Goodwill Revisited

Just another quick trip to GW I made a while back before the dust storms of house building began. Having lived four years in Hawaii where everything was black or red cinder, I had forgotten what beautiful clouds of dust our soil could make here. Of course I had to go wiggle my toes in it. The lovely soft fluffy dust without a rock in it felt simply divine. However, that self same dust filtering through the windows and walls and sifting down onto every flat horizontal service, was another matter entirely. The dust cloth is out and I am at war!  I have become the whirlwind duster. ha ha ha ...Now on to the goodies...

 In the spirit of world travel and lovely decor, I picked up this bright and cheerful vase. Doesn't it scream red hot chilly peppers?! This is a hand made El Poyeton ceramic vase, made in Spain. You can see loads of ceramics on Foogle with this self same company stamp, so it is not particularly old. I thought it charming and tho marked $6.99 it had a matching color sticker so I paid just $3.49. Vases like it sell for $10 - $15 dollars on ebay, so I was more than happy at the price.

 Sometimes finds are of the utmost practicality and I was very happy to pick up these two kitchen utensils. The silicon and stainless steel wire whisk is a very nice find. It is made by Cuisinart and I paid just .99. These sell on Amazon for about $17. The potato masher was also a very good price at just .99. It was made by Good Cook and can be found online for about $15. Both should make life a bit easier in the kitchen. My old potato masher had suffered from the acid water and air of Hawaii and was going to rust and ruin, and had a far less comfortable handle. The silicone whisk should make it much nicer to whip up an egg right in the ceramic nonstick fry-pan, so I am delighted I found these two utensils in like new condition.

 It's hard to tell in these first two pictures just how dirty and messy this poor little Monster High dolls hair has become. This is Venus McFlytrap. If you remember in my last post I mentioned folks swiping limbs?! Well sadly this was the case with poor Venus. Still, I couldn't just leave her there on the shelf to be thrown in the trash. I showed her to the employee putting out items and she was pretty disgusted and said she would take her in the back and see if she could get me a discount price. The folks wouldn't give me a discount, which made the employee even more disgusted, but I wanted her anyway so paid $2.99. Her head alone is worth five, which is really sad when you think of it. I shall have to see what I can do about getting her a new limb, and some clothes. In the meantime I shall just have to make her as comfortable as I can.

 Here she is all cleaned up, with her hair free of tangles and her shoes back on. Why they chose to steal her arm but not her shoes is a mystery?! It may be a case of naughty children pulling the dolls apart and leaving them disassembled on the shelves?! I have seen just such marauding children there and have had to come to the rescue of some very fragile champagne glasses, before they were smashed. It's a sad fact that some folks seem to think that GW is a good place to just let their kids run wild. It makes it rather difficult for shoppers and the employee's of the store. These are the same parents who scream the loudest when their kids get hurt too, never taking responsibility for their actions, or admitting this is what caused their, "little darlings", to get hurt. Some of the deliberate destruction I have seen, while their parents looked on, has made my blood about boil, and if you want another reason for why GW has raised its prices lately, you need only look to that continuous destruction of property for one of your answers.

Here are my gals all standing together in their various pots. Venus McFlytrap seems to be fitting right in. There is something so appealing about these dolls, I find them very cute and sweet. Even if they supposedly represent little monsters. I think they have such scope for the imagination. I could see myself as a little girl playing with them by the hour. Which just goes to show there is still a little girl inside of me that wants to spend time playing with these dolls regardless of my advanced years. Funny, I never wanted to play with dolls before. Maybe it's because I find them wickedly funny, and wish I had thought of them first. Oh wait a minute, they are very like my Little People, so just maybe I did! ha ha ha

 Here's a fun x-stitch I didn't intend to buy at all, but the gal who was putting things out dropped it and busted the glass and frame it was in, and she was going to chuck it. I asked her if they could take it carefully out of the frame in the back and I would rescue it. She came back and said they would sell it to me for $1.99, so I  took it. The gal was disgusted they wouldn't just give it to me or sell it for .99, but she was just a floor employee and didn't make pricing decisions. In any case, I shall clean this up and maybe make it the center of a fun medallion quilt?! Don't you just love the country fair theme?!

 I scanned my way through this lovely children's book and couldn't put it down. It is such a delightfully whimsical story and the artwork amazing. If you have a Pretty Pretty Princess little girl in your life the Fancy Nancy stories are just the perfect thing. Nancy is as precocious as she is adorable and she didn't seem a thing like the little spoiled monster Disney has created since they got the rights to this series of books and animated them. Fancy Nancy is a gem and is one of those children just bursting with imagination. If she sometimes gets carried away and becomes thoughtless, she is properly brought back down to earth and reality by her loving friends and family. I really liked this book. Fancy Nancy was marked $2.99 but once again that color tag matched so 50% off it was and I paid just $1.49. That is not bad for a book that sells on Amazon for $9.69.

 This book was also a really fun read. It is a funny piece of poetry, and tho sad in part, still it is a well written poem and story. It is set in Australia and has lots of funny creatures and characters in it. The name of Gooligulch itself hooked me in, but the funny poetry kept me reading. Kids would find this very fun read to them and I certainly would have loved to read this when I was young. I paid $2.99 for this book, which a single copy sells used on Amazon for $34, and on Abe Books for $42.63. So the price I paid was a very good price indeed.

At the last I picked up these two Dick Francis novels for $1.99 each, and thought I did great. They were an interesting read too. Now put that together with the fact it was senior citizen discount day and I got another $1.40 knocked off my tab, and I think I did very well. The nicest thing about paying so little for the novels is, I won't feel bad when I tire of them and dump them back at GW. It keeps the clutter down and frees up my bookshelves for more quilt books or other marvelous finds. ha ha ha