Thrifty Thursday No.1

I love thrift shopping so so SO much. Browsing the rows and racks of unique items and coming across beautiful, vintage, and straight up weird finds makes me euphoric. It's like a thrifting high. Today I went on a pretty fantastic thrift shopping excursion and have plenty of pictures to prove it. Are you ready to follow me on my super exciting, retro-tastic thrifting adventure? Yes? Good!

I started with the books! I like to stop by this section to look for unique, old additions to my bookshelf. I keep my eyes open for cover designs and colors that catch my attention. (In this case, I say it's okay to judge books purely by their covers.)

This is a small stack of some of my favorite books I found. I think these would look so pretty stacked on a coffee table, shelf or side table. 

Next, I looked at the records! I love browsing through these for the retro-ific cover art. I also keep a look out for anything I think would be worth adding to my vinyl record listening library.

I love the photo art on the Nutcracker Suite I found. It's weirdly creepy and enchanting at the same time.  And those Brass and Percussion graphics are killer. 

Next, one of my favorite rows: Knickknacks! 

This is were you can find the best and weirdest stuff

Isn't this tin stinking adorable? It looks like a cute little cottage! I want to fill it up with cute little cookies or candies and give it to someone. (If you get this for Christmas, you still have to act surprised and like you've never seen it before)

 I also found these elegant swan vases. I think these would be so much fun to creatively incorporate into a room design.

And my final "knickknacks" find was this cute little gold/bronze bird statue. This would be such a sweet addition to a shelf or side table arrangement.

I found this very 80s glass and brass hexagonal chandelier that would be such a fun addition to a modern/eclectic room. I know this style of light fixture is pretty outdated right now, but I feel very strongly that if you style it right, this could seriously be the coolest chandelier ever. 

I always check for old suitcases at thrift stores and am rarely disappointed.. This time I found a pair of vintage cream-colored Samsonite cases. These would work great as decorative small storage and would look so cute stacked in the corner of a room.

I found this cane rocker! Holy cow, isn't it beautiful? And it was only $20!

I also saw this fantastic wicker disc chair. 

And this awesome velvet grandma couch. I love  love love ugly floral couches. I was swooning all over this thing

Next I saw this cupboard with sliding mirrored doors. I think this would look so pretty painted gold or just re-stained (keeping the mirrored doors of course).  

Next, clothes! My favorite!

 Um, can we talk about how awesome this blazer is? I look like a super classy banana from the 80s.

I mean, just look at that collar! And those cuffs!

Next up, this fantastic grandma sweater! 

I grabbed this coat to try on because I thought it was funny, but then I accidentally fell in love with it. It makes me feel like a fancy Russian diplomat. Also, it's super duper warm and cozy. 

I'm a sucker for a Downeast dress. So when I find one at a thrift store, I really can't pass it up. especially when it has a keyhole neckline AND a peter pan collar. 

I found this overwhelmingly pink embroidered mu mu. (I didn't buy it because I knew my dad would make fun of me for wearing a mu mu, but darn! Looking at these pictures I wish I had! I'll have to go back tomorrow and see if it's still there.)

And this shnazzy black pantsuit. 

To wrap up my thrifting sesh, I took a quick stop at the shoes.

I found these super nice Durango cowboy booties

Aren't they awesome??

I tried to talk myself into buying these American Eagle flip flops because I need some sandals, but I just couldn't do it. I can't handle flip flops. 

I also found these way cute gold shimmer sneakers

And these awesome patent leather platform loafers. Too bad these were about 5 sizes too small! Aren't they fabulous?

And that's the end! Thanks for joining me! 

DIY Glitter Bow Flats

Last week I found my perfect vintage wedding dress. At a thrift store. For twelve dollars. 

Since then I've been scouring the internet for the perfect wedding shoes. I knew I wanted something gold and something with ankle straps (I love ankle strap shoes almost as much as I love Sam...okay, that's a mega exaggeration, but I sure love 'em a whole lot.)

I couldn't find anything that I absolutely loved, and everything I just kinda loved cost at least $300. So I decided to make my own! Yay! They are exactly what I want and cost me hardly anything! Here's how I did it:

I got these suede flats at Forever 21 for a whopping $0.11. Okay, technically they were $14.90, but I used some store credit I had towards them. Still, not bad, eh?

For supplies I bought gold and silver extra fine glitter, Mod Podge, a pack of sponge brushes, and 1.5" ribbon. Together all this cost me about $18 and I have plenty left over glitter and Mod Podge I can use for future wedding crafts. The nail polish I already had on hand, but any clear polish, even the super cheapo stuff will work.

I started by pouring about 1/4 c. Mod Podge into a disposable bowl. and adding both the gold and silver glitter. (The gold glitter was a bit more yellow than what I wanted, so I used the silver to cool it down a bit and give me the gold tone I was looking for)

I mixed it all together then decided that my Mod Podge needed a bit more glitter; you really have to  guesstimate on the amount of glitter you put in. I tried to put in as much as I could without making my glue/glitter mixture too thick to spread on smoothly.

Here it is all mixed up!

And then I went to town on my shoes! I've glittered other shoes in the past and have found that suede-like materials seem to "hold" the glitter best.

When I got glitter on the edge of the sole, I would just scrape it off with my fingernail. I figured this was easier than trying to tape off the sole plus it gave me super posh glitter accents on my nails. So I guess this is a 2-in-1 diy. Shoes AND nails!

My shoes dried pretty fast (in about 30-40 minutes) and only needed one coat plus a few touch ups here and there

While I was waiting for my shoes to dry, I cut two yard-long pieces of ribbon (though I probably could've/shorter) and brushed some clear nail polish across the ends to keep them from fraying.

Lucky for me, my shoes already came with little loopy-tabs on the backs! (but after my 2 minutes of research before starting this project, I was thoroughly prepared to add my own tabs with some glue and extra pieces of ribbon. See this tutorial)

I squeezed my ribbons through those tiny loops and...

Voila!

All Done!

What do you think of this tutorial? What should I have done differently? What should I try next? Let me know in the comments below!