A Little Glitter Makes Everything Better!

I am so glad you are liking those shadow boxes, too. I think I need to give them a little more zing at some point which is going to mean paint and glitter. It's how we roll.

And as for those glitter-y tags that I used in the boxes? Those were made several years ago, inspired by Jennifer of Sis Boom who rocks the glitter world. When I was pregnant with Bud, I made thousands of these. Seriously. I was within a month of my due date and could do pretty much nothing else but play with scissors, glue and glitter. And I made thousands of these!
I put them in baskets around the house, gave them to friends, put them all over a tabletop tree and stuck them on packages.
So, so pretty!

Christmas Shadow Boxes

I have so many little teeny tiny Christmas treasures! And here is what I have been doing with them this afternoon...






Aren't they sweet?

Christmas Explosion

So. All decor that has nothing to do with Christmas Decorating has been removed from every room.

And then we bring the Rubbermaid's in that contain all the Christmas Decorations.

I am scared to turn the camera around for you to see the front living room!

Actually, the process of decorating is going well. The outside has been decorated with lights, some huge ornaments hanging from our front yard tree and an adorable Santa and Reindeer set. The tree is up in the front room. The back room is festive. The kids have their holiday decor in each of their rooms. I have a few tasteful decorations on our bedroom dresser. It is so good to see treasured memories out again.

But...there are all those teeny tiny treasures that I am figuring out now. And have been working on this morning. If I get it all done, I will post some pictures later, I promise!

Have you been decorating this weekend as well?

Black Friday Thrift-Style

Christmas bags were out at Goodwill!

$1.50--



And What Was Inside?


$1.50--



And What Was Inside?





$1.50--


And What Was Inside?



$1.00--



And What Was Inside?



This might just be the best $5.50 I have ever spent. Or at least in my "Top Ten"!

Giving A Gift Of Thrift

Since I have been a thrifter for a few years now, I think that most of my friends and family know that I am going to buy them something special, not something cheap or tacky. What I give them is unique. One of a kind. Hard to find. And completely thought out. When I come across pieces that make me think of the people in my life, I buy the piece to gift at Christmas or Birthdays.

In Hubby's family, we have a White Elephant gift exchange with the 6 adults. My niece and nephews have a thing for tshirts that have the names of different schools on them. So my gift was a box of 12 vintage school shirts from the various Sioux City schools that I found at a thrift store for 50 cents each. It was a huge hit.

The gifts I exchange with my Brother and SIL Number One are thrifted as well...they love to look through antique stores and flea markets almost as much as I do! Last year we found an addition to her collections as well as a old gumball machine that we filled with Jelly Belly's (his favorite treat) for him.

I have family and friends who tell me when they see a picture of something that I have shown on the website that they absolutely love. And I am very likely to set that something aside to gift them with later.

But it took me awhile to get to this point.

So I understand that giving thrifted gifts might not be easy for some. I think that we need to ease into that with some gift ideas for you!

There are so many things that can be found in thrift stores that you simply cannot find in retail establishments. You need to spend some more time at this...shopping year round to find a perfect gift as opposed to getting up at 3am on Black Friday and getting your entire list zapped off at once for things that are very likely going to be returned the day after Christmas.

Some ideas to get you started:

--Vintage Books to add to a readers collection
--Fabulous stemware to give to someone who loves wines
--Adding to anyone's collection of simply anything...owls, for instance...
--Wonderful jewelery
--Framed Art
--Quilts, Linens


And as Stan The Elegant Thrifter has said before, a whole lot of the gift is in the presentation of it. You simply must read his book and go to his website to get a shot of inspiration.

To know that somebody found something special and thought of you! Isn't that so much nicer than a bottle of cologne?

Would anyone else like to add anything to the list of ideas?

Christmas At Memory Lane

Holy Moly, I need to take some time at the booth tomorrow to clean it up a bit! Bud and I stopped in today but I didn't have time to do anything than snap a couple of pictures to remember what was in there for later.

As you can see, I have left the glittered lamp in there for the time being. After the large chic Christmas tree sold, I needed some light. So there she stays for the holidays.

I have a full trunk load of cool things to drop off tomorrow and the time to do some rearranging of the things that are staying.



Speaking of Memory Lane, Kathie at My Net Finds emailed me a while back asking to purchase a lovely Fleur-de-lis that she happened to see in one of the pic's from the booth..."Of course!" I said and mailed it off.

So imagine my surprise when this arrived last weekend:




Not only does Kathie purchase from me, she sent a thank you gift! And not only did she send a thank you gift, but it is an OWL! With a SANTA HAT ON IT!

You guys seriously blow me away with your generosity and kindness. And you are teaching me to be a more giving person in return.

Dear Santa

I have been a pretty good girl this year. For the most part.

Can I go HERE? It sounds amazing.

And is it at all possible to get one of THESE?

Selena said cold brewed coffee is the best thing ever. I want one.

I will leave you cookies and milk and carrots for your reindeer.

Love,
Sonya

Nativities

I am seldom able to pass by old Nativities when thrifting.

Those little Shiny Brites always come home with me...It is like I am on a one-woman mission to save them. But since they are small, I always scoop them up.

All Nativities give me a moment of pause, but OH! Those gorgeous Italian versions! I found this a few weeks back at Goodwill and was thrilled to pieces:

A Very Thrifty Christmas

I am thinking...have been thinking...that this might just be the year that most of my gifts are thrifted. Obviously, there are some exceptions to that grand idea when one has wee people in one's house that are hoping for very specific things this holiday season. And of course I will do my part to boost our local economy. Everything in moderation, right? Those retail stores need our dollars as well.

I have been picking up lovely gifts all year as I come across them and think of specific people on our list, mindfully buying, pretty much certain that they will be surprised and truly enjoy their presents.

And I have some grand ideas about a couple gifts that I am making by hand...er, glittering by hand, I mean.

How about you?

Inspiring Blogs: Georgia Peachez

I was sitting at the computer. Downloading some pictures of some thrifty finds I need to post about, returning email and doing some Blog-browsing. Typical nap time activity. And then, I came across it...the blog penned by Suzy of Georgia Peachez!
Time stood still while I was drooling on my keyboard at Suzy's blog, it was so lovely. And the best part of it was her craft-activity of using old ornament boxes! If you have some of those adorable tiny boxes laying around, Suzy will show you what she used to make them...

Imagine taking a couple of these:



And making this:



Click on HERE to go to her post about these.

I am swooning.

If you don't have any old boxes or a desire to craft, do not feel bad, because you can purchase these in her gorgeous Etsy shop by clicking HERE...

Thanks Suzy, for letting me use your pics...and for being a wonderful source of Christmas inspiration!

Giant Bags Of Christmas

This is one of my favorite sights at Goodwill...huge clear bags filled to the brim with Christmas yummies! I can find them often enough throughout the year, but they really come out to play in November and December.

They cost between a dollar and five dollars a bag. This one was $3.




This is the part that makes me giddy: getting home and ripping open the giant bag and unearthing fabulous vintage Christmas.

Here are some things that came out of this one...

A set of 14 vintage Hallmark coasters

A plastic Shiny Brite nativity (still love these and getting quite a collection of them!)

A little knee hugging Elf that needs a good cleaning

An adorable set of nesting snowmen...

A small tree skirt

This was pretty cool...I wasn't sure what it would be in the box

And then thought Ornaments?

And then realized they were to decorate pillar candles!

Not sure what these are, but they are very colorful! I believe one is a camel and one is an elephant. The last one? Truly not sure.

An old plastic tiny reindeer...

And Angel Christmas corsage!


And some Hobby Lobby snowman ornaments.


After I retrieved these goodies out of the bag, I re-tied it to return all the stuff I didn't want and will donate it back again so that somebody else can get all the vintage wreath decorating picks, felt items, kitschy wooden toys, strands of vintage garlands and such.

That was a whole lot of fun for three dollars!

Dime Store Thrift Blog Anniversary Etsy Giveaway!

All the comments went into a basket and this is what Lu drew out:

amanda said...
I ADORE the vintage clown toppers...just what i need as an excuse to make cupcakes!


Those little toppers send me right back to the seventies when I was in grade school...I can still taste those yummy cupcakes. And now you get to make a batch! I can't wait to see pictures. Email me your info at dimestorethrift@aol.com


I just went into the Etsy shop and removed them to package them up and send them your way...Congratulations Amanda! And thanks to everyone who participated, it was fun to see what you all were loving!
Hugs, Sonya
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I can't believe that Dime Store Thrift has been in existence now for nearly a year. The blog-buddies I have made, the people who comment, the folks that email...it is all so good.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for stopping by here each day or when you have some time to blog browse. I am so honored to be on your list of places to visit.

So I am thinking that we need to do a little Blog Anniversary Giveaway, Yes?

We are going to make this one easy. I am not going to make you become a follower (but you can). I am not going to make you post this giveaway on your own blog if you have one (but you are welcome to). And I am not going to make you retweet me on Twitter.

All you need to do to enter this giveaway is leave a comment on this post telling me what you like in my Etsy shop. Just click HERE and that will take you there.

And if you are the randomly selected winner, you get to go into my Etsy shop and pick out a free treasure of your very own. And I will ship that treasure off to you completely free of charge as my way of saying thank you for this past year. (It is an active shop and in the event the item that you were loving sells in the meantime, you can just pick out something else...there are always cool things popping up in the shop, especially this Christmas!)

Winner will be drawn on Thursday morning, November 19th.

And away we go!

Christmas Dominoes

My friend Deb, who owns a booth at Memory Lane as well, is usually there unpacking treasures to display around the same time I am. One day she was on the floor surrounded by Christmas boxes that she had packed away a while ago waiting for the holiday decorating season.

I was trying to rearrange my booth but was distracted by the ohhing and ahhing coming out of her as she removed each item from its paper wrapping.

I might have startled her when she realized standing behind her looking over her head and let out a bit of a shout of glee when I saw these:








After I wrestled her down to the ground I ran to the checkout with my new-found Christmas treasure.

There are so many things I would like to do with these! After we play the actual game with it, of course.

Book Thrift!

Yesterday was a book-kind-of-thrifting day.

I found an old Betsy book:



I love Haywood's illustrations, they are just so perfect for this series of books!
And it cracked me up to see slightly higher in Canada. That sounds a little evasive, don't you think?



And found this Little Golden book that we didn't have yet for my (ahem! I mean Bud's) collection.


And this book...now I am not familiar with the Robin Kane series of books, but there was something about it that reminded me of the old Trixie Beldens. So I picked it up and have it in my to-read pile. Do you know anything about this series?


We often pick up books where we thrift, such a great way to add to collections for a dime to a dollar. And I love the idea someone shared a while back: When we are done reading them and decide not to keep them in our collections, to donate them back!

Thrifters are the coolest people.