Oh the joys of thrifting

I ventured out today to my favorite thrift store. My niece is having a baby and I wanted to make some projects from Amanda Blake Soule's books to welcome the baby. In her latest book, The Handmade Home, Soule gives lots of creative ideas for finding materials that have been gently used. One idea is using men's extra large t-shirts for fabric for kids shorts, leggings, etc. I made Jman an entire wardrobe of shorts last summer with just that. So with a small list in hand I headed out... Little did I know the treasures that were waiting for me! First I wanted to find some men's dress shirts for fabric for the baby bag. My niece is using pinstriped baby blue (like a men's shirt) and navy in the nursery. So I scored with these...

Which turned into this bag from one of Soule's books...

Next I came across these nubby wool blankets...

Which will become versions of this at some latter point..

We love Mommy's Little Monsters! The striped roll in the front is wallpaper. It is still in the plastic. I will use it to line my bathroom cabinets. Then I came across this...

Loads of vintage fabric scraps from a failed quilting attempt plus some felt and canvas. I use all of these all the time in craft and sewing projects. Felt is so easy to work with and the vintage scraps make nice appliques and accents.Then I found something I wasn't even looking for but I just had to take home...

Aren't paper dolls just the best!!!!! This package had never been played with. My daughter and I love to play paperdolls and this set even came with that neat backdrop, score! Then I stumbled across another surupise....

That is a bowl full of rubber stamps. Lots of animals in the mix. My kids will use these in their creations and later I can use them in the classroom! What did I come for again?

I'm doing the happy dance. Since I was already on a roll I decided to stroll down another aisle. Which is where I found these vintage glasses...

So cute! They will go great with the vintage drinking glasses I already have. Next came a soap dispenser which I wanted for my bathroom.

Then I hit the jackpot. Obviously a local stationary store had discontinued a couple of lines of greeting cards, one of which happened to be one of my favorite illustrators, Mary Englebreit. I scored a shoebox full of greeting cards for $4!!!!!!

Finally I got this out of date calendar for FREE. It has prints from vintage military posters. I'm going to use one to make a card for my Dad this Memorial Day.

Well there you go! Hope you are just as lucky in your thrifting excursions this summer!