Today's Thrift Finds

It snowed today. SNOWED. I know it's Alaska and all, but even we think it's abnormal. Last year we beat the overall snowfall record and this year we have beaten the longest snow cover record.

I needed a thrifty fix to conquer my bad weather blues.

Here's what I conjured up!

PacSun T-shirt, $2; Joe's Jeans, $10

Pocket detail of Joe's Jeans

Vintage beaded cropped cardigan, $2; vintage Worthington herringbone skirt, $2.50

Beading detail 

Abercrombie & Fitch Cardigan, $1.50; Penguin silk top, $1.50

Thrift Find 8

I love Craigslist!

We've been putting the nursery together the last few weeks and I've decided if I were to pick a theme it would be "Vintage Circus." I just love vintage colors like rust, aqua and dandelion yellow. I also don't want an overly cutesy nursery with one or two colors dominating. I want to be able to live in the room and love it too.

I found some vintage Fisher Price toys today on Craiglist. I was surprised they hadn't been scooped up yet, considering the low price. I got the toys as soon as I got off work. I know our boy won't find them useful for a long time, but at least they will look perfect in his room till he's ready to play with them. The woman who sold them to me was really happy they were going to a family that would get more use out of them as her kids did.

I think the toys are from the '60s. One of them has a copyright of 1961. They are in great shape and are ready to be played with!

Tippy clown. Our child will be terrified of clowns!

Putt Putt Plane. Head bobs when it's pulled 

Tractor. The wheels wobble when it's pulled

Musial Chime and Wobble Dog

Pink Champagne Cake -- Again!

Last month I made a cake for a coworker's wedding. Instead of having centerpieces at the reception the couple had friends make cakes for each table. It was a brilliant idea. And it got a lot of my coworkers craving more of my pink champagne cake.

It seems we have a lot of August birthdays around the office, so I decided to make another champagne cake. Instead of using brut style I opted for spumante. It's sweeter and it gave the cake a slightly different flavor.

I also opted for a different kind of icing. I had been making a butter cream cheese frosting, but I decided it was a little heavy so I made a whipped cream/cream cheese frosting. It was fantastic and it used less sugar.

Oh, also I crafted my own cake stand out of a thrift store plate and a porcelain cup.  A glue gun did the trick!

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of butter, softened
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 egg whites
four drops red food coloring
2 cups Champagne

For the frosting:
1, 8 oz. block of cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
one pint of heavy whipping cream
fresh strawberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two cake pans. Line the bottoms with parchment paper.
For the cake, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar for several minutes till fluffy. Mix in the vanilla. Add the egg whites one at a time then mix in the food coloring. Incorporate the flour and champagne in alternating batches of three, starting and ending the flour. This way the champagne won't curdle. Pour into the cake pans and bake for 35 minutes or till a knife runs clean when stuck in the cake.
Let cake cool completely before removing from pans.

For the frosting, whip together the sugar and cream cheese. When fully combined, add the whipping cream and beat till you get stiff peaks. Slice up fresh strawberries for garnish.

Button Quest

I'm in the search for buttons. I've always been a collector -- a collector of stickers, patches, My Little Ponies, stamps, stationery, coins, buttons, pint glasses, Fiestaware, and basically anything shiny I find on the ground. It's hard to keep my collecting habits to a minimum so now I keep them more focused. I no longer collect any old notecard, but only ones I'd actually send to someone. Instead of buying every single piece of Fiestaware I see, I only get ones with minimal scratches and in colors I actually like.

I'd put my button collecting on hold until I started knitting my braided headband. Now I need three 1-inch buttons for each headband. I have a hard time finding good buttons unless I want to spend a bundle of money, by which I mean $1 or more each. I looked at Etsy yesterday and although there were oodles of gorgeous buttons at a reasonable price, they also tacked on shipping charges.

Here comes my brilliant and somewhat wasteful idea...buy thrift store clothes just to collect their buttons.

Puketastic!

Oooh, powder blue suit jacket. No thanks.

But seriously, who would ever wear these garments? That's why for $3 I purchased these hideous pieces of clothing, clipped off the buttons and tossed them.

Yeah!

Garage Sale Find

Ever since my mother-in-law gave us an antique brass bed frame I've been itching to ditch our particle board dresser and put in an antique wooden one. This is more difficult a task than you think. Up in Alaska, good furniture is a rarity. Good furniture at a good price is an oxymoron. People just don't move their furniture up here so there is basically crap. And it's not inexpensive crap. Most couches at the Salvation Army are at least $250 and you're lucky if all the cushions are in tact. Unless you've got $800 to throw on a valuable piece at an antique store, you mainly have to rely on luck.

And luck smiled on me last weekend. I was up in Fairbanks for a wedding and just before the bride walked down the aisle, my mom sent me a photo of an antique mahogany dresser at a garage sale back home in Anchorage. It was $150 and the seller said it was more than 100 years old. She bought it for me and this weekend Stephen moved out the old dresser and moved in the really old dresser.

I just love it. It's everything I wanted in a dresser. Stephen added his manly jewelry box and his vintage stoplight.

He even made a hubby craft! Check out the homemade cork board!

Thrift Finds 5 -- Any Suggestions?

I'm not one to dress like a hipster. In fact, I very much enjoy poking fun at hipster men and women, what with their floppy hats, floral skirts and oxford shoes.

What I'm trying to say is I bought some little oxford shoes for $1.25 at the Salvation Army and I don't know what to do with them.

I don't know how to wear them. I could try and be a hipster poser, I don't mind that at all. I feel seriously funny when I wear them with a skirt above the knee. I don't like how skinny jeans look on me -- I feel like a mom. Capris make me feel short since my legs are already kind of stumpy. Am I not cut out for cute little oxfords? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thrift Finds 4

While in New York last month Stephen and I did a lot of thrifting and antiquing. We found lots of awesome clothes and shoes, but nothing that needed to be blogged about.

While surfing Craigslist last week, I found an ad for a new thrift store. NEW THRIFT STORE. That's my favorite statement. I had to check it out. It's called Yours, Mine and Ours and it's on Arctic and 70th.

It's an odd store. It almost looks like someone emptied his storage unit and put prices on everything. Turns out the owner goes to storage unit auctions and then empties out those units and puts prices on everything.

Lots of grungy clothes, not worth digging through, lots of records and old Martha Stewart magazines. Christmas decorations in June, pawn shop-type gold jewelry, DVD's, and knick-knacks. Great knick-knacks, in fact. Check out this '60s handmade doll furniture. It displays my homemade jewelry perfectly.

Also irresistible was the collection of tins for sale. I managed to pare my selection down to two:

Thrift store score! 

Thrift Finds 3

I flew up to Fairbanks last weekend to visit with my mother-in-law before she moves out of state. While up there, I had to check out the consignment shops. In addition to some $15 Lucky jeans that fit me miraculously well, I picked up this unusual jacket.

I love the color and I think I can pair it with most of my blouses and several pants. It went really well with my Forever 21 ruffle top.

Price? Four dollars.

Oh yeah. I love thriftin'

Thrift Finds 2

My husband and I decided to skip our hometown thrift shops yesterday and drive out to the Matanuska Valley and visit the thrift shops in Palmer and Wasilla. We strolled down the quaint downtown Palmer street after checking out their Bishop's Attic. There I found a couple of cool things.

Boots - $7.50

Sundress - $2

The boots are J.Crew and they are made in Italy. They are suuuuper soft inside. The dress is a girls' XL and I bought it for the fabric. I wasn't sure what I would do with it until we made it to Nugen's Ranch in Wasilla.

Chair - $5

I found this shabby chair and I knew I had to recover the cushion with the dress fabric. That will be today's project besides spring cleaning.

Thrift Finds No.1

In addition to cooking and crafting, my other passion is finding awesome stuff for cheap. I take after my frugal mother. She taught me at a young age that there's nothing wrong with wearing used clothes. When most children hated wearing their older sibling's hand-me-downs, I would be eagerly sitting on my sister's bed as she rifled through her bedroom getting rid of stuff. What can I say? I'm a bit of a scrounger. In my college years I set up a free box in my dorm lounge where people could put things they didn't want. During move-out week that box would turn into a mountain and I would go digging. I would find shelves, lamps, tapestries, Converse All-Stars, tea kettles, and even once a $200 hiking backpack. I furnished my first apartments on mostly thrift-store items.

These days I have a more refined thrifty shopping style. I usually check out the local thrift shops once every couple of weeks and the consignment clothing shop once every three weeks. In the summer I occasionally stop at garage sales after slowly driving by and assessing the type of items.

I've decided to start an ongoing blog column dedicated to my thrifty finds. It isn't just to show off the awesome stuff I find (that's about 90% of the reason), but I'd also like to show people that you don't need a lot of money to look and feel good.

Candy dish - 75 cents
Colorful pot - $3

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when thrift store shopping:

• Keep an ongoing mental list of things you might need. I'm always on the hunt for queen sized sheets, king-sized pillow cases, cool fabric, belts, useful kitchen gadgets, the perfect pair of jeans, good yarn, neat sewing patterns, flute sheet music, fun stationery and books in French. Having a list will give you more of a focus and will help you hone in on the good stuff. 
• Be ready to find something awesome or to find absolutely nothing. There are good thrift store days where you might totally score an old Le Creuset frying pan and a Fiestaware pitcher, but often there just isn't anything good. Thrifting takes a certain level of dedication. You can't expect to find that cowboy shirt with pearlized buttons on your first go. Be patient.
• Don't become a pack rat. Just because you find a good deal on a brand new Target comforter at Salvation Army doesn't mean to have to buy it. Think about how much you actually want and need an item before purchasing it. The last thing you want is a home full of clutter.
• Be sure of quality. Most thrift stores have a zero-returns policy, so if you're in the market for a bigger-ticket item such as a sofa, make sure you inspect what you're thinking of buying. Make sure there are no funky smells coming from it and take a look at the wear and tear. I'm not against buying an avocado velour wingback chair if the cushion has a stain only on one side. I'd just turn over the cushion and call it good. But if there are visible tears in the upholstery, I'd really consider if it's the chair I'm looking for. With clothing, make sure there aren't any holes, stains or missing buttons. Are you really going to replace that missing button on that houndstooth overcoat? 
• There is always room for improvement. Find a sewing desk that would work perfectly in your computer room but the finish is terrible? Consider sanding and painting it. My godmother has made a hobby of refurbishing abandoned wooden furniture on the side of the road. All of her kitchen chairs were originally throwaways. She recovered the seats (very easy to do if you have a staple gun) and painted them all to match. The same goes for clothing. My husband has found several high-quality dress shirts at the thrift store that pretty much fit him, but for very inexpensively he took them to an alterations shop and had them fitted for him. If you have a top-loading washing machine, it's easy to professionally dye clothing (as long as it's made of all-natural materials). I once found a white duvet cover at a garage sale and dyed it purple to make it more interesting.
• Don't forget about Craigslist. If you're looking for something specific, this is always a great place to start. You don't even have to be dressed to shop there! I have found some incredible stuff on this site including a pot-bellied pig! We found our maple expandable dining table and four chairs on Craigslist for $200, our Natuzzi cream leather couch for $700, and our entire modern bedroom set for $300 (valued at over $1,200 when I did the research).

So keep your eyes peeled for my thrifty finds. I'm going out there today and I'll post if I find anything good.

Acrylic paint - 15 cents apiece
Little cactus pot - $1

Thanks for reading.

Nat