Thrifting Finds #22!

Wow.  It feels like it was a really busy weekend, when in fact it wasn't.  Maybe I'm just getting old.  Okay, definitely getting old, but you know what I mean.

We managed to cover almost all of our usual stops this weekend.  Didn't get to go to the Salvation Army because it was closed for Labor Day.  I kind of don't like shopping there because of their politics, but apparently, I'll sell out completely for a bargain.  Don't judge.

Yesterday was Half Price day at one of our Goodwills.  Gloriosky, I hope I never walk into that scene again!  The store was mobbed, every single customer had an overflowing cart full of crap, and people were just plain rude.  It was kind of like a summertime version of Black Friday.  Yikes.

Anyway, while I didn't get much at the thrifts, i did manage to pick up a couple of things that made me quite happy.  On with the show.

1.  Tupperware!  Okay, is anyone really surprised here?  I already have this size in lovely Avocado, but I'm really digging this orange.  I'm trying to up my consumption of vegetables and lower my consumption of potato chips at lunch, so I'm using this to tote a buttload of crudites to work.  Why?  Because I'm huge.  Hopefully, there's a wedding in my future, and I'd prefer not to look like a heifer.  Plus, it was only a buck at the Rescue Mission Thrift.  As an aside, this same canister in yellow was $3.00 at the Goodwill just down the street.

2.  Lampshades!  Can you believe it?  I thought I had used up our lampshade mojo, so you can imagine my surprise when I ran across these in the GW on Sunday.  I looked up on the top shelf where the lampshades are and saw what I thought would be a perfect shade for our new lamps.  Too bad there was only one.  Wait a second--it's really two shades stacked together!  I threw my keys at Hubby, said "Hold these" and scaled the display fixture.  Yeah, I have no shame.

Oops.  Wrong picture.  Let me just Photoshop in the other shade:

There.  Better.  Anyway, they were in great shape and only $4.00 each!  There may or may not have been a little happy dance; I'll never tell.  GW staff, in their wisdom, chose to mark the price on these in black indelible marker.  Does nobody have any common sense any more?  Luckily, the base of the shades is plastic and I was able to almost completely remove the price with some acetone.  Sheesh.  Of course, the harps that came with the lamps were far too small so I had to pick up some new ones.  Here's what it looks like in finished form:

You like?  I like.  I also added inline switches to make turning the lamps on and off easier.  So I think I'm done with lamps for a while.  I hope so, anyway.

That's actually it for thrift finds, but I have a couple of other purchases I want to mention.

3.  Slide Projector!  This was actually an eBay purchase.  I had been toying with the possibility of buying some of the slides I keep seeing at the thrifts and basically snooping into other peoples' lives.  Unfortunately, I didn't own a slide projector.  So I was reading the 1961 volume of Consumer Reports (don't judge) and saw the Crestline Model C was highly rated.  I really liked the name "Crestline" so I searched for it on ebay, saw this and won it for my bid of $5.00.  It works beautifully, came in its original box with all paperwork (see the hang tag still attached to the handle?), and even had a tray of slides with it.  Okay, they were kind of boring, but it's a start.

Naturally, I found NO slides at the thrifts this week!  I have a movie projector too, but I don't think I've ever seen home movies at the Goodwill.

4.  Free laptop!  So here's the story behind this.  A while ago, there was a Class Action Suit against EMachines, the computer company.  Something about the floppy drive; I can't remember the details.  Well, I joined the suit, as I had owned an EMachine that was included.  When it finally got settled, they sent people a voucher for $365.00 worth of stuff from a certain website (tablets, laptops, PCs and monitors, mostly refurbs); you could also convert the voucher to cash--$62.50.  So I saw this Gateway laptop on the site, factory refurbished, decent specs and only $300.00.  When I went to order it, I got the notice that any unspent balance on the voucher was forfeited.  Hmm.  That left $65 bucks for me to do something with.  I couldn't find anything around that price.  Bummer.  So I went ahead with the order and when it asked how I wanted it shipped, I automatically checked the cheapest method.  Then I saw that overnight delivery was $38.00, so I figured Sure, why not? So I got my free laptop the next day!  I've only fired it up to make sure it works.  I already have a laptop and a netbook and don't need another one.  I haven't decided whether to save this in case one of the kids needs a computer or to flip it on ebay.  Thoughts?

P.S.  Still haven't put the Eames coat rack on ebay yet because I can't find a box big enough to ship it in!

Linking up with all the deliciousness at Sir Thrift A Lot and The Nifty Thrifty,

Weekend Thrifting Finds #20!

Well kids, the vacation is finally over and it's back to the Salt Mines for your old Uncle Veg.  Naturally, hubs and I spent the last day of our time off scoping out the local thrifts looking for cool stuff.

We found a little.

But first, here's the scorecard for the stores we hit during our time off:

10 Goodwills
2 Salvation Army
1 Savers
1 Rescue Mission Thrift
1 Hospital Thrift
1 St. Vincent's Thrift
1 Name-I-Can't-Remember Thrift
1 Habitat Re-Store

Looking back, I had NO idea there were that many thrift stores around.  Of course, a bunch of them were in Pennsylvania, and a couple were about an hour away, but still.

And you'd think that with that many thrift stores around, we'd have ended up with a lot more than we actually did!  Not that I'm complaining, really.  We did get some good stuff, and with my hoarding tendencies, it's probably best that we keep the purchases to a minimum.

Moving along to what I got:

1.  Tupperware!  This looks familiar,but it's actually a slightly larger size than the one I got here.  Hubs said he couldn't fit his hand in the piece I was using to hold sugar (piece in the back), so I picked up this one.  Goodwill, $3.00

And here's a little mini-rant.  What is up with the Goodwill's prices?  One of them had a nice big Tupperware salad bowl, but it was priced at $6.00.  In retrospect, I guess that's really not outrageous, but it was definitely more than I wanted to pay for a used piece of plastic.  Especially when you consider that I got that beautiful, unused cake carrier for $2.00.

2.  Lamps!  Aren't these awesome?  Well, you'd think so if A) the picture were better and B) the price stickers were off.  A couple of our Goodwills use these price labels that absolutely refuse to come off.  I was soaking these with some Goo Gone when I took the (crappy cellphone) picture.

But back to their awesomeness!  I saw one of these on a high shelf at the Goodwill on Saturday and immediately thought "Ooh, I like that.  Too bad there aren't two of them."  You can imagine my surprise and pleasure when I discovered the mate to the one I saw lurking behind it on the shelf!  Wellsir, it was a matter of a nanosecond before those two beauties were in my hot little hands.  They cleaned up really well with just a bit of soapy water, and the stickers are now gone.  I'm going to live with the colors at the bottom, but I'm toying with the idea of repainting them in shades of blue.  Or maybe keeping some of the brown and adding some orange.  Neither will likely happen because I'm basically lazy.

Ready for the price?  Sit down:  $14.00 for the pair!  I know!  Just like these.

Of course, I still need to find shades, which I think I will probably have to purchase new;  I'm pretty sure we used up our lampshade-finding-mojo when we got these.

Since these lamps are quite narrow, they're slated for our nightstands.  I can't wait!

Oh, and just as an aside, at one of the Salvation Army stores we went to, I spotted the biggest, most beautiful Broyhill Brasilia china cabinet for 200-and-some bucks.  Boy, howdy, if I had a place to keep it, I'd have snapped that sucker up in a heartbeat!  Didn't take a picture, though :(

Linking up with all the fabulousness at Sir Thrift A Lot.

Thrifting finds, 4/7/13

Well, we didn't pick up a whole lot this weekend, but what we got was choice.  On Friday night I asked hubby if he wanted to go thrifting this weekend and his reply was "Of course.  I think I'm having withdrawal!"  This after only one weekend off!  He ended up getting a bunch more glass things on Sunday.

We also tried a new-to-us thrift store called The White Rabbit.  It's run by a hospital auxiliary.  It was nice, but much too frou-frou for us.  It was like one of those thrift stores that's run by the Junior League--very chichi stuff with price tags to match.  The whole second floor (it's in an old house) was clothes, something in which we have zero interest.

I really liked the house it was in, though!  As we walked through, I was mentally arranging the furniture.

So.  On to what we bought.  It was a weekend of coincidences.  I mean, what are the chances--two weeks ago I found a pair of lamps that need shades.  This week I find a pair of shades that need lamps!

1,  Lampshades!  These were unmarked at the Goodwill, so I didn't know what to expect.  I know some places have a rule that if there's no price they can't sell it.  Luckily, the gal at the checkout said "These are usually 3 dollars each" which sounded like a good deal to me!  I like these shades because they're more off-white than pure white.  I tried a pure white shade on one of the lamps and it looked funny.  I don't know why these lamps look kind of greenish; they're really white with beige and gold.  As another coincidence (maybe), I saw similar shades at Lowe's this weekend for 15 bucks a pop which I thought seemed reasonable.  I like the price I paid better!  Still need to get some new harps for the lamps--the nine-incher is a little too short.  I think 11" would work much better.

Hubs and I also decided that these are going to take up too much real estate on our night stands, so they're headed for the den instead.  $3.00 each.

2.  Cookbook!  This is my second Bake-Off cookbook.  There's no date on it but I did a little research and it's from 1960 (a very good year!)  Grand prize winner was Dilly Casserole Bread.  It looks okay, but  a grand prize winner?  Really?  I love the mini-bios they attach to the big winners.  One gal's hobbies include singing in her church choir and dressing bride dolls.  Wouldn't you like to know somebody like that?

The other coincidence of the day was when hubby and I were headed into GW #2.  I remarked that I was looking for a coffee table with a drawer so we have a place to keep various remote controls and whatnot.  Well, damned if we didn't come across one the minute we walked in!  It was almost an exact duplicate of the coffee table we have now (also from the GW), but with that drawer.  Unfortunately, there was a funky spot on the top where I would see it all the time and I think it would have driven my crazy.  Apparently, those Mersman "Party-Proof" tables weren't quite as party-proof as they would like you to believe.  If it were half-price furniture day I would have bought it, but I just didn't feel like spending 20 bucks on a table that would have annoyed me.

In the world of retail (ugh), we also bought new tires for our hand truck.  Do we know how to live, or what?

Linking up with the healthy goodness at Sir Thrift A Lot, The Nifty Thrifty, The Thrifty Groove, and Remnant