Return of The Smith Family Store to Canberra

The Smith Family has reopened their Woden store, selling clothing, accessories and homewares, and are offering opening discounts of 25% until November 30.

Corner Launceston & Easty Streets

Phone: (02) 6232 5374

Opening hours:
Monday to Friday: 9.00 am to 4.45 pm
Saturday: 10.00 am to 1.45 pm 

The Brotherhood of St Laurence in Victoria has just started a series of short videos on how to get the most out of op-shopping.

I didn't learn anything new, but as a lifetime op-shopper, I am not the intended audience for this video.

What tips and tricks would you give to a new op-shopper?

A Raid on the NSW Op-shops.

This weekend we have a funny thing happen. In Canberra we get the Monday off as a public holiday, but for NSW it’s another normal working day.

For Taph and me this means a chance to raid the ops-shops of NSW on a normal working day. The question is where we will go.

We can go South and do Queanbeyan, Cooma, Nimmitabel, and then track back to Adaminaby?
We can go North and do Goulburn, Moss Vale, Bowral and Mittagong?

We were saving Yass, Harden, Young and Boorowa for later in the year. ideally that would be during the cherry season.

With so many options what should we do?

Also we need your help. If you know of any little shops in or near these towns that have not been reviewed here, then let us know.

New Opportunity

It is an exciting day indeed to find a new op-shop has opened. The new MS Opportunity Shop is located at Tuggeranong Homeworld (Soward Way, Greenway).

Opening hours Monday to Friday - 9.30am - 5pm and Saturday 9am - 2pm.

Now to just find some time to visit.

Winter wonders

I have a friend from out of  town who visits Canberra each year for the Craft & Quilt Fair. And it's tradition that we meet on the Sunday morning for Trash and Treasuring, followed by brunch.

This morning we went to both Jamison and Woden. And this morning we both bought typewriters (hers is a beautiful teal Olivetti, mine a more subdued cream Brother).

 I was excited to discover dolls house miniatures for sale at both markets and went a little overboard. The beady-eyed amongst you may notice a miniature typewriter beside the full sized one...

Other finds of the morning: a book on Banksy ($8), a rubber stamp that says 'bullshit' (50 cents), Powder Puff yarn for knitting miniature flokati rugs ($5, including colours not shown here). And a display case (not from Trash and Treasure but from Portobello Road at Old Bus Depot Markets) for $20.

And these mini socks were bought for me by my friend:

Because everyone needs miniature hand-knitted black and white socks, apparently...

Market savvy

It's been a while since I posted my market finds so I thought I'd share this morning's treasure:

Linen Trent Resort jacket ($6), the most fabulous vintage first aid cupboard (also $6: can you believe it?!), a selection of DVDs to keep me glued to the sofa and knitting stock for my soon-to-be-launched Etsy shop (between $2 and $4 each), two plastic storage containers for mini supplies ($1 each) and eight brand new sheets of silver 2D scrapbooking alphabet stickers, still with their original $2.95 price stickers attached (50 cents each)

Total price: $30.

Have you been to Trash and Treasure recently? Care to share?

To eat or to op

Another opportunity to pop out to the op-shops at lunchtime with The Shopping Sherpa, this time to Vinnies and Salvos in Phillip.

The Vinnies store has made it a lot easier to look through their fabrics and machester - the 3 metres of red and while polka dot will be great for one of my daughter's textile assignments - at $3 p/m it is a lot better value than calico.

A few more patterns are added to the stash, all with a 1980's theme - a blouse pattern from the Brooke Shields signature pattern collection and a knitting pattern with each of the models standing in front of a 'popstar poster' (Madness anyone?).

Also love our 'The Ugly Dachshund' Little Golden Book.

'Magnifique'

A school holiday op-shop outing to visit Y's Buys (who must have the best craft set up of any op-shop in Canberra), Salvos and Vinnies in Belconnen, and while we looked around and hunted through racks of clothes and shelves of crockery, we did not seem to find a great deal that screamed 'take me home'.

We did find a few books, knitting needles and sewing patterns to add to current collections, an old version of Sim City that  still works on our old PC and Buffy Season 1 on DVD (the universe must have heard me saying I had never seen it).

I'm dreaming of an op-shop run

As the The Shopping Sherpa alluded to in the previous post, I had  an inkling that an op-shop run was needed - and it was not going away.

It is fun to not only have another 'I Op' colleague to work with and being able to pop out for a quick look around in a lunchtime break.

My finds are all from the Salvos at Fyshwick - I don't normally purchase 80s style dresses ($9), it's for my teenage daughter who loves to look like she goes to school with Ferris Bueller and definitely can not remember big shoulders the first time around.

Digging through the vintage sewing patterns, I found my 'score' of the day - vintage Disney cloth patches. The stash of patterns, cloth patches and tapestry threads came to a grand total of $4.

Hopefully more lunchtime trips will be planned.

A lunch run

One of the (many) fabulous things about where I work is the easy lunchtime access to a selection of op shopping ...err opportunities.

This week Teak has been muttering about her growing urge to do an op shop run and last night I had an op shopping dream. So it was clear we needed to head out at lunchtime. We chose the Fyshwick/ Narrabundah option this time.

Teak did well at Salvos Fyshwick (and has promised to share her scores here). I bought a wooden puzzle for $1, inspired by Jan Hogan's work Little Red Riding Hood which is part of the excellent 100% Books by Canberra Artists currently showing at The Watson Arts Centre.

I did very well at Vinnies Narrabundah, scoring a number of finds for my stall at next month's Sydney Miniatures Show. The plastic baskets (one large: $2, four small: $1 each) and the black and white boxes ($2.20 for the set) will be used by shoppers to hold their items while they shop the stall. And the wool (250g 8 ply in yellow: $7.50 and three balls of 4 ply: $4 total) will be used to knit my next colour range of miniature pouffes.

One and a quarter hours later, and $20.70 poorer, I returned to work a satisfied shopper.