Monday, December 2, 2013

Thrifting...Just Thrifting

Thrifting...we just don't wind up making as many trips to the Thrift Shops anymore. During the week, we are working and they are closed on Sundays so that just leaves Saturdays. We usually can't fit them in our schedule when we have estate sales and garage sales to attend. The estate sales are our first love. Going through old houses allows us to dig and uncover treasures that may mean absolutely nothing to others but so much to us. Some of the old houses almost tell us a story based on its design and old appliances and those great old basements with great old floors and bars. We enjoy that part. We enjoy it a lot! 

Thrift shops are fun but you just don't find great old items as much nowadays. Is it because people just don't donate anymore? Some Thrift Shops just don't make it easy to donate. We have seen prominently displayed lists of things that the Thrift Shops just won't accept and some of the items on the list surprise us. No books. No baby items. No toys. These are items we thought would be great recyclables! We often see these same items and others sitting in the Thrift Shop dumpsters outside their little shops, discarded with little love at all. It makes us sad. Oh...and yes...we peek inside all the time! 

The list of potential estate sales on Saturday was very, very short. We decided to just Thrift today. Old school. Even if we found nothing at all, we figured it would be a fun day out for the two of us...and it was!

Pictures of some of our local Thrift Shops...




Rob must have said something funny! Monica can't stop laughing!






Monica is smiling though secretly wishing Rob would take quicker pictures!






This Thrift Shop had an added bonus. There was a holiday sale in the other building and...


...we met this little raccoon. Monica was discarding her gum when she was surprised by this little guy sitting in the dumpster. We named him Rocky. The church had already called the local animal control who would rescue him and set him free.

Then, we were off to more Thrift Shops




We managed to visit ten Thrift Stores while breaking for breakfast and stopping to enjoy the outdoors on the last day of November.


We love old neon signs and we have admired this one for a long time. We decided to stop and take a picture.



Even the front of the store had its original sign!!

Although we did not find too many items, we did bring a few things home:
Some Christmas records

Some children's records

More records. The hula record comes with a set of instructions to hula! 

A Santa cake pan so we can make a creepy cake, a set of Snow White cards from 1965, a reindeer ornament and two sets of sealed Christmas cards.

Some mini popcorn Christmas ornaments

We spent about eight hours out of the house, had lots of fun and picked up a few fun items along the way. By the time we got home, we looked at each other and our eyes said "nap time" and so we did. We spent the evening formulating our decorating plans and then relaxed. We would begin the decorating on Sunday...and we did...eight hours worth, mainly spent taking bins and boxes from the attic, packing away the Thanksgiving decorations and the everyday items which will disappear for the month of December, including most of our tiki and bar items from our Tiki bar unit (which will soon become a knee hugger elf / reindeer/ Putz house unit). We even had some time to actually start decorating our house!  It's hard work but it's fun decorating together. It's Christmastime! Let the magic begin! 

4 comments:

  1. Believe it or not there is only ONE thrift store in a 50 mile radius of us. Lots and lots of flea markets and antique stores but just the one thrift store. I believe our area is so filled with yard sales and garage sales they handle the recycled necessities.

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    1. WOW! The ten thrift stores we visited were all within 25 miles of us and there were more that were not open! We only have a few flea markets and antique stores (both overpriced) but we see 80 billion yard sales and garage sales during the warmer weather. (Rob)

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  2. I envy you all those thrift stores. And I am positively drooling over the Dark Shadows record....!

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    1. Thanks, VLW! Having this many thrift stores offers variety but the quality of the finds have declined drastically over the years. Still, there are still great things to find. We loved the Dark Shadows record too! (Rob)

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