Thrifting Saturday

I know from your comments that some of you were motivated by my thrifty decorating tips in yesterday's post but were any of you motivated enough to venture out to the thrift store this weekend? I WAS!

Funny that I got myself all excited, isn't it? Our weather was beautiful today and I needed to pick up a few things at the grocery store anyway, so I thought I'd spend a little time out and about, enjoying the day. Here's my "haul" from two thrift stores--both Goodwill.

I spent approximately $40 and came home with about six bags of "stuff." Where can you go anymore and get six bags of anything for that price?! Not the grocery store, that's for sure!

Thimbleberries' Lynette Jensen has said that if you ever find wooden benches, buy them. I've taken her advice and picked up a couple now. You can see a small burgundy bench there near the back on the right.

Thrift stores are a great place to find cookbooks. They're inexpensive and you can find new recipes to try out. The Boy Child enjoys cooking, so I found a couple for him and a couple for myself. Here's an idea though: If you like to give gifts of food at Christmas, consider picking up a couple cookbooks at the thrift store and baking something from the books--then you can give the food gift along with the book. It would make a terrific gift! (Baskets and table linens, like cloth napkins and placemats, are also reasonably plentiful at thrift stores to dress up your gifts of food.)

Before I went out today, I was emailing back and forth a little with Patti about decorating ideas and I suggested an interesting "decoration" for the kitchen might be a medium sized bowl from the thrift store in neutral or autumn colors with a pumpkin sitting inside the bowl. You can tuck a little leaf garland around the pumpkin to liven it up a bit. Sit an interesting-looking rolling pin next to the bowl. Prop a cookbook behind the bowl, open to a pumpkin pie recipe, or cut one out of a thrifted cookbook and glue it to decorative cardstock and tuck that into the bowl too. So, see what I got at the thrift store? A medium brown and cream bowl and an interesting looking rolling pin! I bet you can guess what I'll probably end up doing with it once the pumpkins are delivered to my local stores!

In that photo, there's also a wooden tray. I have a few vintage Halloween images I've printed from my computer, and I'm thinking about decoupaging them onto the tray. I think that will be a quick craft idea--maybe I'll have that done to show you in the next couple days.

Whatever you spend your Sunday doing, whether it's thrifting, spending time with friends and family, or quilting, I hope you enjoy yourself!