Op shop lottery

I seriously feel like I have won the opshop lottery over these past few weeks. I have snapped up bargain after bargain, heaps of amazing clothes, homewares, stuff for the kids... and to top it all off  have found an incredible new opshop to visit!

I had avoided going to the Bullsbrook Tip Shop for quite some time as I was under the impression it was 1. a lot further away than it actually is (ie, the other side of Bullsbrook, when in reality it is just behind The Vines) and 2. That it wouldn't be all that great as the other tip shop I had been to wasn't that clean and to be honest, wasn't that good!

SO. Facts here. The Bullsbrook Tip Shop is literally at the back of Ellenbrook, very close. It's clean, it's well stocked, the staff are lovely and it's 100% worth a visit. It's an opshop, that's located at the tip - more than it is a tip shop. People were dropping off donations all the time while we were there. It's excellent and I will absolutely be back. 

Score of the day, was 4 pieces of children's clothing for $1. Our kids are about to start their public school swimming lessons for the year and because it's the middle of winter, there are noooo bathers available in the stores. Opshop to the rescue with 7 pieces of top and bottom to mix and match for Master Joseph who was down to just one pair! That would have been a complete nightmare for me.  

There's even a courtyard full of kids toys and things to look at, that kept Alex busy the entire time. Highly recommend!

Salvos haul

Time for a Salvo's haul! It's been a while since I have had a decent amount of stuff from a retail opshop store. I tend to stick to the little country town ones and the few little parish ones/ small ones around Perth that are still left because I love their cheap prices and digging through everything looking for the treasures. 

WELL we struck gold at the Salvos in Ellenbrook today. All of this for $92. AND the best bit is, I sold something on marketplace last night for $80 so I am counting it as only spending $12. That's allowed right? In my world it is. All my marketplace money goes straight into a jar to fund my opshopping.

I am obsessed with more than half of this stuff.

That giant wooden bowl is going straight onto my kitchen table full of lemons for our home listing photographs. Doug got a pair of super new red Nike runners for $10. That speckled terracotta tureen was only $7. I couldn't believe my luck, I am starting to love pottery, but I am very particular and only like what I like. There was three pieces that I "needed" to take home. A brand new music stand for Madeline that I'll put with her birthday presents... a brand new Star Wars cooling lunch bag for a little dude who lives here who goes to kindy next year (WHAT?!). That can go with his birthday haul. But my favourite thing we picked up was absolutely a little velvet lined wooden wooden box with a 1953 half penny which my old man will be getting for his birthday. It is absolutely perfect and was an absolute steal at $4. Lucky he has no interest whatsoever in reading my diary.

An excellent haul. Best day.

my favourite place

i grew up in a teeny tiny country town in the wheatbelt called clackline, 80kms from perth. i loved it then. i still love it. everything is far away, your neighbours are not at all next door and you can be as loud as you want. the most fun bit though, is the friends you make that are from seriously all over the place, because your high school caters to students that live ages away and we all turn up on buses that can take up to an hour to and from school. a lot of the "local" high schools (still 20 odd kilometres from ours only go to year 10 - so for their last two years they are bussing it in each day to hang with us. i also am from 20km out of town, but add in (as far as) dowerin, york, goomalling, toodyay, grass valley, spencers brook, bakers hill, wundowie... there's some massive ground you're covering there, so you really end up with mates all over the place.

anyway. one of my dearest friends from school is from a town called york and every now and then, we like to go to york and catch up with her. but it conveniently just so happens that the best opshop ever is in york too. boom.

so, today we drove out to york to see my beautiful friend keryn annnnd hit up the salvation army jumble sale there. i have said it before and i'll say it again, i am convinced that the guy who is in charge of pricing the items as you leave gets bored with his job cause he counts for a while and then just announces a total, (which is always way lower than it should be) which you hand over gleefully. today we paid (between mum and i) $30 for 65 items - which is just 46c each. sorry perth - but you'll just never be able to compete with that!

the way home from york to mums though, is my favourite place in the world. there is a certain point where all you can see is crops and sky. i love stopping there and just taking it in for a few moments, as well as grabbing a snap or two. you can take the girl out of the wheatbelt, but you can't take the wheatbelt out of the girl. ❤

the opshop gods are smiling

the opshop gods have been smiling upon me this week. my beautiful friend debra from church turned up with this pie dish as a gift for me that she found in her local opshop last week, she knew i would love it and indeed i do... pumpkin pie is one of my favourite things in the world and this vintage dish is gorgeous! i will very proudly have that on display and most likely cook pies in it too.

and i know this is random that i feel the need to report it, but this was such a huge win... we got the maxwell williams mondo cutlery when we got married 15 years ago and of course it has since been discontinued. my children have lost 1 of the knives multiple times, but this last time, it has not been relocated. like we are talking it's been missing for a couple of months so i don't think it's coming back. i can buy a replacement on ebay - for $15 a piece, but that's a hard pass. anyway, cut to the story, i went to the local good sammys and went through a giant box of cutlery, piece by piece, which took me a good half an hour, but i found a replacement and a spare and a smaller one the same in case of emergency. and the best bit? they were 20c each! i just don't understand why people wouldn't shop retail. op shops for life! 

op til you drop

i washed our sheets and remade the bed yesterday and while everything was looking so pretty snapped a picture... i know so many people who still have this idea that everything from the opshop is smelly and old and gross. you know what, sometimes it is, but mostly, it's not. for example, everything on this bed is second hand, other than the sheets (that you can't see anyway). the doona cover is from sheridan australia, but i snapped it up at the morley good sammy's store for $2, the cushion was $1 from the good sammy's mega barn, and the pillow cases were from st. richards guild in midland for $1 each, whilst they were still current stock at bed bath n table. mum snapped them up a couple of years ago, but is yet to have a turn.

let's go further. my actual bed frame was given to me by a friend (who knew i was after a white one) when she got a new one. bed side tables were $20 for the pair one one of the local buy sell swap pages, painted to suit my room, with crystal knobs from ebay. even the amazing patterned glass bedside lamps (unfortunately out of the shot) were an absolute steal from the salvos store local to my parents house. 

so for all you people who don't opshop, i ask you again, why not? this should be more than enough motivation for you! ♥

national opshop week

for those of you that aren't in the know (as in, all you losers who haven't yet caught on to the fact that opshopping is the greatest move you'll ever make...) this week is national opshop week!! i saw this adorable little cartoon online this week and decided that would be my acknowledgement to it.

i have grown up being taught well in the school of opshopping run by my mother barbara. she is the queen of opshops and finds all the best bargains... you name it, we've found it, or can find it and we are well known for it. i think i could say quite safely that 90% of my clothes are opped - mum and i have often joked that the only things we buy new are food and underwear!

opshopping is often about the thrill of the hunt, but it is also so much more. it has enabled me to be able to afford things i may never have purchased, have a huge variety of clothes and have some awesome "opshop days" with my mum and friends. best thing is, my husband totally supports my addiction - seriously, how could he not when he's seen the amazing things i've bought home for me, the kids and even him! i love coming home and giving him a "concert" (best explanation ever, that i stole from my friend lauren, who used to say it about showing off her garage sale finds to her husband) when i've gotten some awesome stuff.

if you don't opshop, you should start... there is no time like the present to get more bang for your buck!

happy national opshop week! ♥

a hot date to the mega barn

there's nothing better than a good trip to the mega barn with a friend... and today was no exception. i got some awesome stuff, including three pairs of heels, an amazing pair of jeans (took a chance on them that paid off, they had been run in - and after spending the better part of an hour unpicking it all, they fit like a glove) a gorgeous tutu skirt that i'm putting away for madeline's birthday and some other great stuff. 

for those who came in late... the good sammy's mega barn is located at: 33 bannister road canning vale, open from 10-4 monday - saturday. clothing is sold by the kilo and generally ends up being around 70c - $1 per piece. it has ruined me completely for going to other opshops, because it's so damn cheap! if you haven't been yet... get on it. 

my all time favourite opshop buy

all of my friends know i am an addicted opshopper, so i am often asked what my all time greatest bargain has been. there has been many things i've loved over time, but i must admit, this takes out first place. many years ago at the salvation army jumble sale in york (i mean before madeline was even born and i used to make road trips out with my girlfriends) i picked up this gorgeous tooled leather satchel bag. its just the right size to hold my purse, sunglasses, keys and lippie. and... it cost me a grand total of about 20c. not even lying. it was back in the day when it was fill a bag for $5 and upon counting up my haul that day, my average cost was about that. i can't remember exactly (so long ago!) but definitely well under a dollar.

i have used it and used it and i can guarantee that without fail, every time i use it, someone will ask where i got it from. makes for a few sad faces when they discover it was opped many years ago. i have used it so much in fact, that last year, one of the studs holding the handle in place broke and i had to pay ten odd dollars to have it replaced, which enraged me, but even with that, it's still the best bargain i've ever had. no doubt about it!

vintage love

can i just take a minute here to talk about how much i love this dress madeline has on? i picked it up at the local salvos in ellenbrook just after we moved here about 2 years ago. it was absolutely love at first sight and i have (very impatiently) waited for it to fit her! today was the day and thankfully she loves it just as much as i do. it's a genuine vintage dress, complete with a scratchy tulle lining (she wore another favourite skirt underneath it) old labels and buttons and hooks up the back. absolutely perfect and just my thing.

maybe this opshopping is hereditary cause she seems to be picking it up just fine. i found a letter in one of her notebooks to one of my friends who promised her a girls day out soon, including a list of possible options for their day including: we could go opshopping. definitely not my friends thing, but it sounds like it is maddies! ♥ 

sibling date

so, dougs sister arrived home on friday to stay for a month. clearly it was important that we get in some sibling time while doug had the day off on monday, so off we went to the megabarn for a day of opshopping while both the kids were at school. woo!

we had a great time and i got some awesome bargains... what could be better? ♥

mega barn with cara

number one on cara's perth to do list was the opshop mega barn in canning vale (33 bannister road canning vale m-s 10-4 for those of you playing along at home)



we had an excellent time bargain hunting together. although it can be quite overwhelming sorting through giant bins, i personally think it is the best value for money, as clothing is sold by the kg and ends up being between 65c-$1 per piece on average.

today was probably the best haul i've had, including some good brands (zara, seed, origami, laura ashley & pumpkin patch) and even some things for doug so i was well pleased with my day.

pay the mega barn a visit one day, if you're willing to dig, i promise you won't be disappointed. ♥

girls opshop day 2.0

another girls opshop day advertised on facebook to my friends, found just two of us hitting up the salvation army church opshop in morley. that was cool with us! my friend is new to this - and left so thrilled with her bargains and looking forward to our next day out.

finds of the day:
white 2 tiered plate - $3
2 italian made girls dresses - $1 each
all of the animal cookie cutters - $1
a beanie boo!!! (madeline was thrilled to pieces!) - $1
annnnd joseph managed to find lightning mcqueen boxers and another lightning toy car for 50c each

seriously. who wouldn't opshop?!

opshop rain hail or shine

we opshop rain, hail or shine... but today it was actually hailing as we got close to the mega barn for our first girls day out opshopping. i got sick of the constant comments from my friends that consisted of:
you got that from the opshop?
why didn't you tell me you were going?
how much was that? no wait, let me guess, a dollar?
can you please tell me next time you're going?

so i did. i made an event on facebook and invited about 15 of my gfs, told them that they in turn could invite anyone they wanted and made it happen. only 4 of them ended up coming cause the weather was craaaaaazy, but it was an excellent morning out (as usual, i mean seriously, what weirdo doesn't love to hunt for bargains) and i had a great time.

so did this monkey, who wanted to climb in all the bins and party... what a crack up. definitely my kid! ♥

flowergirl dress on a budget

maddie is going to be a flowergirl again in october! she is so excited and it's super cute... but what to do for the dress. aunty emily said she could wear anything we liked so long as it was navy blue... so i instantly thought of this gorgeous dress i picked up at the mega barn for under a dollar (see pic below). it originally had blue flowers on the bodice, which were coming off (some had been sewn back on, but not very well...) so i removed the rest of them. it left a little mark where each had been, but no worries about that! off to spotlight, where i picked up a pack of navy blue shiny beads for $3, a couple of hours later, one carefully sewn in each place... done! i am so stoked with the result... and 4 dollars later, maddie's dress is sorted!

hooray for opshopping! ♥

york salvos for the win

this is what $50 will get you if you op shop in york at the salvation army jumble sale at 71 avon terrace york: open monday, thursday and friday 9:30 (but sometimes a little earlier depending on who is volunteering that day) - until 12 noon.  plus as an added bonus, they have a "coffee shop" in the church hall monday and friday where the older (please let it be known that i did not say old) ladies who volunteer make excellent hot chocolate/ coffee and scones with jam and cream. totally worth the drive from perth, especially when my parents live half an hour away. 

but. back to the bargains... this week i was lucky enough to discover a genuine (definitely the real deal) mimco medium pouch (feast your eyes on the rrp here if you will) in excellent condition. i was so stoked. i have considered buying one on a few occasions but could never justify the price tag, so was beyond excited to find it. i did a little happy dance right then and there, a very dignified one in case the opshop ladies caught on and charged me more (who am i kidding, these are old ducks in a country town just over an hour east of perth) but i can happily report i paid a total of one dollar. that's right, you read that corrrectly, one dollar. the best bit? the link that holds the pull tab to the pouch was missing and the tab seemed to be missing... but it was inside the pouch! if you are an avid opshopper, you'd know this is a miracle and i am still getting over it. what a win!

plus, i also scored a mimco bag (also genuine) front and center in the pic above, for a friend who also loves (and can't afford) mimco. there are two pretty happy girls here this week. ♥

megabarn (and a new opshop!)

i dragged my poor father in law out to the magabarn opshop in canning vale (33 bannister road, at one end of the good sammys headquarters). it's funny, i can't see that many father in laws that would be excited at the prospect, but the two of us always have blast opshopping. as per usual i got a great haul and was well pleased, 27 pieces for $17.50, making them just under 65c a piece. inlcuded in my haul was even a gorgeous george brand dress with the tags still attached. boom.

but the most exciting bit was making a last minute decision (so last minute that it involved me doing a u turn on a main(ish) road) to see if a new little opshop i had recently discovered was open... it was! ladies and gentlemen, may i present the "blue sky opshop" located at 252 benara road, beechboro. it was small and packed with stuff, just the way i like it. i walked out a while later with a vintage blue dress from the 70s that looks like something my nanna would have worn. woop. i will definitely be checking that one out in the future.

cheers! here's to new opshops! ♥

york salvos

another day, another awesome haul from the york salvation army jumble sale. this very overflowing ikea bag full of clothes and other stuff cost me $40... for so many things!

after all this time and so many opshops, this one is still right up there in my favourites and very rarely disappoints and it certainly didn't today! i was stoked. 

lunch with mum and the kidlets at my friends house after... best day this week! ♥

besties mega barn date

i went on a date with my best friend to the mega barn yesterday. it's been so long since we had time with just the two of us... but seeing as just the two of us doesn't exist anymore anyway since we had kids... off we went with our little boys. of course it goes without saying that they whined and messed about and (in my case) ran about the place but we had a good time. i got an awesome haul (i've not had a bad day at the barn yet, must be a good sign that i need to keep going on a regular basis) and we laughed and chatted and just generally had an awesome time! plus we may have even eaten hungry jacks on the way home, which is not something we do everyday and probably haven't done since we were teenagers... perfect bestie date. let's do this more often! ♥

on another note, same topic... how amazing is this lamp and shade that mum picked up as two separate pieces at her local opshop which now has pride of place in my room. on both sides... because there were two! the chances are so slim of something so glorious, but it happened and i am loving it. thanks mama!

my top 10 op-shop tips

my current favourite opshop is the good sammys mega barn in canning vale (44 bannister road if you are lucky enough to be a perth native!) and my mum and i hit it up earlier this week and got a pretty epic haul. their clothes are priced by the kilo (weird yet excellent) and we got 96 pieces of clothing between us for $82, woop woop. this pic is just my share.

it is no secret to anyone that knows me that i love to opshop... i'm forever being asked for tips of where to go and how to find the good stuff - so here is my 10 best tips to getting the best of the opshop and the best of your day!

1. take cash. always take cash, because not all the opshops are going to be equipped with modern technology like paypass and often it's the best (and cheapest!) ones, hello local parish opshops!

2. do not wear those awesome zip up boots you love, or lace up shoes or anything difficult that could make the day harder than it is. wear a simple dress or jeans and a tshirt, with flats, no laces, no zips, there's no time!

3. take baby wipes or hand sanistiser or something to clean your hands (this should have been my number one tip!) and clean them whenever you leave an opshop. things are not always clean and ew, germs!

4. check that the zips work in whatever it is you are buying. the number of times i have gotten home and realised a zip didn't work (a total of one, before i realised i needed to check them everytime)

5. take a friend! your mum, your best friend, but never someone who is the same size as you! this person must not be able to find something perfect in your size that they want, that just wouldn't be right! they are there as a wing man, to find something and say ooooh i love this, but it's your size. you get me?

6. dig. dig and dig some more. do not be afraid to do so. the best bargains are those that have not yet been uncovered... the ones that were waiting there for you!  so what if your hands get a little dirty? you have hand sanitiser! (see tip 3)

7. go country! they have the cheapies! low rent (normally out the back of a church) and brimming with bargains and "fill a bag for x amount of dollars" days

8. don't take your kids! hahaha. if you can find a sitter, run, opshop and be merry. let the grandparents enjoy them for the day

9. if it's super cheap and amazing and cannot be left there but isn't your size, think of someone that it will fit! the possibilities are endless

10. smile and chat to the volunteers. chances are if the items are not pre marked with a price, your dazzling smile will knock off a few dollars from your total

but most important, have fun! i'll be thinking of you all next time i'm grabbing the bargains! ♥

to york to york

there is nothing my mother and i love more than a good opshop, even if it's a bit of a drive to get there. one of our favourites, which isn't too far from mums house, is the salvation army jumble sale in york. it is in a shed behind the salvation army church (meaning of course that it's hot in summer and freezing in winter) located in avon terrace, open from 9:30-12 noon monday and friday. we always get some awesome bargains and have a lot of fun.

and the kids love it too! there is a "cafe" inside the church hall during the jumble sale opening hours and they serve scones with jam and cream. yum yum yum. we love our york trips with nanna. ♥