Thrifty Thursday

While we were in Florida, I was amazed at the sight of so many thrift shops. It makes sense, though, all the old people that move down there and then head off to the great beyond, while their earthly belongings head off to the thrift shops. I kid you not, in a 10 mile stretch of road, there were more than 10 thrift shops, ranging from the huge nationally known stores to the smaller, more personal shops to the strictly children's items only stores. We asked my Sister to be our guide at which were the better shops and we spent a day thrifting. If I lived there, I'd be making the rounds daily and keeping some for me and selling the rest on eBay. Prices were reasonable and if we had a bigger car, we would have bought a lot more!

There was a thrift shop 2 blocks away from my Dad's place. We never stopped there until the morning we were to head to South Carolina. The minute I walked in, I was sorry we didn't go in earlier! Hubby was going to wait in the car with the kids and I knew he'd be waiting a long time, so I went back out to grab him and the girls. I found this great blanket (below) in there and it is just my style! It says it is a twin size but it's so over sized that I think I could make it fit on our bed. If it doesn't, I'll grudgingly put it on one of the girl's bed. It's not a patchwork quilt, only looks like one, but it is quilted and heavy!


I also picked up these vintage sheets (below) from the same shop. They had a great linens section and everything was sorted by size and usage, IE: twin fitted on one shelf and twin flat on another. They were all folded and then taped and it was easy to spot the vintage flower sheets I love so much. There is nothing worse than going to a shop and all the linens are in a mess and I have to dig through to find something and then figure out what size it is, too. I was very impressed with this shop and I wish there was one like it closer to me!


At other shops, we picked up some various items to re-sell on eBay. I don't know if I can part with the green dogwood melamine plates, though. They're so cute! We grew up on melamine plates and I remember eating off a ceramic plate for the first time and the scrape of a knife on the plate sent chills up my hand. Much the way fingernails on a chalkboard would do it for you hearing people, the feel of a knife scraping on a plate gets to me. I also found a great old set of 10 books titled "Science Experiences for Young Children". Each book devotes experiments to wheels, colors, air, pets and so on. Only $1.95! I can see us using them for home schooling lessons!

Like I said, if we had a bigger car, we would have come home with wayyyyy more stuff. I'm happy living here in the mountains, but man! I sure wish we had as many thrift shops up here as there were down there. I would turn it into a living, making daily visits to all the shops and then selling my finds on eBay. I know there are people out there that do it for a living, and I am trying to do it, too. If I can't open up my own place, this would be the next best thing.