It's been a couple of weeks since Leslie and I have been out junking and thrifting together. I've been taking it on myself to hit up the thrift stores alone, but that doesn't always turn out great. I need my partner-in-grime there with me: she's got an eye for good junk, and I have, well, I'm there to carry it to the car.Yesterday, we went to visit Leslie's grandma, who lives about an hour away. It took us about three hours to get there, though, because we went the long way--the crazy stretch of thrift stores, car dealerships, and fast food chains that is U.S. 19 north of Clearwater, FL.
We stopped at several thrift and consignment shops along the way. Like modern day treasure hunters, we sifted through piles of tupperware, old suitcases, and VHS tapes to find some pretty sweet items. Here's what we got:
Above is a vintage Scovill bowling bag, sold in the 1980s. It's extra big and Leslie thought it would make a sweet purse. We put it in our little Etsy shop, though, because she already has like a hundred purses.
Below is the pile of free baby clothes that we got from Itzy Bitsy Baby Kids Consignment in Palm Harbor. It's a consignment shop, but anything that is donated to them is given away for free! The owners were really nice and they had sales on almost everything. In addition to the free stuff, we bought 20 pairs of baby socks and a stuffed animal.
Leslie named her Mandy. It's a cat. Probably.
She spotted it on a tall shelf, buried under other much cuter stuffed animals. She couldn't leave little Mandy, with her screwed up face, bad posture, and stubby legs behind. When we got home, I looked at the tag and found out that Mandy is a "Cuddly Quarry Critter," so I looked her up, and they have a whole line of these weird looking animals. I called Leslie over, and she got really excited, then rushed off, dug through a drawer for a while, and brought back this:
She told me that she bought this old frog with her first paycheck, from her first real job when she was in high school. I guess she developed her hobby of collecting weird looking things a long time ago, which kind of makes me wonder where I fit into her life. We flipped the old frog over, and sure enough, both Mandy the cat and the old frog were put out by the same company and part of the same line:
Strange coincidence, right? I think Leslie just has an eye for strange things, one of the many reasons she's a great junking partner.
