$2 Adult clothes, $1 Kids clothes, $5 Jeans

Hi Ladies - I'm Crystal , For my first post - I can highly recommend popping dow to the Brotherhood of St Lawrence Shop in the Heidelberg West Mall.... they are having a MEGA clothing clearance. I picked up a complete outfit fora friend for $11!! You do need to hunt through some of the junk to find the good stuff but there are quite a few good things :)

Good luck treasure hunting!

**Also have about 3 trestle tables of books! I think they are $1 ea too

St Catherine's closed

Just to let you know, that sadly the St Catherine's Op Shop on Glenhuntly Rd, Elsternwick has closed down.

and the winner is ....

Brunswick! Yes, going by Tanja's list of op shops by suburb, Brunswick comes out ahead with a grand total of nine op shops. So if you want an intensive day of op shopping, head up to Sydney Road. Closely followed by Rosebud by the way, with eight op shops to its name (and sea views).

Op shopping on the go

Are you ever driving somewhere and suddenly become overwhelmed by the desire to go op shopping? But how do you figure out where the op shops are hidden in that area?

The other week DH and I were in Macleod, shopping at the lovely Strathalan Op Shop. DH turned to me and asked, "Are there any other op shops nearby?"

...
Some time ago I approached Amelia with an idea of having the op shopping list in a different format. The idea was to organise the list by suburbs, instead of by shop names. A seemingly simple idea, but it took quite a long time the way I did it, LOL!
...

I flipped open my op shop list, found Macleod, and pointed DH in the direction of the St Andrew's Op Shop. I must say I was quite taken with this shop (their buttons are organised by colour!) and I was excited to find another, as yet unlisted, op shop just a few doors away. I get very excited when I find op shops to add to the list.

I have been using my suburb-ordered list for some months now and I love it. It goes everywhere with me, and everywhere I go I can find my nearest op shops. The bugs are finally ironed out of it, and Amelia has been kind enough to add the list to the sidebar as a google document. It prints up over about 10 pages, or 5 double sided pages.

I hope others are able to print it out and enjoy it as much as I do.

Sale!

I was at Savers on Sydney Rd last weekend. Apparently, Monday June 2 is 50% off off everything in the store! They're open 8am-8pm.

Here's a coat I picked up at Savers about a year ago. The photo doesn't do it justice, it's a full-skirted dress coat, pure wool.

Oakleigh Op Shop Goodies Round Up

As you can see from the photo, we found a few goodies yesterday, around Oakleigh.

The brand new, fully complete board game Squatter - for a mere $2 - and the cast iron flat-iron - only $5 - were found in St Vinnies in Crewe St, Oakleigh.

The brand new, never been opened or used fondue set - only $10 with the original $35 price tag still intact - was a bargain from Temcare Op Shop in Station St, Oakleigh.

The brand new, never been used board game Bush Walk - still wrapped in original cellophane for $2.75 - was a find in the Salvo's in Atherton Rd, Oakleigh.
For under $20.00 and a leisurely stroll around the suburb we found some great bargains, including a couple that we'd been hunting for!

.................................................

Temcare Op Shop, in Station St, Oakleigh is bursting at the seams with goodies at the moment!
Collectors tins - tea,tobacco and other sorts- are out on the tables, crockery sets and assorted silverware heavily marked down, many racks of great quality clothing are out on display, as well as a huge variety of other goodies.
They have a sleeping bag and 2 man tent available - price unknown - but both appeared to be in good condition, the tent still in it's original box, for anyone interested in camping.
Also a large collection of thermos's were variously priced, along with a few backpacks for the serious bushwalker.

alert: bally shoes

There is a lovely pair of Bally size 36.5 mid-heel court shoes in the window at the MECWA op shop on Chapel Street (near Windsor train station). Caramel leather with a bit of gold metallic trim on the tip of the toe. Bally sizes tend to the small/narrow. $30 - I can't imagine they'll be there for long. Let everyone know if you get them!

Vintage patterns

Hello all! My first contribution to "I op, therefore I am" is these vintage patterns found on my first trip to the Northern Community Church of Christ Op Shop in High St, Preston.

They also had plenty of very low priced buttons: I bought these patterns as well, even though I'll have to grade them down to fit. Great cover artwork!

I've only discovered what a treasure trove op shops can be in the past year or so - since I've been reading craft blogs. Now I just need to find a little time to sew.

Calenders

Great score at Ashburton Services Op-shop; calenders for 50c each! It's not toooo late for a 2008 calender, is it? There were heaps - brand new still in plastic.

Gorgeous Steve Parish photos - so iconic! D2 has been asking for a calender for months now, but it never seemed to happen. We don't really need so many, but I couldn't resist the pictures.

I truly love design in nature - to me, it is a constant reminder of life being 'designed', planned, created, not happening 'by chance'.

Hubbie and I (though mainly him) are avid bird spotters - 'twitchers' I've been told. Hubbie has much better eye-sight than me and can spot a colour behind their ear, to identify them! I'm just happy to know that they are there.


White-winged fairy wren - is that colour for real?


Eastern Rosella - we often seem them in the suburbs.



Superb Fairy-wrens - my favourite!!

Op Shop Tours in the Melbourne Fringe

I am starting to organise the melbourne fringe festival op shop tours after a very successful Adelaide fringe run. I have a few questions for my devoted melbourne op shoppers. If you have time let me know what you think.

We are running a bus tour going to a number of locations, at the moment its set at four hours do you think that is enough time? too much too little?

We are planning to run them on Saturdays and mid week, what day would you be more likely to attend if you went on one? Wednesday, Friday or Saturday?

Would you be offended if we stopped at any vintage shops that are not charity organisations?

I would love any feed back, its going to be big, its going to be grand and hopefully it will ge a lot of great op shops some great exposure.

Feel free to shoot me an email on joanneocall@hotmail.com

or reply to this blog.

a collection is born

I find that most collections begin in an accidental sort of way. My scarf collection is a good example. I started with one or two, kept an eye out for them and all of a sudden, I had ten or more. A collection. My latest find is shown here.

Today is day two of my new scarf collection sub collection, that is, the souvenir scarf that shows tourist highlights of a particular place. I have only one to date and its shown below (see the old Gas & Fuel buildings?).

The collection was inspired by another Melbourne souvenir scarf I saw a few weeks back. It dated from the mid 1970s, when apparently the tourist highlights included the Arts Centre, the City Square and the MCG. Most interestingly, Tullamarine Airport was also included. I think its a bit of a worry when the means of leaving the city is considered a highlight.
Unfortunately I didn't buy it and when I went back for it a week later it had gone.

If you see any in your travels, I'd love to know about it.

Sharing yesterdays today

The Spouse, my hubby, is well-trained to never pass an op shop when out on errands and yesterday was no different.
Into the Salvo's in Chapel St, Windsor he went and, after browsing through the shelves he came out with 2 great finds.

The first was a huge book (A3 size) titled News,News,News which is a collection of 101 years of the many Australian newspapers and the varied news stories reported through the years.
A great source for history and research, the book is in perfect condition with articles from the huge variety of newspapers that graced Australian newsagency shelves, dust jacket intact with not a tear or stain to be found, a bargain for a mere $4.75.

The second find was an old gilt green leather-bound photograph album with black cardboard pages holding someone's memories of visiting England, Ireland and Wales in the (judging by the clothing styles) 1920's-1930's.
Donkey and pony carts, Irish turf sellers, the graceful lines of ladies skirts, and hats which added that little bit of mystery but were the final punctuation to a woman's outfit; a handful of photos someone cared enough to take once upon a time and are now rubbing shoulders with our collection of books, waiting to be glanced through by interested eyes, once again, for only $4.00.

We always grab these kind of finds, to give orphan photos and memories a home safe from a rubbish tip and for a glimpse into a yesterday not always deemed worthy for history books.

Gettin' all business like

Well, for the first time in my life, I have scored myself a job where I have to dress all business like and stuff. Yikes! It's quite a corporate work environment and I have never worn a suit in my life. My wardrobe is full of clothes, but not clothes that make me look clever and important and like I'm takin' control of bizz-nasss.

So I need to corporatise my wardrobe quick smart. Does anyone have any recommendations on op shops that stock good quality clothes that could be worn in in a corporate workplace? I'm in St Kilda but if you know the best ever op shop somewhere in far-away-land, like Emerald or Rosebud, let me know anyway as I am happy to travel.

Thanks all!