Making Good Use

And We're Off ....

Got to the first boot sale of the 2011 season this morning - yay!!  There weren't that many sellers around as yet (the wind was a bit nippy blowing across the fields and I'm not sure I'd have wanted to set up a stall and stand about for hours in it either) but I did manage to find a few good bargains.

 
On the first stall I found two DVDs - 'Walk the Line' and a Peter Kay one.  P was only saying the other evening how he'd like to watch 'Walk the Line' again and perhaps we could borrow it from the library.  Well, it costs £1.50 to borrow it and this one was only £1.00 to buy so that was a good find.  I also got two unused vintage pillowcases in a rather cheery print to make a couple of bags from - they were 50p the pair.

 
A unopened card of vintage plastic girls' hairslides - probably from the late 60s or early 70s - £2.00 and on the same stall I found three more wooden Sylko cotton reels. I hang on to those until I have at least a dozen and then list them on ebay.  They were 30p each, as were the embroidery thread and the gold lurex thread - they're both for me.  Also for me were a small Body Shop Olive shampoo and the same of conditioner.  I don't normally use conditioner on my hair but since I've cut down drastically on my fat intake I've found the ends have got really dry and frizzy.  Not sure if the two things are related or if it's just a coincidence.

 
Finally, for 50p, a vintage Moulinex Mouli Grater - boxed and with three different drums.  I sold a similar item on ebay just before Christmas and it went really well so I thought I'd give this one a try too.

Ah, it was wonderful to be going to a car boot sale again, I've really missed them over the winter.  Plus, it was a great opportunity to stop at the pub on the way home and have one of their delicious Sunday roast carvery meals - very tasty.

I'll link this post to Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday.

Jam Jar Jacket

I've been most taken with Dottie Angel's Gleeful Jam Jars ever since I first saw them on her blog.  Alas, as I'm STILL unable to master even the most basic of crochet stitches I had to think of another way to make a little wooly jam jar jacket.

 
Enter the uber-simple k1 p1 ribbed jam jar jacket gussying up an empty glass coffee jar and making quite a spiffy little vase.  I was pleasantly surprised with how nice the knitted jacket looks on a plain glass jar and I can feel a few more of these coming on - just as soon as I've got a few more empty coffee jars to hand. The daffs that are brightening up several vases round the house at the moment were three bunches for £1.00 from the local farm shop - and very fragrant and cheerful they are too.

Owzthat

I had a good root around in the new junk shop again today.  First up, I spotted a rather fetching pink Craven A tin on a shelf, it was the black cat logo that really sold it to me.  It's not in the best of condition but as I want to use it myself that's no problem.

 
I hadn't realised at first that the tin was full of teeny little bits and bobs - a tiny pack of cards, some dice, a few plastic game pieces and another weeny little tin titled Owzthat.

 
Inside the weeny tin were two heavy metal dice-like objects - turns out its a cricket game, and it sells rather well on ebay.  Luckily for me, the Craven A tin, its contents, a Val McDermid paperback and a small crinoline lady embroidery were only £2.50 altogether.  If the price had been too high I was going to say I'd only have the Craven A tin and not bother with the contents - and then I would have been kicking myself.

On the way out my eye was drawn to a large plastic bag stuffed with old sewing and embroidery bits and bobs, and a wooden embroidery hoop. 

 
The bag had twenty vintage wooden cotton reels - destined for ebay as these are generally pretty good sellers, a dozen or so more modern cotton spools which I'll keep for myself,

 
a couple of packets of vintage bias binding,

 
plus the hoop and embroidery skeins - which are also for me.  There is also another huge pile of 'stuff' in the bag that I haven't investigated as yet.  The whole lot cost me £4.00.  I was very pleased with my haul.

 

The Hours of Work That Must Have Gone Into This

 
This morning, in the local charity shop, I found this beautiful example of hand embroidery, all screwed up in a tatty plastic bag and priced at £1.50.  The stitching is exquisite and the work that must have gone into it is amazing - not to mention the steady hand then needed to start cutting round such delicate embroidery!  

 
Sadly, the tablecloth is a long way from completed and there is no way on earth I could ever attempt to finish it off - even though all the needles, embroidery floss and a large embroidery hoop were included in the bag.  I am hoping though that I can put this beautiful work to some good use somehow - maybe a cusion cover of some sort or something of that ilk.

Mulberry Scarf

 
I finished off my scarf the other day and it's worked out to be just the right length - which is lovely as I did have concerns that I didn't have quite enough wool to make it as long as I'd like.  Although I wouldn't normally spend £15 on wool for a scarf, as I'd bought the Rowan yarn by mistake I thought I might as well put it to good use.  The colour is fabulous - a deep, luscious mulberry purple - which goes rather well with my pink velvet coat that has flashes of pretty-much the exact same shade in the pattern.  Only small problem is that it's so beautifully spring-like and warm at the moment that I can't envisage wearing the scarf anytime soon.  Never mind, it'll keep until next autumn.

YouGov

Finally, after quite a long time and a lot of surveys, I've accumulated enough points (5000) to earn a £50 cheque.  I'm really looking forward to that cheque arriving and my bank account could do with the top-up too.  I have to say I've really enjoyed most of the surveys and am more than happy to carry on and, hopefully, earn another £50 cheque at some point. 

It's quite nice to be able to give my opinions on the government and government policies and the surveys are usually bang up-to-date - today's had questions on Prince Andrew, Public Sector Workers' Pensions, and the government's response to the conflict in Libya.  I don't suppose my opinions will ever have any influence on what the government decides to do or not do but it's nice to be asked - and to earn a bit of dosh into the bargain.  If anyone is interested the registration  address is http://my.yougov.com/register.aspx

Flower Power

Since the discovery of a Marks and Spencer 'Simply Food' located in a large petrol station on the outskirts of Wickford, it has become a bit of a weekly habit to just pop in there to get a few tasty treats.  Their low-fat plain yogurt is wonderful and, at the same price as the one in the Co-op, pretty good value too.  Their whole chickens are from a local Suffolk farm and are not horrible battery-raised cr*p.  Granted, at £6.29 for a small chicken they are nowhere near the 'three chickens for a tenner' offers that you can find in other supermarkets but P and I are a bit fussy about where our meat has come from so we like to pay a bit extra and eat something that has had a reasonably pleasant life.  I try and make the chicken do us for three meals - one roast, one curry and one stir-fry - so it ends up not being too expensive in the end.

The one slight problem is that I never seem to have a bag with me when we end up in M&S and as they quite rightly charge 5p per plastic bag it was getting a bit of an expensive ommission.

 
Yesterday, I made myself another shopping bag upcycled from a vintage pillowcase.  The print is incredibly 1970's flower power - not sure I'd want to sleep on such a pillowcase but it makes a lovely cheerful tote.

I've got one very similar that I keep in the shopping trolley and I'm always amazed just how much I can cram in there and how sturdy the whole thing is.  As they fold up really small when not in use, this one can be stored in the car's glove compartment for when we next happen to be passing M&S and just can't resist calling in, and this time I won't be spending an extra 5p on a plastic bag that I really don't want.

February Buying and Selling Roundup

During February I 'only' spent £31.64 on second-hand items, a slightly lower sum than January - probably because a) February is a shorter month, and b) I was away for five days..  Not quite all of the spends were on items for re-sale as £6.40 of that total went on things for me or P - useful items like three low-fat cookbooks, a large bottle of Charles Worthington Shampoo and a pack of three new socks for P.  So that gives me a total of £25.24 spent on items for re-sale and my total sales on ebay for those items that were any good was £83.24 - giving me a grand profit of £58.00. 

Out of that total profit, I had two really good sales - £30.00 for the rather moth-mauled Aquascutum Scarf found for £1.00 in a local charity shop, and £17.50 for the boxed Crabtree & Evelyn set which I paid £3.00 for in the same charity shop.  Other than those two biggies, there were lots of little profits of £5.00 here and £3.00 there.

I also sold £28.64 worth of books on Amazon at the beginning of February - nothing since, sadly.  There were no Greenmetropolis sales at all in February but, oddly enough - not having sold a thing on there since before Christmas, and mentally threatening to shut the whole account down and get rid of the books - I've sold three books on there in the past 24 hours - weird!!

Monday's Bargains

I hotfooted it to the 'Coffee and Jumble' this morning but sadly the bakelite knitting needle box and its contents had already been sold - b*gger, that'll learn me not to prevaricate!! 

 
Instead I contented myself with buying a beautiful Wallis fake fur coat for £3.00.  It's a large size 10 apparently, although one thing's for sure (or should that be fur sure,) no matter how large a size 10 it is, I wouldn't fit into it!!  It's a beautifully soft coat in the most lovely colour and is plainly of very high quality.  It'll be heading for ebay.

 
In one of the charity shops I bought this pure wool handknitted hat - made in Nepal - for 50p.  I did hope it might fit my bonce-piece but, no, I can't jam it on my enormous head!!  So, that's another one heading for ebay.

 
Also only 50p from the same charity shop was this amazingly patterned gentleman's cravat.  It is pure silk and I'm hoping it will do well on ebay - after I've given it a good iron, that is.

 
Finally, I did find a few things for myself, eight balls of pure wool - some six ply, some chunky - at the princely sum of 25p per ball.  I always pick up 100% wool knitting yarn as you never know when it will come in useful.  Plus, most yarn I find in the charity shops is so acrylic (or even 100% nylon) that it sets my teeth on edge just to touch it.  Yuk!!  I also got a bottle of Lavender handwash for 20p at the 'Coffee and Jumble' which'll come in useful, and at only 20p it was even cheaper than Aldi's handwash.  Plus a copy of Susan Hill's 'The Woman in Black' for 25p as I've never read it and it was being highly recommended on 'My Life in Books' last week.  So, all in all, not a bad little haul for me.

 

Computer Woes and a Lovely Cheese Dish

Many apologies for my absence from the blog - our computer picked up some really nasty virus and was so badly infected that it had to be taken away to be sorted out.  Oh woe was us, we felt quite bereft without t'internet at our fingertips and a big old dusty hole where the computer box had been.  Luckily for us, it was returned swiftly and is now super-duper uber efficient and has extra-tight virus control security. 

I'm afraid the virus was somehow all my fault (although I'm not sure exactly how it happened) as poor old P was not even at home when the problem occured.  And it cost an arm and a leg to sort it all out - what I wouldn't like to do to those idiots who send these viruses out into cyberspace - the swines!!

On a much happier note, my lovely next-door neighbours phoned up yesterday to see if I'd like an old cheese dish they were getting rid of (they know me well enough to know that I'm usually game to take on anything like that.)  I was delighted to have it because despite the fact that I'm no longer eating cheese, I had just been saying how much I'd like a butter dish so that I could keep the butter out of the fridge and therefore make it much easier to spread and to use less of.

 
As if by magic, I've now got a lovely little vintage cheese dish gracing my kitchen side and keeping my butter at a spreadable temperature.  And, quid pro quo, I was able to pass on a copy of this month's 'Country Living' and a recent 'Hello' magazine to my neighbour in return.  We were all happy with the deal.