Thrifty Thrifterson

Being a penniless teenager sux.

I’m so cashless I can barely afford to post things for sale on ebay. Not a good sign. So I’m doing my best to scrape up some moolah. So, although this will probably do no good, I will use this post for some semi-shameless promotion/begging:

My Etsy store; currently stocked with these items and more:

My ebay store is a little run-down at the moment, but once I find some loose change in the sofa cushions I can post a few more things for sale.

Anyway, I send fond gratitude to anyone who has so much as glanced at this page (even if it was by accident). As for today, you’ll find me in the town square, dancing for nickels.

To satisfy my knitting habit, I buy cheap yarn off ebay. Usually, the yarn comes from strange faraway places, and for some reason I always love looking at the yarn packaging before opening it.

Step 1: Recieve itty bitty box from Mongolia (!)

Step 2: Remove yarny contents.

Step 3: Wait 20 seconds.

This is Rascal, aka “Chubbs”. He likes to sleep on anything that will slightly inconvenience the annoying humans, because they obviously don’t feed him enough.

On a note unrelated to yarn or cats, I bought more shoes yesterday. They were not secondhand for once, and they are probably the most expensive shoes I own. They were $55. Marked down from $99. But that’s still a lot for me…

But they were beautiful, even jammed in among all the gross stripper shoes on the Macy’s sale rack.

They’re just nutty. I adore them.

It’s about time I reigned in the scattered shards of my attention span.

To go along with my new semi-minimalist outlook (we’ll see how long that lasts), I’ve been trying to learn more about my sewing machine. I’d love to be able to successfully make my own clothes, and when I go thrifting I usually pick up some weird garmet that I want to make into something else. I’ve had my machine for a few months, but I am far from proficient.

My new favortie sites are about clothing recycling and refashioning (see Wardrobe Refashion), and ones that provide idiot-proof sewing instructions (Weekend Designer, Threadbanger, etc.). I love seeing a great dress made from a tablecloth or a sheet, and hideous garmets morphed into adorable things. However I am sick of seeing post after post on making a toddler dress out of a pillowcase. It’s all well and good for moms, but the pattern can’t possibly vary that much. Also, I am far from maternal. I’m 19; I hardly know where I am half the time.

Anyhooz, I bought this pillowcase (NOT to be made into a toddler dress):

It looks to be handmade, and the fabric is pretty heavy-duty. I’m thinking perhaps a skirt or a bag?

We shall see.

I buy crap constantly, but I have a contrasting inner desire to live a Buhdda-like, possession-free life. I’m still trying to make sense of that.

I bought 3 pairs of thrifted shoes the other day:

I already have too many shoes to begin with, and I only wear boring flip flops in the summer. But I couldn’t resist these three, especially the orange jellies They remind me of a similar shoe I had in my toddlerhood (just one shoe; I never found its mate).

But out of nowhere today, I set a new rule for myself: From now on, I will only own 200 things at a time. Not counting books. And craft supplies. And possibly movies.

When I want/need to get something new, I’ll have to choose something else to get rid of.  One of my favorite books in junior high was The Gospel According to Larry, in which a teenage incognito internet celebrity would reveal some of his 75 possessions as clues to his identity. But since I am not a mysterious cybergenius (nor do I plan to be, as I can barely type properly), I’ll just use the rule for my own meager sanity.

I’m kind of looking forward to gutting out my room/life. It was all kind of reminding me of a clogged drain. Very unattractive. Like Robert Pattinson’s hair and snobbery.

Secondhand shopping is an obsession of mine. I’ve been thrifting for a good chunk of my young life, and have uncovered some fascinating, and occasionally crappy, things. However, a good thrifting spree is comparable to Christmas morning; you grab everything you think is awesome, hand over a refreshingly miniscule amount of cash, and head home to bask in your new treasures.

But once in a while, you find something that stops you in your tracks and makes your heart sing with joy.

Such as…

Yeah.

The Mr. Sparkle shirt.

A 100% cotton homage to the greatest WTF sequence in Simpsons hisory. One dollar plus tax.

Itmakes me happy to know that things like this exist in our world. There may be hope after all. Domo arigato, Mr. Sparkle.