Tchotchkes & Frippery

Left: Why is there so much sweater? Right: Success! Or Billy Mays.

This sweater caught my eye a few weeks back in my local charity shop. The pattern was cute, I loved the colors, but it was two sizes too big! I’m a bit bottom-heavy, so I can’t pull off the oversized sweater look like some girls can. Like many too-big shirts and sweaters before it, I wrote it off and moved on.

Then I found craftycarmencita’s tutorial for altering sweaters. I figured altering sweaters would be impossible; I thought they’d unravel to shreds as soon as you cut off the excess. But no, it’s totally doable! Her tutorial gave me confidence, so first I tried it out on a too-big cardigan that had been sitting in my closet for over a year. It was a complete success! It barely took any time at all. So today after class I stopped at the charity shop and picked up this sweater for $2. A bit of stitching later, and voila!

Keep this in mind the next time you find a cute but too-large sweater while thrifting. Even if you’re a complete novice at sewing like I am, you can do this! Sweaters are much more forgiving than Tshirts since the stitches don’t poke any visible holes (so you can pull the stitches right back out if you mess up).

Okay, it’s not just ceramic tchotchkes in general that I have a weakness for, I have a particular attraction to ceramic cats. Yes, yes, go ahead and mock me! The majority of ceramic cats in the world are quite ugly and tacky, but for every five laughably hideous ones, there’s one that’s just perfect. I consider myself lucky to have found this one. Look at how the paint is crackled under the glazing, this one’s pretty old! But that’s apparent just in the way her face is painted. This little kitty now lives on my bookshelf next to some teeny ceramic bunnies.

$0.50

(via second-breakfast)

I found myself completely unable to pass up this big glass pear. Sure, I could imagine it sitting in a bowl with other glass fruits at someone’s grandmother’s house, but I didn’t buy any other glass fruit and I didn’t buy a bowl. I think this makes an excellent and unusual decoration on its own.

$0.75

I’m a sucker for little ceramic tchotchkes like this (hence my url!), so at $0.50, I couldn’t pass this little guy up!

Would you get a load of these knit bangles? These have to be the cutest bracelets I’ve ever seen! It cost $0.50 for all three at my favorite little charity thrift shop. The big yellowy one still had its original tag on it, and it cost $7.50 at Old Navy! What a fantastic deal!

I love bangles, but I usually don’t wear them much because it bothers me when they’re constantly slamming into my hands whenever I lower my arms. The soft knitting makes that a non-issue! I absolutely adore these colors too, so I think these bracelets might have been designed specifically for me.

If you like them and know how to knit around things, you could probably make some like this for yourself! Just pick up an unloved bangle for a quarter or two at a thrift shop, pick out the perfect yarn, and you’re good to go! If you don’t know how to knit but you’re handy with a glue gun, you could probably achieve a similar effect by wrapping the yarn around it in tidy lines. The bangle underneath these is a light black so that if any of it shows between the stitches it just looks like a shadow. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to hit any bangle you plan on knitting over with a quick coat of light black spray paint, especially if the bangle’s a bright color and/or you’re using a dark yarn, Be sure to use a spray paint appropriate for the material your bangle is made out of.

The last sweater from the $4 bag sale!

I was a bit surprised to find this American Eagle Outfitters cardigan. I’m not really concerned with what the brand of any given item is, but this is a rather expensive (at least by my standards!) one. Checking out the AE website for reference, I see that their cardigans run $30-60. Considering I scored this adorable collegiate cardi for just about $1.33, I’d say I did pretty good!

My favorite little thrift store was having a great sale bag today! You could stuff however many clothing items you wanted into a paper bag, and as long as they all fit in the bag, it was $4 for the whole lot! They recently moved out their winter merchandise, so it was sweaters and cardigans galore! I only found three, but they were all originally marked as $2 each, so I saved $2 (or got one free, depending on how you would like to look at it). Not bad!

This adorable grey cardigan is marked about a size too large for me, and indeed it is a bit… roomy, but not nearly as much as most things in this size are on me. I’d say it’s only about half a size too large for me. It hangs pretty nicely (it doesn’t add 10 pounds or anything like that!) and it’s so soft. It’s 100% acrylic, but it feels like cashmere! I’ve been wanting a nice grey cardigan for quite some time, so this was a perfect find. I’m so in love with it! I can’t wait until it’s washed so I can wear it.

This vase is so happy! Its bulbous pale yellow body and asymmetrical opening make for a cute, modern and cheery contrast to my light gray walls. Best of all, it was only $1!

I picked up this strange little hand painted whale at Goodwill for fifty cents. His mouth is open and his inside is hollow, but he’s very small, I don’t know what could fit in there. It’s been suggested that he’s a sponge or scouring pad holder, but I think he’s too small for that… Beyond that, why is he white with black lips? His weirdness only makes him better, in my opinion. He now lives on my bookcase.

This pastel Aeropostale sweater is a bit out of the ordinary compared to what I usually wear (lots of neutrals and muted colors), but it’s just so cheery and cute, I couldn’t pass it up! My camera isn’t always good at showing the subtlety of colors, so this photo looks a bit brighter and more saturated than the sweater truly is, it’s quite pastel (but not eastery). You can’t be sad wearing this sweater!

Aeropostale sweaters generally sell new for around $30-$40, so the $3 I paid for this at Goodwill equals an enormous deal! Not that I’d ever pay $30 for a sweater to begin with, mind.