A Good Week for Thrifty Finds

I'm excited that I got to visit two places I love to go this week.  And even more excited that I found some great finds.  That's not always the case, believe me!  I've had a very dry spell lately which is why I haven't posted very often.  I love vintage vases, dishes, table linens and too many other things.  I also pick up a few things to sell on Ebay to support my junking habit. 

With fuel costs rising higher and higher, I try to plan my consignment store and Goodwill trips when I have other errands to run in town.  This week I had errands to do, so I stopped there for a look around.  I always head straight for the dishes and linens.  Somehow they end up with a lot of new discontinued patterns of dishes, so I always try to grab those when I can.  Recently I bought a beautiful pattern at TJMaxx.  It looked like Spring, but without all the pinky, green normal Springtime colors.  Red and Black - not usually what you associate with Spring.  I bought all they had which was four plates and four mugs to set an intimate tablescape.  I looked at other places for salad plates but couldn't find any and have since found that they're very expensive on Ebay.  I bought the four cups for $4.99 and the plates for $7.99.  One small salad plate sells on Ebay for $14.99.  The pattern is Coventry Makayla and here it is.

The reason I wanted the salad plates was to create another layer.  So since I couldn't afford four salad plates at $14.99, I went in search for something that may look pretty good with a mix and match pattern.  This is where the Goodwill trip came in handy.  I found four soup bowls, four salad plates and two cups and saucers in this pattern and paid 49 cents for each piece.  The pattern is Mikasa Cocoa Blossom and they were brand new with the stickers still on the bottom of each piece.

Imagine my shock when I got home and found that one saucer sold recently on Ebay for $16.99.   And I had paid less than $6 for twelve pieces.  This is the way I put it together by adding the Mikasa salad plate and saucer to the Coventry.  It's a pretty nice match, don't you think.

But that's not the end of the story.  More thrifty finds were to be found at Goodwill.  When I saw this set laying on the display rack, I quickly gobbled them up.  I had seen this pattern recently on a tablescape blog and fell in love with it.  Could this be the pattern?  There's a lot of fruit patterns in china, so until I turned it over, I wasn't sure.  Yep, this is it!  It's Sonoma Sakura and there were four soup bowls and three dinner plates.  Back home to check on Ebay and once again I nearly fell over on the floor.  One soup bowl recently sold for $11.99 and dinner plates were selling for $12.50 each.  And I had paid less than $3.50 for all seven pieces.  While I was walking around with my buggy full of plates, a lady walked by and handed me some placemats.  She said, "I picked these up to buy but they really don't match my kitchen and I see you have plates in there to match so you can have these if you want."  How sweet!  Of course I wanted them and the cashier rang the four of them up at $1.99.  Here they are:

I absolutely love them.  I had been dreaming about this pattern ever since I saw the tablescape.

OK, is this the end of the story?  Not....  Can I be more blessed?  Yes.  Our favorite Saturday morning adventure is the flea market.  It's been a while since I found much there, but Spring is in the air which is bring more yard sale sellers out with their wares.  There was a sweet little lady there who was downsizing.  I love sweet little ladies who are downsizing.  I should be one of them, but I haven't got the bug yet.  I'm always looking for table linens and I spotted some right away.  Here's what I found.

This adorable Bunny table runner. $2.00

Six fabulous yellow napkins - never used. $2.50

Six beautiful vintage white lacy dinner napkins - spotless. $3.00

And this pretty scarf that is plenty big for my table - so I'm calling it a table scarf. $3.00

$10.50 total for all those lovely things.  Needless to say, it was an exciting week!  Sometimes I get discouraged going to these places and not finding a thing, but perseverance is the key.  There's lots of thrifty things out there, but you have to keep looking.  Have you found any treasures lately?  I would love to hear about them!