The week has been beautiful, not without its challenges, but beautiful nonetheless. We had a brief hospital visit where my son was diagnosed with tourette’s syndrome. And while I do occasionally worry about the growing number of special needs, there wasn’t a day this week that wasn’t good. The moments we were together in a hospital room, the hours we read, planted in our community garden and walked outside, the text from their godparents offering an afternoon/early evening’s baby-sitting “just because”, their other godmother getting in touch to ask if I’d like a couple of hours on mother’s day to myself, their fairy godparents {aka the couple they think hung the moon} arranging a fun bike ride. Then there was the worry over finances being met with a hug from each of my two {as if they instinctively knew Mummy needed a bit of tender care} and evenings spent hiking, biking, walking and watching my daughter’s swimming abilities come on by leaps and bounds. We have a truly beautiful life and tourette’s will now simply be part of that.

However, I love fruit snacks and so do my kids. Since my mantra is something along the lines of “if a store can make it, so can I” (that is not at all my mantra but whatever), I went about finding a recipe for them.

I tried one that ended up pretty bad. I showed you that picture in a previous post so I won’t disgust you with it again. After tweaking that one, we hit the jackpot.

Here are the ingredients:

12 oz or 2.5 C of fruit (our favorite is raspberries)

3 T of honey

1/2 C of lemon or orange juice

a little less than 1/2 C of gelatin

Let me first prime you by telling you exactly which gelatin to use- DON’T buy the disgusting stuff from the store. Use this amazing stuff. Sorry that I linked the wrong word, but I’m too lazy to go back and fix it…

The benefits of real gelatin are immense: hair and nail growth, protein, improves digestion, crucial for joint health, improves cellulite, and others. One of A’s therapists heard the boys talking aout gelatin and she thought that I was grinding up horse and hog hooves in the kitchen- just a laugh for you.

Now onto the how to:

Mix the fruit and lemon juice and heat it over medium low heat until the fruit is soft.

After it has softened, let it cool about 5 min then put it in a blender to puree it.

Then you whisk in the honey and the gelatin. I am talking REALLY whisking. As in your hand will really start hurting. Gelatin obviously congeals so you need to whisk fast fast fast so that you dont end up with clumps.

Pour the mixture into silicone molds. The silicone part is pretty essential because you need to be able to pop them out after an hour or so.

on clearance gingerbread men

one dollar at Target

Set them in the fridge for an hour or so and then enjoy. We LOVE these. Make them and let me know what you think!

the lone raspberry man on the stove

fingers courtesy of a 2 year old

apple, berry, and gingerbread man

]]> http://fairyburger.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/saving-electricity/ Tue, 07 May 2013 14:21:25 +0000 Farrah http://fairyburger.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/saving-electricity/ http://everydayoriginals.com/2013/05/07/shower-curtains-turned-no-sew-drapes/ Tue, 07 May 2013 13:31:01 +0000 Lindsey T http://everydayoriginals.com/2013/05/07/shower-curtains-turned-no-sew-drapes/ I’d like to think that I would have a long post about these DIY curtains. But, in reality, they were so simple you could probably make them with your eyes closed. Okay, well don’t try that because there is an iron involved.

Now, I completely understand that animal print is not everyone’s cup of tea. But I always have, and continue to, love a little pop of it here and there. When I found these two shower curtains for a steal at TJ Maxx, one for $7 and one for $10, I knew they would be prefect for our large living room windows. And if you’re wondering why the exact same shower curtains were different prices, I have no idea. But I will tell you that I obviously argued with them and the $7 one was actually $12 to start. When they were running the sku’s they realized it should be on clearance. So that was a lovely surprise. Anyway, back to the curtains.

They were too short for the windows but I had some leftover white fabric so I knew exactly how I would lengthen them. I started by folding each shower curtain in half perfectly. I did this on the floor because I needed a space large enough. Once I folded them in half I then cut perfectly on the fold line. I eventually had four pieces.

I measured the width of each piece and measured what the added length would be that I needed. With those measurements I cut out four additional pieces of fabric from the white scraps that I had. Using heat bond iron on tape I then ironed the white pieces to the main pieces. Since each panel had a cut side, where I cut the full curtain in half, I didn’t want it to fray. So using another strip of heat bond tape I made a fold on the edge to create a hem.

That was it! It was really easy and I actually loved making drapes out of shower curtains. It’s a heavier duty fabric so it was easier to work with and falls nicely. It also already had the holes to hang it so I didn’t need to make any or get those ring clips.

We hung them from our DIY curtain rods and I love the way they look. Nothing is complete yet, is anything ever complete?! We still have to paint the rods and add finials. Once it warms up more we can get outside and spray those. What color would you guys paint the rods? I can’t decide and it’s driving me nuts.

Since I already had the white fabric the final cost of each was $4.25, plus some tax. Not bad for four drapes! We love the way they pulled the room together, especially since it’s such an open space. Okay so in the end I guess I did have a lot to say. Either way, they were so easy and inexpensive to make, so the next time you’re on the hunt for drapes, don’t skip the shower curtains, you never know what you might find!

Last night we were going to be busy squishing a good deal of grapes so I just put soup on for tea. Hubby is not so keen on soups but will eat them, I love them….there’s something soothing about chopping all those vegetables into a large pot simmering into very nourishing comfort food….and it’s a virtually free meal when you have a garden.

Already in the pot was this amount of pumpkin again and a bag of grated, frozen zucchini. The stock was made the day before from a leg roast bone, cooled overnight, the fat removed and any meat chopped up and returned to pan. In the jars are dried leeks and lentils, I just added salt, pepper and herbs to this, simmered about 4 hours and adjusted seasonings. In most cases I find a bland soup just comes from not enough salt or it hasn’t thickened well enough from cooking down. Pumpkin and potato give the soup a thicker more substantial texture. I use what is available, at other times celery, parsnip, swedes etc will go in.

Years ago when my kids were small I kept a large container in the freezer for vegetable water, gravies and leftovers for soup and just added what was missing at cooking time (or odd veges wrinkling in the fridge!) Couldn’t be called flash food, but good, frugal, nourishing with a good bread.

A pot of soup can last up to a week on the stove being reheated each day and new things added. I remember an elderly woman telling me years ago her mother kept the same pot going all winter. !! I have frozen 2/3 of this for easy meals in the future.

Hubby found this perfect crop of large mushrooms in a paddock at work Other years I have sauteed any extra mushrooms in better and oil and frozen with good outcome, today I  dried this lot. A friend of ours who is a chef told us at his restaurant they order in dried mushrooms and just soak in water as needed….

Today I made some dish soap because we ran out yesterday. I hope this recipe is better than my last one!

Bushes at Aldi -

Yep I got bushes at Aldi and they where $2.99 each. Now I do understand that it will take a few years for these to be the big full bushes that I want but they will help hid the shed! They have been in the ground for about a moth now and they are looking good and have new growth!

Lows clearance -

Missouri can not decided if it is spring or winter. We keep getting snow and flooding and all kids of crazy weather. There where lots of plants that got damaged in a snow storm. This is what we got.

I got these three min roses bushes for $2 each. There is one for each kid and they have named them. I can’t remember what they named them and the big kids fight about what the babies bush is called…it is kind of cute. They have done fantastic even with the crazy weather. All but one of them has bloomed. I did plant these in the front of the front porch so they are not really part of the Patio Project.

These 6 packs of Pansies where 75 cents each! I potted them and will put them on the patio when it gets a bit warmer. Right now I have them up by the house on the deck just so they stay warm at night. They are stating to fill out the planters nicely and are getting ready to bloom big time. I will try and remember to take a photo.

- Frizz cream – I keep a small plastic container with about 1/2 cup of coconut oil in my bathroom cabinet to smooth on my wet hair after my nightly shower. This works as well as any commercial frizz creams that I have used. I have learned though to go easy as a little goes a long way. I use just a tiny amount each time and 1/2 cup of oil lasts for a few months. I have also used a tiny bit of coconut oil on dry hair as I style it in the morning to tame frizzies.

- Cooking – I melt coconut oil to use for frying foods. It works well, is healthier than vegetable or canola oils, and smokes less than olive oil. Since coconut oil is solid at room temperature it is also a good substitute for shortening in baked goods.

- Moisturizer – I sometimes use coconut oil in place of lotion for dry skin. It’s especially good on rough places like knees and elbows. I don’t use this on my face because I’m afraid it would be too greasy, but a little on dry legs and arms works well.

There are many, many other uses for this wonderful stuff. I have pinned a recipe for homemade coconut oil shampoo that I would like to try soon. I’d also like to try some of the other uses for it that I have seen listed on Pinterest and other blogs. What do you use coconut oil for?

What’s left of the beans are being left to dry out for next years seed and cooking, there’s still alot left on the plants.

So, while Roger hauled out dead plants and transplanted some currant bushes I got the easy? job of pulling apart a massive bale of half rotted peastraw and wheelbarrowing it to the garden and spreading it on. Slimy, stinky as hell and verrry heavy…..gosh, what a lovely job! I was soo looking forward to a bath after that one but never got it, I’m sure I smell ok this morning though I did get to wash over the sink Our bath is full of grapes. Sitting there sore and tired after a rather long few day we got a phone call to ask if we still wanted to try making our own wine – a local vineyard owner Roger knows still had plenty on his vines after the harvest. So, without really thinking; we have no idea how to make it, do we have the necessary equipment, how can we store it etc etc we take off to collect around 130 kg (or more!) of red grapes.

6 rubbish sacks, 1/4 – 1/3 full sitting on the back of a truck means alot of juice already by the time we got home so the only place really for these was the bath I was so desperately needing. THEN, we look on the computer to find out what we need and how to do this. Quite involved….ay?! We bought two food grade 200 lire plastic barrels that we had on our watch list on an auction site (we were still considering buying for next year) and today I am off to the library for some information and to the wine making supply shop for advice and some chemicals and equipment. When hubby comes home from work he needs to drive 55 km to get these barrels, and this afternoon I will start de-stemming and mashing. Roger has made a wee bit of wine in the past, at boarding school he and some friends made a still in some empty lockers they bashed the walls out of….so he feels he knows a little bit about the process, I am not so sure we can handle such a great quantity in our first attempt but…..watch this space I guess!!

I managed to locate some cheap walnuts, an elderly lady we know was selling them for the local Guides, so I finally have the bin full as I try to do each year. Today I will be making museli with walnuts, dried apples, figs and feijoas and seeds. I have not bought any muesli for months so am looking forward to this.

And, with the cold weather the chooks have stopped laying so we are having to buy eggs. My son took this photo a couple of weeks back when my granddaughter went down to collect them as she always does. Rather than lay in the hen house our chooks prefer the big nest my husband made from branches cut down from the garden, he built a little house for them under the gum tree which they love. It needs either a little person or a very flexible one to collect these!

So, today my jobs are sorting out the grape problem we have created for ourselves and making muesli and doing another batch of dried apples. I’m actually a bit worried about going into town fearing I might smell still of rotten peastraw, I just won’t look at people’s faces I think…. they say ignorance is bliss!!

I noticed this morning that my circle of muffins was no longer a complete circle…some mouse in the house must have decided that they REALLY liked them too! lol

Tracy, Coco n Stix

Why eat organic?

Organic food is quite simply more nutritious, more ethical, and safer.  It is higher in vitamins and minerals, antioxidants, flavenoids, and organic food is grown in nutrient-dense soil with sustainable practices.  It doesn’t contain harmful pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, flavour enhancers, artificial sweeteners, genetically-engineering, and the like.  It is also fair trade and ethically produced.

One of the things to consider when weighing up the cost of eating organic food, is the actual cost in eating conventional food, as the true cost is measured in terms of every part of the chain – the cultivation, the effects on farmers and local economies, the manufacture, the distribution, and the waste.  We are not only responsible for what we put in our bodies and discard at the end of the day, but also for the additional load we have contributed to the environment via our purchasing.  Something to think about.

If you have to compromise somewhere, buy the spray-free alternatives or visit the EWG’s list, ‘Clean 15’, for the things you can buy with the lowest pesticide residues (although these still won’t be as nutrient dense as their organic counterparts).

As you are deciding how you can afford to eat organic food, consider that by making this choice you putting the highest quality nutrients into your body and ensuring the best health for you and that of your family.  It may mean making some budget cuts elsewhere, but it is a worthy investment if you can take steps towards greater health.

For our family, we very rarely rent movies or eat out, and have started get better about being more creative with our gift-giving – which has been a little beyond our means at times!  It also means we simply go without things sometimes.  But we have chosen to make organic food part of our family’s quest towards what we believe is responsible stewardship of our bodies and the environment.

Have a read of this great article, one of the places I referred to when writing this post.

Where to start

First things first – you’ll need to do some research.  Find (preferably) local sources for fresh produce, meat, dairy, and other sources for your pantry goods, many of which can be found online.

It may be stating the obvious a bit, but I’ll say it anyway: you’ll also want to write up a detailed budget worksheet, and see how much you can put towards your groceries each week.  We looked at Dave Ramsay’s helpful resources 10 years ago and still use his suggestions in how we manage our finances.

Sourcing Food

• Find your local farmers markets – turn market day into a fun family day.  Get to know your local growers.  They’re often a super source of wisdom and advice.
• Find a good fruit and vege box supplier online if you can, which contain seasonable varieties of fruit and/or vegetables. You’ll probably still need to buy the more expensive items that aren’t usually in the boxes.
• Join a co-op or start one.
• Start a garden, or at the very least, plant herbs such as parsley, coriander, mint and sage. You could do these in planter box off the window sill.

Buying tips

• Buy in bulk (eg. flour, nuts, legumes)
• Avoid buying processed snacks and simply make your own.  It just takes some creativity.
• Buy specialty items online (usually for much cheaper) for things such as salt, spices, cacao products, bee products, sea vegetables, etc.
• Ditch buying the organic versions of processed foods, such as boxed cereals and bars as these are not usually nutritious anyway and can quickly bump up your grocery bill.
• If you can’t get organic meat, eggs and dairy, always buy grass-fed versions.

Preparing and storing food

• Make bone broths from chicken frames and beef bones that are left over from your meals.  You could also buy them for next to nothing from your meat supplier.  Freeze tons of the stuff!
• Buy fresh produce in season, and freeze, ferment, make simple sauces to add to meals and freeze these also.
• Source simple and nutritious recipes for your meals, print, and store in your recipe folder
• Create meal plans, so you are only shopping for exactly what you need that week.  If you have some room in the budget, stock up on pantry items.
• Don’t throw anything out – I use all my leftovers somehow.  Vegetables can be diced and added with eggs and cheese for a frittata; small amounts of meat can be turned into stirfries and rice dishes; ratatouille can be blended and turned into a sauce.  Try putting your ingredients into your search engine and see what you come up with.

You might like to consider making a gradual transition into making the switch to organic food.

One of the things I noticed with us, is that I tried replacing ‘apples for apples’ in the beginning, until eventually (after a few years) our eating habits themselves changed and as a result our overall grocery bill dropped.

Did I miss anything?  Comment below!

Some other posts you might be interested in:

• The Story of Stuff
• Back to Eden – Small Beginnings
• Back to Eden – our story so far
• Natural Living Guide
• Local Sources (NZ)

Sadly the sister of one of the family’s that has helped us out house burned to to ground. It was a total loss. When I got the email about this and knew that we needed to help. After taking to my friend I realized that I had an old blender that I don’t use in the basement and found out they needed personal care items. That is where I could help!

This is the photo of things that I came up with to give. I also gave them the blender and some dryer sheets. I did not pay more then a dollar for any thing in the photo and most of it was free. These where all things I had in my stock pile from couponing that I knew I would not miss.

The food bank in town also takes personal items to help the local families. They are in need of egg cartons right now and that does not cost me a thing ( I was getting the eggs for us anyway). I also got several 4oz Similac bottles as freebies or free with coupons that I am going to pass on as well.

My children have helped me drop off donations or collect thinning at the house. I hope this helps show my children that helping others, even when things are tight, is an important thing.  I also believe in the saying “what goes around comes around” and with all the help we have gotten from others in hard times this is the least that I can do.

Homemade cheese — photo courtesy of Steve Henderson Fine Art

I know. I didn’t tell you about Sunday’s failure because I didn’t want to ruin your day the way the cheese had the potential to ruin mine. I say “potential,” because any time you make anything at home — cheese, bread, soup, cookies, Kombucha — you expect variables.

I’m not Kraft. Or General Mills. Or Wonder Bread.

Which is good, because while it means that I don’t have a clinically sterile industrial kitchen that puts out the exact same product, time after time after time, what I make and bake and create doesn’t taste like what comes out of those clinically sterile industrial kitchens.

You may not believe this, but it took me years to figure this out, and that only because a wise woman who was married to a Frenchman and who had lived in Europe (why is it that people who live in Europe know so much more about good food than Americans do? Is it because they eat it?) told me this, about cheese:

“In Europe, each home’s cheese is unique to that home and its cheese maker. Nobody expects their cheese, or their bread, to taste like anyone else’s, and they celebrate the uniqueness of each craft person’s creation.”

Food, like people, is unique. We can celebrate this. Mesa Walk, available as a signed, limited edition print through Steve Henderson Fine Art.

Here in America we consider food a success when it looks, and tastes, like what we could buy in the store. We agonize because our Twinkies don’t look like the real thing, (and no, I have never tried to make a Twinkie at home).

Elsewhere, food is considered successful when it tastes good. How odd.

No, actually what’s odd is that so many of us consider mass produced food products, often made from inferior ingredients compensated by sugar, fat, salt, and artificial flavorings, to be real, while what we create in our kitchens, with our time, our hands, our labor, and our love, to be lacking somehow.

And while it’s true that some people aren’t the best cooks in the world (I’ve eaten at their houses; have you?), as long as a person is one step above truly dreadful, they can generally create, with decent quality ingredients, something as palatable as the stuff from a can or a box.

And if they’re two or more steps above dreadful, and the closer they approach really darn good, they turn eating from a daily task to an event. That’s what eating is in our household, with Tired of Being Youngest and her culinary school practice sessions in our kitchen, and with me — 40 years in the kitchen and counting, fresh produce from the Norwegian Artist’s garden, eggs from the chicken, and milk from the goats — looks like.

Goats provide wonderful milk for making artisan cheese. Fenceline Encounter by Steve Henderson.

You know, you may be a really darn good cook, only you don’t know it yet. Pick up some quality ingredients — fresh produce, artisan cheese, farm fresh eggs, organic butter — and scrambled eggs will be transformed from a pale, quivering mass of sliced product on your plate, slathered with ketchup to disguise the texture, to a simple, yet sublime meal.

To start with, make it easier on yourself by creating something that isn’t readily recognizable as a store product — in other words, don’t try to bake Twinkies. You can’t get ahold of Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Sodium Caseinate, or Mono and Diglycerides anyway — and, um, do you really want to?

Someday, you may get so excited about quality ingredients and the food you can make from them that you’ll track down a goat so that you can get fresh milk from which to make your own artisan cheese.

Or not.

But when you make your own food, in your own kitchen, you connect with thousands of years of the human experience, most of which has been lived beneficially and well without Twinkies, yellow/orange macaroni and cheese, frozen orange chicken in a bag, or bread product that, when you squish it into a ball shape, it stays that way.

And bounces.

In addition to finding Steve’s original fine art paintings, signed, limited edition prints and inspirational posters on the Steve Henderson Fine Art website, you can find open edition prints of his work at Great Big Canvas and Light in the Box.

The crew and I sleep late after a false start that sent us back under the covers.  Last night before bed I put the heater on for about an hour.  By morning the BLT is very chilly.  The wind blows us right back inside from the necessary morning run.

Mid-morning I drive us over to Sunset View Campground.

I want to fill up some of my empty water jugs.  I expect to see the campground crowded like when we first arrived at Navajo National Monument.  It’s deserted!  Not one camper . . Hmm . . . I know it’s cold, but no one is here?

I stop at the restrooms to look for the water spigot.

Mystery solved . . . A sign explains, “Water turned off due to cold.”  Oh, maybe that’s why no one is here.  Well, I can get more water in Kayenta tomorrow on our way to Monument Valley. 

Another reason for driving over to Sunset View Campground is for the three of us to absorb the sunny warmth of the PTV, rather than turning on the heater in the BLT.  I am cheap, you know.  More about that in a little bit.

Bridget, Spike, and I stroll around Canyon View Campground.

I’m surprised to find about twenty vacant tents down at the group site.  All the other sites in the campground remain empty.  Back at the BLT I open up the laptop and dive into my financial reports for 2012.  Here it is May and I’m finally getting around to adding up the figures!

How much does it cost to full-time it?

Well, for me, it costs less than $13,000 a year!  Total dollars spent for calendar year 2012 comes to $12, 867.91.  That’s for everything.  In 2012 the crew and I traveled through Arizona, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada and California.  We went from the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, forty miles from Mexico, to the Black Hills of South Dakota to the Pacific Ocean and back to the Sonoran again.

Camping fees paid for the entire year?  $788.82  — The highest camp fee was $20 for a tent site for one night at Harris State Park on the Pacific Coast in southern Oregon.

Mostly we camped for free!

Sixty-nine percent of the days of 2012 we paid no camping fee (252 days).  I’ve been on the road since August 2011 and I can positively say that it is possible to camp for free every day of the year.  We’re fortunate that we don’t have to do that, but it’s good to know it’s possible.  I’m very pleased with these figures.  We are “living on less and enjoying life more!”

This afternoon the crew and I attempt Aspen Trail.

We don’t go far before it becomes apparent that this trail is too steep for the crew.  Bridget is the first to look at me with a face that pleads, “Can we go back, please?”

I put the crew in the PTV and hike the trail by myself.  It’s an exhilarating hike that gives the long view of Betatakin Canyon.

Aspen Trail

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Tomorrow the crew and I are back on the road!

rvsue

I had no problem with not eating out; it drove Will a little crazy.

Will had no problem with not shopping; it drove me a little crazy.

In the shopping category, we spent $15 this month (Will needed a pair of rubber boots, and when you find rubber boots, you buy them, because they quickly disappear), compared to $355 last month.  It’s amazing how little I spend when Value Village and iTunes and Amazon are off limits.

“Buy Nothing” was a good thing for me.  At the start, I was itching to buy something, anything.  I dreamed about the things I would buy in May.  I had stuff all picked out online that I was going to purchase the second this month was done.  But without even realizing it, the excitement to buy, buy, buy kinda disappeared.  The urge, the need simply vanished.   I’ve gone a month without them; do I really need them as badly as I thought I did?  I guess not.

We didn’t incorporate any drastic frugal measures, other than cleaning the pantry and using up some old food.  Because restaurants were off the list, we decided to spare no expense when it came to groceries.  Even then, we still spent less than the $500 we budgeted this month on groceries, compared to the $985 we spent on food and dining out last month.  Yes, $985.  More than our house bills for the month.  We were out of control.  So you see why we needed a “Buy Nothing” month.

Going forward, it would be impossible to cut out shopping and eating out at restaurants for ever.  No pizza make Will crazy.  Plus, I only have two pairs of jeans in rotation at the moment – thrift store, here I come!  But we do need to exercise a bit more control and restraint.  Perhaps only ordering pizza once a week, and maybe only a couple of trips to Value Village a month would be doable.  We’ll see.

If you’re having spending problems, I highly recommend doing a “Buy Nothing” month.  It really is like pushing “reset” on your spending habits.  It brings your priorities sharply into focus, and makes you confront what you’re avoiding by spending time and money on all that “stuff.”  For me, shopping at a thrift store is very relaxing and creatively satisfying.  Without that outlet, I found myself being more creative with writing and baking.  I spent more time with my animals and my husband.  It forced me to find other ways to relax and be creative that didn’t require spending a dime, like going to the library, or walking the dogs.  If things start to spiral out of control again, I wouldn’t hesitate to do another “Buy Nothing” month.

Have you every tried a “Buy Nothing” month?  What was your experience like?  What did you learn?  Leave me comment – I’d love to hear from you!

Related articles

• Budgeting: Save Money on Food (quicken.intuit.com)
• Avoid Complete Financial Meltdown: 5 Easy Ways to Save Money (epicafinance.com)
• 17 Tips to shopping Thrifty (swapwithusaz.wordpress.com)

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“Flavored water sweetened naturally, now that’s refreshing!”

When you really think about it, almost everything you could possibly want or need is sitting in a pawn shop, thrift store, used car lot, or garage sale somewhere, waiting to find new purpose and be saved from a landfill.

Buying second hand just makes sense.  In fact I have been able to earn a small house down payment in the past two years selling vintage online, as well as saving thousands that I would have spent running through the mall and leaving a lighter footprint in my wake.

Naturally more and more people are jumping on the bandwagon and earning money selling second hand finds from home.  I’m often asked by those starting out where I find my pieces.  Truthfully, I thrift, a lot.  But with all the other vintage pickers lurking about, thrift stores are often completely picked over.  In fact its not rare that I will scour a shop for an hour and leave empty handed.

Ive found some killer pieces in thrift stores but usually have to filter through thousands of 90s throwaways to find just one.  My best finds have usually come as a lot and while Ive had to drop more money down, Ive left with my arms full of great pieces at a lower premium than I would pay for individually at a thrift shop.

Here is where Ive had my best luck,

1. Search Kijiji ads – I’m in Canada and not sure if kijiji exists out side of the country, but I’m sure there are other online equivalents.  I once responded to an add of a women selling “some 70s clothes” and arrived to find a basement filled with mint pieces from the 40s to the early 60s.  The woman had no clue about the value of the collection and really didn’t care, she just wanted them gone and was willing to take $4 a piece for dresses and $1 a piece for separates.  I ended up dropping $200 and walking away with the whole collection.  The following week I sold a 40s wedding dress from the collection for $400.  Just like that I made back my money times two.  The key to this is to check Kijiji often and don’t shy away from ads that look unappealing.  Sometimes people post terrible photos and really don’t know how to properly date their clothing.  Bottom line, if you see someone selling vintage, go check it out.

2. Post a Kijiji ad – Ive received a few calls from sweet old ladies who are holding on to pieces that just don’t fit them anymore and would rather see someone face to face who will be walking away with their treasures then just toss them in a donation bin.  Ive found great stuff this way and also met some lovely people.

3. Estate and Garage sales – I’m adding this because Ive had some luck this way but unfortunately the area I live in is saturated with estate sale companies who search the values of everything they sell online and price things high leaving little room for profit.  In other parts of the country people have great luck at estate sales.  One of my best finds came at a garage sale where a woman was selling a 50pc collection of 1950s dresses for $300.

4. Costume shops – I never realized the world of costume shops was a vintage pickers paradise until recently.  I called a few local shops to see if anyone had any vintage clothes they were happy to get rid of and found myself driving out of town a week later to view one shop owners collection that had spilled over into her basement.  What I found was the largest selection of true vintage in one place I have ever seen before.  I actually had to turn down a bunch of amazing stuff because she had over 30 000 pieces and at least half of it was good.  I’m still working on listing all my finds but they will be appearing in my online shop very soon http://www.etsy.com/shop/onefortynine

Here is a preview of just a few…

I’m already planning my second trip with a girlfriend next month. I wont share the location of said costume shop but, I can guarantee if you branch out your vintage search from thrift shops into these four other locals, you’ll be swimming in a fabulous collection of vintage clothes in no time.

Happy thrifting!