Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Picture a Day - Day 238

College was my first big immersion into the world of Goodwill Hunting. It started thanks to a $5 prom where everyone was encouraged to only spend $5 on their outfit (it was a great time, and way more fun than regular old prom).

It hit a fevered pitch one wild Halloween when thanks to a simple revelation I found myself spending days searching through each and every consignment shop in town trying to find a yellow vest (word of advice, do not ever suggest that you could easily make hobbit feet by stuffing some toe socks. It gives your best friend wild ideas for Halloween costumes).

After that I was rather burned out on Goodwill hunting and may or may not have broken out into sweats and shakes whenever it was mentioned. I did think the night terrors about getting trapped under 100 pounds of polyester to be a bit over the top though.

But that was many years ago and as everyone knows moving is the best time to bundle up all that stuff you never ever want and ship it off to consignment shop hell. And while there I figured hey why not look through the housewares stuff and see if anything catches my eye. Did it ever.

First up some art just perfect for the kitchen:And at a whole $1 there is no way I could have afforded the canvas to create something like this much less the block of wood it's actually on.

Plus it's one less room I have to create something for. My painting schedule is so full right now along with all of our weekends going to visits or puppies I don't know if I can get back to our house for another three months, four at the most.

This next find is something I'm rather proud of. I mostly went in looking for stuff I could finagle into my painting room and while digging through random piles of knick knacks I came across this old log holder and had one neat idea:It's a painting sorter!

I used to just store all my old waiting to be sold paintings on the ground but now I can easily flip through them and if I have to pick them up I can stick them all easily on the table when say vacuuming or a naughty little puppy is running through the house eating everything in her path.

My last find is something I haven't quite figured out but I loved the bottle shape so much I just had to get it. I'm thinking something along the lines of a water holder for brush cleaning but haven't quite worked out the logistics.Or I'll just jangle my tip jar after completing a rather challenging painting and hope for a little compensation.

We'll probably head back sometime later this year just to see if I can find something else I've been looking for for my painting room (think paint stacker so I can easily sort my most used colors). There's also my shipping area that's just a pile of boxes and envelopes on the floor.

Have you had any cool Goodwill Hunting scores before? Anything that you bought and transformed into something completely different?

If anyone's looking for some nice big frames that are cheap I'd suggest checking out Goodwill. It was crazy how many were there with weird prints of artwork in them so no one was snatching that up.

4 comments:

Chesney said...

somebody's trash is always somebody's treasures!!

Linda said...

I adore Goodwill. I mostly go for the clothes. I bought a lot of wedding stuff there. I try to limit my shopping there cause it can get out of hand. But I usually go once a month.

Leslie said...

Just don't get lost on a dead end road!

valerie said...

Damn. I never find good stuff like that at Goodwill. Maybe I just don't live in a great town with great finds? Silly people that don't give up their great stuff so other people can buy it for cheap!! ;)