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Thrifty dollars bring vintage treasures

Okay, that was my lame attempt at a play on the “April showers bring May flowers” saying…since this post shows a combination of thrifted finds from April and May. Highlights in this batch include: a retro tiki tin, a cool vintage game board for a game called “World Flyers”, vintage children’s books, early Elvis records, some vintage linens and some fun decor for Halloween and some awesome vintage Christmas finds.

Fun story on the standing Santa: I found his plastic white boot and thought it was something that I might be able to do something crafty with…but then, after a few laps around the outlet, I saw a Santa missing one white boot. Apparently, I scored the Santa because he was missing that one white boot that I’d happened to grab.

Thrifted collage

A collage to celebrate Monroe County History as a gift for the departing director of the Monroe County History Center – featuring a copy of the sheet music for “Star Dust” the most famous by Bloomington-born composer, Hoagy Carmichael, some buttons with stars, a vintage buckle and some ribbons, and some stickers…all thrifted…right down to the frame!

Tea Party

My nieces and nephew came down for a spring break visit and we decided to have some tea…the varieties of tea that they picked out from a local tea shop ended up being a very colorful assortment…and they all tasted amazing.

ADPi Collage

…Made this for a Mom’s Weekend fundraiser at my sorority….so much fun to combine images from vintage sewing patterns, vintage sewing supplies, flowers, and ADPi ephemera into a festive, fun collage.

A Very Vintage Valentine’s Day

A while back, I’d found a set of “Get Lucky in Love”- scratch off lottery cards…and I figured valentines day was the perfect time to use them up. I invited friends to send three numbers and then scratched off cards for them and shared the videos. It was a lot of fun…and a also a fun opportunity to share my collection of vintage valentine cards.

The day ended with a delicious Valentine’s Day dinner with my sweetie. Heart shaped doilies adorn the table, along with napkins folded to look like hearts (thanks to instructional videos on You Tube), wooden scrabble pieces spelling out sweet messages, and a few love-themed games.

A super haul

This week’s thrifted finds included some olympic treasures (a set of placemats from 1972) and some very timely decor for tonight’s superbowl game. Can you say “W for the win?!”

For the birds…

Here’s a series of collages that I made for some ornithologists I work with on an NSF project. Each one in the series includes a 3D bird, along with bird images, sheet music (that references birds or things that reminded me of birds, and keys. One also feature a cute bird house I found. All thrifted, right down to the frames…and all very fun to make and give as a gift to celebrate the new year.

Tis the season for thrifted decor

I’ve had lots of fun thrifting for holiday decor throughout the year…and it is always fun to pull it all out and put it on display. My amazing thrifted finds this season also included a blow-up cactus that I was able to use at my community association’s “drive through Santa” event. Also shown are some ofthe ornaments and gifts that I made this year with thrifted finds.