All By Myself: A Day of Thrifting

Today I was a good Mom.  I suggested that The Bean and The Breadman go see Iron Man 3, do a little male bonding, get out of the house, relax, stay cool, you know - all that stuff.  They took to it hook, line and sinker.  They didn't know my plan was to go thrifting all by myself!  I don't mind them going with me.  But, I am always on edge, looking over my shoulder seeing who is bored or who wants to go home.  (Usually, it's the Breadman.)  So, every once is a very, very long while, I get to go out all by myself and do some serious thrifting.  I can go to as many thrifts as I want and look at everything twice, just like you are supposed to do when you are on a thrifting mission.

In the end, I dropped them off at the movies since The Breadman's truck doesn't have any A/C.  So, I had to be back in three hours to pick them up.  But, I can do a lot of damage in three hours.

First stop - The Goodwill located adjacent to the movie theater.  I only go there if I am in the area and I really have only found a handful of things there.  Today I found the Polish doll, a German weather station, fold put chalkboard and the wooden toolbox for a total of $4.00.  The chalkboard will be used as a sign in my booth and at the Barn Sale.  The toolbox will get a coat of paint and maybe a stencil or something.  

I love these old German weather houses.  This one has a toadstool so that makes it super good in my book.

The wooden doll is sweet and will go to the booth.  

Second stop was a biggest thrift in town, run by a local Church - The Potter's House Thrift Store.  They have a color coded pricing structure that varies from regular price to 25% off, 75% off and 50¢.  Everything I bought today was new to the sales floor so it was all full price.  I had a strict budget of $20.00 for the day, but that went out the window when I dropped $23.00 here.  Whoops.

Lovely aged green tray table, a 1942 Joplin MO yearbook (I'd like to get this back into the hands of someone in Joplin since the school got destroyed in the tornado), set of three of what I HOPE are Martha Stewart copper animal cookie cutters and a Ford Mustang 25th Anniversary stein for The Bean.  (He is nuts for Mustangs).

And, Oh yes - TEN Western German candy container eggs.  I love these eggs and have a pretty good collection of them.  I get excited when I find ONE from time to time.  So, to find TEN at once - Wow!  I paid $5.00 total for them all.  Those are keepers.

Terrible photo, but I found two big bags full of candles and candle holders for crafting.  I forgot about these - they were the 75%  color, so only 25¢ a package.

Some sort of a Dansk silverplate paperweight.  I have to do some research on it.  Usually anything Dansk is $$, so I picked it up.  

I'm hoping to recoup what I spent today on this item.  

I have another tray table like this and I use it every single night to price items, make things, cut coupons, read a magazine, eat ice cream and other stuff.  I'm always afraid it will break and I won't have it anymore.  This one is actually bigger than the one I use, so I will most likely be the one I use from now on.  It has sweet little shapely legs not unlike me.  (I kid).

At this point, I had an hour and ten minutes left before I had to get the boys, so I made an impromptu decision to drive to the next town over to a big Church run thrift store.  This thrift has a lot of newer items, but the last time I was there I found those Gurley Cowboy Candles. So, I was hoping there was something there for me.  An added bonus was the fact that I was in need of a bathroom and they have a nice clean one.  (Thrift store bathrooms aren't my favorite).

When I got there, on the way to the bathroom, I went down the toy aisle because that was where the Gurley Candles were (why?  I have no idea) and that's when I saw IT.  The reason I had to drive all the way THERE.

A tin dollhouse.  *Squeal.*  I love these old tin dollhouses.  I couldn't believe it was just sitting there among the brightly colored Little Tike vomit.  Even though I saw it immediately and pounced on it like a rabid animal, I knew not to get too excited since it was vintage and collectible so the price could be high.  I held my breath, read the $4.00 tag and immediately remembered that I was about to pee my pants.  :D (TMI?)

 It's a dandy one with  bright red siding with sailboats shutters.

 A pink nursery and red striped kitchen.  It's  Wolverine dollhouse, made right here in Arkansas.

It matches the one I got at an auction for $2.00 perfectly.  The smaller pink one on top came from Goodwill for $5.00.  Now you see I have THREE and THREE is an official collection.  Now I just need to find a big sack of vintage Wolverine dollhouse windows at a sale.  How hard could that be?  (ha)

After I put the dollhouse behind the counter and finally found the bathroom, I found a few more things.

A strange folding wooden thing that I have no idea what it is, but it was old, handmade and 50¢, so I grabbed it.  I'll think of a way to re-purpose it.  Also a wooden plaque that will get decoupaged and a funny metal rickshaw sculpture.

A lovely vintage pink and yellow tablecloth.  It's always a good day when I find a tablecloth.

After all that, I still had enough time to hit one more Goodwill.  

A Scrabble game for my booth (the third one in a week), a piece of vintage pottery and a new photo album that was chock full of old photos.

I pulled out all of the old photos and will donate the album back to Goodwill.

I really thought this was as old Bingo Cage or for a raffle drawing.  It spins, it rotates, it could be those things.  But The Bean informed me it is actually a BBQ grill rotisserie basket.  It really sucks to have a smart kid.  That won't stop me from turning it into something else.  If it could fool me, it could surely fool someone else, right?

And lastly, this old metal basket from some sort of a store display.  I think.  The Bean hasn't told me otherwise....... Actually, I know this is an old store display basket and I am sticking to it!

I had a great day thrifting and found lots of great stuff.  The boys enjoyed the movie so it was a win-win situation for everyone.  It's going to be nearly 100 starting tomorrow, so I am not venturing out to any sales this weekend.  

At least, I'm not planning on it.

We'll see.......