thrift store finds: vintage levi's skirt (and a special surprise)

Saturday morning I woke up feeling [temporarily] free from responsibility (finals week just ended) and wanting to celebrate. I decided to go shopping...thrift store shopping, to be exact. The "regular" stores are crazy right now, and we all know thrifting is my favorite type of shopping anyhow.

Pictured above...Tomato pincushion ($4) and old farm photograph (25 cents): found at an antique store I visited with my friend Jessica. I haven't shared these photographs yet, but I've been doing some work with tomatoes and tomato-like objects, including my own 15-year old pincushion of this sort. This one is much, much older, so I grabbed it in hopes of using it in a future art project. I always snatch up farming and gardening vintage photographs when I find them, so I had to have this one, of course.

From my usual thrifting spot: cloth Christmas napkins (5 at 39 cents each), hand-glazed Santa tumbler with a signature and 1965 carved into the bottom. The glaze on the lips ran which is probably my favorite thing about this creepy, creepy Santa.

I find lots of old, mostly worthless point and shoots at this particular thrift store, all the time. I always, always look at every single camera. As a photographer, I just can't help it. I pass up plenty of semi-good stuff, to be honest. My younger self would have wanted them all, but I have to pass sometimes, or my home would be full of cameras. Polaroid cameras, semi-okay point and shoots, instamatics... I have a modest camera collection and I add new cameras when I find ones that interest me. When I find a Nikon under $5, though, I pretty much know I am going to buy it. This particular one, the Nikon Tele Touch ($4.95), was made in 1986 (how fitting, since I was born in 1986 and my birthday is in five days). I have a similar one made in 1980 but it doesn't do very well with close-up shots. This camera, however, has a macro function. I was so excited when I found it! It came with the original manual, even, AND a roll of used film is inside. That is my favorite thing about buying used cameras...the possibility of used film. Going to develop it this week and see what's on it.

Embroidery hoops. I kind of have a lot of these. Next quarter I am going to be screen printing a lot of my own patterns onto fabrics and I want to display samples of them this way. I think it's going to look aaawesome. These are not really expensive brand new (a few dollars), but at 50 cents each, I couldn't pass them up! They are around 12-15 inches wide.

Then. I. Found. Something. That. Made. My. Jaw. Drop. I was looking at the skirts--buying used skirts is a great thing to do if you want to get into vintage or secondhand clothing, because it's easy to find ones that fit. I actually have quite a few that I really like and wear often. Lately I have been particularly drawn to vintage denim skirts. I was going through the rack, when I found this gem. A 1977 Levi's denim skirt...With. The. Tags. Still. On! You can bet I snatched it right up and headed for the dressing room. It's one size too big but super high waisted so you can't really tell at all. I feel weird about taking the tags off, so I haven't worn it yet...but I plan to soon! Oh, and guess how much I paid for this!? $2.99. That's right. Go ahead and pick your jaw up off the floor!

Check out the awesome hang tag on the far right. I really want to find a pair of jeans like that. I'm not kidding...I would totally wear them! I recently got some "high waisted" skinny pants from the GAP...I like them but they are actually disappointing in the "high waisted" department because they don't come up very high at all...not like these amazing jeans would!

Finally...my 12 Days of Christmas Day 4 Sneak Peek...today I bought Corey's Christmas present (he was there)...a cat! More on that tomorrow...but isn't she beautiful!? Adopted from the Humane Society.