Thrifty Inspiration

We recently held my 29th [ahem] birthday party in our new home. Friends seemed [and rightly so!] to be gushing about our house renovation and quirky furniture, decorations and objects about the house. Moreover, I was looking through a close friends' photos of the party and they were mainly of items in the house! More house pictures to follow in later articles.

People constantly ask where I get my unique and thrifty inspiration from, and the answer is from many sources.

The 'make do and mend' mentality comes from my family. During the war, clothes were rationed just like everything else. I remember my Gran telling me about unwanted jumpers which were unravelled and knitted into something else, or just like Julie Andrews in 'The Sound of Music' old curtains were cut up to make skirts and dresses. This obviously past down to my mum because when my brother and I were little she made all our clothes, and has brought me up to make my own soft furnishings, not to buy them.

Maria made clothes out of curtains - very make do and mend!

My love of salvage was probably first inspired by dad who was a dustman in the 1970's. During a house clearance he managed to salvage a pair of beautiful Ercol chairs, that are still to this day, in their kitchen. Later, as elderly relatives died and I inherited old furniture and stunning pieces like cut glass perfume bottles, I really began to favour the old over the new. Something about my things having a bit of history about them, excites me.

My parents salvaged chairs.

Other than that, I've always read a lot of house and interior magazines, I check out other people homes quite a lot on Right Move (maybe I should become an estate agent?) and I spend many a weekend scouring charity shops, car boot sales, flea markets and antique shops looking for the perfect items for our home.

Our Thrifty House Purchases

Since moving 150 miles, myself and my better half have spent a large proportion of our time scouring flea markets, car boot sales and antique fairs looking for the perfect vintage (and cheap) accessories for our home. Here are some of our beautiful finds:

Left to right: a printing block tray £15, an old clarinet case £5, a 'Camp Coffee' box £15, an old trunk from WWII free, 2 bird seed bags £6, a painted fruit box £10 and a glimpse of our new kitchen table £90

Most of these items we already owned, but we bought the  pair of chairs (dating from the 1950's) from eBay for £52

We bought four apple crates for £20 each to use as kitchen shelves to display our favourite items of crockery. We lined them with vintage fabric, courtesy of my mother's fabric trunk!

The colander belonged to my late Gran. But with a broken handle, we up-cycled it to make this Ikea lamp a bit more 'us'

Possibly the best £17 we have spent so far. A beautiful set of vintage kitchen steps. With such high ceilings it is making reaching up for high up items a whole lot easier...

Thrift-Queen's eBay Buying Tricks and Tips

I'm not going to lie. I ♥ eBay. I use it to buy all sorts of goodies from clothes and toys, to furniture and accessories. But knowing where and how to look can be mind-boggling. So I thought I'd share with you my tips and tricks to achieving eBay buying success.

Where To Search

A must for anyone looking for a specific item, is to remember not everyone can spell! Spelling mistakes are rife on eBay. If you're looking for the perfect wedding dress, for example, try searching instead for a 'weeding dress', or let Fatfingers.com do the work for you. They search eBay for hidden treasures that would otherwise end up no bids, as nobody can find them!

Another top tip that I often use, is to remove the word 'and'. A higher itemised result can be found if you were to search for 'Lyle Scott' as opposed to 'Lyle and Scott'.

How to Search

My ultimate top tip in searching for anything on eBay, albeit a generic 'antique furniture' search or a more specific 'Harry Potter Lego' search is to personalise the search. There are many tools for you to do this and sniff out a bargain. The three that I have the most proven success rate with are:

• Dictate to eBay how you want the results to be arranged using the 'Sort By' drop down list. The options include 'Ending Soonest' and 'Price: Lowest First' but I always opt for 'Nearest First'. This option will ultimately save you money as you'll be able to collect the item as opposed to paying for postage or shipping by couriers. It's not uncommon for eBay sellers to up-quote the cost of postage and packaging to make a bit more money for themselves.
• Narrow down your search by searching in a chosen category - this option is particularly useful if you know what you are searching for. Choose from a drop down menu along the top of the search results page. But be aware that items often cross over into different categories. When this does happen, eBay lists (on the left side of the page) the actual categories where the search items were found.
• Set a price limit. The light yellow column on the left-hand-side allows you to choose the amount you are willing to spend in the form of two boxes. In the first box you enter in the lowest price and the second, the highest price you want to pay for an item. Such as £0.01p - £28.77p. A much more purse friendly way to search. Some websites might recommend u looking at forums, for the average price varying items should be sold for, but I say just go with your gut.

How to Bid

Congratulations! You made it this far.

There are various tricks of the trade to eBay bidding. I would advise, if you're buying more than one item from the same seller, to contact them and ask if they offer combined postage (if you're unable to collect, as previously mentioned). Sometimes sellers might have a 'Best Offer' option whereby instead of straight bidding, you are able to offer them a price which you are willing to pay. The advantage of this is that you can see the previous offers that have been made by other buyers, to gauge how much to pay and provide the change to haggle.

My golden rule for bidding would be to wait until the last few minutes before entering your offer. Bidding too early will boost the price of your wanted item and you might thus miss out. When using this method, I tend to enter the highest possible amount I'd be willing to pay for the item, such as £43.77. Then I just hope that I am not outbid.

Unless paying cash on collection, I would always advise using 'Paypal' as they offer payment protection on items that are lost in the post.

Follow my simple guide and you too could enjoy eBay at its thrifty best! Need anymore advise? Drop me an email at thrift-queen@hotmail.co.uk and I'll be happy to help.