1953 "Family Heirloom Finger Painting"

It seems everyone is collecting old paint by number paintings. It made me remember this one, which my mother painted (with some help from my Dad) back in 1953. Yes, it's dated! This was before my time, but I do remember it hanging proudly over my Gramma's couch in the "front parlor" in the old family house. I grew up with this painting! Anyway, I called my uncle last week and sure enough, he remembered it (as the "family heirloom finger painting"), dug it out from somewhere in the house, and shipped it to me right away. Off to the framer with it tomorrow! Paint by numbers collectors, eat your hearts out! This one is all mine. It will never live in a thrift store. Painting size 18 X 24. Value to me: priceless!

Restaurant dinnerware and orchid

Found the red patterned oval platter, the teacups and the egg cup in the last couple of weeks. The cups were a surprise $.59 each, in excellent condition and came from The Mustard Seed. I love the green pattern, but had to have the oval platter since it's similar, but in red. That was the most expensive piece so far at $2.50!

The orchid lived at Dogs and Cats Forever until I decided it needed to come to my home.

Dining Room Table

I have been wanting a dining room table like this for a while. Just a good sturdy, sorta big wood table. I really wanted a HUGE one, that could seat like 10 people. Those are hard to find and really expensive. So I saw this one today at a garage sale for $20. SOLD! Stephen also negotiated these plastic grapes. He paid $1 for a ton of them. I'm not totally thrilled, as the boys like to pluck the grapes off and then I have plastic grapes all voer the place. The grape find might be hitting the garbage soon. Table's nice though. Oh and I actually like the mismatched chair look. I need one more looks like.
Having this table replace our HORRIBLE old table allowed us to put the terrible table on the back patio. So we can eat out there now. We are on the lookout for a patio table to put out there that's not wood of course. We are painfully cheap though, so having something for the mean time is nice.

Welcome to our new blog

Erin loves thrifting as much as I do, I think. It's in our blood. I remember long drives each spring from MA to FLA with a station wagon full of my brothers and sister. Dad's rest stops for relief were Salvation Army outlets and off the highway thrift stores. Seems to me like there were more of them back then. My sister is a devoted yard sale shopper, and Erin caught the bug from all of us as a toddler. I think of thrift store shopping as a treasure hunt. At least once a week I just have to get out there and see if there is any wonderful bargain calling my name - and most of the time there surely is. So here we go friends. We will show you our photos of what called to us most recently. I don't resell anything, only actually take home what I love, or what Erin or our friends will surely love. I can only imagine the goodies coming up on these pages!

Florida Teacups

I actually picked these up for my mom. $1 each set. This lady had a TON of cute little cups and saucers. These were the best ones of course. View of plate art.
Stuff on the back. I can't read it on any of them. I can read "made in japan". Something about Florida artwork made in Japan and purchased in Florida tickles me. The longer silver oval does say the artist and copyright info but I cannot make it out. Sorry.

They have that delicate feel that most little teacups have so I'll have to hand deliver them.

Oh and does anyone know why there are two sizes? Is one for coffee and one for tea or something?

Welcome to Thrift Finds

I'll start with a post telling you what this site will be about.

I'm Erin, me and my mom Linda will be putting our greatest thrift and garage sale finds here. We hope to include other writers over time so that lots of cool thrift finds can be seen on one site.


We are definately wanting to see YOUR finds too. So please comment any time with your thirft related blogs and I will start a blogroll so everyone can find them with just a click.

And of course, by all means if me or mom happen to post something you know to be of great value tell us! We tend to buy stuff because we like it, we want to use or display it, but if we stumble across something of value we want to know. Mom will do the same. I don't know anything about what's valuable! hahaha.