The good, the bad, and the hilariously ugly: a tour of our local Salvation Army

I think I might have some sort of thrift-store-sniffing-out ability. It seems that no matter where I am, I can zone in on the closest thrift store. And since I've done so much thrift shopping, I'm usually able to navigate the stores pretty quickly.

On Friday I stopped by the Salvation Army across the street from work. I only had about 20 minutes (lunch hour shopping, anyone?), but I still managed to find some doozies. I came home with two vases, a tea pot, and a navy blue leather belt, but I took photos of of just about anything that caught my eye, good or bad. I was doing it all surreptitiously, too, lest the Salvation Army employees kick me out. (When my sister visited me in NYC one time, she took a photo of the Chanel sign at Bloomingdales, and was promptly told she couldn't do that. The experience scarred me for life. Suck it, Chanel.)

So here's what I found, starting with something that falls squarely into the "good" category:

This chair was on sale for $15, and would be very pretty in my "getting ready" room, a little room upstairs where I have my vanity and dresser. (Photos coming soon!)

The upholstery was really clean and in good shape, which is so rare for upholstered pieces in thrift stores. Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same for the arms:

Isn't that carved detail so pretty? The arms need refinishing, but Pete is a master at stuff like that so I'm confident we could get the chair looking good as new. Why didn't I buy it? Well, I don't really need the chair. It would mostly be a prop, something to look pretty but not get a lot of use. I may go back for it later this week if I'm still thinking about it, we'll see.

By the way, I'm a huge proponent of walking away from something if you're not 100% sure about it. Are you still thinking about it in a few hours, days, or a week? Go back and see how you feel. If it's gone, oh well. If it had really been a can't-live-without-it piece, you would have jumped on it immediately. Just because something is cheap and in good shape doesn't mean you have to haul it home with you. You can always try my tactic: text a photo or two of it to someone you think could use it and try to get them to buy it. Then you can visit it!

Also in the good furniture category was this set of dining chairs:

They reminded me of Thonet chairs. I loved the nail head trim on the seats, but the brown vinyl would need replacing. I'm not in the market for dining chairs, but if I was I would have been really tempted by these.

Rounding the corner, I spotted these bamboo and smoked glass side tables:

They were cool, but really impractical. They sat too low to the ground to be very useful. I thought about getting them for our sun room (they were $10 for the pair), but we were given a bamboo sofa and armchair for that space and I thought it might be bamboo overload.

Lastly, I saw this desk for $55. It was grossly overpriced for the condition it was in - the whole thing needed refinishing and it was missing some of the hardware. But the legs are so cool and the shape is very pretty and classic:

Speaking of ambitious asking prices, It seems like every thrift store has some weirdly overpriced junk. Case in point: this old trunk, with which Craigslist and other thrift stores are flooded:

Sorry so fuzzy. See above re: being frightened of taking photos, and therefore having to move really fast.

They wanted $200 for that thing, on sale! Ridiculous. This particular Salvation Army is not in the best area of town, and judging by the other patrons, anything that costs $200 is going to be sitting there for a long, long time. This was one of the few times that I felt like kind of a jerk for shopping there, like I should leave the cheap merchandise to people who simply can't afford to outfit themselves or their homes any other way.

The gross overpricing didn't stop at furniture, either. Here's a round-up of some of the crap that literally made me exclaim out loud that they were nuts for asking that much:

Yup, you're reading that right. $9 for a serving bowl.

These beauties were $12 and $15, respectively.

$23 for a bizarre, 3D piece of art straight from the 80s.

I really just don't know who is in charge of pricing. It was like going to H&M. You'll pick something up and be shocked by either how cheap or how expensive it is. Their tank tops are like $4 a piece, but a wool-blend skirt is $60? You tell me.

Continuing with the round-ups, here are things I thought were particularly funny or weird. Maybe both.

I believe that is a bread basket made to look like a loaf of bread. It reminded me of the Hamburglar.

Possibly this is a cheese plate thingie? The little pilgrim couple made me laugh. I can't tell if they're fighting or kissing over that cauldron of...?

Need some overstock wallpaper from the 80s? Help yourself. It could be $1 a roll, or $17 a roll. I don't know.

This actually made me kind of sad. These little suede baby booties looked like the kind of thing you'd keep for sentimental reasons.

I thought this pretty mirror with the floral print border would be cute in the guest room. Then I turned it over.

It's a GD music box. It started playing randomly, without provocation, which I find to be immensely creepy.

Tiny raspberry-shaped candle. They had a whole mess of these. Imagine that.

Now for the "I almost bought this but didn't" round-up:

With a new shade I thought this lamp would be gorgeous, but for $10 and nowhere to put it, I left it there. Someone go buy it and display it in your house so I can be friends with it and take it to the movies sometime!

This pretty little faceted dish was only $0.80, but it was plastic and that turned me off.

This metal wall art was $4 and would be kind of cool painted in a bright, solid color, but I didn't love it enough to bother.

And hey, you know what's never happened to me (that I can remember, anyway)? Finding duplicates of stuff I've bought. On Friday I found two!

Dang it! I just bought that very same soap bottle for $2, and I had to dump and wash out all the nasty lotion that came with it. This one was only $0.79 and needed a washing, but was empty.

I just bought the larger version of this frame, too! I got mine for $1, I think. I almost picked up this one but then I remembered that the frame itself is already vaguely tacky and having two of them would just be over the top.

Now, for the junk I actually did buy:

A cute little retro tea pot for the display cabinets in the kitchen. It was $1.59.

BIRDIE! I loved the dramatic colors on this vase and it was a nice big size for $1.99. It has a prominent spot above the fireplace now.

I almost didn't get this tall vase for $2.99, but I'm glad I did. The base is kind of a marbled lighter orange that's really pretty in person.

I didn't get a photo of the belt I got for $1, but it's very cool. Nice soft navy leather with brass hardware. Navy accessories can be challenging to find, and I wear them a lot in the summer.

So all in all, the Salvation Army across the street is exactly like every other thrift store I go to: thoroughly hit-or-miss, with some funny junk thrown in for good measure. I hope you enjoyed this unnecessarily long post and the billions of pictures that accompany it. If I had to come up with a moral of the story, I guess it would be this: not every trip has to yield something super spectacular, and it's perfectly fine to walk away from something even if it's cheap and you can conjure up a use for it. But it is mostly definitely NOT okay to walk away from something with pretty birds on it. NOT OKAY AT ALL.

Have a good Sunday, everyone!

xoxo,

Leigh

My Own Little Art Gallery

I will say this: I know virtually nothing about art. I lived in NYC for six years, and about the only reason I was exposed to fine art is because the illustrious Catherine White invited me to galleries and exhibits, and there was usually a dinner and some booze involved afterwards. So I may not be a connoisseur, but I know what I like and lately I've been lucky enough to find some junk that I find aesthetically pleasing. (By the way, I misspelled "connoisseur" so badly the spellcheck function thought I meant "coniferous." I am definitely not coniferous.)

Here are some common themes that are attractive to me: anything with bright colors, anything with birds, anything brass with a beautiful patina, anything funny or weird, nothing country, nothing with naked people (though I'm not categorically opposed to nakedness) and nothing that even vaguely resembles those creepy Precious Moments figurines. So no big-eyed children paintings or anything like that. Lately I've been especially drawn to anything with an interesting pattern or texture.

I spent a couple of weeks collecting pieces for the gallery wall I knew I wanted in the living room. I'm really happy with the way it's coming along, though of course there is always room for new stuff as I find it. Here's a shot of the whole thing, with my very favorite starburst mirror right in the center:

Yes, I recycled this from my first post. 

It feels pretty balanced to me right now. I was surprised how easily everything came together since I am famous for over-analyzing the fun and creativity right out of a project. It helps to have a husband standing behind you going "yeah, looks great," while holding the drill in his hand, impatiently waiting for you to just make a damn decision.

Side note: hanging stuff on plaster walls is a pain in the REAR. You have to drill pilot holes for everything. This is why everything that's reasonably lightweight gets stuck to the walls with my favorite double-sided tape.

Just for funsies, here are some detail shots of all the pieces, along with stories in which I will tell you exactly when and where I got them and how much I paid. Tackiness at its very finest, I say! But seriously, all the stories are roughly the same: I went thrift shopping alone, with my aunt, or with my sister and got something outrageously cheap.

First up:

I showed you guys this one earlier, but it's just so dang cute I can't help it. I got this for $0.50 at a thrift shop. As my mom is fond of saying (about 10 or 15 times an hour, when she finds a really good deal on a t-shirt), you just can't beat it! Not even if you tried. And boy have I tried.

Getting back to my aforementioned love of birds is this pretty plate I paid a whopping $2 for:

And a close-up of the details:

I love its unusual shape and the little cutout detail near the "stem." My dad really loves this one, which makes me love it even more because I think it's really cute he even cares.

Here's a little tip for hanging stuff when you're cheap and lazy and don't feel like going to the hardware store to buy specialty doo-hickies to hang it: get yourself a hot glue gun and some pop can tabs and glue one or two of those suckers to the back. Bam! Instant, free junk hangers for your wall. I've done this with probably 10 different things in our house and they're awesome.

Next up is a beautiful original watercolor I bought on eBay. I went a little outside my comfort zone and paid $10 for this one. I must have been feeling flush that day:

I got the rustic frame at a thrift store for a dollar. It worked perfectly because I didn't want to use glass in front of the watercolor, even though I probably should. I just love how when you get up close to it you can see the brush strokes and pencil marks and it's very obvious someone did it with their own hands. The artist's name is Evelyn S. Knapp and her pieces pop up on eBay every so often.

Rounding out that little section of the wall is this vintage bird print:

Honestly, this is probably my least favorite piece on the wall, so I would be happy to put something in its place, but it's pretty and I like the colors. The original frame it came in was brown plastic (eek!) so I replaced it with another thrifted frame in silver and gold:

I like how the bands of color mimic the mat that came with the print.

On the other side of the mirror are two little plates I got for $1 each and hung using the pop-can-tab trick:

Aren't they so fun?! They're probably about 5" across so I wanted to keep them paired together so they'd have a little more presence. The colors and details are so pretty:

Just above those hang the botanical prints I got for $2 each:

I got the one on top one Saturday and went back two weeks later and its friend had shown up at the same thrift store! The frames are in really nice shape and they were matted with pretty mats edged in gold. I (along with everyone else on the planet) am having a love affair with botanical prints. They're always so colorful and the lines are really graceful and they lend themselves so nicely to any room or style. They can be traditional, eclectic,  modern... they're the denim jackets of wall art.

On the adjacent wall I've hung up two vintage metal trays with the prettiest engraving:

The pop-can-tab trick worked here too, although I had to use Krazy Glue to secure them; the hot glue wouldn't hold. I love metallics and I think the trays look a little unexpected on the wall. These things are readily available in thrift stores if you're in the market. I've bought several and use them all over the house. Here's a detail shot of the bottom tray:

I just love it. I couldn't for the life of me get a picture of the brass tray without getting horrible reflections, but it has a really nice engraved floral pattern. At $2 each, I think they were definitely worth it.

So that's it! My own little art gallery. It's not perfect, it's not finished, but it is pretty to look at and the pieces make me smile and make our living room a lovely place to be. Certainly no one would mistake any of it for priceless art, but who gives a rip? The great thing about getting everything so cheaply is that when I say "God, I'm bored of that," I can donate it and not feel guilty. I'm just contributing to the circle of thrifting.

That's it, that's my book title: The Circle of Thrifting. You heard it here first.

xoxo,

Leigh

PSA: Smokin' deals at Ann Taylor Loft

I had a big long post with lots of pictures brainstormed in my head today, but we just got home and I am old and tired, so that post will have to wait until tomorrow.

I did want to let local ladies know, however, that Ann Taylor Loft has some really amazing deals right now. I stopped in there after work tonight and got two pairs of pants and a blouse (horrid word) for under $14.00. (Don't judge - the title of my blog is "Mostly Thrifted," not "Everything Thrifted and Nothing Else." That wouldn't be very catchy, now would it?) The pants were $3.88 each and the top was $4.88.

I got these deep green velvet skinny pants I got (mine are not petites, for obvious reasons). They are super comfortable and appropriate for work but still something I'd wear on the weekends with leopard-print flats and a chambray button-down shirt.



I also got these wool pants (fully lined!). I love the candy pink color. They'll be so cute for spring with a navy or black top and colorful ballet flats. They look extraordinarily frumpy in that photo, but they're not in real life, I promise.



Finally, I picked up a moodily printed floral blouse with a crew neck and 3/4 sleeves. Naturally, it's not on the Loft website and the photos I tried to take came out really badly, but it's darn cute! I'm planning to wear it with black skinny jeans and color block ballet flats to my niece's party on Saturday.

So, moral of the story if you click on the links I provided, is to always buy your stuff at the store, because evidently the online prices are way higher, plus you have to pay shipping, plus you can't try anything on and a lot of their sale stuff is final sale. But if you're in the market for cute, cheap pants that aren't jeans, get your sweet arse in there.

Til tomorrow,

Leigh

One more thing...

I am dying to try this project, but I think I'll adapt it to hold taper candles instead of vases. I think black taper candles would look amazing in place of the test tubes. We have a little architectural nook above our fireplace - I'd love to display these in that spot.

Okay, that's all for now. 'Night!

Paper Sample Art for the Kitchen

Wall art is freaking expensive. Even the "cheap," mass-produced stuff from Kohl's and the like is expensive if you have to buy something in multiples to fill a big empty wall. I'm not knocking the ready-made pieces (some of my favorite art in the living room is from Michael's), but when it's possible I'd rather make something myself or thrift it.

Such was the case with this little bit of art I made for the kitchen. "Art" is perhaps too kind a word. I cut up some paper , taped it to some more paper, and stuck the result in some frames. But I chose fun paper! I learned about Papermojo through another blog and spent something like eight days going through their gorgeous selection of marbled and printed papers. The best part is, you can order samples for a fraction of the price of a full sheet. The samples I got were about $0.80 each, with another $1 for shipping all four of them.

The frames I used were from the Dollar Tree, as was the poster board I used to make the "mats." I could have bought mats from Walmart or similar for about $2 each, and I still might, but the poster board was readily available and cost me $0.50.

I took pictures of the process, but seriously, a monkey with a pair of scissors could do this. Start by gittin' yerself the aforementioned scissors, a ruler, some tape and a pencil.

Quickly realize you're an idiot for trying to use dull scissors to get straight cuts, then grab an Exacto knife and a cutting board:

I used the glass from the picture frames as a template and traced them on the poster board with pencil. Once I had my "mats" all traced out, I used the cursed scissors to cut out the 8x10 rectangles, then got my grubby pencil-smudged hands all over the poster board. Try not to do that.

Here's a shot of the frames I used:

They are, as you may have guessed, $1 each at the Dollar Tree. They are the cheapest, flimsiest thing around, but they have a matte gold/brass finish that I really like, and they are $1. It's tough to find multiples of frames in the size you need at a thrift store, and I refuse to pay marked-up Walmart prices for frames of the exact same quality.

I used the Exacto knife, a ruler and the cutting board to cut my paper samples down from 5x8.5 to 5x7 so the fake mats I used wouldn't look so... fake.

Little caveat here: mounting photos, paper samples, whatever, on poster board will definitely not achieve the same finished look as using an actual mat, but if you're cheap and impatient, it will do. Fortunately, I am both.

Once the samples were cut to size, I centered them on the mats, secured them with a loop of tape, and stuck them in the frames. They are NOT perfect, but they're cute and colorful and make the kitchen look happy. Here's the finished product!

Ummm, that's Pete in the lower left-hand corner holding a Tupperware of leftover rice. He was trying to make dinner while I was taking these...

I secured them to the wall using a bit of leftover double-stick foam tape (love that stuff!). I probably should have waited until the oven was not on and the wall wasn't super hot, because when I repositioned a couple of them to make sure they were level, the tape took up some of the paint. Sad sam. But you can't see it, so whatevs, yo.

So that's that! What do you think?

Til next time,

Leigh 

Thrift store haul, ya'll!

Hi everybody! ("Hi, Dr. Nick!" Does anyone else miss The Simpsons? Is that still on?)

Another weekend, another wonderful day of thrift shopping. While I was out running on Saturday morning my Aunt Beth called me and wanted to know if I was up for a quick trip to the thrift store. I immediately obliged.

By the way, I'm brainstorming another post on how to choose and be the ideal thrifting partner. It's not easy, people. My Aunt Beth is super fun to shop with, and the right balance of open-minded and honest, so I don't end up dragging some flea-infested footstool home because it was cheap and "I could reupholster it!"

Anyway, we met up and accidentally spent something like three hours thrift shopping. It can do that to a person. Our local St. Vincent de Paul store had some really cool mid-century modern furniture (a buffet and a hutch in particular caught my eye), but the buffet was sold and the hutch was too expensive for the work I would've had to invest, so I contented myself with some accessories for the house instead.

First up, I found this glamorous picture frame in pristine condition:

It has the coolest mix of metal finishes - copper, gunmetal and brass. I already know what photo I want to put in it, but I'm lazy and haven't done it yet. Also, I don't know how to work our printer. But the frame was worth every bit of the $0.98 I spent on it. 

Next up is this mirror to go over the dresser in the guest room. I wish I'd taken a "before" photo - it was a truly heinous faux wood brown finish. But it was $5 and exactly the right dimensions and I liked the shape, so it came home with me. So far it's gotten a coat of primer and one coat of Rustoleum gloss white oil-based enamel, which we're applying with a brush in the guest room. The basement is still too cold to spray paint. 

Wow. That is a really stunning photo. I am definitely going to be winning some awards for that one. Do you like my janky crack den vinyl shades you can spy in the reflection? That was a Pinterest experiment gone awry. Heads up: if you're going to try the painted roller shades thing, DO NOT CHEAP OUT ON YOUR PAINTERS TAPE. Instead of having nice crisp lines you will have horrible paint bleeds everywhere and it will just make you so mad. 

More on the guest room window treatments in a bit.

Next up are a couple of things I picked up at the basement thrift store on 13th Street. While there I also saw a chair that made my heart stop. It was an acrylic Louis chair, that elusive creature of every shelter blog and magazine in existence  Sadly, it was filthy and beyond scratched up, but I was willing to deal with that if it was $10. They wanted $25. No way, Jose. 

(I know what you're thinking, by the way. "Just save up for a bit and cough up the $125 for the nice new chair that doesn't have scratches and dried gum on it!" But then what happens when I inevitably tire of having a trendy, uncomfortable chair in my living room? I have to sell the damn thing on Craigslist for 10% of what I paid for it. Boo.)

Sooo, where was I? Oh yes, the scary thrift store that I will never go to alone because the owner is a wee creepy. I ended up getting this pretty vintage bowl to hold bananas:

It was $3 and just the right size to replace the slightly wimpier bowl I was shoving bananas into previously. That is a first world problem right there, folks. I needed a bigger bowl for my bananas. 

Here's a shot of some of the pretty detail on the side:

I also got this soap bottle for $2, which is about twice what I should have paid, but I'm such a sucker for the bright colors and fun, almost Swedish pattern. It was a bottle of Avon hand lotion and still had the lotion in it from 1937 or whenever it was made. Freaking nasty. I dumped it out (obviously) and thoroughly cleaned the bottle before filling it with hand soap. It has a happy new home by the kitchen sink.

And because I've learned how to use the macro function on our camera, a close-up shot:

Who could resist that happy bird? Not me.

Hey, speaking of other weird junk you can't resist, I bought this little vintage picnic basket at a vintage store in Kansas City when I was visiting my sister a few weeks ago:

I mean, that's hilarious! And so true. And in case you ever wondered if picnic baskets could be racist:

Yup. Those would be Native Americans hiding in the tree, waiting to pounce on the nattily dressed white lady with the fabulous hat.

Lastly, Saturday's trip also yielded this colorful plastic tray:

I wanted something to corral all of Pete's lotions and potions and colognes so I wouldn't have to move each individual flipping thing every time I dust, and this was $0.50 and so cute. Also, it was stamped "made in Italy" on the bottom, so you know it's fancy.  

Okay, I promise I'm wrapping this up, but before I do, here's a sample of the fabric I'm thinking of buying to make window treatments for the guest room. It's the same pattern as the background in my blog header. I love it that much, but I'm not sure the colors work:

The walls in the guest room are a bright, true yellow but in that bottom photo the color takes on a green tinge. It's not, I promise. And hey, thanks fabric merchant for sending me a sample that contains almost none of the colors and is in fact NOT 4x8 but more like 3x6. You guys are winners. 

That's about it for now, kiddies. I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. There will probably be no thrifting for this girl on Saturday because we have my niece's first birthday party. I can't wait to see her in her little outfit. My sister really went all out and it's going to be so fun! 

Til next time, 

Leigh