Thrifty finds!

When I moved into my new place in september I was inspired and ready to get unpacked, get settled, and get decorating! Once all the chaos of moving slowed down a bit I quickly realized that decorating on a practically nonexistent budget is much more difficult than I'd hoped and my motivation for having the sweetest rental in history faded a bit. I did however keep my eyes peeled for inexpensive crafty art ideas and when I came across perl bee's swatch portrait tutorial I was convinced I could successfully execute that craft! (I blogged about it here.) My new mission was to search kamloops for wooden embroidery hoops - which seemed near to impossible after a good month of searching...until today! Thanks to the wonderful thrifty eye of wendy I had my first successful trip to the thrift store! Check out all these killer deal hoops:


Yay! Now to figure out what fabrics I want to put in there, stretch them in, and stick them on the wall! So good! I've also realized a few things about thrift shopping in kamloops (that's right - list time!):

1) Shop often. Thrift stores are always getting new stock in and the more often you go the better chance you'll be able to get a wicked deal!

2) Pick the right area. I've discovered that trying to find amazing deals at the crazy popular thrift stores is pretty pointless. Not only are some ridiculously overpriced but they are usually picked over. Try supporting your local community and pick the little shops in the lower income area of town and you're more likely to get deals!

3) Go with a friend! Two sets of eyes are better than one - but make sure you aren't looking for the same items or you might run into conflict.

and
4) Be patient. I always seem to find things when I'm not really looking for them. If you set high expectations for a thrifting trip you're destined to be disappointed. Don't expect much out of the shopping and have fun with the experience!

Yay! I definitely want to work more thrift store searching into my spare time because you never know what you'll stumble across! I am super excited for the other two items I picked up with those wooden embroidery hoops:


Best $1.75 I've spent in a while! And a girl can never have too many doilies and owl prints right? Now I've just got to spray paint that beat up gold frame a nice matte black and get it on the wall! Hooray! Anyone else have any amazing thrift store tips to share? I'm all ears! Well....eyes really...