Bowled over

The challenge is complete!

It took a whole 14 months, far too many visits to op shops to count, a grand total $19.20 and Taph (who found 4 cereal bowls on her frugalling rounds today) but I finally have a Maxwell Williams White Basics dinner set for 8 (plus some spares). For under $20 (I already said that, didn't I?)

Here's the final round up for The Great Maxwell Williams Dinner Set Challenge of 2006/2007:

Dinner plates: 8

Total cost: $6.10

Side plates: 9 (Oops!)

Total cost: $2.40

Cereal bowls: 9 (Double oops!)

Total cost: $1.00

Cups & saucers: 10 cups & saucers (Oh well..)

Total cost: $9.70

GRAND TOTAL: $19.20

Fab Friday frugalling finds...

* Lovely vintage flowery double sheet: $2.00
* (Insert fanfare here) Maxwell Williams dinner plate: 50 cents. Thus bringing my total up to eight. Now all I need is those last three cereal bowls and my challenge is complete...
* Two chick lit books to read and send on their merry way: $3 each.

Grand total: $8.50.

About bloody time!

Finally caught at lunchtime today: two more dinner plates for The Great Maxwell Williams Dinner Set Challenge of 2006/2007. Total cost? 80 cents. I need one more cereal plate and then I'll have a dinner set for 6.

Also snapped up (apparently within minutes of them being put out): one brand new pair of leather Miss Shop work shoes. $20.

And the background? Ah, yes.... *shuffles feet and looks ever so slightly shifty* that would be a $5 cotton fitted sheet with two matching pillows. For this month anyway. Next month it'll mysteriously turn into fabric stash...

And now I'm off to brave the dark, wet and cold (in my "new" shoes) to meet Aunty A for a two-for-one deal on I Do at Dendy. And a cheap feed.

Not for my birthday, not for my birthday, not for my birthday!

This vision of black and white loveliness was picked up when I was down in Woden a couple of days ago. The cake cover is utterly unnecessary for two reasons:

1. It's now winter so all the flies have buggered off
2. It'll be a pain to find a space to keep it (although I did toy with the idea that I could use it as a light shade...)

But I had to have it - It's black (never seen a black cake cover before...), it was only $12.95, the last one there and, of course, how could I pass up those daisies?!

And underneath the cake cover? One of 5 pairs of black rubber gloves I picked up at Homebase for a whopping $1.99 a pair. I can now be slightly more coordinated when I do the dishes (the yellow ones I had were bugging me). Now if only I'd bought those white sponges I spied at Crate and Barrel (and talked myself out of) last year in New York, I'd be completely sorted.While I was in Woden I had lunch with the lovely Taph who handed me a bag containing the above while saying "This is NOT a birthday present so you can open it immediately."!

Yay! More Maxwell Williams (I'm feeling quite frustrated at the lack of rimmed bowls and dinner plates I've managed to spot recently so this cheered me up a little) and a 1993 IKEA catalogue to add to my collection. I'm saving it to read on a special occasion...And if I wasn't feeling spoilt enough already, in the mail this morning was this package from Kara who had kindly sent me (all the way from England) the only Sophie Kinsella I've not read yet (hardback, even!) plus a backup supply of Boots toothbrushes. Because a 6 year supply isn't enough, you know...

(Listening to: Afterdark Chicago)

Treasure Trove Tuesday*

(*As I'm way overdue for Second Hand Saturday) An exciting pile of goodies! From the top:
* 1932 edition of A Child's garden of verses (with beautiful illustrations): $1.
* Monica McInerny's Family Baggage (the rest of her books are Irish/ Australian rollicking good reads, I hope this carries on the tradition...): $4
* (Cue the applause soundtrack) 4 Maxwell Williams White Basics dinner plates: $1 each.
* Various pieces of vintage fabric (ex curtains, sheets and doona covers): $18 total (see below for my favourite two patterns)
* U2 by U2 sans dust jacket: $8. I can cope without a dust jacket if it means saving at least $36.95 on the Big W price (or $67 on full retail)!
As promised, here's a closer look at the cot sheet (with robots) and the curtains (with daisies):But wait! There's more!
1950s shabby chic style magazine rack: $7. I'm not sure if the gold bits are original or an afterthought. Either way I think I'll be trying to repaint the flowers back to white:190g Anny Blatt 70% angora/ 30% wool: $10 the lot. Each 20g ball has an original David Jones wool department price sticker of $19.95 on it. That was one fiendishly expensive wool!And, finally, here's a collection of vintage buttons and buckles I bought for 5 cents each:It wasn't til we were back in the car that Princess B pointed out that I'd bought them off Monica from Playschool. As usual I'm crap at spotting famous faces. Especially from TV...
(Listening to: Roddy Frame, Surf)
Oh - I almost forgot to mention - if you're in Sydney and after Stella McCatney for Target clothing we stumbled across three racks of it at Target at Burwood Westfield.

Second Hand Saturday - Catch up

The Great Maxwell Williams Dinner Set Challenge of 2006 has been renamed and continues into 2007. I now have one single dinner plate (woo hoo) and am up to date with cups and saucers after the discovery of this set of four for a whopping $2 for the lot at Vinnies Dickson.

I'm still needing 7 dinner plates and 3 cereal bowls and then I'm done...I also have a new salad bowl with a story behind it. I first saw this design in the window at Vinnies Chatswood. Loved the 1960s/70s flowery vibe but talked myself out of it as I'd just bought a pile of wool and was completely over the concept of carrying fragile items home with me from Sydney.

Obviously The Universe decided I had to have it as this week I found another one at Vinnies Belconnen - a lot closer to home. I'm vaguely suspicious that it is, indeed, the exact same bowl but I really don't think Vinnies moves stock interstate...Another story is attached to this next find: 12 balls of green wool which I plan to use to (finally) make this jumper. And 5 balls of blue which I have no idea what I'll do with at this stage.

They're both Crucci, a New Zealand company which appears to be now (sadly) defunct. Their factory shop was just up the road from our house (and my school) in Upper Hutt and I remember going there with my Mum as a teenager.

And (if that wasn't enough), I also bought a skein of teally blue wool, a colour I seem to have had a crush on since my last trip to NZ. Colleen (The Wool Ladies at Vinnies) sold it to me for a dollar, after we both agreed it must be wool as no one makes that nasty acrylic stuff in skeins. Damn shame I don't have a wool winder, huh?Fabric. Went a bit overboard there since I fell off the Use What you Have wagon. (Note to self: Must actually use some of my fabric stash very very soon.)Ahem. Moving right along, we have a pair of $6 Jane Debster shoes. For work. When it's cool enough to start wearing shoes at work again... ;-)And, finally, a towering pile of books. I couldn't not buy them. Vinnies was having a half price sale on books! I was supporting a good cause while (unfortunately) increasing my "too be read" list to cover not only this year but the next five (or six, or seven...)

(Listening to: Elvis Costello And The Attractions, The Very Best Of Elvis Costello And The Attractions)

Second Hand Saturday

It would seem that the weekly frugalling budget has quietly snuck up from $20 to $25 over the past month or so. Still not a huge amount for so much entertainment, right?

And it's sort of cool to know my purchases a) give money to charity and b) save stuff from going to the dump (ever so ecologically virtuous you know) as opposed to a) support the multinationals and b) cause more stuff to be manufactured. And on top of all that I really like the thrill of not knowing quite what treasures I'm about to unearth...

Speaking of treasure, here's what I discovered this week:

• Cow print fabric: $2.50 (I can't decide if this will become PJ pants for me or something Christmassy for my cow loving friend Nancy)
• Skinny black and white tie: $3.00 (the test will be if I ever wear it. No worries if I don't as I think it'll make pretty fine upholstery fabric for a miniature sofa)
• White teddy bear:20 cents. (I may be selling off the last of my big bear collection but I still have a little bear collection tucked away)
• Black and white spotty cup: 30 cents
• Maxwell Williams cup: 20 cents (alas no saucer)
• Small black cake stand: $1.50
• Two Maxwell Williams side plates: 50 cents each
• Two thick white cotton pillowcases: 50 cents each (these are probably the most exciting purchases of the week)
• The Magic of Dance by Margot Fonteyn: $10.00 (Expensive, I know, but very lovely.)
• Five miscellaneous black and white zips: 20 cents each
• Two balls of Cleckheaton Nostalgia (84% mohair): $3.00
• Three small plastic trays: 70 cents total (these will work well to help keep my craft room drawers under control)
• Shell shaped vase: $1.00

(Listening to: 50hz, Cyclehum)

Feeling all white now...

There's a bit of a theme happening with this week's frugalling purchases. Lots of white. (Total cost: $12.90)

Well two themes, actually, if you count the fact the plates and bowls and the cup and saucer are Maxwell Williams (the cup and saucer matches the four I picked up last week).

My old Crown Lynn dinner set was bought around 20 years ago (if you're a Wellingtonian you can date the purchase by the fact I bought it when the Kirkaldies kitchen department was across the road in the Harbour Centre while the towers were being added - so around 1985-6 ish?) and has had pretty much daily use since then. And it looks like it could do with a rest.

The purchase of the original 4 Maxwell Williams cups and saucers for $4 and the discovery of a fifth (for $3) got me thinking. Could I possibly collect an entire "new" dinner set from the op shops? So I had a rummage round in the piles of plates and it came to pass that I bought 5 white bowls and 7 white side plates for 20 cents each.

And so the Great Frugalled Maxwell Williams Dinner Set Challenge of 2006 begins.

I've been feeling like a frugalling failure...

Over the past couple of weeks I had started to feel that my Frugalling Fairy has deserted me. After repeated visits to my usual haunts the only thing I found worth buying were two very plain very boring very standard light fittings for $1.50 each. Not even worth photographing.

Maybe it's the time of year. I don't know - having only been a hardened frugaller since the beginning of this year I don't know the seasonal vagrarities (is there such a word) of the thrifting universe. (Any enlightenment would be gratefully received!)

Today, though, things returned to normal. I picked up a brand new looking copy of Are you my mother? for 20c and a set of four Maxwell Williams white cups and saucers for $4 the lot. Both are destined for future gift giving.

Which brings me to another issue to ponder. At this time of year do we continue to show off our thrifty scores with prices and risk the recipients of our Christmas goodies snorting "I know she only paid $4 for that - what a cheapskate?" (even though we can happily counter that It's the thought that counts not the cost) or do we get coy and vague with prices and start to censor our thrifty postings?