The $20 Thrift Store Challenge (give or take a dollar)

I'm always game for any excuse to go shopping at a thrift store with $20 in my pocket.  So when the Young House Love Macklemore Thrift Store Challenge came along I was ready, willing, and in my car.  Around my neck of the woods the thrift stores are not huge ones like I've seen on some American blogs so I took a few liberties and made a couple of return visits to spend my entire $20.  I'm dedicated like that.  Also I was looking for some specific items and it took a few tries to get enough of them.
So let's begin.
Here's my favourite thrift shop, although there are a few others that I also frequent.  I love to go at lunchtime on Fridays as my little treat.

These are my two favourite sections to check out - the dishes

and the tablecloths.  Yes, there are some who would say I have found enough of both of those treasures, but then again what do they know. 

You can find other goodies like luggage

and wedding dresses (yikes), but I generally stick to my two favourite areas.  They provide me with plenty of temptation as it is.

I've been hankering to collect an informal grouping of brass candlesticks to decorate the mantel or arrange in the middle of the table.  I was after that aged brass not any of that shiny 1980s brass.  So the thrift store challenge seemed just the time to start the hunt.  I needed a nice grouping - aka - five different, but coordinating brass candlesticks.  Of course, it had to be an uneven number so it looked aesthetically pleasing and three would seem too few and seven would be too hard to find on such short notice.  So five it was.  It took me three trips to different thrift stores to find these five, but here they are.   

Ain't they purdy!

I also thought I might be able to get a tablecloth and make a pretty tablescape.  I used to find great tablecloths at the thrift stores, but over the past year or so there haven't been many for sale.  This week, though, I was lucky and found two that tickled my fancy.  

And finally, I found this pretty little platter for only $1.99.  Couldn't you see it on the Christmas lunch table or at Valentine's Day.

So lets see what we have:
5 Brass Candlesticks: $10.95

2 Tablecloths: $7.98
1 Platter: $1.99
GRAND TOTAL: $20.92 (not including taxes)

Oops.  I'm roughly in the $20 range.  Right?  Are you with me on this? Close enough wouldn't you say? Can you blame a girl when it was my lucky week at the thrift store.  
As any self-respecting blogger would do, I got my new things out and played around a bit and had some fun creating this fake Valentine's table settings. 

I sure wish it was light in the evening as it is impossible to take any photos these days, but there you have it - my real treasures found during a real thrift store challenge posed in a fake dinner situation.
... and a few photos I managed to snap this morning in daylight.

Linked to Macklemore Thrift Store Challenge at Young House Love,
Weekend Bloggy Reading at Serenity Now