12/12 Thrift Finds or {Hold the Presses Only 3 Things This Month}

Hey Friends!

Long time, no talk! Well it has just been crazy around these parts, a great, wonderful crazy but crazy busy none the less.

Ok want the long or short version? I'll go with short, Buckeroo sick, holidays, Buckeroo sick again, inventory, holidays again, deholidayfying (yes it is a word - at least in my head), decluttering, finishing projects aaannndddd getting ready for our home inspection/family interview set up for February 16! whoot whoot!

So I totally wasn't going to even publish a December 2012 thrifty finds but I'm totally digging the little dish I found so I changed my mind (HELLO??? I'm a woman I'm allowed to ) and decided to do one just so y'all can see the pretty girl I found.

Here she is fresh from Goodwill, tape and all:

 

Then as I was putting away all our Christmas goodies I remembered that I could *totally* throw in these other beauties!

 

 

I know exactly what you are thinking. Michelle why in the world did you think you couldn't include these beauties in December 2012 thrifty finds? Well even if you didn't I'm still going to answer the pressing question. I didn't find these ladies at all, I was gifted them by my wonderful mother-in-law. Yes, I'm being completely honest on both accounts, they were gifted AND I have a wonderful mother-in-law! This was her wedding china, and while she loved them they didn't use them and she knew they were completely up my alley in taste (remember I've been telling y'all that I was born in the wrong decade). I told her I would love them but I didn't have a big enough kitchen to hold china that we wouldn't really use but a few times a year. She said, "That's just it, I WANT you to use it everyday. None of this 'saving it for a special day or person'. If your family isn't special enough top warrant them who in the h%ll is?" Y'all ever seen a chicken on a june bug? Yep, that was me. So my sister-in-law packed em up for me and I took them home that day. I have to hand wash them due to them being china and the gold edging, but I have to pretty much hand wash EVERYTHING before I put it in my dishwasher, so no difference there. You might be wondering about microwaving, we have lots of platters and our mixing bowls that fit in our microwave so no road hump there! It's been great and everyone feels super special using them all the time.

 

 

Then found these babies at......Goodwill, yep you guessed it right. I had no idea WHAT I was going to do with them but come on, they were $.99, metal and in new condition, how in the world did you expect me to pass them up. So I cradled my two babies, paid for them and took em home and they sat on the island for two weeks until Pinterest helped me brainstorm. OK fine I totally stole someone's idea, but I did brainstorm to steal the said idea. I'm in complete and utter love with them here, and it cleans out half of one of my kitchen drawers (YIPPEE!). Now I just need to add a hanging loop of ribbon on my hand towels so I can use the other hook and clean out the half of said drawer.

I've been trying to do a no spend January for multiple reasons, 1) we have project pieces coming out our wazoo, 2) I'm ready AND working to decrapify the house (9 bags of clothes, 2 huge bags of toys and 6 smallish boxes of kitchen stuff and more toys to Goodwill), 3) Dave Ramsey - 'nuff said peeps! I've done...OK. I swear if I could just make myself drop off the donations and NOT go in to check out what they have I would do great! I mean it's TONS better than what I was doing, I've gotten ok with leaving a store empty handed and thinking through my purchases. Any items must pass a multitude of questions, 1) will it have an immediate spot, 2) do I love it heart and soul, 3) do I already have something similar that could do the same job, 4) is it show perfect? Number 4 doesn't have to always be yes but I don't want to have to fix it just to display it, it's ok to be imperfect if I'm going to use it for a piece of a greater part. But I found myself buying rabbit figurines with broken ear tips because it was a great price and it was cute. Uuumm a) I don't hardly ever decorate for Easter/Spring b) it's broken - it's not fixable unless I do major work IF I can fix it. Ok so I know y'all are all wondering HOW good is OK? I've bought exactly 6 things that weren't necessities, compare that to my usual six things a day and times that by 3-4 days a week times 4-5 weeks a month. I'd say DARN-TOOTING GOOD!!

What about y'all? Are you decluttering? Anyone else wanna 'no-spend' the rest of January (ok maybe we'll just go with February since it took me so to get this post out LOL) with me? I'm really gonna go into good detail in another post so that maybe we could help one another out in a true no spend February!

Much Luv!!

Michelle