The lost art of thrifting...

...well it seems to be a lost art for me at the moment. So far In the last two weeks Ive visited 2 boot sales and numerous charity shops and there is not a sausage to be found. Seriously dire situation in my town on the whole vintage front.  I even took it upon myself to visit some out of town chazza shops but my god the prices in there were enough to send anyone running to the nearest Primark just to see something labelled at £1.  I can not see how they could justify selling tatty faux leather handbags for £29.99 and even worse those little plastic tote bags you get free with magazines for £15!

The only thing I have seen which I was strangely drawn to was this old weighing scale:

Marked up at £25.  It was huge, I could easily fit my son on there with room to spare. I did go back in the shop a couple of days later to drop off some donations and the scale has gone - someone obviously liked it as much as i did.

Now never let it be said that there are some things you will never find in a charity shop as I'm sure at one time of another they will find their way through the stock room sorters hands and onto the shelf. In my time i have seen many a funny item including a Battery Operated "back" massager (yes this is what it was labelled up as) - I only wished I had been witness to seeing the silver haired stock room ladies trying to work out what it was for!  Last weeks surprise charity shop item was:

Tampax! The charity shop really is a one stop shop for all.  And I know you are all eyeing up the delightful wooden tea light holder, silver wine rack and stunt kite, what more could you want ;o)

Although there are no booty buys this week, I did get to enjoy the usual delights of the human race. Its been long overdue....

Witnessed at a Boot Sale

A very large woman on a mobility scooter complaining how no one was moving out the way for her to get through, "Its not like i can bloody walk like the rest of these, is it?", so you can imagine my amusement at witnessing this poor woman who cant walk suddenly leap up from the scooter and hot foot it across the tarmac to a stall advertising a 'Fill a bag for £1'.

Male Customer : "How much for the face cream love?"
Stallholder: "£1.50, its a brand new moisturiser which we've not opened".
The man then opens the lid and sticks his little finger in the pot, then puts it back on the stall and walks away.

A young man running a stall talking on his mobile "I really hope she don't go into labour today... I got to sell all this crap so I can get some funds to buy the beers mate, and I promised Barry a game of pool...yeah not got time to get up the hospital, things to do..."

Happy Friday all! Hope you all have a fabulous weekend and may there be no snow troubles.

Big Love

Sunday Finds

Hello again my lovelies. How was every one's weekend?  Mine was a bit of a mixed bag. I had high expectations of bargain successes when I saw another jumble advertised in the paper for Saturday. I turned up (along with about 30 other people) to find that the hall was closed up and not a peep of jumble anywhere.  I did think it was a bit off doing this as a couple of frail ladies with walking frames had set out from their homes and walked all the way to the hall expecting a bit of bargain hunting and a cup of tea, they looked as disappointed as I did.

So it was up to the boot sale today to make up for Saturday. The sun was out and so were the cars of sellers but alas it was the same old rubbish from the last few weeks.  I only picked up a few bits so thought I'd show you them in with my buys from last week too.

So here's the booty:

 Stratton compact complete with original compact pouch - £2. The seller also had this compact:

 which she gave for for free when I said I collected them - bonus!

 I found this rather unusual loose powder compact in a pile of junk on a stall. It still has original powder inside so needs a bit of a clean up but it was 30p!! One of the cheapest I've found (except for the free one above).

Now for something that always finds me...

 ...vintage playing cards! I cant seem to stop buying them, my reasoning is that I will do something crafty with them in the future.

Look how great these vintage cars cards are. 

 I also found this vintage 'Counties of England' game. The pack seems to be all the southern counties and my nearest town in the pack being Reading.

And while showing card games - hows about happy families flower style!  Full of beautiful illustrations, however not sure the males in my household will be queueing up to play it.  All the card packs were 50p each and not all from the same seller, so the cards are certainly following me.

I rarely find smellies at my local boot sales, if i do they tend to be half used and crusty round the edges, but this little set was brand spanking new:

 Ideal travel size for throwing in a bag for a weekend away and at 50p it would have been rude not to buy this little set.

Now for a bit of glass:

 Lovely large glass bonbon dish.  Was covered in muck when I picked it out of the box but its cleaned up a treat.  Most impressed with this one and ideal for the Christmas sweet treats (yes I did just mention the 'C' word!).

While we are on the theme of edibles, hows about this vintage styled cheese dish:

I don't eat cheese myself (cant stand the taste of it) but live with a household of cheese eaters so this will be used over the festive buffet season.

Now a rockabilly girl loves her jeans and a belt is the finishing touch so I love this:

 Dragonfly belt buckle.  A complete bargain at 50p.

I also have an eye for the pretty little things:

 Vintage engraved pill pot.  I love the detail around the edge and on the base:

I found it on a rather antique looking stall which looked expensive so I was very surprised when they said they wanted 50p for it.

And for a bit of fun, I cant resist novelty plasters. Yes I am the person who will have a hello kitty plaster on her finger after a paper cut.  So I love these cowboy plasters:

 Yee haa! And yes they really are Texas size ;o).  The seller bought them back from America on her last holiday but never got round to using them. I know this to be a fact as when I got home and pulled the plasters out looking for the free cowboy toy....

....I found $6 in the bottom of the tin!  If you are interested the free toy was a miniature cowboy hat that had "choking hazard" written all over it ;o)

So that two weeks of boot sale finds, how about a bit of:

Witnessed at a Boot Sale

A stall full of manky soft toys all of which had their own cardboard label around their neck with their name on. As much as I felt sorry for Harold the balding orange monkey, and Randolf the felt tip pen marked horse, I was not going to pay £1 to put them out of their misery.

A stall full of Playboy merchandise manned by a rather orange 40 year old wearing a pink velor tracksuit with 'BABE' printed across her arse. I hate to say it but her stall was one of the most popular there.

Woman smoking a cigarette picks up a pair of shoes from a stall:

Buyer: "How much for these shoes"

Seller :"Fifty, they are new and come with their box"

Buyer: "50p?"

Seller: "err no £50, they are designer"

Buyer :"Who makes them then, the bloody queen?"

Seller: "No, they are by Irregular Choice"

Buyer: "Should be called "Bloody rip off choice!"

That's enough from me for today, well done if you got all the way to the end of this massive post!

Big love to you all

P.S If you haven't checked out my giveaway, there is still time to enter HERE.

Linking to flea-market-finds

The one with the bear attack...

I made the mistake of trying a different boot sale yesterday morning, it was terrible.  There was quite a few cars but row after row of antique dealer stalls *yawn*.  So I broke my booty winning streak by only coming home with 3 buys.  But I did come away with a couple of 'witnessed at a boot sale' tit bits for you.  But first my three buys (all from the same stall)

 Mother of Pearl vintage brooch - 30p.

Vintage faux pearl necklace - 30p. A girl can never have too many cheapo pearls and combine that with my two favourite colours - red and black and we have a winner ladies!

Vintage stone set necklace, little tarnished but hey that adds to the appeal, can you guess how much?  yes 30p :o)

And now for your next installment of:

Witnessed at a Boot Sale

The first two involve me again...

Taking a 10 month old round the boot sale I always get randoms talking baby talk to him or making conversation with me about him.  Well yesterday I tried to rush past one old mans stall as I could see there was nothing of interest, no such luck. He clocked my little boy and we had the usual "Hello there little one, what big brown eyes you have, are you smiling at me?....." I smiled and did the whole awkward mummy to stranger talk.  Well I thought I could make my move but oh no he produced the mankiest cuddly toy I had ever seen and tried passing it to my son.  Seriously this thing looked like it had mange.  I buffered the bear attack by saying he wasn't old enough for it but it was very kind of him.  The seller again tried to get the bear to my boy, I pulled the buggy back a bit so bear and boy didn't make contact. Thinking I had won the bear battle the seller then said "aah I know he can have this one instead I INSIST"  then produced an even filithier ball of stained fur, I didn't even know what this one was meant to be.  Damn I should have taken mange bear and left sharply but now I had to contend with some kind of evil soft toy spawn.  He went to give this to my son, thinking fast I gave my son a rice cake to keep hands occupied and took the manky creature *shudder* myself, smiled politely mummbled 'thanks' and made my escape.  Back at the car I managed to dispose of the creature although I'm sure a flame thrower would have better....

Next up the tale of the 'Helpful Seller', I need to point out that this seller was a little grey haired grandma looking lady in her 70s:

Me: "How much for the childrens book"

Seller "20p"

Me: "I take this then please"

Seller : "Oh hang on I might have some more childrens books that you would be interested in, let me check this box" 

Seller goes to box at the front of stall and starts pulling out books, to be polite I go over and have a look at what she is pulling out.  She then grabs a DVD case with a rather buxom leather clad lady on the front

Seller loudly "ooh how did that get in here?"  then looks me straight in the eye and whispers "Its a porn dvd" while pushing it towards me.

Me: "Err I'll just take the childrens books please" 

Man standing on the edge of the bootsale having a wee in the bushes even though there are toilets 5 meters away

Lady walking round the bootsale carrying a a tiny spaniel puppy in her arms.  She is stopped by a younger lady who coos over the puppy and says " aww how sweet, what flavour is he?"....

Thats all folks! Happy Monday.

Scarlett x

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Linking to thrift-share-monday