thrifting

I have gone thrifting some in the last 2 weeks and wanted to share with you some of the 

things I have been finding.

This trip consisted of Goodwill, The Salvation Army, and Habitat Restore in down town St. Louis.

I bought a large creme table cloth, a few new white candles, a green Styrofoam 

wreath and some thick thread. Not sure what t is called, twine? It is thicker than thread, but thinner than yarn. Anyone,anyone...

I got a few more clear vases for some of my sweater candle holders and a number of Antique books.

Also2 Pyrex ramekins. I put side dishes or fruit in them all the time for my kids.

This pillow was $.50 and I bought it to use the stuffing out of, but when I got it home I realized it only needed the seam to be sewn back up, so I will just keep it. It is a silk Shantung pillow, just my colors, can't beat that!

I love old Children's books!! This one at Goodwill was $.75.

I got 4 tiles from the Habitat Restore to do a coaster project with and the 

crystal swag for decorating Christmas.

I picked up 4 old ornaments, and a Nancy Drew book for Morgan. I hear she will be getting some of these for Christmas and this one was only $.25 at Goodwill.

I love this ruffled linen shade. I am not crazy about the pearls, and am on the lookout 

for something to replace or cover them with. It is am older shade in perfect condition!

Baskets, baskets, baskets. I love unusual shapes and colors. The large one on the left is a tall apple basket I paid a quarter for at the Habitat Restore, the little red one I couldn't resist for $1with those adorable bells on it and the pale green was also $1.

The glass candle plate and a hurricane will be glued together to make a pedestal. The little flocked tree will go with my tree collection and the red bandanna will be used in Wyatt's cowboy room somehow.

I got these door knob plates at the Habitat Restore for a quarter a piece. I have no idea 

what I will use them for, but I will think of something, I think they are very cool. I also got a flat iron travel case for when i go off site to do hair.

This is what I got this week. The little penguin in the back is my favorite find of the week!! Can't wait to decorate with him. I also bought 2 sets of crystal candle sticks and one tall glass candle stick for a fatter candle. I bought a vintage box of tinsle and an ugly straw wreath I will make into something else.

Also a brand new red candle and a silver stocking holder. 

A few inexpensive ornaments. A glass star, 2 antique ones, one with paint swirled inside 

and a wooden horse one I have big plans for. I bout the basket in the background which is a smaller version of the large apple basket and this one has a handle. I stuffed it full of newspaper and then put in the bag of pine cones I also bought and it will sit on my fireplace hearth. I may dip some in candle wax to use as fire starters for the fireplace.

All in all, a successful 2 weeks of thrifting. I did not break the bank and I am helping out 

with the reuse of all these things that someone grew tired of. 

I also got a wreath with grape leaves and silver bells. Then I picked up the gold bells and one red one for a quarter each. The gold ones wil get prayed with a silver mirror finish spray paint.

I got an elastic ribbon that is usually made for baskets, but I put it on my cable knit sweater 

pillow I made to give it a little more Christmas feel to it.

And lastly I had to grab a few more sweaters, I need more stockings and some pillows, I bought 

the hat to use as embellishments on them. I bought some more inexpensive pillows to use the stuffing out of.The antique hand stitched pillow case will go in my spring pile, to be determined what to do with it later.

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my exquisite evening bag pillow

I wanted to make a little fancier pillow, a more 'girlie' one if you will. Being a lover of Pinterest, I was inspired by all the ruffles and flowers on pillows. So here is my version!

Yes, I am NOT, I repeat NOT a seamstress. So if I can do this, you can do this!

I didn't even have a pattern.

I started out with a wool sweater I picked up at Goodwill for $3. I washed it in very hot water and then dried it for over an hour in order to 'felt' it. I did this because it is a great way to keep your wool from unraveling. Now when I showed this to my husband all finished and pretty, his response was 'I doesn't look very comfortable to lay on'. It held up pretty good when I whacked him with it!

I did not take any photos of me actually making the pillow. I have told in previous posts how to do that and you can see by going here. I did make this one a little differently. There was a zipper in this one, I cut it out and sewed the 2 sides together down the middle. I used that piece for the front of the pillow. I decided I wanted it to look more like a evening bag than a pillow, so instead of the top being sewn straight across, I cut it to a point and finished off the edges, just like the flap of an evening bag.

For the flower in the center I started cutting out large circles, that progressively got smaller, but still kept them pretty random and did them by hand, not using a template or anything. I thin folded the circle in fourths and cut the 2 corners out a little so it would look more like petals. I hot glued them one on top of the other until i had them all done.

I wanted to add some contrast in the center, I tried to glue some of my leftover cable knit to the top of a medicine bottle to use as the center of the flower but that looked too cheese. I remembered I had bought a beautiful antique broach a few weeks ago at a Thrift store and decided it was just the finishing touch the pillow needed.

he flower looked pretty flat though, so I had to come up with an easy way to get the 'petals' to stand up like the photo above. So I used hot glue (soo much quicker than sewing the flower would have taken)

I took an glued a small strip down the center of the petal and pinched it together with my fingers, then used a plastic clip to hold the pinch together until it dried.

I did this very randomly, some every other, some each one, just whatever you think looks right.

See the bottom petals I had not 'pinched'yet. Can you see the difference above?

I then stuffed the pillow with a pillow insert I whipped up and hot glued it shut!

(the Crewel pillow behind it was a Walmart find believe it or not, $14!! It also come in Cranberry)

I love my evening bag pillow! Do you? I am thinking of selling some in my Etsy shop I just opened. I only have one thing for sale in there so far (lame, I know). So my question is, how much to charge for it? The pillow cost me $3 for the sweater and $5 for the broach. What do you think would be a fair price to ask for this pillow and would you love to have one in your home or give as a gift?

Also, If you whip one of these please share with me!!
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