A little Thrift Score love...

So this is where it usually begins...a grocery sack stuffed full with lumpy newspaper bundles....

 And then comes the unpacking.  Everything is a little (sometimes a lot!) dirty, dusty and in need of love.  Price tags must be scraped, crystal washed, frames painted, new treasures displayed.  Some great haul this week-- beautiful cut-glass salt cellars (six at fifty cents a piece!), heavy crystal candlesticks, an Ironstone-esque pitcher, and a mirror in desperate need of some paint!

This week was  a great week for hunting.  When I popped into Adelaide's on Saturday, the place was rocking!  After a quick lap around the shop, I spied this antique cloche-- price twenty-five dollars!  I nearly fell over-- it's so beautiful, wavy and bubble-filled, and what a great deal!  She has another, much larger one, that I really want-- maybe it will be a splurge soon (if it lasts that long!)

This little architectural bit I love-- my shutter project is coming along, and it will look great hanging on them.  The giant pear was an Adelaide find a few months ago--$8--and the turquoise pottery was $3 at the Salvation Army.

This botanical needlepoint, found at the Salvation Army for $5,   took my breath away.  It's so amazingly detailed-- so many hours went into this piece.  The colors are soft and muted, and it's in pristine condition-- often rare in vintage textiles. 

I always feel such a mixture of emotions when I find vintage handmades-- part of me is ecstatic.  Five dollars--score!  But then the part of me that is a crafter, who knows the amount of time, attention and heart that goes into this kind of work wants to cry--five dollars?  Really?

But then I remember, that if whoever poured hours and hours and hours of (her?) life into this work is anything like me, it's those hours that are really what are most valuable.  There isn't a price you can put on the feeling of being in the moment of creating, of watching something whole and lovely emerge from a blank canvas, of your two hands making beauty where there once was nothing.  The process is as valuable as the product-- and h. E.-- whomever they were-- can be assured that I love and treasure the product of that process very much.