Adventures in Thrifting: One Fine Day

I love to thrift. So much so, those feelings deserve their own separate blog post. And I’ll get to that – one day. But today, I want to tell you about the lucky/awesome/unexplainably fabulous thrifting adventure I had a few weeks ago. It was the kind of day where everything I touched just worked. I’ve never come home with such a haul from mostly “unselective” stores (Buffalo Exchange, Plato’s Closet = pre-sorted, selective stores; Goodwill, Salvation Army, Thrift Town, etc. = semi-sorted, but unselective stores – i.e., they’ll pretty much take anything donated to them). My friend Bethany and I had been planning this shopping trip for a few weeks, and I’d really been looking forward to it. We started the day off at the Old Home Supply in Fort Worth (you can read another blog I wrote about it here), intending to focus our hunt on housewares. They had some amazing sutff – don’t get my wrong – but nothing felt right. Nothing felt splurge-worthy (and most everything in the main building of OHS is a potential splurge). I was already starting to feel discouraged when we arrived at our second destination – Berry Good Buys, a small thrift store in the TCU area of Fort Worth. I immediately fell in love with the cleanliness of the store and the “Berry Chic Boutique” section they offered. Everything was nicely sorted and well priced. It’s definitely on my list of new favorites.

Our second stop was made at the Plato’s Closet near the Hulen area of Fort Worth. The store was a total nightmare – overly-crowded, disorganized, and filled with running/screaming /unattended children. I’m surprised we didn’t turn around and leave immediately, but I did find two rather nice dresses there, one of which will be perfect for Vancouver with boots and tights. We took a short retail break after that to roam around World Market for an hour or so, then made our way to an old faithful thrift store, Thrift Town in North Richland Hills (on the corner of highway 26 and Rufe Snow). This was the same place I found the American flag bustier last year – it’s a fantastic, HUGE, wonderful store. It has a good vibe, and I always find something there, whether it be housewares or clothing. They have a “Nicer Clothing” section at the front of the store, where I found quite a few things, but the regular women’s racks proved to be just as fruitful. I also found a piece of vintage Pyrex, and a brand-new Wilton serving bowl (details on that below).

We made one more stop at our favorite antique shop, Golightly’s in North Richland Hills, where I picked up a beautiful white chenille bedspread for 30% off. We also had cupcakes, because, well… obviously. I went home feeling absolutely triumphant – I’ve been thrifting for years, and this may be the single best day I’ve ever had with clothing. I was most amazed at how much of what I found was in line with the “Fall Style” board I created on Pinterest – sweaters, tweed, the leather skirt, bold prints, etc. I think if you go with the right mindset, and a mental list of what you’re looking for, you’re bound to have some luck. I’m working on a “do’s and don’t's of thrifting” post, so stay tuned for that

(I did stop at my local Goodwill a few days later for a quick browse, and found a couple more things, so I’m including them as well!)

Here’s the breakdown:

Store #1: Berry Good Buys, Fort Worth/TCU area
Ann Taylor genuine leather skirt, $8
H&M grey sweater vest, $5
Paige jeans (never worn/washed), Laurel Canyon style, $8
Rebecca Taylor metallic tweed & crepe dress (new with tags), $20
Nine West leather convertible handbag (new with tags), $4 (originally listed at $8, purses were half/price that day)

 

Store #2: Plato’s Closet, Fort Worth/Hulen Area
Plaid flannel dress, $12
Gap pleated dress, $12

 

Store #3: Thrift Town, North Richland Hills
Peter Nygard tweed-trimmed metallic cardigan, $8
American Eagle plaid button-up, $3
Vintage Liz Claiborne Classics houndstooth wool pencil skirt, $8
Linda Allard/Ellen Tracey silk polkadot french cuff  blouse, $8

 

Store #4: Goodwill, Bedford/Industrial Blvd.
Reba white ruffle/french cuff blouse, $5
Old Navy gingham dress shirt, $3

 

Total (2 skirts, a pair of (very expensive!) jeans, 3 dress, 4 shirts, 2 sweaters, and one handbag) = $104. That’s 13 items, at exactly $8 a piece. While this wasn’t the cheapest thrift shopping I’ve ever done, it was certainly the most fruitful (however, when’s the last time you went regular shopping and everything was just $8?). I wish I had the original price tags for all these items – I know the Paige jeans are were originally around $200, and the Rebecca Taylor dress in the $250 – $350 range. The leather skirt was probably around $100 originally, same goes for the Nine West bag and Peter Nygard cardi. And every thing is in such good condition. So far, I’ve paid an additional $11 to have the jeans tailored (they were literally 6″ too long, with heels), and $12 for dry cleaning for the nicer shirts. I also need to find a pair of feminine cuff links for one of the shirts, as the original set were rhinestone (aka, hideous).

Housewares:

Wilton Armetale “William & Mary” 16″ Bowl, $20 (found new at Dillard’s for $100 here)

Vintage Pyrex baking dish, $3

Hammered pewter pitcher, $2.50

Vintage aluminum mold, $2

Vintage strawberry salt & pepper shakers, $1 (I have an affinity for quirky salt & pepper shakers!)

So that’s all for now! I hit up my favorite Plato’s Closet in Euless on Monday, and left with quite a haul – more details on that soon!

My question for you is, where is your favorite place to thrift? What kinds of things do you look for? Where do you have the best luck? I wanna know!

 

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