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Wednesday 5 October 2011

Optober! More buttons?

Now this is a meme that I can have fun with and keep the blogtober ball rolling too!

So if you haven't figured it out, I just coined Op-shopping October. So this month, raid your local charity, second hand or Opportunity store and share the Optober love!

My local Sally Army store has decided to start selling buttons, so I walked in and the first thing I saw was button jars and spent the next 10 minutes picking and choosing like a kid in a lolly shop.
So what is the going rate for buttons in your area? Here it is 5c ea for small and 10c for large. Just wish there WERE large buttons. I have to say though, it felt weird, swapping small pieces of round plastic for the equivalent small round pieces of metal. Hmm. Feeling a bit like swapping my cow for a bag of magic beans. Pity they aren't interchangeable, often the only thing in my purse is a wad of ancient receipts, a bit of lint and a few buttons. I have actually pulled out the buttons before today but haven't had any takers at the checkout yet lol. (more fool them)
Of course there is a bulk deal, buy a small ziplock bag for $5. My bag contained 65 buttons. Um, bargain?

A few days later, i''m sitting waiting in the car and spotted my little bag of plastic "trashure" still in my handbag.
 So I had a bit of fun sorting through and picking out my favourites. There were some nice soft vintage greens, bright reds even a couple that looked like they might be real tortoishell.
Now the behind the scenes part. After spending so long at the Op-shop choosing these, my teen DD was getting rather annoyed at me as we were meant to be op-shopping for her. This was the first stop of many and I hadn't passed the ATM yet so was actually cashless (apart from the aforementioned lint and stray buttons) and there was a $10 eftpos limit. There was NO WAY I was putting those buttons back! Meanwhile, I was suddenly hit by the most gut wrenching call of nature. (a stomach bug? oh thanks kids). So I began feverishly searching for something to make up the $10 minimum difference. And do you think I could find ANYTHING! I'm desperately beseeching my DD to find SOMETHING! But she wasn't catching the vibe and was very unhelpful. Finally I found a small lamp I wanted for a crafty transformation, which left me with a $1 deficit still!! aaaargh! The last thing was a book on housecleaning tips ROFL! anyone who can write a book on tips is probably organised enough that they would never have need of such a book in the first place. But anyway, I can dream right? Of a home where I sit happily crafting while my floors and benchtop and gleaming? If only the owning of such could be come the reality. So finally I could pay and make the mad dash home again (Phew!). Then on to another 5 stores where we bought absolutely nothing! Were they worth an afternoon of my time and some physical discomfort? Hmm. Cows and beans... I'll let you decide if you think they are magic..



8 comments:

  1. Hello H, I'm here via Blogtober. Very much enjoying what I'm reading; love the scrappy flowers and the button saga, and your header picture is A.C.E! will be following along x

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  2. Thankyou Max! Blogtober is great for getting the blog bug back again.

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  3. Optober?? You're a freaking GENIUS!!

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  4. I am going opping today :) Just a tip although you wont find any lovely vintage treasures King Kong sell a bag of assorted buttons for $2.00 they are great colours and you get bags that have some really big ones in them!

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  5. Aaaah, just taking a moment to bask in my geniousity :P coming from the Oppy Queen that's high praise!

    Thanks Julie! I'll definitely check them out. I have some bags of new buttons from Spotlight but I can say from a very concerted search, there is not a SINGLE MATCHING BUTTON in the whole bag of how ever many hundred, so not much good for trying to make a matching pair of anything. I try to keep my new and vintage buttons separate.
    I would also love to have a go at dying buttons some time too.

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  6. hey helen, you should go on one of those back in time shows on channel two. they could do with the help! for
    get the bags of buttons and just buy the ones you want, ripped off by sally really!
    Hope there weren't any lumps of soap in your hair this time:-)
    Anyone can talk about house cleaning or write a book on it or read a book on it for that matter but it doesn't get the job done.You are good at writing, you should write a book on it, make a million then pay someone to do it for you:-)

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  7. that last comment was from me, Lou, in case you didn't figure it out but I couldn't get it to post with out going anonymous

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  8. Lol I was trying to figure out who it was, I was thinking maybe Georgie? You make it sound like I had big chunks lol, but no, it all rinsed out nicely, or I did make sure it was, bt this is a much harder cake of soap so sholdn't have the gooeyness lol That's the problem with all this water conservation business, you still have to make sure you get the job done!

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