What is a monkeybox?

When I was a little girl, we had a pet monkey named Amanda. My Dad worked in the produce business, so each night he brought home that days culls in a big box - spotty cucumbers, pithy apples, limp celery, moldy oranges and the like. We called it a monkeybox. It was really just trash, but my Mom would take each piece of fruit and trim it, pare it and cut it up to make a beautiful fruit platter for Amanda. Even though it was deemed trash by one, it still had life left in it and was good for the purpose we needed it. That's how I live my life - thrifting, yard saling, looking for another's trash to be my treasure.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Thrifting on Thursday

I made a run to the Super Cheap Thrift this morning. When I got there, a family had set up a big sale in the lot next to it . We also ended up hitting one yard sale and another thrift in town on the way home. I found a lot of neat things that I failed to photograph, including a roll of gift wrap that looks like it is covered in old cigar labels in the free bin, an old beat up chippy green chair for $1.00 that is in the side yard holding an old watering can as we speak (and getting poured on!), a huge old seagrass basket for $1.50 and a wee little miniature seagrass basket for 25¢.

A nice old dictionary from 1966 for 50¢. (Hey! That's not old!) Actually, it's a reprint from 1933 and has the old graphics and definitions. I bought it to cut apart and add to Ephemera Packs and to use in my own crafts, but I really do not know if I can cut up a book. It's against everything my Mama taught me! The 25¢ flash cards are pretty new, but I think they could still be used in Ephemera packs. The tin Halloween horn came out of a FREE box at a sale that had little worth even buying but the good stuff was in the free box. I got a small cut glass sherbet dish, an old tin thermometer and the Halloween horn out of their free box.

This is what I did buy at the sale with the FREE box - five flower pins. I would never wear them, but they are bright and cheery and happy and everyone else in Blogland buys them so I did too. What a follower! They were $1.00 each and they are all marked W. Germany on the backs. I appreciated the Patriotic-ness of the red, white and blue flowers (The white with red polka dots also has blue polka dots, they just didn't show up in the picture).

I bought this at a thrift that I rarely go to because they usually price 85% of their items $8.00. I'm not kidding. Everything is pretty much $8.00. It drives me nuts. You can't just willy-nilly grab things at $8.00 a pop. This lovely Haeger mattte white planter was in the "Antique" section, so I assumed I wouldn't be able to afford it. But, it was only priced $3.00 (which is still more than I normally pay). I think they had it priced low because it was insanely dirty and covered in melted candle wax. But, it cleaned up beautifully.
This very heavy unique planter was 55¢ at the S.C.T. (I justified buying the $3.00 one since I had only paid 55¢ for this one.) I show my Matte White Pottery collection, but what you don't know is that I have a very large collection of other colored pottery too. I need to made a decision on what I want to keep and what I want to sell soon. But, I love it all!!!! (The white stays HERE.)
This cool old chrome wall mounter Kleenex cover was in the FREE box at the S.C.T. It has some minor rust on it, but an S.O.S. Pad cleaned it right up. Our bathroom has all chrome fixtures and I think this would be neat on the side of the vanity with Kleenex in it.
This is one of my faves of the day. It is a hat box, but it is a miniature hat box and if I had any common sense, I would have put something in the photo for scale. Der. It is only about 4" across and 3" tall. I don't have a clue why there would have been a miniature hat box, but there it is.
These are actually reproduction postcards - but I got 17 of them multiples of each one shown - for 55¢ total. More Ephemera Pack* fodder and items for my crafts. *Note to my Mom - call me an I will tell you what an Ephemera Pack is...And, Happy Anniversary!)

Hope everyone has a safe and fun 4th of July. Not much planned around here. There is a chance of rain most of the day and it is storming right now, so I don't expect much in the way of outdoors activities. Saturday our little town has Freedom Fest, so we will go to that and watch the fireworks. The Bean wants to go buy fireworks, but I hate those things. So dangerous and such a waste of money. (I sound like an old grumpy man.) He really only likes tame things like parachutes, snakes, colored sparklers and a few shoot-y things. I'll probably just give him $10.00 and let him make the choices. He's a good bargain hunter.
Speaking of bargain hunting, I took The Bean to Toys R Us today to do a little shopping. We gave him $100.00 from our stimulus check and he thought he wanted to buy the new Nintendo DS Guitar Hero. Luckily, they had one on display to try out. He tried it and didn't like it. So, that saved up $50.00. He shopped around and found this huge obnoxious NSECT remote controlled dart shooting insect-y thing that was $100.00. It was $69.99 on the shelf, but scanned at $49.99 and I had a coupon for $10.00 off so, he got that $100.00 thing for $39.99. That's my boy. The bargain hunter. *Tears*
STAY SAFE!!!

6 comments:

  1. I laughed at the "everybody else in Blogland buys them" comment - I've been doing the same thing! Like I needed more. That Halloween tin horn has got to be the find of the year. My love for Halloween knows no bounds, nor does my love for free stuff. Have a great 4th!

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  2. GO FREE BOX!! LOVE-LOVE-LOVE the Halloween horn! ...and the pins (drool...) ...and the Haeger ...and ...And ...AND!!!

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  3. Anonymous8:16 AM

    Superb! I like the pottery and the post cards and the kleenex box and the ... well everything!

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  4. I just love those pins. I don't wear pins either but I keep buying them when I see them. I have sooo many things that either need to make it to Etsy or Ebay but sometimes I just can't give them up. I love the comment about everyone else is buying them, I have so much stuff because of that :)!

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  5. You are my thrifting hero! But I think you knew that already. Your flower pins are fabulous! I found one for my collection that I paid $4 for! Ack! But I loved it and had to have it so no complaints really. (okay well some . . . lol)

    Seriously, send me that good thrifting mojo! I wish we had sales like that around here (talking about the biggie you went to where I would have fought with you over boxes LOL) but no such luck. I am heading up to the CT flea this weekend though, you've inspired me!!!!

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  6. love that kleenex box cover!

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