OBSESSED WITH EARRINGS!!!

      Since I got that plastic tub of beads from WalMart, I have been going crazy making earrings....
       
              BUTTERFLIES........

                     STARS........

                                                               

     AND RANDOM SPARKLY ONES!!!!!

                                                                   

      It doesn't really surprise me though, as I have been obsessed with earrings since I was a little girl. Want proof??? Here's my earring collection.

    I haven't counted them in a reeeeealllly long time... haha.
         I started playing around with wire last night, so I'll be sure to show you those later.  :)   

                                                               
                                       What kind of earrings would you like to see me make?


P.S. DON'T FORGET!!!!!!!!  I MAKE CUSTOM EARRING HOLDERS TOO!!!

                                                   

YAY New Follower... and 10 books for $1 at Redlands Thrift!!!

       First of all... hello new follower, even if you are my awesome-tastic Sister. :)

           So today, the bid I placed at Redlands Thrift was supposed to end... It was a huge cage of vinyl records... I wanted it SOOOOOO bad. We went up there to place a last bid and we shopped while we waited for the silent auction to end. The books were on sale 10 for $1. So, of course, I found 10 books... most of them for my step-daughter.... and a couple for me... :) 

                        
   On the left of this pic, you see a cute little fabric fan... cost me 8 cents... and on the right there is a box of beads I got for $4. Here's the close-up of the box------

       I am so excited to sort through this thing... I already dumped half on the contents into my bead box. I got a whole bunch of plastic diamond shaped beads in pretty colors. I'm excited to see what I can make with everything!!!
     Let me tell you about the weird thing in the books picture.... the How To See And Read The Aura book....  I feel compelled to say something about it.  I have been attracted to and I guess you could say sensitive to the paranormal for a long time.
     The first time I saw something, I think I was 9. We lived on Foster Road in Oakland, Maryland.... It's a very small town with lots of windy roads. We lived on the biggest curve on the road. It was completely blind. Anyway, it was very late at night... or very early in the morning on a Saturday. I heard a car screech around the turn and the next couple of turns as well. Then I felt really weird... prickles on the back of my neck and goosebumps all over. I looked outside and I saw a woman in a white fluffy dress walking across our lawn. It seemed as though she felt me staring at her. She looked over at me, straight into my eyes. Then, I blinked, and she had disappeared. I sat staring out the window for the next couple of hours, until my mother came to wake me up for church. 
     When I saw the newspaper the next day, I FREAKED. The woman's photo was on the front page. Turns out she was in a car crash with her boyfriend after leaving the prom. I believe the driver was drunk, but I don't quite remember. I knew at that moment that I had seen something significant... if I didn't know that before.
     I've had several experiences.. including a writer friend asking me to go out ghost hunting with them pretty recently... at which I was able to correctly identify several of the victims we were trying to find. I'm sure I will end up sharing more of those experiences with you later. If you want to hear them.
   When I saw that Aura book, I knew it was waiting there just for me. I have been interested in the aura for a while now, and I finally found something on the subject. YAY ME!!!!


                                          P.S. I'm only a little bit of a freak.
                                                       

Made some stuff with my finds!!!

      I'm working on Avante Hearte stuff today!!!! Finally!!!! I had fun looking through the thrift stores over the weekend, but now it was time to do something with it!!!

         I made some adorable plushies from the felt and thread I found at Redlands Thrift...

   A cute little bat with lopsided wings.... cuz the runts of the litter are always the cutest!!!!!!

A little brown owl whooooo wants a loving home......................

    And a customizeable voodoo doll... just waiting for you to tell me what features you need... also comes with 3 pins!!!...

      Then I made some hair flowers with the rice paper flowers from Thailand (from Lighthouse for the Blind) and the charms from the low-class Gina's.  Two featuring the adorable miss Hello Kitty.....

And one that reads "Ich Bin Geliebt" which means "I Am Loved" in German..........

     And then, I went to Wal-Mart today and I found the most awesome plastic bin of beads... they are cheap plastic beads, but they are soooooo cute!!! I started making a ton of earrings with them! I only have pictures of two of the sets, but I will share more later. I have been going crazy with them!!!

                           Here's a pic of the two I have made so far... 
                                  "Celestial"

and "Sparkle"                                                                              

                                                                          

         I haven't made necklaces to go with them as of yet... but I probably will... unless someone wants them without necklaces. I don't know if I should be one of those girls who makes nothing but sets of jewelery. I like seperate pieces... I don't really ever wear necklace and earring sets. Does anyone else? Do you???

       

       

Saturday... The "Middle-Class Gina's" and Redlands Thrift

Say hello to my newest find. I think I'll name him Geoff. lol  

    Well, I'm sorry to not have written for almost 2 days now. Saturday was the 1 year anniversary for me and my fiance..... I was still basking in the afterglow. (Wink!) 

    Well anyway, let's start with the morning. When we got up, I instantly just wanted out of the house. My mind was stuck on that 3rd Gina's on Baseline... the one I was hoping was the "Middle-Class Gina's". So, we went back out. Turns out, this one IS the middle Gina's... but there were no clothes! Pout!!! :(   There were alot of other things though. I looked through pretty much everything and found the classy porcelain doll you just saw and the fairy porcelain doll below. I haven't done any research on either one though, so I'm not sure if either of them are worth anything... YET.  

I also found quite a few interesting little crafty things....... above..... some pink plastic cords for my step-daughter... you know those things they like to make in school... two different colored rolls of tulle, a couple zippers (I LOVE zippers), and a pack of chopsticks. Not sure what those will be for just yet.

     On a seperate note, though, my fiance and I had a conversation with one of the workers at the "High Class Gina's yesterday". I wish I could give her a good review... but I can't. We introduced ourselves and asked her about her pricing on an item we found at the "High-class Gina's" that I REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLYYYYY wanted when I saw it. It was a plastic shoe-box type container half full of beads and things. It was marked at $35.99. Crazy, right? It's like those beads were made of gold or something... trust me, they weren't. When I asked this cashier at the check-out what the lowest price was that they would accept, the cashier told me $25. Which is still crazy. The sale was supposed to be 50%... but she wouldn't even offer me that. It still would have been $18... I'm not even sure I would have paid that, considering it's still alot to pay at a thrift store for one item...and I couldn't even see all of the beads that were in there. I think I would have gone as high as $10 or even maybe $15. I wanted it SOOOOO bad, you see. I'm really into the "find" feeling of searching through something you can't quite see everything in. It makes me happy. But, back to this cashier, when we asked her about this pricing, she said something to the effect of, "I don't even do that. That's the best deal I can do. Take it or leave it. (She even turned away from us at this point.)" Like she doesn't even bother with customer satisfaction or what is going on in her store. She even went on the offensive with us, like she didn't understand why anyone wouldn't want to pay the crazy prices. "Hi, I'm poor!" lol    I guess if you were there, it would have been easier for you to picture. I was really bothered by her though. We left right after this. I am not sure if I will be going back soon... but if I go back and that thing of beads is still there... I WILL get it for my price. lol



   We ran around looking for more random thrift stores.... unsuccessfully... until I realized that we were close to Redlands. There is a thrift store I LOVE in Redlands called (appropriately) Redlands Thrift. I don't love this store because of their prices, because they are around Goodwill in their prices. I love this store because of all the features it has. It is right off the 10 freeway on Alabama Street in Redlands and it looks alot smaller than it really is from the front. You walk in and on the left are a few rows of books. I normally don't find anything special here, even though I normally check for old books... 1800's type old. I did see a woman in there a few minutes later who had gone through the entire section of books and even had a copy of Faust in her cart. SIGH... I have been looking for a copy of this for a really long time. I know she was a re-seller. I probably should have talked to her. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20, right?

    On the right when you go in, the store opens up into rows and rows of clothes and an entire wall basically covered with purses and shoes, etc. I perused through the clothes and shoes, but didn't find much except a Nine West purse.... this one is getting resold. Here's a photo of it....

    And here is a photo of my adorable black kitty, Jasmine, cuddling with the purse when I laid it down. I didn't even realize she was there until I looked to my side. So I had to take a picture. :)

        There are also racks and racks full of knick-knacks, dishes and glassware, toys, etc etc etc. We didn't look at these right away, as I really wanted to show my fiance my favorite part of this store. In the back, there are little boutique thrift stores tucked away, as well as a bunch of silent auction items. The little thrift stores are filled with anything but they are all very small. Tucked into little cages about 10 feet by 10 feet. Not too much space. The silent auction items vary. There can be something as small as a lot of old matchboxes.... or something as big as an entire cage about 4 feet deep and 5 feet wide STACKED with vinyl records..... which I bid on. I don't think I will win it, but I tried. Can you imagine what records may be buried in there? Or how many junk records I could make lamps, bowls, and other crazy things with? I might have to go and check out what the bid is tomorrow... see if I can still afford it. lol 

    Once I places my bid on the records, we went back into the main part of the store. The wall by the boutique is full of bags stuffed with random things. I found two really big bags of felt, which I snatched, as they were much cheaper than buying felt at the store. Then, as I was looking through all the knick-knacks, I found the most beautiful Russian chiming porcelain doll. I don't know anything about her, but once I saw her, I just couldn't put her down. She makes the prettiest sound, but it started to annoy us on the way home, as she doesn't stop chiming unless she is standing still!!!! Here is a photo of my little beauty...

  We are not sure what we are doing with her just yet. I don't know if I will ever see another one of her, so I don't know whether to sell her if she's worth something, or keep her. I guess we will see, huh?

      After shopping, we came home to get changed. We had won tickets for a freestyle motocross event in Ontario... and what luck that it was on our anniversary! It was so much fun!! We saw the freestyle riders, who bounced around on cars and did wheelies, etc. And then were the two teams that battled for the best trick. All kinds of tricks. Like I said, just lots of fun. I have video if anyone wants to see. LOL 

   



Friday Part Deux!....

    So, to continue my story about Friday's adventures......
   
        After leaving the Lighthouse for the Blind thrift store, we decided to try a new 3 store chain called Gina's Bargain Thrift. All 3 of these stores are at random places on Baseline Ave. I'll get the addresses on a list soon. I'm going to start writing down all the names and addresses... and probably phone numbers... of all the stores... sort of a directory of every store I can find. Maybe I will create a page on facebook that holds the directory. I'm not sure where I would do it on the blog site here.

     Anyway, we visited two of the Gina's store. The 1st one (in the 500's on the street) is very disorganized. It's what I am calling the "Low End Gina's". They had a big sale going on though, so I went in and dug through the lot of things. They had clothes advertised at 75% off, and all miscellaneous items/books/shoes, etc at 50% off. This is definately that "diamond in the rough" type of thrift store. The clothes are not very nice here, so I didn't find any clothes. The appliances and the "collectibles" are way overpriced. I found a couple pairs of shoes that were still nice, but that's not what I was there for. The only good thing about this store for me are all the bins of little things you can dig through. I found several little things in these bins; a couple zippers, a length of broken chain, some rolls of thread, some bobbins full of thread, and the two things I have posted pictures of below.... some cutesy charms - - - - - including some Hello Kitty ones... that little kitty sells like hot cakes too. haha

       And this adorable little owl change purse. I sincerely doubt I will sell this. I'm thinking about using it as a pattern to make little plushie owls from. Wouldn't those look cute??

   I make a second sweep around the store before we left and I find the most awesome bird argyle bag... I have no idea how I missed it before.

       I snatched this thing right up. Again, I doubt that this will get sold... unless I get a great offer on it. haha

  After we left this store, we decided to look at the next Gina's down the street, which is right next to 2 more thrift stores, but they weren't open. This Gina's (in the 900's on the street) is what I am calling the "High-End Gina's". The organization is fantastic here, for a thrift store anyway. There are alot of new items and name-brand items. The problem here is that the prices are CRAZY. They are trying to sell used dresses for $8.99 and $12.99. We are talking about Forever 21 dresses, where you could go to the store itself and buy the same thing for two more dollars new.  They also had the same sale out though - 75% off clothes and 50% off most everything else. The sale seemed phenomenal. :) I found a dress that ended up costing me $2 and a black lingerie piece that I will be using to make into a dress. I have an idea for it already. It will probably take me a while though. :D  Here's a picture of it. I wish I could get better pictures, but I don't really have a place to do it. We live in a very small place and it's pretty much full with no wall space to do anything. I'll try to find better places to take these pictures soon.

    

       The entire top of it is sheer black lace. I don't think I'm going to leave it the length that it is right now. I think it will make a better impact in the end with a shorter length.

   After this store, we were going to head to the 3rd Gina's, because I was suspecting that since there had been a low end and a higer end store, that there had to be something in the middle, but we didn't have the time. We had to turn the kid over to her mother. :(

    We went out to eat Friday evening as well, to a place called California Pizza Kitchen. It's an expensive place, so we try not to eat there often. Saturday (Today) is our one year anniversary though, and we had tickets for tonight (Saturday) for Nuclear Cowboyz - a freestyle motocross event - so we went for celebration.   Anyway, we were prepared to pay the $50 it was going to cost us, but when we got our entrees (Ravioli stuffed with Asiago, Mascarpone, Parmesan, and one other in a savory Pomodoro sauce... FANTASTIC) there was a huge piece of Saranwrap IN MY FOOD. It was almost as bad as when you find a hair in your food. Yuck. We of course talked to the manager and he comped our meals. We ended up paying $20 for the meal... and we tipped the waiter like 9 bucks because he felt so bad and we knew it wasn't his fault. Guess it was my deal day. :D

Friday...

    We don't normally have the step-daughter on Fridays, so today, it was a joy to still have her around instead of sending her off to her mother's Thursday afternoon.  We had to send her off late this afternoon... SAD FACE :( ... but we got her most of the day.  The only problem was that she wouldn't look for much for herself. So she didn't get anything except these little baby shower favors she liked. She's an amazing kid, at that point where she is trying to be responsible and grow up but hold on to her childhood too. She's absolutely obsessed with Justin Bieber at the moment ... then again, what 13 year old girl isn't obsessed with him right now?.... and she has this Justin Beiber singing doll... she paired it with her prettiest Barbie... which she says is her... and the baby shower favors she bought today were their "twins" together.
         This set me rolling. I think this is THE one dumbest thing she has bought so far. It comes right up there with those fake press on nails she is not allowed to have, but she wastes the money she makes walking the neighbor's dog on them anyway, even though they get thrown away as soon as we find them.
    Anyway, I realize that she is trying to hold on to her "kid-dom", but geez... spending $2 on baby shower favors when she refused to look for clothes for herself and wouldn't even touch the books? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. haha  
     Normally I would look for her ( and in truth, I did, even though I said I wasn't going to) but we are trying to help her with her independance. She is so dependant on us for everything. She won't even walk 5 feet from us to order her own soda or something little like that. It's a scary world out there, but this is the time when you start helping your kids with that, right?  So, the only thing she got were those little baby shower toys. I found several pairs of acceptable shoes for her... I say acceptable because we have just let her into heels. Less than 2 inches if they are spike heels and up to 4 inches if they are wedges. They grow up WAY too fast these days. I'm still pretty young and I didn't get heels til I was 15. I also grew up in a Southern Baptist home back in Maryland, where everything is crazy different.  Anyway, I would rather give her some heels and still have her naive on the sex thing. LOL  I also found several shirts and a couple skirts and a book she would have loved, even though she doesn't like reading much. We have some troubles there... stupid California school system. They are very lax here. BUT she refused to look. I guess she'll learn eventually.

     On to what this blog is really about. We went to one of our normal thrift stores, Lighthouse for the Blind on Baseline Ave in San Bernardino. Everything in the store was 50% off. SCORE.   Apparently it is that way on several Fridays per month. Awesome for me to know. :D  
      I found some gorgeous rice paper flowers from Thailand - - - - $4 for 2 different colors, about 35 flowers in all, I think.

They are going to be alot of random things in the end, from hair accessories, to hat desorations, to I'm not sure what else yet.
     I also found 4 books - two for myself - Tuck Everlasting... about a family who accidentally drank from a "fountain of eternal life" and are now living with the blessing... or curse... it bestowed upon them. This book was 38 cents.

And the Cottage Journal - It has seperate small writing spaces for each day of the year. I found an entry in the very back where a woman was praying for help in saving her house and hoping the brother she lost to cancer had been accepted into the Lord's Kingdom. I really hope everything worked out for her. This book was $1.50.

One for my fiance "Tales from the Crypt". He's into skulls and reapers and dark things. He even has skulls, reapers, and the Cryptkeeper tattooed on his body. Maybe I will post pictures of that one day. This book was 25 cents.

  


And "The Care and Keeping of You" that I'm going to make the kid read... as it's embarassing to answer those questions sometimes when she has no basic knowledge at all about her growing body. This book was 75 cents.

    BUT, the toast of this store was the painting I found behind the register on the way out. I already had my subtotal when I spotted this amazing piece. I simply love it. It was originally marked at $29.95, but it had been there long enough to get marked down to $19.95, which meant today it was 50% off of that... $9.95. We didn't have much left though, so I was about to put everything back and just get that painting when my fiance called the manager over and asked her if we could have it for $7. She gave it to me for $7!!! I was so happy, I could have died!
     Warning, this is ART... there is a set of bewbs... but it's not supposed to be considered adult content, because it's art or whatever. I wasn't going to post it, but I love it so much I can't bear not to share it. Here it is.... ---------------

As you can see, I already hung it up, next to my small collection of hats on one side and porcelain masks on the other.

          Well, I severely need to get to bed. I have two more stores to tell you about, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Watch out for Friday, Partv Deux!  (That's 2 in French)

Yesterday

    First of all, HI!!!! This is my first post and I'm so excited to be doing this!!!

       I had the idea for this blog as I was looking for new thrift stores in my area yesterday. I've been blogging for about 2 years, but under different titles and for different people.  I live in Southern California and I have picked through all the stores in my city, so when I found a list of stores online through the Yellow Pages within 100 miles of me, I decided to start visiting all of them that I could. I don't do much reselling at the moment. I am thinking about beginning to do so, though. I have a gut reaction to quality merchandise. Normally, when I see something awesome at a thrift store, discount store, or yard sale I check it out when I get home to see if I should have bought it. Most times I should have. haha  Funny how life works that way.
   Anyway, I wrote down 8 stores in Rialto, Colton, and Fontana/ Bloomington area from this list I found. Crib Thrift Boutique, A Current Affair, St. Catherine's Corner, Kim's Thrift, Mt. Vernon Thriftr, The Yard Sale, Nana's Thrift Store, and Deseret Thrift.
   Now, of course, there are the Salvation Army's and the Goodwill's in that area, but I didn't visit those on this trip. I have picked through the available stores of this type on several occasions and will continue to do so. ;)  ( I am sure I will be blogging about these later!!) But I was looking for small boutique type thrift stores this time.  Places I could find crafting supplies for cheap cheap and some clothing for our family. (I am engaged to a wonderful 37-year-old man who has a 13-year-old daughter.)
    
     Well, out of the 8 stores I wrote down, only 2 of them still existed. Crib Thrift, Current Affair, St. Catherine's, Mt. Vernon Thriftr, Yard Sale, and Nana's were all out of business. Guess it proves how much work it is to run one of these things! Still doesn't deter me from wanting to do it one day. I have so many dreams. I'm sure I'll get into those as well... Geez, I have WAAAAAAAAYYYY too much to share with people who want to listen... :D

    Kim's Thrift on 372 N Mt. Vernon Ave in Colton, was still open. Thank God!!! I was beginning to get discouraged!  As we were rolling up on this store, we almost didn't go in. It seems very small to begin with, with only a couple small racks of clothes, dishes, shoes, and miscellaneous items. Not only that, but it seems very.... what's the word I'm looking for here?..... GHETTO. Yes, that would be it.  But, thanks to my "I'm not scared of anything" fiance, we did go in. I searched through all of the dishes and the clothes and the shoes.... nothing of real importance here... even though there are a couple things I think I should go back for in the dishes as I am a HUGE appreciator of asian collectibles.
   As I was looking through the small selection of clothes, I heard my fiance call for me through a set of double doors, which led into a very large room full of furniture and other collectible items. Most of the items are regular furniture store pieces with small nicks or imperfections, but the prices are pretty reasonable. What really got me, though, was the impressive collection of Asian (I was told Korean and Chinese) antique furniture in the very back.  These pieces, considering what they are, are also very reasonably priced. I am IN LOVE with several of the pieces, and should I have the money for them before they disappear from the store, they WILL be mine. There were a couple of high priced items in the store, but they were one off type of items, such as a custom oil painting of a buddhism head. Very unique and very huge... this painting is literally about 7 feet tall and very well done. 
    The service was exceptional. My fiance was joking with the Hispanic gentleman at the counter about the "Mucho Loco" prices of things... even though, as I said, this store was pretty reasonable. We were cracking up as we were looking around. My step-daughter was not very interested in furniture, so she ended up looking through all the clothes and shoes, better than I had.... which is RARE... and she found a pretty black dress as well as a brand new pair of hippie looking 3" wedge heels... for which she started begging. The man at the counter gave us a very good deal at $5 for both... $2 for the dress and $3 for the heels. Worth it to make a 13-year-old very happy. :D
      Here's a photo of her dress - Maybe I can talk her into posing in it for a better photo sometime... haha  

                    
    Deseret Thrift, on 725 S La Cadena Dr., Colton, CA,  was also still there. This one is also in the middle of nowhere, on the right side of the street right after a blue overpass walking bridge thing that absolutely did not belong.  This store is BIG. It looks like a small KMart in the way it is organized as well. There is no digging through random bins and shelves here. There are TONS of books, all stacked neatly. The knick-knack shelves are completely stocked and not much is broken or nicked. The shoes are all sorted into womens, mens, and childrens and are even sorted by color. The clothing is even sorted by size in some places. In other words, everything is organized very well.  It's almost like I managed it, with my crazy  OCD.  (If I did though, those books would have been alphabetized. haha) 
    However, organization seems to have a price. The prices here are not as cheap as some thrift stores, but still can be reasonable if you are paying attention. Shirts for women and men start at $3 and jeans and dresses start at $5. Thinking back on it now, I realize that I did not see anything that was broken, torn, or ripped. The quality of the clothing seems to be well managed.
    In the end, we spent a little more than we should have here. I found a homemade wedding tiara with a mirror in it for $2 (I tore this apart as soon as I got home to use the main piece and the additions seperately), two packages of stem wire for crafting for $1 a piece, 3 shirts for me at $3 a piece, one shirt for my step-daughter for $4, and a shirt for my fiance for $3. Not too bad, but more than I normally spend per item at a thrift store. I'm after big bargains constantly. 

      Here's a couple photos of the shirts we got.

           

     So, overall nothing big yesterday, but it doesn't mean we didn't have a good day. Everyone came home with something they liked and there was no drama. With a 13-year-old girl, there is ALWAYS drama, so I count this as a fantastic fun thrift day!