Thursday, March 31, 2011

recent finds

I've been doing a little more thrifting lately in the hopes of finding some retro furniture pieces, but unfortunately, I've been coming up empty-handed. Do you know what sucks about living in a city that has an IKEA? Every piece of second-hand furniture is from IKEA. It's getting a little irritating. I have been finding a lot of art pieces and tchotchkes (I knew a guy who would refer to tchotchkes as "pretty-pretties" Fitting, right?). Here are some of my recent favourites.

Meet our new extended family! When I saw this picture at Goodwill, I just couldn't leave it behind. It's one of those photos you can always stare at and ponder, you know? Who are they? What are they all there for? Look at their eyebrows! (The ladies and their hair styles, clothes, and, yes, eyebrows are amazing!)

Oh well. I'm starting to break my own rule of not going down the tchotchke aisle. The blue bird was a little overpriced, I'll admit, but it's also a vase! There's a little container on the back with a string so you can put some tiny buds in it and hang it on the wall. The blue jay was part of a set of three. The other two were both hummingbirds and I already have a hummingbird, so I opted to break them up. I don't usually like breaking sets up, but I thought it would look weird to have all three. The plastic resin was a disgusting tobacco smoke yellow when I bought it, and I thought it was supposed to be like that. But when I washed it to get the sticker off, it came out crystal clear!

Do you ever find stuff that's just too weird and mysterious NOT to buy? This piece is all leather. Yup. A black leather landscape. I really stewed on this one. It had dust in every fold and pocket and I had no idea where I'd put it since it's so far removed from anything else I have, but it was just one of those things that I thought I'd never ever see again. I had to have it. (Even if it meant I'd have to give it regular Q-tip dust cleanings.)

At first I thought it would be better if there were a pair of these, but now I really like that there's just one. It's a little treasure on my bookshelf. Besides, OWL. BOOKEND. Who would ever pass that up?!

The Goodwill I was at (the one near West Edmonton Mall) had a TON of fantastic embroidered art pieces. I've really never seen so many in one thrift store at one time. Unfortunately, there was some guy frantically going through the stacks of art grabbing all of the cheaper ones out (like completely dominating the whole section until he was finished -- so annoying). But I managed to get this one of purple thistles because it was up at the front of the store in an inconspicuous place. It's in perfect condition and it's really quite large (mom has the only other embroidered flower piece I've ever seen that matches its size -- gah. I need to get my grubby mitts on that one, too). Yesterday, Idle Husband suggested we put it on the wall opposite the staircase and it's so perfect for that spot, I don't even notice it's there. It was meant to be.

Not related to thrifting at all, I saw the new installations at Anthropology and I was really smitten with these humongous daisies. I want one!
what the heck do they do with all of this cool stuff when they change the store around again?

1 comment:

Lindsey @ Hot Polka Dot said...

I love the owl bookend! And that humongous daisy is awesome! You should ask them if you can have it when they're done with it. Seriously, what are they going to do with it otherwise?