Ashburton Support Services Op Shop - grand opening

The Official opening to the newly renovated, brighter and bigger Ashburton Op shop will take place on 1st October 2013 at 10.00am. There is more wonderful first class stock and best of all, prices have not changed. Wonderful helpful staff make shopping a breeze.

Salvos Wheelers Hill

A little something to hold a frog-full of wedding flowers! I'm give it a little polish and it can go with the other brass I have procured.


Some really good looking kitchenware was being put onto the shelves as I headed off. Ceramic mixing bowls, anyone?

Vinnies Ringwood has had a facelift

... and I was invited to check it out! I ended up with a rather large load to carry home because the store is huge and they have added even more apparel and homewares. Are you curious about what I got?

 Head on over to my personal blog to see more - or better yet, drop in to the store and see for yourself. It's a few minutes walk from Ringwood station and there's a Salvos over the road too, so well worth any op shopping fan's time!

Savers Mill Park.

I found four terrific art books at our BSL opshop last week, but haven't got around to photographing them.  But on Monday I met a friend at Savers in Mill Park, and found some great goodies!
Two gorgeous cot quilts $3.99 each, which I am donating to the PNG Quilt Collective (see my other blog if you want to know more)

Two very sweet tea bag holders, $1.99 each.

I love journals and have at least a dozen!   This one was $1.99

The stencil below and the writing paper and matching envelopes below that, were in one bag for $1.99

Five Mills & Boone novels, 99 cents each.

A gift box containing a birthday book and notebook, $2.99.  On the box it says there is an address book as well, but as it wasn't in the box it looks like whoever donated this to Savers only wanted the address book!

Ice cream, I scream!

On the way to work on Wednesday we popped into Lighthouse on Geelong Road, where I spied an ice-cream maker, still in it's box, for $15. Unfortunately I had left my wallet at home! So I nipped back there on Thursday and to my delight it was still on the shelf. Score!

Not only was it still in it's original box, with all the original packaging and the instruction book, the warranty AND the purchase receipt were carefully tucked into the box! And in fact it still under warranty for another four months! Big thanks to the donater - it was purchased around December last year so I'm guessing it was an unwanted Christmas gift. Looking forward to some of that warm weather from earlier in the week so I can try this bad boy out!
In other news, I recently took a trip overseas to the good old US of A. Now we've all heard that 'thrift' stores over there are absolute goldmines, and I can now provide evidence!
I had a few extra days in San Francisco, which from blog-world is one of the op-shopping epicentres of the States, so I made sure I spent some quality time in the Mission District which is full of great shops, such as the mind-bogglingly huge Thrift Town:

Then there was the giant warehouse that was The Salvation Army - this pic only shows one half of the shop!
I found a gorgeous red suede jacket which fit me perfectly, and was quite willing to pay the $14 on the tag - until I got to the register and found out it was half-price that day! Woohoo!

I also went to a place called Community Thrift, but you had to check your bag at the counter and I forgot to grab my camera out, so no pics.

Later in the trip, I went to San Diego - my tour group were at the beach but I was like 'there's at least 3 thrift shops within walking distance - catch ya later!' I hit the Cerebral Palsy Thrift Store, Thrift Trader, the very fashionable Buffalo Exchange, and this Goodwill...

... where I found a pair of genuine Levi's, perfect fit, for $7.99.

I also did some shopping in Seattle, another thrift-shopping hub. For some more pics have a look at my blog posts.
Hope you're all well! Have a good weekend & happy shopping!

pay what you think it's worth!

The RSPCA's Burwood Op Shop is holding a special promotion this Friday 30 August at our Burwood Op Shop to celebrate National Op Shop week. From 12-2pm customers can ‘pay what they think it’s worth’ on any item in store. That means they get to choose the price they pay within that 2-hour window!

The RSPCA also has a higher-end second hand shop called Creature Comforts right next to the Burwood Op Shop. The two shops are located in the Burwood Heights Shopping Centre on Burwood Highway.

national op shop week!

Who knew? More info here.