Wise Bread Picks
I’m pretty skeptical about suggestions I read in magazines found in my local salon. Maybe it’s all those fumes. I walk away kind of light headed ready to believe that I can have great abs and thighs in two weeks and that I can do anything I set my mind to with little or no preparation. So it was with much trepidation that I ever actually try a suggestion coming from the mags in the salon. Thankfully, my best friend and hairdresser, Kristy, is not so skeptical.
She found an article in January’s Better Homes and Gardens that suggested throwing a swap meet party. Get together with friends and neighbors, clean out the closets, and perhaps come home with something fun without spending any money. Sure, I thought. But will it be successful? For the most part it was.
First, Kristy — the queen of making everything perfect — came up with clever invitations and invited some of her best clients at the salon and some friends. Key to a successful attempt at this seems to be inviting people of varied taste so that no one universally thinks one thing is trash and the other thing treasure. We were instructed to each bring 5 items in really good condition. Clothes had to be perfectly wearable. Nothing should have needed fixing in any sort of way. Where Kristy got clever was making sure she chose guests for the party that did not all have the same taste.
It was easy to find 5 new or newish items around the house that I wanted to let go. Sometimes people will send us things that are a bit too country for me (it frequently happens to those of us in rural areas). What was I to do with an Americana faux bicentennial quilt, a beautiful blouse not in my colors, and assorted cowboy accoutrements? So I brought over my treasures and displayed them around her living room as others had done with theirs.
Kristy gave us five clothes pins color coded for each of us. I was red! I then went around the room and put the clothespins on five different items since I brought 5 items. Unless I had the competition of another clothespin, the item under my clothespin belonged to me. When two or more guests went for the same item, we then had to do a drawing for it.
I got some great wooden shelves for my son’s room and a perfectly good karaoke thing for my daughter who I’m sure will be done with it in less that a year so why buy one?
Kristy got to know her clients a little better that day, which is always a plus.
Of course she had a great quiche and mimosas to liven the mood. In just two hours we all got rid of unnecessary stuff that felt a little too good for the thrift store and we came home with some great new to us items. We are planning another one at the beginning of summer. Want to join us?
