Now that I’m learning not to buy things new as often, it’s much easier to find beautiful, useful things that are also second-hand. All of the items below I’ve scored recently for less than $1 each.

Can you tell they’re children’s size gardening gloves? They seem to fit better than the adult sizes… I’m not sure if I want to keep the ledger in my purse for a notebook or just use the paper for crafts.

According to the backs, these coasters are from Taiwan (not the same as “Made in Taiwan”). I just wasn’t so sure that Sean’s Penn State coasters belonged on the dining table.

These are my crowning find. A complete set of 20 children’s encyclopedias from 1940 in almost perfect condition – for free!! Can you believe it? The people at the sale thought no one would want them! Well, I think I’m pretty fortunate they weren’t snatched up before I got to them. They’re full of beautiful old stories, paintings, photos, maps, even French translations and craft ideas for kids. My first plan is to make color copies of some of those illustrations, like the plants, for framing. Also, I imagine some of the information is probably out of date, but if a favorite cousin ever wants to borrow them for homeschooling she’s welcome.
We’re very lucky to have lots of antique and second-hand shops in our area, so that our biggest expense for the house has really only been paint. Everyone always says that paint is a cheap way of redecorating, so I was super surprised to discover that even with Sean’s work discount paint is not at all cheap. Plus, did you know that painting a room is really hard? Like, blue paint on the white ceiling and tan carpet, three coats of it, and lots of hours hard? Somehow I thought that painting a room would be just as simple as painting the side of a barn. I was vastly mistaken. This painting process will take months of weekends, I have no doubt, but I am trying not to get tired of it already. Any experienced painters out there with tips to share? I’ve already learned that nail polish remover gets latex paint out of carpet pretty well. What else?