Our local thrift shop every thursday gives 25% off your entire purchase. Last Thursday I talked Dustin into taking me over there. You see, he knows me too well. I can ALWAYS find some hidden treasure, so it’s best sometimes to just not go at all. Anyway, we scored some great stuff on that trip. When I saw these avocado bowls complete with the plastic lids my heart skipped a beat! But, ouch, $24.99! That’s a little steep for my frugal ways. Thank you Jesus, it was 25% off day!! Got these bowls for around $18.

Where’s the catch? Well, I opened a couple of these lids and (wow!) I could smell the years and years of food storage in them. After a run in the dishwasher they still stunk! So, next step…. white vinegar! My weapon of choice. I simply plugged the sink and soaked the lids in the vinegar overnight. Now they don’t smell at all! 
 

And when I got home, noticed they matched pretty perfectly with these goodies I’d picked up the week before. The fondue pot, fondue sticks and pot all came in around $5! Unfortunately, the small pot’s handle won’t stay on anymore. Also, the inside is pretty worn and will not stay clean. Might turn it into a plant pot since it matches my kitchen/dining! Will share results.

Happy Wednesday!

Dustin bought this Tom Clancy book a few weeks ago from our local thrift shop for about $3. He bought it for the purpose of making a secret Book Safe. Last night, he finally started it, but I might have taken over after he was about halfway through. I was not trying to do it for him, but simply offered to help. Either way, it was definitely a joint effort! We are both really pleased overall with the outcome.

This was a very easy project, just took a little muscle to get through the pages with my Xacto knife. We also went through a couple blades. The sharper the blades, the easier it was to get through the pages. The corners are a bit of a nuisance. Hard to get them really clean. However, the roughness just gives it that handmade quality we all love, right?

Can you tell from the above photo that the watered down Mod Podge bled onto the top red page on the outer edges? I may go over that page with the Mod Podge to just finish it off. I think it would look nicer this way. The opening is pretty deep. Could it hold your secrets? 

I think I prefer the book safe to be displayed like this,
with the pages facing out towards you as you walk into our kitchen/dining area. 
 

This project was a lot of fun, but it sure was messy! Nothing that wasn’t easily cleaned up. 
 

If you’d like to try this project, Bre Pettis has a great video tutorial here.

So, I’ve been majorly lusting after this Philosophy Jump Starters Kit for a while. I’m 26 now, which I know is still young, however I am starting to see that it’s time to put more effort into my skin care in a preventative sense. The wrinkles are starting to appear, and if I can postpone it a while that would be really nice. But at the same time, if I try it, I might love it so much that I’ll want to keep using it. What’s the problem with that? It’s a bit out of our budget. Hm, maybe I’ll stick to the thrifting for now, what with the state of the economy and all. Speaking of thrifting, check out these goodies I picked up last week. 
 

I’ve been wanting a fondue pot for a while, and Dustin bought me a new one for Christmas. It’s nice, it’s new, it was very thoughtful of him. However, this one I found for a whopping $2 has a lot more character than the brand new one from Christmas. I don’t normally go for brown, but I couldn’t resist this little guy. Dustin is insisting I keep both so we can use one for chocolate and one for cheese at the same time. We’ll see, I could get a lot of little gadgets for $20 at Bed Bath & Beyond if I return it. 
 

And, oh, how great is this fabric?! I adore it. Not sure what I’ll make from it. Looks like a child’s duvet cover, so there is a decent amount of fabric there to use. It was about $3, maybe $4. How sweet are those purple trees? VERY!

Hope the weekend was as lovely for you as it was for me. The 60some degree weather was certainly a nice change!

Jar for Email signups., originally uploaded by sewtrashy.

I wanted to share this photo with you. I really have a soft spot for glass items. Bottles, jars, anything really!! It seems I can always find something to buy when I go to thrift stores, and it’s usually something of the glass variety.

Now I must get back to Craft Show #2. It’s pretty dead again this weekend. How does one pick the right shows to sell at? Hmm. Must figure this out. Any tips?

Just taking a quick break from my making for this weekend’s craft show to share some finds from my thrift store outing Saturday. This is my first show, as I’ve mentioned before, so I’m not sure exactly what I was looking for, BUT I think we snagged some great finds! (Thanks to my cousin, Amanda and my husband, Dustin) We’ll see how they work out for the actual show. By the way, all this cost just $14!! (It should have been more like $17 or $18 but the the cashier gave us a discount!)

*My apologies for the horrid photos, I’m swamped right now. 

Green Suitcase = $5.00  *will be open on the table housing my stuffed creatures.

Black metal shelves = $2.00  *displaying smaller items. 

Picture Frame = $1.00  * used for pricing or a small piece of my art.

Small brown plastic basket = .50 cents *holding some of my individually sold note cards.

Green and Yellow String = .25 cents each   * used for attached price tags to items.

Small metal magnetic board with magnets = $1.00  * maybe for pricing? 

Glass milk jug = .50 cents  * not for show, I couldn’t resist it!!

Small wooden shelf = $1.00  * Maybe used for some cards, not sure.  

Corn on the cob plastic yellow holders = $1.00  *these are so fun, and I love the yellow. Used for business cards I think.  
 

Revolving Display rack = $5.00  * Found this right before checking out. After a coat of white paint, this will be good as new to house all of my notecard packs. 

Along with the above rack, the wooden shelf, black metal shelves and picture frame will all be painted white. And EVERYTHING will be getting a good cleaning before using! I’ll be sure to share “after” photos and of course photos from the show!

Back to making, but did I mention it SNOWED today? Only flurries, but it was still wonderful. My first snow in about 3 years. Hope everyone is having a lovely week so far.

As promised, here are some photos of our amazing finds at our local thrift shop. We picked these up about a month or so ago. Long story short, we needed to get new furniture because the movers destroyed much of our stuff. However, we didn’t have the money to buy that new furniture. One day, we were dropping off a load of items at the thrift store when we decided, what the heck, let’s see what they have. Little did we know we hit the jackpot! We picked up a couch and 2 chairs for $120… total! We knew they looked like they were worth more than that, but little did we know, quite a bit more. 

After a lot of web searching we finally were able to get an estimate of how much each of our pieces might be worth. (Not that we were selling, but we were just curious.) These Sling Arm Lounge Chairs we found were designed by Finn Juhl for France & Sons, Denmark, circa 1950s. We found a pair of them in “good” condition for $4200! We bought them for $10 each!

Bonsai enjoys our super cool Danish Lounge Chairs, too. Although, his little white hairs like to get stuck in that wool fabric. Very irritating. These orange cushions may or may not be original. I am not able to tell based on my research. They need to be cleaned, but in good shape otherwise.

And, here, we have our $100 “couch” which turns out to be a Peter Hvidt daybed, by France & Sons, Denmark, 1960s. We found this online ranging from $800 to $1000. Still a great deal. This daybed is not in perfect condition, but it in pretty good condition. We actually took off the rectangular backrest so the back cushion would sit flush with the wall. It is more comfortable this way. It looks as though the backrest is tilted too far forward, but we can’t figure out how to fix that. We love it still!

Again, Bonsai’s hairs like to get stuck in this wool! I’m considering recovering these cushions to make them more comfortable to sit on. Wool is a bit itchy for me. But, that will have to go on the back burner for now. 

France & Sons logo on each of the pieces. This first tipped us and my cousin, Amanda, off that it might just be worth more than we paid. She was able to identify that it was France & Sons, which narrowed things down quite a bit for us! Thanks, Amanda!

All three pieces are teak wood. The chairs look like they need a little bit of TLC from, well, being over 50 years old! I’ve done some research on how to care for teak, but any tips or advice is more than welcome!

I just have to mention that I fully and completely attribute this amazing find to the fact that God adores all of us so much that He even cares to bless us in these seemingly insignificant areas of our lives. Sure, us finding this furniture dirt cheap doesn’t change any lives, but it does show me that God loves who I am, and He cares enough to bless me with something He knew I would ADORE! How cool is that? I just think it’s awesome. Don’t overlook these little things in your life. 

As promised, here are a handful of old, thrifted pictures frames to match the “new” mirrors I shared here. I really love how these turned out as well. I wish you could see them in person. You lose a lot of dimension adn detail viewing them via my blog.

*TIP: Picture frames and mats can be so inexpensive. I think it is pretty ridiculous. I always scour thrift stores and flea markets for interesting or basic frames that I can revamp to fit my taste. You would be amazed at how many cheap picture frames are out there just waiting for a facelift… and your photos of course! 

BEFORE: Picked up this large frame at a the Salvation Army in Hawaii before we moved. Replaced the photo, but never got around to painting it. This photo was at the top of Haleakala on Maui. I love this shot, but it was not quite right for the freshly painted frame. I replaced it with the shot below!
 

AFTER: This is our little Jack Russell Bonsai. I took this shot of him after an evening at the park where he decided to roll around in the mud! This is in the bathtub before Dustin gave him a bath. I just can’t resist that little face! I think this REDO turned out quite nice!
 

BEFORE: Two more thrift store finds. The one on the left was only $1!! I could not resist. I love the character of the frame too. I think the one on the right was between $3 to $5. Check out the after. There’s that chair again! Just a little tease. I will share them soon!
 

AFTER: This is not one of our favorite photos together, but one of the only “professional” ones, if you can call it that. All of them we are cropped off in weird places. Ah well. It’s still a memory!

AFTER: This one was a great REDO. Do you remember all the gold, even on the mat? Well, I salvaged the mat too! Just painted it white, and it looks great! This photo Dustin took while at the Honolulu Zoo. That was a fun day. 
 

BEFORE: Gold Frame, $3.25
 

AFTER: Clean ad crisp with my sister’s artwork! 
 

AFTER: Detail shot of the frame. 
 

AFTER: This is a collage I created from moving stickers a while back. Blogged here. This frame came from IKEA, but I didn’t think the natural wood was quite right for this collage. I’m glad I decided to paint it!

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I would love to see your photo frame revamps! It really is super simple. And, don’t be intimidated by larger pieces that have been professionally framed. It only takes a little bit of work to disassemble these. I’ll be sharing a tutorial on just that hopefully tomorrow! I have a great trick for removing the mat from the photo or artwork without damaging the mat. Stay tuned!

Mirrors and frames I picked up from different thrift stores.

Two mirrors on our $4 thrifted chair.
This find was by Dustin! 
 

I shared a while back that I totally lucked out with some recent thrifting. Well, as promised, here’s a little bit of what I got. 

I have been wanting some mirrors for our place. But not just plain old boring ones, something with some character, and affordable! I came across these mirrors at a local thrift shop and had to snatch them up. The larger one was $8 and the smaller one $5. I think that’s pretty darn cheap for mirrors! The big mirror looked like a pretzel or some sort of bread. It was pretty bad. 

My plan was to slap some glossy black paint on them (along with a bunch of thrifted picture frames that I’ll share tomorrow). I think they turned out exactly as I imagined! Can’t wait to hang them!
 

Here’s a close up of the large mirror drying!
  

 
Big mirror. Let me just say, taping this off was FUN! ha!
Totally worth it, I think it looks a million times better! Not sure
if I want to hang it this way, or flip it upside down.
Any thoughts?
 

Small mirror. Maybe I should have wiped down the
mirror before taking the shot! oops.
 

Can’t wait to share the rest of my finds! Including that orange chair up there. Wait until you hear the story behind that furniture! I’m still in shock. 

So, after a long day of auctions and thrifting… my $5 chair had to find its home on my lap.  

Let me just say… this week has been an INCREDIBLE blessing. Long story short, we moved from Hawaii, had a TON of damage to our items, but the money we are getting for damages really has to go towards bills and things, not new furniture. Well, as usual, God TOTALLY hooked us up. I can’t wait to share all of the wonderful purchases from this week. You won’t believe how CHEAP everything was. Awesome. Speechless. Just what we needed. 

Must get sleep now… long day ahead!  

I’m not sure where I saw this idea for using contact paper to cover your old food cans, but I have been trying to find time to try it for a couple months.

Finally did and it was so easy… here I’ve used it not only as an organizing element, but also as a little flower pot on our “brand new” thrifted table we purchased this week for $8!! I love cool cheap furniture.

I wonder what else could I cover in wood grain contact paper… HMMMMM????