Thrifting

A couple of my favorite blogs as of late (http://thatwifeblog.com/ and http://www.academichic.com/ ) have talked about thrifting as well as http://www.newdressaday.com/ where thrifting is the complete focus. I'm not sure if it's the retro 80's trends coming back, a slow economy that's making people aware of their spending habits, the positive impact on the environment or some other reason but it seems like thrifting is trendy. This "new trend" which has been around forever makes me reflect on my childhood a bit. See, I was the only girl in a family of boys. It was quite often that my brother would get clothes passed down from one of both of my cousins and the same to the next brother although he was a rather skinny child and often didn't fit in hand-me-downs but you'd never guess it to meet him now. Anyway, the point being is I was super jealous of the bags of clothes that went back and forth! Even my mom's best friend would play with her kids' clothes but her daughter is 4 years younger than me so she got my clothes and I got nothing. Of course her son is a year older than one of my brothers so he would get the incoming bags of clothes. This maybe happened once a season or so depending on how quickly we were growing and when our respective parents made us clean out our closets. Despite my clothing jealousy, there are other benefits to being the only girl in the family and occasionally I'd get a bag of clothes from the daughter of one of my aunts' friends who were a couple of years older than me. To me, this was super exciting becasue it was always a suprise. Besides, I felt so fashionable to wear the clothes picked out by high school girls when I was in middle school - haha I was pretty lame when it came to dressing myself. I distinctly remember my 6th grade wardrobe (the stuff I picked out myself without) consisting of colored Arizonia jeans, a few crewneck sweatshirts in size L when I should have worn an S, white, pink and neon yellow Asics high top sneakers , way too many giant t-shirts, most containing the logos of sports teams of the teal and purple variety (i.e. Charlotte Hornets, Phoenix Suns, Colorado Rockies) and a Starter jacket or two (I think I had Hornets and Suns in different styles one year after the other). Back to the topic, my grandmother was a big fan of thrift stores in her retired days, I think for her it was more of a group sport she could do with her other retired lady friends than any any of the other motives I suggested above. Eventually I got to raid her closet for button down shirts that don't wrinkle and velvet blazers (another phase I may have over done on the weekends). I made it through 4 years of high school uniforms, my style was equalling out just in time for college. Of course there were a few oh nos thrown in but I pretty much found a happy medium. The point to all this embarrassing sharing or my self dressing fails is that I never got into thrifting. I'm not sure why because the idea of making something new again really appeals to me and I certainly love old wood furniture. Now I see all these instances of thrift store finds and wonder where I could score a "vintage" dress for a dollar or a museum scarf turned into a belt. I think specifically of a silver dress that used to sit in my grandmother's closet and wonder if it ended up being someone else's thrift store find (think retro 60's metallic knit, it's totally a find) once my aunts cleaned out her stuff or if it is sitting in someone's closet collecting dust once again. To be honest, I have no idea where to find a good thrift store around here, maybe I'll do a little googeling this weekend and see if I can score a vintage durndle! And maybe I'll email my aunt and see if she has that silver dress per chance. Do you ever go thrifting? Please show me your finds!