Thrifted for $9.03

I don’t know why, but this little table spoke to me. I originally thought it was a stool, but it had water rings on it that indicated that maybe it was a small table. I just really liked its simple design. I bought it for $5.

I also got another cookbook that I absolutely don’t need for $2. It’s Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book; I’m not sure what year it is (but it looks like the 1950s to me.) I initially got it because I thought it was cute, but once I started reading it, I thought it was really interesting as well. Of course it has tons of recipes (some more relevant to today than others), but it also talks about food planning, canning, table setting, stain removal, as well as other interesting tidbits relating to food.

I love the organization and design of the book. Tabs divide each section so it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. And there’s a list of everything within the section so specific recipes are easier to find.

I like that the recipes are really short—it gives the feeling that it’s simple to do. And I like that the little piggy bank icon that shows you money-saving recipes.

I also like this cut of beef diagram (which is also quite useful).

I thought this calorie section was interesting because it’s so straightforward: food makes fat. I’ve never been a believer in fad diets—they just seem silly to me because they seem like “quick fixes” that will eventually fail. It’s just common sense to eat everything in moderation…it’s not rocket science.

I picked up a pair of gold and green earrings for $2. They’re fairly large earrings (at least for me), but I liked the simplicity of the design and the deep rich pop of green for a statement earring.

Finally I got a silk black and white Vera polka dot scarf for $0.03. It looks like the white polka dots are silkscreened onto the silk (which is why it’s a little crackled looking). I’m not sure what I’ll do with it but it’s cute.

Growing on Gold

I went through many years of only wearing silver (or silver colored) jewelry. I avoided all gold jewelry because it often felt too bright or garish to me. But as time has passed gold has grown on me. Not all golds (like the ultra shiny or off-putting shades of gold that can be especially apparent in costume jewelry) but definitely more golds. I’ve slowly been incorporating gold into my (costume) jewelry collection.

I picked up some gold jewelry while I was thrift shopping and never thought twice about its goldness (as I would have perhaps a year or two ago). There were actually three broaches that I thought were cute, all small, slender and gold, but I chose this one because I really like the pearl as the focal point and the art nouveau style of the flowing lines. I can’t say that I’ve ever really been a broach person, but I think I could use it (at least I rationalized as such when I decided to buy it).

The second gold piece of jewelry I bought were a pair of geometric red earrings. There was another pair of gold guitar pick shaped earrings that used a lovely teal and cobalt blue color that I was tempted to get, but I decided on these earrings because I really like the icicle shape of them. They’re simple and bold and I think they’re really cute.

Gear Up Earrings

When I took apart my watches from my Jar of Junk and realized how tiny all the parts were, I decided to buy some larger gears to use for making jewelry. I still may be able to use the tiny gears from my watches in some way, but for my purposes I wanted gears large enough that you could actually tell that they were gears. With my purchased bag of gears and other watch parts, I decided to make earrings using some of the larger gears.

DIY: Tassel Embroidery Floss Earrings

Embroidery floss comes in a bunch of colors and isn’t terribly expensive (usually under 40 cents for a regular color, more for metallic). I had some embroidery floss and thought I could use it in creating earrings for a simple burst of color.

DIY: Paper Earrings

There are times where you might want or need “disposable” earrings, like a Halloween costume or holiday-related earrings. This is a simple way to create earrings that can be whatever shape you can cut out of paper.