Buying Thrift Shoes...

During a recent conversation with my sister Marie, I was telling her about my latest shoe find and how little they cost. She too loves shoes and loved the price but she was concerned that shoes could cause problems that clothing doesn't. With clothes you bring them home and either wash them or dry clean them and anything that might be on them, dirt or otherwise, is washed away. Laundering shoes is okay for sneakers and slippers but no one is going to put their leather pumps in the washer.

Here are some of my tips on buying shoes from the thrift store.

• first off, I only buy shoes from clean, dry, well organized stores I buy from a variety of stores some are cleaner and drier than others (I do live on the Wet Coast after all)
• next look at the inside for wear, if the name is worn off the inner sole these are well loved well worn shoes. As I peruse the shelf I only pick up the ones with little wear inside
• sometimes the previous owner used insoles protecting the inner sole from wear, so next flip the shoes over and check the treads for wear. I only buy shoes that have no wear on the bottom soles
• when you get them home wipe them down with a damp cloth with just a touch of antibacterial dish soap (not too much soap or too damp as it could damage the material or leather)
• last use anti fungal spray or powder inside the shoes and let them sit for a day or two before wearing them
• finally if you spot a pair, like I did on the Naturalizers (below on the right), that still have the store tag on them you can be pretty sure they haven't been worn previously

725 Camo for $5 and Naturalizers for $12

Note the treads on both are still intact and the Naturalizers have the store tag (Note the dirt on the Camo shoes is from me, forgot to take a picture while they were still clean)

Sweater Slippers

My latest adventure has been hunting down old wool sweaters and remaking them into new things. I like to think of it as saving the environment one ugly sweater at a time.

The process requires felting the wool (washing in hot water in the washer) so that it becomes a very dense material. I have to add that it usually isn't difficult to find wool sweaters, especially felted wool, in the thrift stores. What I wasn't expecting was how hard it would be to find sweaters of any kind let alone those with a mostly animal fibre content. I searched all my favourite stores and came up with 3 sweaters and a sweater vest.

The picture above features the second pair of slippers I made today of one of the sweaters and the burgundy sweater vest. They are really fun to make and the first pair are currently residing on my feet and I must say that felted wool is very cozy and toasty.

Shoes, a girl can never have too many...

After my shoe remark in the last post I thought a shoe discussion was in order. I don't usually buy shoes at thrift stores. Most often I pass by my size and see if there is anything that catches my eye but isn't too worn and I don't buy any.  Lately though I have been having the best shoe luck. In the last month I have found 4 pairs that are all in perfect shape and fit very well. All of them are under 2 were under $5 and the other 2 were under $10.

My shoe finds.

The Nine West Pumps are my favourite of all these. My last Nine West shoes lasted for many years and I wore them until they were too scuffed and scratched to wear anymore. The Sam & Libby green sandals are my second favourite just because they are my favourite colour and go with 1/2 my closet.