Thrifty & Chic: Swap Treasures

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One of my new friends, Dani, hosted the most genius party a couple weeks ago: a swap party! Everyone brought 5-8 housewares that they didn’t have use for & we bid for the ones we wanted. Chris was just thrilled about the party until he saw me come home with more than I left. I just couldn’t help myself! I’m not quite ready to share all of the items I scored, because a few of them are projects in progress.

I was just ecstatic to score these serpent bookends! The serpents are a tad on the grotesque side, but there’s something about them I find so interesting & awesome. Right now they’re on our coffee table and they keep a few of Penelope’s books, but I thought I’d put some of our grown-up books in for the photos.

I had such a blast at the swap party, I’m thinking it’d be so fun to do one for clothes or accessories or baby clothes! Have any of you been to one? Have you found any great deals recently? Please share in the comments!

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    1. meredith says:

      my ward does one twice a year. we swap everything: clothes, strollers, baby clothes, Tupperware, purses, canned goods,etc. you get the idea. I LOVE it. LOVE. free free free! the best.

    2. Emily Frame says:

      The Bijou girls and I hosted one on the 8th & it was awesome! I looked everywhere for your email so I could send you an invite, but I couldn’t find it. Congrats on having Felix as well, he looks so sweet!

    3. Ruth Umney says:

      WHAT AN AWESOME IDEA…I’ve been to numerous clothes swap parties, but always end up leaving miserable, having never found anything to fit, or maybe I’m just too picky…I think my main issue is just really not liking the hand me down vibe that I HATED as a child, and so now rebel against in adulthood…
      BUT….I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO gonna organise a housewares swap party….LOVE IT!!!

    4. Jessica says:

      so did you bid on the items with money or with other household items?

    5. Jillian says:

      I think those are actually whales – my dad has a turn of the (last) century house and a lot of the antique iron work on the exterior and brass details in the house follow that motif. fun fun.

    6. Jillian says:

      ok – dolphins! I think they are dolphins. I think they might be called “English dolphins” (comme ça: http://www.westlandlondon.com/stockphotos/normal/10/10646.jpg)

    7. Diana Smith says:

      Those bookends are adorable! I love the fish!

      The Smith Circle

    8. Stephanie says:

      I am also interested in the bidding part. If you use money, does it go to a charity or something?

    9. Laura Noble says:

      My girlfriends & I have a clothes swap party about every three months. We take along clothes, housewares, shoes (anything really). We always have so much gear! At the end my sister holds up each item & it either goes home with someone or is voted into the bin or op-shop bag. We have heaps of snacks & laughs. There’s nothing like good clean (free!) fun!!

    10. Jeri says:

      Our ward (Mountain View) did a “Soup and Swap” last spring. You brought what you wanted and took what you wanted. Tons of stuff. We got a cuisineart, my daughter got a canvas bag, some decorating stuff, I got a cherry frame. At the end the missionaries came in and knew of a woman in need of furniture. A table and dressers and a couch were taken to her home. There was so much leftover and it was all taken to Deseret Industries. It was a huge undertaking. so I can see on a smaller scale it would be do-able. I have to tell you that I have always taken hand-me-downs for our kids and then I pass on the usable ones when they can no longer wear them. I was given a little girls dress for my daughter when she was four or five. It had a hard glue thing on the velvet bodice that I got off with DeSolvIt. She wore it for a couple of years and it was still in good shape so we gave it to another little girl. I would see it occassionally on Sundays, still being worn. It has now been passed to another family in the ward and I still see it on Sundays occassionally, still looking good after ten or eleven years from when we got it. Makes me smile every time. Especially when I think that we were maybe the third family to receive it and use it.

    11. kate says:

      it does sound fun!…and as far as the dolphins/fish bookends…my mom loves that kind of thing…and we had weird wonderful sculpture stuff like that all around our childhood home…i always think of it as the stuff that the flames of the imagination are fanned by…!

    12. Katie says:

      What a fun party! Those bookends are great– lots of character, in a good way:)!

    13. abby says:

      My friends had a purse swap once but I wasn’t able to make it. I like the idea of those types of parties. I would LOVE to go to a home decor swap party sometime.

      Here’s my latest thrift store finds:

      http://www.talesandtrials.com/2011/02/thrifted-jcrew-finds.html

    14. […] that housewares swap I talked about last week? Here’s one of the projects that I had mentioned. It’s […]

    15. Erica says:

      Felix is adorable!!! I am glad everything went well.

      I thought you might like this post I did on thrift store stalking.

      http://the-polka-dot-umbrella.blogspot.com/2011/03/mismatched-fine-china.html

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