What I Found At The Goodwill

Thrifting really is the ultimate in treasure hunts. I visit my local thrift joints on a regular basis and the trips are always hit or miss. Sometimes you just find a few vintage zippers and a quirky silver spoon, while other times you find a veritable jackpot of valuable goods. The cool thing about thrifting is that value comes in many forms. Sometimes it's a do or die type of valuable, like when you are seriously broke and your kid just had a growth spurt that makes her pants three inches too short, and it just so happens that a richie with a kid who just grew out of your kid's new size, dropped a clothing bomb on the thrift store, so you get your kid a much needed to wardrobe for under 20 bucks.

Sometimes it's Antique Road Show type value, where an ugly butt 25 cent painting turns out to be worth 25,000 dollars.

And sometimes it's just a personal value. Like when you find a shoe box marked "vintage 1980's toys-$5" that's been taped up to Fort Knox like proportions so you can't tell much about its contents, but you can spy a Strawberry Shortcake figurine so you figure you'll take the chance. And the chance pays off by landing you all of

THIS.

I am not even going to lie-I squealed like a little girl when I opened the box up. These are living memories of my childhood right here.

Do you know how long I have been looking for one of those ice cream robot guys?

Whenever I find a stash of vintage toys(and I have never found one this big. There were a few more that didn't even make it into the photo because I gave them to The Kid), the question always becomes, do I horde these and save them, Gollem "my precious" style? Or do I defile their heads by attaching jewelry screw eyes and turning them into charms for jewelry?

Some items, like the vintage McDonald's toys, are simply not good candidates for jewelry making.

Others, like these long searched for Strawberry Shortcake figurines, are just begging to be made into chunky, kitschy necklaces and charm bracelets.

I just don't know if I am Upcycler enough to do it. I mean, once you poke a hole through their heads, they'll probably never go back to being the way they were.

And now I sound like my mother talking about human body parts...

The dilemma continues on, but you know I'll keep you posted!