Goodwill Finds

The weather around here has pretty much settled into cloudy, with the probability of rain, daily. This will go on for at least six months, only to be occasionally interrupted for ice and snow. For a thrifter, that brings good news and bad news. The bad news is, there are few garage sales and you will get wet. The good news is, the only people brave enough to have a sale in this weather are probably liquidating an estate or selling everything for a move. That means they have my kind of stuff, and they really want to sell it. Fewer garage sales also means more things are showing up in the thrift stores, and it pays to check in more often.

I was able to find some nice bargains this week. We found an estate sale with a some 10c Tupperware. It was pretty grungy, so I'll spare you the photos, but after soaking overnight and a good scrubbing, it looked just fine.

But I will show you this Tupperware I found at Goodwill:

Deviled egg tray inserts for my cold cuts keeper for $1. I've been looking for them since I found the keeper in August.

A small parts cabinet full of goodies-$2. Mom brought this home for Dad, but he emptied all the little parts (hinges, screws, brass bits, etc) into one of his other cabinets and gave this to me for jewelry and craft supplies. I think I'll be painting it a brighter color next Spring. She also brought me a giant box full of scrapbooking supplies. She said they practically paid her to take it away.

Mom also made a trip to the Goodwill Outlet Store. This is where they send all the stuff that hasn't sold at the regular stores. Sometimes Goodwill's pricing system makes no sense to me.

These Currier & Ives pots were originally marked $6.99 each. That would be $28 for the whole set! They are very pretty, made in Japan, and look brand new, but really? I think $6.99 for the whole set would have been more reasonable. But they ended up at the outlet for $39c/lb, and Mom is very happy to have them for $1.11. She's thinking about an indoor herb garden.

This golf push cart will be fitted with a garbage can and used to haul gardening tools around the yard - $5, more than she wanted to pay, but she's been looking for a while, and she was feeling generous after finding this:

Maple child's table and chairs - $15.00

And everywhere we looked we found...

Pyrex!!
Some are from estate sales, some are from Goodwill. I believe the dark brown bss lid is Old Orchard, but I like it with the Woodland. The yellow bowl is a small hostess bowl I was very surprised to find at Goodwill for $3, and I really like the bright orange Daisy round casserole. It's holding the leftover Halloween candy now. We paid $17.00 for everything in the picture.

And my favorite this week:

My Letter Jacket, Laura.
There are a few holes in the ribbing, but they should be easy to repair. Since the sleeves are wool and not leather, it was actually affordable, at $14.60. I've been looking for a letter jacket at Goodwill for a while but haven't seen any. Now I know why. The tag says it came in last March. They've been saving it for Halloween. I guess next year I'll have to check all the GW stores when they first put out the Halloween stuff. I'd still like to have one with leather sleeves. What's your favorite find this week?

I'm linking up with
Thrift Share Monday
Thrifty Thursday



Junkin' Finds

Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays



Click the links for more thrifty finds.

Just Like the Egyptians

Last Friday, my mother was awake at 3AM as she so often is (don't ask me why) and she decided to check Craigslist for estate sales. Lo and behold, there was the sale to end all sales: there was a picture with PYREX in it!!! The sale was scheduled to open an hour before my first class that day so Mom woke me up and told me about it, asking if I wanted to go with her. We took separate cars, and I went in first to sniff out the Pyrex. Mom was looking for some vintage cookbooks she had seen advertised.

That sale was packed; we could barely move around. The Pyrex turned out to be over-priced, and Mom couldn't find the cookbooks, but I managed to snag a few things before I had to leave for class. It was an effort just to get near enough to the check-out table to make a pile of things for Mom to pay for later. The line went through two rooms of the house, and several people did not take kindly to what they assumed was me cutting into the line. After a number of dirty looks, and one lecture, I managed to stash my finds and escape unharmed. Ah, the things we do for vintage. This is what I found:

A glasbake mixing bowl for sunbeam


An enameled refrigerator drawer, which someone just handed to me :)

A Westclox Travalarm - I just love the style. The cream colored part closes over the face like a roll-top desk. The alarm works, but unfortunately, it doesn't keep time. Dad's thinking about opening it up and seeing if he can fix it.


And a copper-colored jointed owl necklace. His name is Octavius Augustus.


The other necklace is my Benjamin Bunny scrabble tile I bought at my favorite Antique Mall this summer. When I was four, My mother cross stitched a little picture of Benjamin Bunny onto a blue corduroy jumper for me. (For those of you who understand counted cross stitch, it was 18 count and corduroy is too thick for such tiny stitches. She swore, "never again!") This was my favorite jumper and I didn't want my mother to wash it because I was afraid the picture would fade. In the interest of keeping it stain-free, the jumper wasn't allowed out of the house or near anything sticky. I still have it today.

This is what Mom found:

Tupper(ware) Silent Partner poker chips set, dominoes, some free Fisher Price wooden people, and this neat little tin.

The unused ribbon is inside, and it's for a Remington, which is the brand of typewriter I found back in July! I'm not sure it fits my model, but I like the tin so much, I'd have bought it empty.

Passports from 1947!


Aren't their pictures wonderful

This couple apparently spent a year in Paris, and made at least one trip to Geneva. There were also some other papers with the passports, including a driver's license and some French bread ration stamps.


This was tucked in one of the boxes. We hoped to find the camera, but no such luck.

It was fun to read, as it was intended for a child. Love the Brylcreem hairdo on that kid. I also found it interesting that a roll of film only had 8 pictures on it.

A "mystery for girls" from 1934. I wonder how it compares to Nancy Drew. And although you can't tell from my crappy picture, that's a copy of Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cook Book. We bought that by mistake, because Mom was holding it when I had to leave and it got in my pile of stuff. But it was only a buck, and it turns out to have been illustrated by a young Andrew Warhol. So if you're interested in teeny little pictures of measuring cups, mixing bowls, and a fish or two drawn by a famous artist, I have the book for you, lol.

There was one other item that Mom had seen in the pictures for the auction that was on our list:

Our neighbor had asked us to look for one for him, but I will also be using it for a project I'm working on that I will tell you about in a future post. We got all of that for $23.00.

Then Mom headed off to a few other sales.

She found this hardly used set of Tupperware canisters for $2. The largest one is missing it's lid, and the lid to the next biggest one shattered after she got it home. I read online somewhere that Tupperware can get dehydrated, and that if you have some in a cupboard not being used, it should be taken out every 3-4 months and soaked in water to keep it soft. I guess these had been in storage for a long time. Time for me to soak some Tupperware.

She also found a whole bunch of Pyrex compatables pieces in my favorite pattern, Spring Blossom. She was quite excited, until she realized they really were pieces. There was the underplate for the gravy boat, sugar bowls, but no lids, etc.

She bought them anyway, as they were part of a huge box of miscellaneous dishes, mostly Pyrex and Fire King that was only a few dollars. For the most part, they were not remarkable, but there were a few nice pieces, such as two very faded Amish Butterprint small refrigerator dishes, and four opal white 12-oz square bowls.

And then there is this interesting little tea cup. That's a marijuana leaf on there. And if you look closely, all the "flowers" are also marijuana leaves turned on their sides. Do you suppose that whoever originally bought this knew what it was? Or was someone having a little private joke with this design? This looks like the kind of tea cup that came with my grandmother's snack sets, but those belong to an era I don't usually associate with stoner decor. It has no markings and I couldn't find anything about it online.

Then Mom went to Value Village on Monday, and they had a stack of matching snack plates in the same pattern. They wanted $2.99 for each one, or she would have bought one just for fun. (She paid about 12c for the cup)

The last thing Mom found on Friday was something she's been thinking about getting ever since we moved into our house in 2007. We have a 26-inch TV that sits in a corner of the living room. It has never looked quite right there. It either needs to be in a big entertainment center or should be replaced with a bigger TV. Mom has had this idea that we should be able to get a 34" TV for very little money since there are so many people who are upgrading to flat-screen HDTV and will want to get rid of an old set. And we'll be fine with old technology for a long time. (Heck, it's not even vintage yet.)

So we've been watching Craigslist for free or cheap TVs, but most of them have been too big, too far away, or need work. But Friday, Mom found a guy who advertised a moving sale and had several 36" TVs for sale for $10-$15. Plus, he also mentioned a huge free pile (Mom loves a free pile.) The sale wasn't due to start until 2 pm, so Mom politely waited until 2:05 before she showed up. By that time, whatever free stuff there had been was gone. The poor seller, who was still setting up when Mom arrived, had been ambushed by early birds all morning long and hadn't been able to get much done. He spoke very kindly of them; said they were mostly elderly folks who were just driving by early to verify the address for when they planned on coming back at 2 pm. Yeah, right. Some people!

Fortunately, he still had 2 TVs left. So Mom got a 36" TV and a stand for $20. Score! She also got a large oak bookshelf that screamed 1986 for $15. Since they were too heavy for her to haul home, she arranged for Dad to get them with the pick-up on his way home from work.

Somehow, she assumed Dad would call a couple of strong friends to help get the TV out of the pick-up and into the house. But when he arrived she realized she was being elevated to "strong friend" status. Ha! Had he forgotten who she was? When they were first married 35 years ago she could fake "strong friend" status, but now? I suppose she should have been flattered that he thought she was as young and strong as when they first met, but somehow it wasn't making her feel all warm and fuzzy. (Thankfully, I wasn't home when he arrived.)

My father is a pretty resourceful guy, and he's got a lot of stuff around the house, so with the help of some plywood, some straps, a pair of car ramps, and a furniture dolly, they managed to wrestle the TV into the house... only to be stopped by their inability to grab that TV and lift it 18 inches up onto the TV stand.

Mom said, "We just have to think like the Egyptians did when they moved giant stones for the pyramids and lever it into place somehow." So Dad went out to the woodshed and came back with some pieces of cedar fence wood. He lifted one side of the TV up and Mom slid a board underneath. Then he lifted the other side up and she slid another board in on that side. Slowly and carefully, with much sweating and only a little swearing, Dad lifted the TV 18 inches. Then they used big furniture glides to slide it onto the TV stand.

Here it is on its tower of boards.

The TV works great. It's just in time for us to watch Shaun of the Dead on Halloween.

Mom and Dad say their favorite find this week was the TV. I'm torn between the enamel pan, which we've been looking for all summer, and the ribbon for my typewriter, which I didn't expect to find at all. What was your favorite find this week?

I'm linking up with
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Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays
Thrifty Thursday
Junkin' Finds
Come join the parties

The Adventures of Scorpion Girl and Lizard Lady

Most Estate Sales do half price on Sunday when I'm usually at church so I don't often make it. You're not supposed to skip church for garage sales even if you went to another church's rummage sale the day before. That doesn't count. I know 'cause I looked it up.

We usually go Garage Sailing one day a weekend and this last weekend we went out Friday. We did really well so Mom didn't want to go out on Saturday. I couldn't resist checking Craigslist anyway. I found a listing for an Estate Sale advertising $5.00 a bag on Saturday. I immediately ran to my mother's room and threw open the door:

Me: MOM!
Mom: Whaaat? I'm asleep. (groggily)
Me: There's an Estate Sale for you.
Mom: I'm not up. I'm asleep.
Me: It's half price.
Mom: I don't care. I'm asleep. We went yesterday. I'm out of money.
Me: $5.00 a bag after 2:00. We can find $5.00 somewhere can't we?
Mom: Crap. Now I have to get up.

So we went out to this estate sale in the country (well... there were cows) and not only was it $5.00 a bag it was $10.00 a box and furniture was $1.00. They had tables and tables of glassware and pottery. I immediately grabbed the biggest box I could find and started filling it.

The owner of the estate had apparently been some kind of dealer and had left behind boxes of things that hadn't sold. I don't know that what we got was terribly valuable but it was certainly fun to fill the box and worth $10.00.


This is the entire contents of the box. My mad packing skills came in very handy for this. I don't even know how I got it all in there.

These are the things I find most fun:


Blue spice canisters, a box of Wahoo Bark, and a bottle of Sozodont. Sozodont was an early oral hygiene product. It was invented in 1859 and was popular before dentists started to realize that it was too alkaline and was actually destroying teeth.



This little lady is a bookend made by Ucagco in Japan. I know nothing else about her except that she is adorable.


The plate and the pink coaster are for our little corner of Hawaii. Which will soon be guarded by Scorpion Girl and Lizard Lady! Look for their new movie coming in Spring 2011: "The Adventures of Scorpion Girl and Lizard Lady in the Country! (Well... there were cows.)"


Pretty pink and aqua Melmac dinnerware and a Fostoria brand plastic gravy boat. Not the same company as the glass works as far as I know.


This little West Bend canister is similar to a four piece set that I couldn't afford a few days ago. I love how cute and pink it is and the tea canisters are always my favorites; they're just the right size.


We aren't sure what the dish with the grapes is but we like it. The funky looking brown planter is probably the ugliest piece of McCoy ever made, but it IS McCoy.

Here's the pretty glassware. The teacup and the plate underneath it are a lovely daffodil yellow. That shade is hard to find.

We just couldn't turn down furniture for $1.00. We bought a dining table and two coffee tables.
All of them are in Mid-Century Modern style.

The dining table has a formica top, cool wrought iron legs and gold tone accents. My mother says her parents had one similar to it when she was growing up. It's probably in the laundry room at Gramma's today.

Note to self: Snoop in Gramma's laundry room.


Aren't the lines in this table just great? We love it. The other was different but disappeared to my brother's house before I could take a picture.

While we were waiting for my father to come for the furniture, the people running the sale kept trying to give us things as it was all going to Goodwill anyway. We also came home with a big box of kitchen utensils, knives, and a knife block for my brother and these:


Can you hear the angelic choir? It's the Brave Little Toaster (chrome and bakelite) AND an orange vinyl ice bucket! We still haven't tested the toaster but I don't care. Yes, I DO like the most random things.

As we were driving home from the sale I noticed that my mother was unusually quiet.

Me: So are you glad you got out of bed for this?
Mom: nothing
Me: Mom? Mom?
Mom: I'm asleep.

THE END


I'm linking this post to:

Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays @ Coastal Charms
Thrifty Treasures @ Southern Hospitality
Garage Salen Party @ Debbiedoos

Typewriters, Barstools, and Pyrex oh my!

Last Friday afternoon, after deciding we didn't have money to spend garage sailing anymore, my mother sent me out with a list of sales and eight dollars. A good friend of mine whom we'll call Kitty went with me.

As it would happen, the church rummage sale that we went to first had one thing I have been waiting most of my life to own: a working manual typewriter. The machine is a Remington Quick-Riter and light grey with dark green keys. It has its case and none of the keys stick. I paid $5.00 for it and am quite satisfied.

Also at that sale I got a large cranberry colored Samsonite suitcase with a pink lining and a couple of old metal picture frames.

The next stop on our list was another church rummage sale where I found a few small things such as a postal scale, a wall-mounted hat rack, and a velvet painting souvenir of San Francisco.



After that sale I had only a couple of dollars left and was trying to find another sale when I drove past the most beautiful garage sale find of my life! It was a Yellow Crackle Ice Dinette Set. A fairly small table and four chairs, no lea,f and the vinyl on the chairs needs work but otherwise it's beautiful (sorry but I won't be able to get pictures of it until it's been cleaned up). I had to give them some money to hold it and go back home to get the ($15.00) cash but it was worth it. By the time I had loaded the set into our Kia Optima (which left almost no space for anything else) my mother called and asked me to swing by the American Cancer Society's thrift store for her.
I had just parked in front of a house in our city's downtown and was walking to the store when I saw three red and two black barstools sitting outside of a bar with a FREE sign taped to them.
(the dinette chairs are there in the background)


I had Kitty go check them out for condition and got on the phone with my mother because there was no way they would fit into the car with the dinette set already inside. After a few more phone calls to my father and mother both, I called a friend and he agreed to come pick them up for me.
About twenty minutes later I got home and unloaded it all and with only $20.00 I had gotten three things we've been looking for: a dinette set, a velvet painting (sort of), and a typewriter.

And since then we've just been finding better and better things and of course, it happens as soon as we don't have money to really be buying.

Today, in fact, we found these:


Those are Pyrex divided dishes with their lids; one is Snowflake pattern in Aqua blue and the other is an atomic-looking promotional pattern in black on white. Of all the pyrex we own, these are actually our first divided dishes! If you know anything about the promotional dish pattern, please let me know.

That's all I have for you today, have a great weekend and happy "sailing".


EDIT: I found out which pattern the black and white pyrex is. It's called barbed wire and it was a promotional pattern for fall, 1958.

I'm linking this to:

http://creatingahouseofgrace.blogspot.com/
http://linda-coastalcharm.blogspot.com/
http://diane1876.blogspot.com/