MyLuckyChicken

Thrifty Finds

I've been on vacation this week, and although much of it has been spent trying to entertain one boy while the other is still in school, I did manage to sneak out yesterday and go to my local Goodwill. I don't usually have much luck there and I was actually going to find sweaters to make these, but the sweaters were a little too expensive to tear apart, and I have some ratty ones here I can unravel for free.

So on to the back of the store and the house wears.

My finds...

one sweet little coffee cup. We have several of this set and I think it was one that must have been missed on a pervious visit. The little vintage cups fit perfectly under the Nespresso machine. They are also cute and portable so we bring them to coffee hour after church. My neighbor Claire and I are trying to inspire people to bring their own mugs and stop using styrofoam (so gross). 

 

The plate with the rose is just sweet, and who can't use another serving plate? The set of 5 desert plates below match some serving plates I have from my grandmother. I've never seen the desert plates before so I was quite pleased when I found these...

But now for the pièce de résistance, my holy grail of thrifting...

 

yes, I can hear your ohhh's and ahhh's from here. A flawless (except for a few stains on the fold which will easily soak out) 1940ish, table cloth. The colors are perfect. I think it may have been used once or twice, but no more than that. No holes, no tears, no fading, perfect. 

It was just laying there on a bin of old sheets waiting just for me. 

roadside treasure

Since my sewing machine is dead I have turned my attention to other things.

You may be interested to know that I am particularly good at finding seemingly crappy things on the side of the road (um, in the trash actually, most of the time) that with a little bit of elbow grease could be turned into something quite lovely. So as I am driving home today I hear from the seat beside me, "wait what's that stop, stop, stop now!!". So I guess I can't really take credit for this find, but I did agree to load it into the minivan.

Yes, I do drive a minivan. The first time you try loading a 35 pound child into a car seat while bending over, holding groceries in one hand and balancing a door that wants to close with your foot, you too will go running to the car dealership begging to be shown one with a dvd player. It's true, it will happen. But I digress...

So this lovely little cabinet was being put out onto the street by a darling lady who is moving to smaller quarters.

It was used as a tv cabinet. The back was mostly taken out, so we took out the rest. I plan on replacing it, but I kinda like how the snap dragons show through.

Don't get too attached to the base. The legs were very woogidity and we couldn't save them, plus the veneer was beyond repair. I am very into saving things in their original state if possible and then restoring them, so you can trust that I had no choice. We took the top off and I will be stripping it tomorrow. I don't know if we will repaint, stain, or just tung oil, I suppose it depends on what is underneath.

I've no plans for this little treasure as of yet. I am thinking maybe the hall. There are little holes in the bottom and I could pull the phone cord and a plug through and keep the phones in there. Then maybe I could find them when I go out. That would be good.