Thrifty Treasure Monday!

Good Morning Folks! How are you all doing out their in bloggy land? Hand a thrifty weekend some of you?  I hope so as we're grabbing onto the tail of Rhoda's Thrifty Treasure Monday Mr. Linky party - the last of this thrifting season so it's a finale!! If you're like me and the next best thing to grabbing yourself some fab treasures is looking at others found treasures head over to Rhoda's blog at Southern Hospitality to check it out!!!

We're find garage sale-ing in Southern Ontario is really not so hot this year (Much like the summer…)!  We started the season full blast, we were up before the birds, grabbed out local papers, mapped out routes, and grabbed ourselves some pieces of marvelousness.  Oh wait, that last part didn't seem to happen for us...  Even our dear friends who sell at Canada's oldest and largest antique market (Aka. Aberfoyle Antique Market) are finding that finding stock is definitely not as plentiful as last year, or previous years, if not completely impossible! Could there be a shortage of junk?! Thoughts like that bring back plans to head over the border and take a visit to Brimfield, but I feel certain Mr. Pretties would not covet that plan quite as much as I would... What do you think guys?

Thank all things junk worthy that some dear soul invented Kijiji as that's where we get all our thrifty finds, along with splits and splots from the local thrift and benevolent shop that always have some little bits for a quarter or so - that's the kind of deal that gives you a good old fashioned adrenaline rush, isn't it girls?!

On Saturday (and Friday, but that's another story involving Mapquests inability to give accurate directions, or my inability to read them...) we headed out to Welland to pick up 35 old window sashes, Mr. Pretties thought I was kidding when I told him we needed to make a 75 minute trip one way to pick up old windows.

Haha, he should know better than that! I plan to use them as green houses/garden conservatories and tables - SO fun! The nice gentleman was selling these sweethearts for that big fat price tag of 71 cents each.  Yes, less than a dollar.  At the market they generally fetch $10 each, more if they're in as fine condition as these that also include all the latches, and hinges complete with the screws ;)  We managed to bring the first 20 home, we're going back Friday to grab the remaining 15 and then heading to Brantford to grab a dozen 120 year old wavy glass windows that will be a really fun find, and a thrifty treasure at  $1.66 each.  I really don't know what I'll do with those guys, but I'm sure I can find something...  I even though if they're the right size we could replace a couple of the outer cupboards in our kitchen with two of the wavy glass sashes and put some fab vintage hardware on them.

So here's the first part of our window stash:

I don't even want to think about the amount of spiders Mr. Pretties had to vacuum out of the car following this trip *shudder* but there they are! 

The best part is, we're currently negotiating a move into a bigger house, which means we'd get to move them all AGAIN! Isn't that the best?

This entire mantlescape (like tablescape but on a mantle, that’s okay right?) is all thrifted recently!

I snagged this set of four Arcoroc pink Depression Glass dishes for $2.00, the Crown 1950’s canning jars were $.50 a piece, the shabby lamp was $1.00, the enormous cutlery tray (I think it may actually be for tools…) was on it’s way to Aberfoyle with our friends but I scooped it up first and got a great day – FREE! It’s in the middle of becoming white as you can see ;)  This piece of salvage that looks like a mini barbell

came from the Christie Antique Show that Mr. Pretties and I attended for the first time ever (and maybe the last, it was crazy!!!) and I think it’s from a porch, but at $4.00 it was my one and only souvenir from Christie and I love it’s chippy, dirty goodness! And lastly is an old glassless window frame that’s chippy and crankly and always seems to find a place of prominence around here.

So gals, what did you thrift this week/month/year? We all want to know about it!!!  Myself especially since we'll be getting about 500 months of winter anytime now and wont even recognize a garage sale by next spring, help a winter burdened girl out!

Cheers!

XO Jenn ;)

Glorious Aberfoyle Season...

... Or has anyone seen Mr. Pretties?

Sunday kicked off my very favorite time of year, it's what I like to call 'Aberfoyle Season'. The weather man predicted a lovely balmy day of 26 degrees of sunshine and a beautiful blue cloudless sky for Sunday. What arrived however was a chilly 13 degrees of grey grisly clouds, and cold misting rain. Jerk. But rain or shine I was going, even if it meant I was fondling Duncan Phyfe's while holding a blue and pink polk-a-dot umbrella ;) As it happened it wasn't 'misting' quite enough for that to be necessary.

Although it was a quieter day (most opening days are, people forget that Aberfoyle opens that weekend, because, you know, they have lives or something. For shame...) and due to the weather the majority of the visiting vendors cancelled their spots, so the visiting section was a little worse for the wear. However there seemed to have been new permanent vendors with some fabulous stuff and the prices were amazing! I brought my camera with me with the thought of taking pictures to both discuss with my Aberfoyle buddy as well as to post here, but I brought out my camera and people started to stare, followed by me feeling like a huge dork... so I slowly put my camera back in my bag, people started turning back around and I went on my way. Next time, I promise.

As much as I enjoy Kijiji I hate having to route through the mounds of tacky floral couches, lease-to-own livingroom sets, and Grandma's old kitchen table from 1970 with the co-ordinating teal sparkly chairs to get to the real goodies. Aberfoyle is like a Brita filter in that it keeps out all the crap and gets right to the treasures. I could spend all day mauling everyone's items (get your head out of that gutter, you know what I mean!!), sniffy drawers, and asking Mr. Pretties why he doesn't make more money... kidding... sort of... anyways... it's great because it's not like the low end flea markets where you see the same things 50 times at different booths, everyone has something wonderful and unique to offer, and it's not like the high end antique shops that have wonderful tradition items that you'd have to sell your soul and that of all of your offspring in order to afford one of their pieces (this by no means means that all antique shops are like this) because the prices are reasonable, and if they're not they're always open for bartering! The prices entice me because you get the rush of a good deal on an awesome piece, but you also pay enough that it's still important to you and means something. Does that even make sense? That might just be me actually... Hmm...

I generally am not a big purchaser (I purchase regularly, just not bug purchaes, or a lot of little ones at the same time) at Aberfoyle (This is where Mr. Pretties income comes in... kidding.) but when I do purchase something it's because it's something that catches me the right way, *insert animal shelter analogy here - it's just like that puppy with the sad eyes that you can't leave behind* and it must come home with me because we have a 'connection'. I don't know if I've ever shared this theory with anyone other than Mr. Pretties, and this'll sound out there, but I always wonder when this happens if it's because maybe in another life I owned this item, or one like it and my subconscious remembers and makes this connection. Weird, I know.

This week it was an old spice cupboard that is crap condition, smells like a smelly green walnut from a barn, and a door that has swelled indefinitely open (unless I plane the side) and opens with a skeleton key I don't have. A real winner, eh?

What I see though is a terribly characteristic piece covered in wonderful naturally chipped and crackled paint, with fab moulding on the top, a key hole in the door, and a great hand written note inside the door about how many pounds each pot/pail/bowl in this farmer wife's home holds, and how much sugar to add to the pail of cherries :) It reminds me of the cupboard from the book 'Indian in The Cupboard' which has stuck with me so maybe that's why I had to pluck this up out of the rain and bring it home to shed it's leady paint everywhere ;) No idea what I'm going to do with it, but I'll do something. I have another small old cupboard that's quirky and I just love it!

Next Saturday (the 2nd) from 7-4 Aberfoyle is having their first Spring Special with loads of visiting vendors, vendors from out of town, and general fabulousness, as well as the open market 8-5 Sunday. It's an Aberfoyle weekend! Or you could just look it up at www.aberfoyle-antiques.com ;)

ETA: The cupboard door does infact close now... it was swollen from a combination of the side crack and the rain yesterday, apparently a day airing out in the warm sun (I can only handle so much 'ou de fruit farm' for so long while trying to sleep) did it some good because the door fits nicely now. However, it may never open again... why can't I just leave things alone?!