screwdrivers. The sign taped to the table said, "tabel $5." Seriously. I approached the saleslady to ask about the sign. She cut me off and said, "no, it's not for the items on the table, it's for the table itself."

SOLD!

My husband and his parents thought I was nuts.

It was missing a few drawers, but I knew it would be an easy fix. After a bit of pleading on my part, we loaded the table on their truck.

We swapped out the old legs because I wanted to make it counter height, as I planned on using it like a kitchen island. Along with making new drawers, my FIL also reinforced the new legs with framework (I call it the I bar). I stained it to match the rest of the woodwork in the house, and used the same knobs as the rest of the cabinets.

This is one of my favorite pieces, and we get many, many, many compliments on our kitchen island/table.

Thrifty Thursday

I decided to start spotlighting my thrift store treasures and garage sale finds. I don't get to shop them much in the winter, so right now I'll focus on previous treasures. Yes, I always find a treasure or two. And some even have a background story.

Here is one of my first purchases, and probably the favorite.

The Background Story

(I thought about using the initials BS in the future, but wasn't sure if you'd believe the stories!)

Seven years ago my husband noticed a garage sale ad in the local paper and drove over there. He was a day early because he didn't actually look at the dates. My husband is very friendly, talkative, and outgoing, and spoke with the woman for close to an hour before heading home. During their conversation he volunteered our services, and promised we would be at their farm the next morning at 6 am to help carry furniture out of their house and barn.

At the time we had been dating about a year and it was going to be the first weekend in months that I wasn't working. I'm not a late sleeper but I was really looking forward to not getting up early in the morning. And I lived a lot farther from this garage sale than he did!

We both showed up at their house at 6 am. No one was outside. We knocked on the door a few times and eventually woke them up. Their power had gone out during the lightening storm the night before so their alarm never rang. The men went out to the barn and she and I chatted over coffee, then got to work drying off tables and setting up for the sale.

As the men were carrying out furniture and farm tools, I saw this dresser. It was painted a hideous blue, but I knew I wanted it, and asked her the price. She was surprised, because she didn't care for it, but told me it would be free since we were helping them. I gave her some money anyway, because we weren't helping them in order to get free furniture.





You can still see the old blue paint if you look closely at the grain of the wood around some of the details. It took me three weeks to remove the paint and thoroughly clean the dresser, but it was worth every minute. It is in our living room, with the TV and VCR on top and all the movies and Wii games in the drawers.