Gotta Love Goodwill

I love Goodwill.  It's one of my favorite places in the entire world to go shopping.  Not because of all the great clothing deals I come across, but because of my addiction to crafts and grab bags.  Yes, I was the weird kid who loved buying a bag full of stuff that I had no idea what was in it.  It was like going on a little treasure hunt.  And I still get that thrill when I buy bags of craft goodies from Goodwill.  Here's what I got today.

I bought 4 bags of goodies for a total cost of $10.50.  I thought it was a little expensive, but I didn't care.  I had to have them just for the thrill.  When I got home and opened these little beauties up, I was more than happy with what I'd purchased.

Bag #1 didn't look like much at first, but I did noticed a box of chalk and a package of thumb tacks so I went for it.  I figured those are a buck a piece at the local dollar store and the rest of the bag had to be worth the other dollar.  Here's a look at what was all inside.

I was way more than happy with the whole thing.  And yes, I did get more than another dollar's worth of stuff.

I ended up with a box of jumbo crayons (yes, I still like to color..but they're going to be used for coloring in my quilt patterns).  3 jumbo paper clips, an unopened pack of push pins, a box of chalk, 2 sticky note pads (one of which was in the shape of the letter K so I gave it to my daughter, KC), and a magnifying glass.

Also among the goodies were 7 reusable book covers.  I know what these are as I'd gotten my kids some of these a couple years ago.  The cool thing is that these aren't store bought, these were handmade.  I'm way happy with the Nebraska Husker one.  It's a hometown thing.

And finally in the bag was this nice little 4th of July flag that I'll hang on to and hang outside my house this summer.  I have a yard flag holder and this will fit perfectly.

This is the cool stuff from Bag #2.  I love to do embroidery so I grabbed this one up strictly for the hoops.  I didn't pay much attention to what else was in the bag other than I knew there was some kind of fabric and a mysterious box that I thought was probably something stupid. I was way happy when I realized that one of the hoops was an oval shape.  I didn't even know they made those.  LOL

It was the amount of material I found in this bag that really set my heart to pounding.  The green piece on top is the smallest piece of the whole lot and it measures 21-1/2"x9-1/2".  I'm way happy about that one.  More material to add to my collection.  Whoo Hoo.

And this is what I found in that box.  A whole bunch of ribbon and these 2 pieces.  Ironically, I couldn't tell that the one said "Johnson" on it until after I took this picture.

Bag #3 was the biggest of the bunch, but not the most impressive.  Though there are a few items in here that I think are cool, this one wasn't as much fun as the last.  However, there are a couple things in here that made it worth the $3 I paid for it.  The more boring things include a full bag of decorative moss, a reusable plastic table cloth, a couple piece of tulle and some shoe strings.

I was happy with these little ditties though.  I got an unopened package of elastic, a little bit of gold cord, a package of antique buttons and these little things with different types of sports balls on them.  Little did I realize that those are actually push pins.  Yes, blood was involved...but not much.  LOL

These are really cool though.  These are actually make-your-own buttons.  You add whatever type of material you want and you've got buttons for all occasions.  These are still on their original package and have never been used.  And the fact that they only cost 25 cents tells me that they're old.  LOL

Also included in this bundle was this cool role of yarn.  Oddly, this yarn is on a plastic core and is wound so tightly that it took me half an hour to find the end.  But when I did, I thought it seemed odd.  I don't know for sure, but this yarn has the look and feel of being hand spun.  It's not like the yarn you can get at the store, it's got a way different texture to it.

And finally, I had to grab this little bag.  I did so because of the colored pencils.  Again, they were to be used when designing my quilt blocks.  But as I opened this one I realized that it was a set.  It's a Shrinky Dinks set.  I didn't think they made those anymore.  I did a little dance of joy over this one.  A couple of pieces have been made, but it's still mostly intact.  There are 4-1/2 sheets left, all the colored pencils, a bag of jewelry pieces so you can make a bracelet out of your Shrinky Dinks and a pattern sheet for that extra bit of flair.

All in all, I think I did okay.  This isn't all I bought at Goodwill, but these were my happy buys.  I also got a nice piece of rose covered material for 50 cents and several shirts for work.  Not only did I get a few things I needed, I got to have a little fun in the process and got a whole lot of stuff for a small amount of money.