The (Completely Unofficial) Young House Love Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge

Update: Thanks to everyone that's clicked on over to my little blog via Young House Love and left comments. My blog traffic is out of control today and it's made this 1 degree Friday in Chicago so much more exciting! I'm flattered you're here and hope you'll stick around to read a few posts!

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Confession time: I have a blog crush on John and Sherry Petersik of Young House Love (who doesn't?) And thanks to their recent book signing tour, I got to meet them in person and find out first hand that my crush is justified - they're just as amazing in person as they come across on their blog!

Last week, the duo posted a "Completely Unofficial Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge" that I immediately linked to the kid sister's facebook wall because, well, she loves that song, I love thrift stores, and it sounded like a good time in general.

Unfortunately everyone around me (including Manda) was riddled with the stomach flu over the last couple of weeks and this week was bananas for me at work, so we didn't actually get around to grabbing a $20 and heading to a thrift store until tonight. And since our journey was a bit last minute, we didn't have a whole lot of options for our shopping, so we ended up at a mediocre Goodwill. Have no fear though, we still snagged a couple of fabulous finds, and we had a blast looking around for items from the song.

Here's our trip in subpar quality phone photos!

Step 1: Take a picture in front of your thrift shop with just $20 in your pocket

Step 2: Peruse

I was loving this embroidered scene in the fun faux bamboo frame. Manda wasn't feeling it, but I still had to take a picture because of the egg chair appearance! Sherry has blogged bunches about her love for egg chairs, and I dream of the day I have a porch that's structurally sound enough to have one dangling from the ceiling. 

We also walked away from this magnet set. I was half creeped out and half amazed by it

These little cards were too cute to pass up for a whopping 49 cents

I was having serious visions of this wooden cow cutout painted a super bright color and propped up on top of our kitchen cabinets. Unfortunately the poor little guy was missing a couple chunks out of his ear and a back leg, so I had to leave him for someone with some woodworking skills to fix up.

These boxes have been on clearance at Target for ages, but at Goodwill they were an even bigger steal at $1.49 a pop. I grabbed a little square gold one that I'm thinking about using for ponytail holders and bobby pins in the bathroom instead of the open (and therefore messy) dish I use now. Definitely not vintage or anything, but still a decent find.

Manda and I both thought this brass coin sorter was cool enough to spend $1.99 on. 

Manda and I both badly wanted these suuuuper shiny silver oxfords to be in our size, but the largest pair would barely fit my toes in them. Sad violin.

Finally - behold. My favorite find of the evening. This awesome little gray metal cart for $5 with expandable side panels. I have so many different ideas in my head about how I'll use this that I'm giddy over it.

Step 3: Find items referenced in the song and snap a photo

Big props to my model for all the awesome photos to follow. First up, Manda with a stack of bright and fun luggage that I really really really wanted to bring home. But I also really really really didn't want the hubs to kill me considering I already have a couple old suitcases in the garage just waiting for some love.

After deciding the luggage was fun, but a little boring, we headed over to the jackpot - Men's coats. And since Manda is a twig, they were all kind of "big ass coats" (as referenced in the song). We had some fun with poses - kicking off the photoshoot with this awesome fake suede jacket with a lamb-fur type collar

Hey, you. Nice brown leather jacket.

This coat was fur-lined and denim. In other words - ridiculously unstylish, yet probably warmer than any other coat we own. Can't win them all I guess.

SO - total spent on the coin sorter, gold box, metal cart table and cards was less than $10! If the weather is decent this weekend I'm thinking maybe Manda and I will trek down to some of the "better" stores downtown and see what kinds of treasures we can score with the other half of our $20 limit. Thanks to John and Sherry for a random good time suggestion, and thanks to my mini-me for spending Thursday evening with me supporting the Goodwill mission!

I'm linked up over on Young House Love (I was stalking the site crazy style this morning and still wound up as #15), so head on over and check out their spoils and what tons of other blogger friends found!

Happy Weekend all!