Making Good Use

Bargain Find of the Day Award Goes to:

 
My Mum for finding a brand-new sleeveless summer top in the local Salvation Army charity shop for £2.50 which had the original £55.00 price label still attached.   It's a very nice top but hardly worth £55.00, I wonder who decided to get rid of an item that had cost such a lot and which they had never worn.

 

 
I had to content myself with this box of vintage embroidery cottons - bought as much for the graphics on the lid as for the contents inside -  £1.40.

 

 
And two sewing patterns - both intended for re-sale on ebay - 20p each.

 
I also bought myself another M&S summer skirt - which means I now have a grand total of two summer skirts.  This one was £3.99 from British Heart Foundation and I really like the graphic rose print on it and the fact that it is 55% linen.  Plus I've got a black vest top at home that will just go perfectly with it.  Now we just need some summery weather in which to wear it.

I've linked this post to Apron Thrift Girl's  Thrift Share Monday and Me and My Shadow's Magpie Monday.

Dish Cloth Swap

A few weeks ago I signed up for a knitted dish cloth swap over at Down to Earth.  It was just my sort of swap as I do love a knitted dish cloth for doing the washing up with.  I was really lucky to have Jen from The Woollen Earth as my swap partner.  Jen lives in Nova Scotia and has an online speciality yarn store and also designs her own knitting patterns, a very talented lady.

 
Anyway, this morning a parcel arrived all the way from Canade and in it was the most deliciously soft 'Ecoknit' organic cotton dish cloth in a beautiful light-khaki tone (Jen says this is the natural cotton colour) plus a whole skein of this beautiful yarn for me to knit something with too.  Jen also inclued a family recipe for Coffee Bars - they sound very tasty - and a Nova Scotian made maple syrup candy (which was popped in my mouth before I even thought about including it in the photo, and exceedingly yummy it was too.)  Thank you so much for the parcel, Jen, I'm thrilled with it all.

I'll hold fire with showing you what I sent Jen as she's not received the parcel as yet.  I'm off to Bristol tomorrow for 10 days where highlights will include a certain young nephew's birthday, plus Mum and I are hoping to visit the Vintage and Handmade Textile Fair on 4th June too.

Yet More Vintage Crochet Patterns

I couldn't resist having another flick through the many many vintage crochet patterns that have appeared in a local charity shop - somebody must have been a really prolific crocheter in the late 1960s / early 1970s.  I was somewhat more restrained this time and only came away with half-a-dozen.

 
A crochet swimming cossie and beach cover up (oddly enough, these sorts of crochet patterns seem to be good sellers on ebay at the moment) and a crochet bolero, wrap skirt and pants pattern (modelled, I'm pretty sure, by the model who is now Michael Caine's wife.)  And I love the mini dress pattern with matching crocheted headscarf.

 
Another crocheted swimwear set, a rather nice crocheted lace collars and cuffs set, and a crochet suit modelled by the ever-youthful Twiggy.  The patterns were only 20p each this time and are all destined for ebay sooner or later.

 
At this morning's 'Coffee and Jumble' I couldn't resist this little garden / beach boule set.  The balls are painted wood with a nice weight and I thought for 50p this might make a good game for entertaining my nephew with when he is visiting. 

Boot Sale Finds

Earlier in the weekend it looked like the boot sales today would be halted by rain but, as always seems to happen, the rain never actually got as far as Essex.  We could badly badly do with rain at the moment though as the grass is brown and the earth is cracking open.  We have had the odd light shower these past couple of days but nothing worth speaking about at all.  A really sustained and heavy downpour would be marvellous - providing it's not on a Sunday morning, of course.  Anyway, no rain arrived and the boot sale was on as usual - despite it being exceedingly windy, yet again.

 
First find of the morning was a brand-new Monsoon girl's bag with a Russian doll motif on the front.   I paid 75p for it and will put it away and list it on ebay later in the year.

 
Two bottles of some very fancy-pants organic shampoo - 50p per bottle.  I know it is meant to be for children but I can't see why it won't be equally as nice on mine and P's bonce pieces.  The seller had a box-load of organic ungents of all descriptions and now I'm slightly regretting that I didn't buy a few more items.  Never mind, maybe they'll be there again in a few weeks.

 

 

 
A few unused vintage Irish linen tea towels - 25p each.  For ebay.

 
A Ruth Rendell that I have read before but which I don't have a copy of at the moment - 30p.

 
Two Lego Bionicles sets for my nephew.  I was assured that they're both complete but at 20p each I'm not so sure.  Never mind, they'll do for spares if nothing else.

 
Three sets of vintage salt and pepper sets.  The seller had a couple of boxes full of these types of  sets - presumably someone had been a keen collector at some point - but these three were the only ones that really took my fancy.  The owls are plastic and the little people set are painted wood. They were 20p per pair.

I'll link this post to Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday and Me and My Shadow's Magpie Monday.

Crochet A Go Go

 
I went back to the charity shop this morning and picked out twenty crochet patterns (actually, that's a lie, it was 19 crochet patterns and one knitting pattern.)  I had a hard job deciding which ones to buy and which to leave behind - hopefully, they'll still be there another day.

 
This time I mainly concentrated on the crochet mini dress patterns as these seem to be pretty popular on ebay.  But there were plenty of other types to choose from too, including a scary-looking crochet swimsuit - wonder how that would stand up to immersion in water? - some crocheted coats and more traditional crochet picot edgings.

 
I also picked up two granny square-based patterns as granny square crochet seems to be very popular at the moment.

 
I also coudn't resist this incredibly old knitting pattern, I'm guessing it dates from the 1930s.  There is something wonderfully evocative about pre-war knitting designs.  The patterns were 25p each and they're all heading for ebay eventually.

Vintage Tootal Scarf

I always keep an eye out for vintage Tootal scarves as they seem to be perenially good sellers on ebay.  Often they have been 'got at' by moths or, if they've got a wool backing to the silky material, have been washed incorrectly and have got all shrunken and mis-shaped.  Having managed to ruin a few of these scarves by mis-washing them myself in the past, I now always list them without trying to launder them first. 

Years ago these sorts of scarves were two-a-penny at jumble sales (or so it seems) and I always bought them up and would sell them on again to a second-hand clothes dealer in the Bartlett Street Antiques Market in Bath.  The Antiques Market was a fantastic place which I used to love mooching around when I lived in Bath - that and the one at the start of Walcot Street that used to be held on Saturdays.

 

Anyway, I was most pleased to find this Tootal scarf in the local charity shop yesterday for the princely sum of 65p.  It appears to be in excellent condition and has possibly never been worn at all.  It could do with a launder to freshen it up but I'll let whoever buys in from me have the pleasure of that task!!

In the same charity shop there were loads and loads of crochet patterns from the 1960s and early 1970s, including a couple for crocheted hot pants (by gum, you'd have to be careful what knickers you were wearing under a pair of those!)  I don't really know much about vintage crochet patterns - except that I find a lot less of them than I do vintage knitting patterns - so I left them where they were and thought I'd do a bit of ebay research before I decided whether to buy them or not.  Turns out crocheted mini dress patterns sell pretty well - one even sold for the somewhat ludicrous sum of £21.00!!  Needless to say, I'll be back down there tomorrow to see how many crochet mini dress patterns are still on the shelf.

Free Lego With The Sun This Week

Probably everyone else out there knows about the free Lego kits with The Sun every day this week, I managed to come across the offer by accident when I was in WH Smith on Monday - ironically, buying some Lego for my nephew's birthday next week.  However, if, like me, the whole offer has passed you by so far and if, like me, there is a Lego-mad small person in your family, you can collect a free Lego kit every day this week (including Saturday and Sunday - with the News of the Screws) from WH Smith or Toys 'R' Us.

 
I've only managed to get two of the three available so far - a mini Black Pearl model from 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and some rather unpleasant looking skeleton-ninja-helicopter-thingy - which I'm sure my nephew will love.  Makes me wonder if they ever make 'nice' Lego kits for little girls?

Feeding My Reading Habit as Cheaply as Possible

I love reading and always have a book on the go.  I couldn't imagine getting to sleep without reading a few pages (or even chapters) before I drop off, a habit my Mum, me and my sister all share - and we're all voracious readers.  Personally, I do enjoy a good thriller and lately I've been so low on new reading matter that I've been going through my (large) stock of Ruth Rendells' again - not that there's anything wrong in reading books over and over but I've been longing to find something new to grab my attention.

 
These past few days I've managed to buy four new (or new to me) thrillers for very little expenditure.  The top book by Yrsa Sigurdardottir I 'bought' new on Amazon.  Well, I say 'bought' but I used a £10 Amazon voucher which I'd earned from doing online surveys at Valued Opinions and as the book was only £4.40, with free P&P, I've still got £5.60 credited to my Amazon account.  I knew I'd be most unlikely to find books by 'Iceland's answer to Stiegg Larson' (strange comparison as a) she's a female writer and b) her crime books are nothing like 'The Girl Who....' series) in a charity shop or even in the local library so I went ahead and bought it.   Likewise with the Ruth Rendell book 'Master of the Moor', I've never come across this book in a charity shop or at a boot sale and although I have read it before, many many years ago, I really fancied reading it again so lashed out from my Greenmetropolis earnings and bought it from there.

The Karin Slaughter was a lucky find for 25p at yesterday's 'Coffee & Jumble.'  I'm not usually that keen on American crime writers but Karin Slaughter (what a wonderful name for a writer of gruesome murder stories), Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs I make an exception for.  The Val McDermid book was 50p from the charity shop.  I used to enjoy 'Wire in the Blood' on TV but hadn't read any of her books until quite recently - they're excellent tales.  So that's me sorted with bedtime reading for a little while and with very little monetary outlay.  And, yes, I know I could go to the library and borrow books for free but they never seem to have what I'm looking for in the way of fiction - although their non-fiction books, especially the craft books, are excellent.

Bargains from a Chilly Sunday Boot Sale

There's a really cold and nagging wind blowing across SE Essex today and that, coupled with the fact that there is no sun either, made it a rather chilly boot sale this morning.  Despite the weather, there were a lot of sellers and buyers out and about.  I managed to come back with a few good finds.

 
A boxed vintage Prestige bread board and bread knife - £1.00.  This very much reminds me of the bread board my Mum's got (which was a wedding present) and this one must come from much the same era as it says on the side of the box 'subject to fixed re-sale price when sold in the UK after February 1964.' 

 
The box is a bit dusty and torn but the board is unused.  Not sure whether to keep this or try it on ebay.

 
Also from the same seller, four vintage tupperware beakers in really gorgeous retro pastel colours.  Sadly, there is only one lid amongst them but at only 50p for the lot I was happy to take a punt on them for re-sale.

 
Another four embroidery hoops for me - 50p the lot.  I'm hoping when we're finally settled in our own home that I'll actually have my own office / craft room and I'm planning on using these hoops to frame fabrics I particularly like and hang them up like pictures.

 
A vintage men's crushed velvet waistcoat - £1.00.  Bought with the hopes that it'll be good for ebay but I'm not entirely sure that it was a good move.

 
The usual range of toiletries for me - a part-used humungous bottle of Bed Head shampoo - 10p, Estee Lauder and Givenchy shower gels - 10p each, Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner - 50p each.  Plus I found (yet) another pair of jeans for 50p, an Evans jumper, also 50p, and an Evans smartish top for £1.00 - all for me.

I'll link this post to Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday and Me and My Shadow's Magpie Monday.

Buying and Selling in April

I'd totally forgotten to add up my buying and selling totals for April until today.  I'd spent quite a whopping (for me) £62.97 on buying second-hand items, of which £26.14 was for me.  The rise in spending can pretty much be put down to the car boot sales starting up again.  During the boot sale season I can usually find enough toiletries - shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, moisturiser - to see me through the whole year without having to buy anything from shops.  Also, I've been on the look-out for clothes to fit my (slightly) smaller figure and have been quite successful with that mission so far.  £7.00 of the total spend for me also went on buying two brand-new 4-packs of Sloggi knickers (found in a charity shop in Southend) which if I'd bought them from Evans would have cost me approx. £50.00!!!!

So, I spent £36.83 on items for re-sale and sold some of them for £171.86, giving a profit of £135.03.  A result which I'm very pleased with.  Best re-sale buys of the month were the vintage sunglasses featured in this post which I paid 50p for and sold them for £31.50, several lots of Laura Ashley fabric and curtain finds which have sold very well and two pairs of Dorma Country Diary curtains (one pair from the mega Scout jumble sale in Bristol and one pair found in the local junk shop) the pair from the jumble sale sold for £33.00, the ones from the junk shop for £23.00!!  I shall certainly be on the look-out for any more Country Diary items on thrifting forays in the future.