I am a huge yard sale fan and always enticed to dig through any free boxes staged at their entrance. Yard sale signs, Yankee Neon signs as I like to call them, have not been spotted for months in our snow-covered New England though. This winter, I put all my faith into the church thrift shops to feed my frugality withdrawal.
Many Saturday mornings since COVID protocols were introduced, my mother and sisters and I have driven to St. Mary’s for a thrifting fix. There is not a lot of stock and the displays certainly don’t change too often but the trips feed our fever to hunt for bargains. The basement store also has a free pile on the way out the door.
While the free items are often mismatched china or baskets made in Taiwan, I found a Japanese favorite on top of the heap last week. Hello Kitty was staring right at me with her ambiguous, blank expression that was saying, “Pick me! Take me home.” My adrenaline soared and I adopted her into my arms. After all, she was on a seemingly brand new Tervis tumbler and I knew the combination would be too much for my little sister to resist:
None of us are ever looking for anything in particular, so it’s not unusual that our finds are often for each other or someone else in the family. Next to the Kitty cup was a piece of Hull pottery I thought I’d float by my husband. The bowl wasn’t the main body of a ship but in my eyes, the main part of a vessel for his candle:
He’d just bought a homemade soy coffee candle from our daughter that I knew could be showcased on the outside. An inverted bowl is a stand for greater things in this life. However, free or not, when I got home the scale of the bowl was too big for his candle. I suppose it was for the best. Hubby doesn’t always appreciate my finds or see alternate uses for the items I drag home. Regardless, I couldn’t admit defeat and used my inverted bowl stand for the $1 monastic creamer I actually bought. The larger scale worked and had a whimsical touch:
Sometimes I think out of the box, or in this case, the bowl. Other times I create from the inside out. That morning I thought inside the wrapper. The third freebie I grabbed wasn’t for the pattern but the tissue paper within:
About a year ago, I stopped using traditional colored tissue paper. My oldest sister and I had taken a trip to southwestern New Hampshire and found the quaintest gift shop that wrapped all their items in old pattern paper. I thought the idea and charm was brilliant. I’ve been doing it ever since and the presentation alone is a great conversation piece:
A couple of gifts, some fun ideas and time with family. Once again we fed our frugal fevers despite a global pandemic. We snuck in and out of the church basement with masks on and made out like bandits. I knew we would; I put my faith in the church to get through hard times.
Ms Toy Whisperer 