Come Thrifting With Me!

 This weekend I decided it was time to empty out my change drawer and go on an adventure to the thrift store.

I ended up with $9.94 American, $5.12 Canadian, 1 Lewis and Clark bicentennial souvenir coin, 1 Kennedy half dollar, 5 Euro cents, 1 arcade token, 1 plastic dime, 2 buttons, and a handful of confetti. I'm rich!

Let's see what I can get with this...

 First stop: Butte Rescue mission bargain center. This isn't the most clean or well-organized shop, but there are always hidden gems. On Saturdays they have a bag sale day where you can get anything that fits into a shopping bag for $1! This is a great stop because all of the proceeds go to the Butte Rescue mission.

Jessica came along to help!

 This is my favorite time of year to thrift shop because the Halloween stuff is starting to come out. There's always interesting stuff to be found in the costume rack.

 Don't be limited to just your gender's section! There's tons of cool stuff in the Men's section and in stores like this things are often in the wrong spot.

Sometimes shoes at the thrift store are kinda gross, but sometimes they're like new! Use your own judgement.

 Don't overlook the non-clothing sections. I love finding music and home stuff for super cheap. My car only has a tape player, so I always look through the tapes. You'll be surprised by what you find!

Records are usually super cheap and fun to look through! If you don't want to listen to them, there are tons of DIY projects you can do with them. I might post some soon!

 Sometimes I find cool coffee mugs that make great containers. Or you could actually use them for coffee...

I love looking through the kitschy figurines. This is where my unicorn collection was born!

Next stop: Goodwill. Most Goodwills are well-organized and clean. The downside to this is that things are considerably more expensive ($3-5 for shirts, $10 for dresses...). Look for the color of the week: everything with that color tag is 50% off!

Again, I beelined for the Halloween stuff.

These frilly pink dresses are really cool- very Virgin Suicides-esque. Unfortunately, they weren't my size!

Stop number 3: Paula's Curiosity Shoppe. This one is more of an antique/vintage store in a cozy little uptown location. The prices are a little higher, but you can't beat the presentation!

It's such a cute little place!!

Unfortunately, one of my favorite shops was closed on Saturday. I will have to do something else about it later!

Here are my finds for the day:

There was a whole bunch of square dancing stuff at the first shop we went to. I got this lavender dress and a super foofy skirt (I think "foofy" is my adjective of the month)

This skirt is actually pretty huge on the waistband, but a little alteration will fix that! Emily and McKenzie, don't be too surprised if I show up to KLKP next year in full square dancing attire.

I also found this adorable little deer figurine:

Also, the CDs at Goodwill were all on sale, so I ended up getting six of them! Unfortunately my camera died before I could photograph them.

I got a dress, a skirt, a little deer, and 6 CDs all for under $8. I would say I made good use of my spare change!

So to recap, here's a list of 7 tips and tricks for successful thrifting:

1. Look for deals and sales: the goal is to get the best possible price for what you want. Keep an eye out for bag sales and half off days.

2. Shop for a cause: Lots of thrift stores are connected to charities. Frequent places that you support, like your local rescue mission or Salvation Army.

3. Explore other sections: don't miss out on cool stuff in the men's area or the home section.

4. Get the right fit: Try to find clothes as close to your size as possible, but remember that you can always alter items to fit you better.

5. Have fun! Thrifting is a way to find interesting new stuff that you wouldn't see otherwise. Don't stress out if you don't find something in particular. Sometimes there are dry days where you can't find anything, but maybe next week you'll find the best thing ever!

And remember, shopping at thrift stores doesn't only benefit the shopper. It's environmentally friendly and doesn't support sweat shops. In fact, I feel that it gives meaning to the work that people have put into making clothing without supporting huge corporations. Reuse as much as possible and always donate your old stuff.

Thanks to Jessica for joining me, and also to Emily for recommending this post. A new post coming Friday or Saturday!

End of Summer Finals

Did you pass?

So that's it. It's all over!! NOOO!

Well, on to the next adventure!

Since my next adventure is tackling my senior year of high school, you may be seeing less of me here in the coming months. But don't fear! I will still be posting, I just can't make any promises about how frequently. Keep checking back and I promise there will be new stuff.

I sincerely hope every one of you had a marvelous summer, and for all of the students starting school again I wish you the best of luck.

Back To School DIYs Day 5: Good Luck Charms

Okay, I finally have this post up. I'm sorry for the delay! The "enter" button on my laptop stopped functioning for some reason and I couldn't finish this post (I blame some sort of saboteur poltergeist) . But it's all fixed now,  so enjoy!

Today's project is a really easy way to make good luck charms that you can take with you to class so you will ace all of your tests! Whether you are superstitious or not, I think there's something about having a good luck charm that makes you more confident, whether it's in academics, sports, or anything else you may be facing.

I actually got the idea for this project from a kids' craft book. It kind of looks arts and crafts-y, but also very cute and quirky.

Materials:

To make the "clay" we are using, all you need is three cups of flour, 1/2 cup of salt, and water.

You will also need acrylic paints, nail polish (not shown-whoops!) paintbrushes, paper clips, pliers with a wire cutter,  round skewers, elastic cord, and various beads and baubles.

Step 1: Make Your "Clay"

In a mixing bowl, combine your flour and salt. (this recipe makes a huge batch of clay, so you might want to half the measurements)

Mix them together, then add 7 ounces of water:

Knead this mixture, into a smooth dough, adding water as necessary. (I ended up using about 12 ounces)

When it's all kneaded, it should look like this:

Put it in a plastic bag and refrigerate for half an hour:

Step 2: Sculpting Fun!

When you take your dough out of the fridge it should be workable and ready to sculpt with. Here are a few ideas for little charms and things you can make:

To make an evil eye charm, work a small piece of dough into an almond shape and squish a smaller round piece on it:

Using your wire cutters, cut a loop from a paper clip like so:

Stick it into the top of your evil eye, and you have a loop!

To make a little kitten charm, shape a piece of dough into a circle:

Then add ears by sticking on little triangles:

Do the same thing as you did with the evil eye to put a loop on it.

You know me, I had to do a unicorn horn! To make one, roll two pieces of clay so that they taper at the ends:

Twist the pieces around each other, and there you have it!

Again, you can add a loop the same way.

To make little skull shaped beads, roll a piece of dough into a ball and then slide it onto a skewer:

Shape the pieces so that they are wider at the top:

 Use the end of a paintbrush to make little indentations where the eyes will go:

To make smaller beads, form little round pieces of dough around a skewer:

If you are making smaller beads like this, I would recommend making more than you will need. The smaller the piece is, the more likely it is to crack during baking.

Preheat your oven to 340 degrees farenheit:

 When the oven is preheated, put your magical creations in:

Bake for about half an hour for smaller pieces like these beads and little charms, or about 40 minutes for thicker pieces.

When they are done, let them cool and then slide the beads off of the skewers.

This is what they will look like:

They do puff up a little bit, but not extremely.

The skull beads cracked a little, but I kind of like how they look.

For the evil eye, the unicorn horn, and the skull beads, start with a base coat of white paint:

Paint the faces on the skulls with a fine tip detail brush:

I added an iridescent nail polish topcoat over the white on the unicorn horn:

And for the evil eye, I used a royal blue nail polish and black paint with a fine tip brush:

I painted the cat charm with black nail polish and added details with the fine tip brush:

I painted the beads with blue nail polish and put little evil eyes on some of them:

Here's what they look like all painted:

(I also did a smiley face and some little fox beads)

I made a bracelet out of the smaller beads:

 I used some elastic cord I had lying around:

I glued a magnet to the back of the bigger evil eye I made so I can put it in my locker:

Since I have scoliosis, I have to use super supportive and very boring backpacks, so I decided to use my new charms to spruce my backpack up!

So that's my back to school DIY series! I wish you all the best of luck this year if you are in school (or if you aren't!). Hopefully these charms will help! And again, if you try any of these projects or you just want to say hi, please leave a comment below.

And I want to see pictures!!

Thank you so much for checking out my blog this week!! More coming on Monday. School starts for me on Tuesday, but I will talk a little more about that later.

Also, you should all check out mu friend Emily's new blog!

http://www.emilyuntitled.blogspot.com/

She is a wonderful writer! Her blog is about miscellaneous life stuff and I bet you will like it.

ALSO also, guess what? Yesterday I broke 1,000 total all-time pageviews on this here blog! It was very exciting for me! So thank you so much for reading and viewing, and I hope you stick around because it's going to be good!