A THRIFT STORE SCORE AND A THRIFTY FIX FOR MY FAVORITE TRAVEL EPP BOX

 

These days I am pinching pennies and turning to my favorite thrift store to meet my needs, particularly when it comes to my crafting and sewing room decor. 

Several years ago I purchased a WONDERFUL travel sewing box at our neighborhood garage sale.  I think I paid only $3.00 for the box.  

It is wonderful, with a padded handle, strap, prongs to hold my thread, little containers to hold bobbins, etc.  

 The bottom is large enough to hold a ton of supplies for my EPP, and can also hold the travel stitchery kit I use for my embroidery!  It all fits wonderfully (although the embroidery stitchery kit is not show above) and makes taking my handwork in the car a breeze!

The only problem with it...the handle and strap are attached to the lid of the box...and the only thing holding the box closed is a plastic latch, which doesn't close all the way and will probably break off from frequent use.   I can understand the handle being attached to the lid, but why didn't they attach the strap to the BOTTOM part of the box?  

 I searched through my scrap containers and found some green material that I thought would work well as a strap to go around the sewing box, like the bands you put around suitcases to keep them from opening in airport baggage claim.  I didn't have anything to hook the strap with so I searched the sewing area of my thrift store to find the above latch...for $.25! 

I came home from the thrift store and pulled out my material and quickly sewed up a strap.

I am really happy with the way it turned out.  It should prevent any opening of the box...and the material is a pretty good match to the pattern on the box!  Free material and a $.25 latch.  Definitely a thrifty fix!

While at the thrift store I found a pretty metal basket to hold my packages of rick-rack.  I was using a clear plastic jar (from peanuts), but I really wasn't happy with it.  This is much more "my style" and there is still room for a lot more rick-rack in the basket... a good thing in a sewing room!

I also picked up a skein of green yarn for my queen sized bobble afghan.  It isn't a perfect match to the green I started out with, but since it is separated from the previous row of green by a lot of other colors, I'm hoping the match is "good enough".  Of course I will keep looking in case I find something that matches better, but I couldn't let this one go by as it was close enough to be "passable".  I also picked up 12 skeins of embroidery floss for $.25 each.  They had two full shoeboxes of embroidery floss and I could have spent a LOT of money, but I tried to pick up colors I thought I might use in the future.  I will try to pick up a couple more skeins the next time I am in the shop.  

All in all it was a great thrift shopping day.  Unfortunately the store moved the "craft" items and the new location is HORRIBLE...way too crowded given the number of people who shop for crafting supplies.  I heard several other people complaining as we had to keep scootching up to the shelves to allow a person to fit down the aisle.  If someone had a cart we would have to move completely out of the way so they could get through.  Hopefully if enough people complain they will move the crafts area back to where it was!  Browsing was SO much easier in the prior location!