Things I Love: Thrift Finds

I've been loving the podcast Allow Us to Rethriftrodeuce Ourselves. I binged listened to it while sewing and learned soooo much about thrifting.

I thought it would be fun to share my favorite thrift finds!

Vintage Green Velvet Couch | By far the GREATEST thrift find ever... this vintage velvet green couch. Casey's mom and I were out one day and we passed a Goodwill and she mentioned they always had great stuff. So we turned the Jeep around and went back to look inside. I saw this gorgeous couch and the price tag said $200. I knew that was a great price, but we were about to go on a missions trip and I felt like I should probably not be spending money unnecessarily. I mean, we had a couch (albeit not a cute one). The manager saw me looking at it and said in passing, "I'll sell it to you for $150." Oh man. I got some more details from her and she said, "How about $125?" And I responded, "Will you take $100?" She said "I will. Good girl." So that's how I kind of accidentally bought a couch.

Also, I couldn't get ahold of Casey to see what he thought of the couch, so I just bought it and figured if he hated it, I'd sell it for at least $300. Thankfully he likes it and it is perfect in our house!

Captain America jacket | I saw this at Goodwill twice and the second time decided to pick it up for Casey. It's in fantastic condition and I think I paid about $8 for it? It's a great light-weight jacket when it's not super cold out but you still want another layer.

Candlesticks | I'd been wanting some candlesticks and decided I wanted to thrift them instead of buy them new. (I usually prefer to thrift over buying new.) I found a gold set and a silver set at that same Goodwill I got the couch (but at a later date). I think I paid $1.99 per candlestick--much better than the two I found in an antique store for $25! I want to acquire more and will continue to look for them.

Handkerchiefs | I always have handkerchiefs in my purse. They're cuter and softer and less wasteful than Kleenex. I love to pick them up at antique shops! It's fun to find ones with cute designs.

Blanket ladder | Although this one is an actual ladder! We found it at an antique store and I knew it would be the perfect place to hang cozy blankets. It also doubles as a cat toy and Tigger loves to take a nap and survey his kingdom from the top rung.

Things I Love: Sewing Edition

Another Things I Love and this time it's about a thing I love--sewing! I got into sewing at the beginning of 2019. I've made many skirts (you can check out my first skirt here and my lemon skirt here), some produce bags, a reversible baby bib, and have hemmed several secondhand skirts and dresses. (You can see my 2020 sewing recap here and all my sewing posts here.)

Bohin wrist pincushion. I shared this on my Things I Love September post, but it's for sure worth mentioning again as it is my favorite sewing tool. I love keeping my pins on my wrist and this pincushion is comfortable to wear. And stylish too, which is an added bonus.

Snips. When watching YouTube tutorials, I often see sewists using snips instead of scissors to trim their threads and I never really understood why. Until I started making face masks and was clipping threads VERY OFTEN. At first I used my embroidery scissors, then on a supply run I grabbed a pair of snips. Y'all. These things are AMAZING. Especially if you do a lot of sewing.

Dritz Easy Grap Pins. I love these purple pins! I picked them up at Hobby Lobby (on clearance for super duper cheap) when I first started sewing because I wasn't a huge fan of the pins that my mom gave me with my sewing machine. (They were fully metal without a big end to grab.) I've really liked these. At some point I ended up with a few regular pins with the colorful ball on the end but I like my purple ones better. The unique shape at the end is comfortable to grab and easy to use. However, if you like to iron over pins, get the glass ones. (I accidentally ironed over one the other day.)

Spool holder. At first I thought this was a want and not a need until I got SO TIRED of digging through the gallon sized zipper bag for a spool of thread and a matching bobbin. But I'm a cheapskate and kept putting off buying one. I don't know why. I think mine was $10 at Walmart. I love having it on my sewing table! Especially when I was constantly switching thread colors making masks. It also makes me feel like a real sewist, having it on my craft table behind my sewing machine.

Hot Ruler. Another want and not a need, but I really like being able to iron right over this ruler when I'm pressing a seam allowance. I picked this up at a local sewing shop and use it all the time!

5 Tips to Minimize Paper Towels in Your Home

In the last few years I have become passionate about producing less waste in my life and home. I love the phrase, "We don't need a few people doing zero waste perfectly. We need a lot of people doing it imperfectly."

I don't think I will ever create zero waste, but I know I can make an effort to produce less--and it's actually pretty easy to make some changes! Eliminating paper towels was an easy change for me, but I know how intimidating it can seem!

I actually stopped using paper towels (for the most part, see below) like five or six years ago. I can't remember if it was because I wanted to be less wasteful or because I'm kind of a cheapskate and hated spending money on something I was literally throwing away. 

Have we completely stopped using paper towels? No! We keep them on hand for pet messes, but really that's the only thing we use them for. I consider this a major win! Look at us doing that less waste thing imperfectly!

It can take some time to adjust to any changes made in your home, so here are some tips that will help you with the transition to minimize your paper towel usage!

1. Move the paper towels to an inconvenient place. Maybe this sounds super simple, but it is a huge help! Ours are under the kitchen sink and towards the back. Because they are inconvenient, we don't reach for them when there's a spill or we need to dry our hands.
2. Leave a hand drying towel beside every sink. The kitchen sink, the bathroom sink, the guest bathroom sink. Put a hand drying towel there and you won't be tempted to dry your hands with a paper towel. We have six white hand towels for the bathroom and I change it daily. In the kitchen, I have a towel hanging on the cabinet door beneath the sink. I love using cute towels for the kitchen. (TJ Maxx always has cute ones and I love when people gift me cute kitchen towels.)
3. Stock up on kitchen towels and cleaning rags. I am the world's messiest cook and baker, and I'm in the kitchen pretty much every day. If *I* can rock not using paper towels, so can you! We have a drawer full of kitchen towels-- it has small rags, bar mop towels, and flour sack cloths. (They're all from Target.) Sometimes I go through the entire drawer in a week, and I just pop them in the wash. It's really no big deal. For cleaning rags, someone gave me about 30 shop rags a few years ago and they come in so handy! I keep them in a basket in the bathroom cabinet. Maybe that seems like a lot of rags, but I just folded 12 cleaning rags from the last few days. We use them A LOT.
4. Use cloth napkins. I LOVE using cloth napkins. I might just be eating a grilled cheese, but the cloth napkin makes it seem like a fancy meal. One thing I've noticed is that people don't like to use cloth napkins because they are afraid they will get dirty. Um, that's kind of the point. If you have pretty ones you want to keep in pristine condition, just pick up some at the store or Goodwill that you don't mind using. You can also make your own! (Sometimes when I have just a small square of fabric leftover from a project, I turn it into a napkin!)
5. Have a dedicated basket for dirty rags. In the kitchen, there is a basket beside the sink for dirty kitchen towels. In the bathroom, dirty cleaning rags go into the laundry bin with the bath towels. Having a dedicated place to put your dirty rags makes it easy on wash day!

There you have it! In your journey to quit paper towels, do give yourself some grace. It can take some time to get used to, but it is absolutely worth making the switch!