Do you thrift?

Is thrift a verb?  Lately I seem to have been bitten by the thrifting bug and it is pretty fun.

It started out innocently enough with a couple of trips to my sister in law's occasional sales.  She lives a little better than an hour away and once a month or so she has an 'occasional sale' in a little building that she moved onto her yard.  The building that houses her antique shop used to be a small country garage.  She has made it so cute.  It  has a loft and a spiral staircase that leads up to it.  She removed the doors that you would drive through to park and installed a beautiful vintage door and put on a little front porch.  It is filled to overflowing with treasures that she has collected at garage sales, auctions and online auctions.  Once a month or so in the summer she opens up her cute shop on a weekend and sells her vintage finds.  The last time that I was there I bought a stack of small plates that match my mother's pattern of Fostoria that she has had since her wedding.   Mom has quite a few pieces but not these little plates.  They look to be saucers but  I am thinking desserts or appetizers. There is a little variety in size so I think that they were collected over time by the original owner. 

Check out Hollyhock Cottage on facebook to see pictures of her darling shop. 

Then my younger daughter Caitlin introduced me to K-bid.  K-bid is an online auction.  My first successful purchase there was at an auction of restaurant supply equipment.  I didn't have an account yet so my daughter was doing the bidding and we were consulting over the phone.  We ended up with the winning bid on a rack of cutting boards and a set of four of these nifty thingies.

I don't know for sure what they are called or what their intended purpose was in the restaurant kitchen.  I surmised that they were for cooking and then straining smaller amounts of different foods,  Perhaps different pastas or different vegetables.  My hope was to use them for blanching vegetables when I can.  I recently canned a few jars of tomatoes and I had a chance to use them and they worked great.  Since they are pie shaped I think that in the right stock pot the four of them could sit adjacent to each other but I filled them all but only had one in the boiling water at a time.

Caitlin has started collecting treasures of her own and we have hit a few spots when we have been together.  A co-worker of my sister had a garage sale and we checked it out.  I ended up getting a food mill and some cute salt cellars.

One of the things about thrifting is that sometimes you can get stuff that is priced cheaply but you also can get stuff that is no longer available to purchase new in stores.  I am sure that the hardware store in the small town that is closest to the farm sells food mills but not for the couple of bucks that I spent.  I don't know that there is any store in town that sells new salt cellars.  :)  I love dishes and it was fun to find 12 salt cellars for a dollar. They come in many shapes--many are round--but mine are tiny rectangular footed glass cellars.  I am now on the lookout for the tiny glass spoons that are used with them.

Our little town is able to support two second hand stores and the bigger town that is a little farther away has a Goodwill store.  We have found treasures at all of them.

Cait has a full time job in her field but is starting a side business that is a decor rental and event styling company.  She is slowly building an inventory and a website but if you want to check out a few of her pieces before the website is ready she is on Instagram at @sundaybeststyling.

Since this is a mostly a garden blog and there has been a dearth of garden posts lately I will have to get caught up.  It was a disappointing garden season but I am ever optimistic that next year will be better.  And the seeding has started for the winter greenhouse.

Happy autumn.