Thrift gift scores for the holidays

I have to finish showing you some of the thrift gifts I gave to family members this holiday season. First there was the Mark Foreman wrap dress for my sis (see post from last week).

Then there was this darling studded BCBG Girls purse for my tweenie niece, thrifted for a few bucks.

The lining has these darling little butterflies all over. I swear, the purse hadn't even been used! I bought this months ago and just put it aside, knowing it wasn't for me and that I'd find the perfect person to give it to.

And she LOVED it! Thrift gift score!!

And who is this? It's my Dad, the man in my life who is so hard to buy for, who rarely gets excited over the socks and CDs I've thrown his way over the years in the form of gifts.

Wait, doesn't he look completely absorbed here? It's Christmas morning and he has his nose in a book?

Enter thrift gift score number two:

A hard cover book on movie musicals with amazing photos of the movie stars who starred in them. The book was $3.99 at my local thrift shop.

Yes, he loved it. And so do I - flipping through it and looking at the pics reminded me of watching all those movies with Dad while I was growing up. He got me hooked on Saturday Night at the Movies on TVO as a teen, and as a family we watched many of the old flics together.

It was a truly successful thrift gift, and I'm so thrilled he liked it.


Meanwhile: the cashmere sweater for my other sis? Not the best fit. I'm keeping it instead and am looking for another thrift gift for her.

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70s shawl over my head

Often decor choices come to me on the fly and are inspired by moments from my past.

Growing up in the 1970s my sis and I had twin beds, side by side, with these puffed white headboards that we absolutely adored (and still talk about tho this day!).

Sometimes early early on Saturday mornings when we were wee things (so wee this is just a flash of a memory), we would stay in our beds, tuck our pillows on the top of our headboard so they would hang over our heads like little canopies, then hang our dress-up scarves over the pillow so the scarves would fall down on either side, like a waterfall.

We'd pretend we were princesses living in our own magical enclaves.

Yesterday I was washing this 1970s shawl I picked up at the Value Village years ago. I use it for decor more than dressing up (though I bet it would look fab with that black MEXX dress I thrifted the other day), and I didn't want to stuff it back in my newly cleaned linen closet.

So I threw it over my brass bed. It instantly reminded me of playing the canopy game with my sis.

Nice to know the creativity of youth can still inspire you today ....

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Canada Day parties & sisterly inspiration

Yesterday's post should have been my Canada Day post as I featured red and white roses, but here's an entertaining post for those of you who are BBQing today.

My sis hosted a party the other day and decorated with pink everything. You can tell she's related to the Grunge Queen 'cos she kept her decor cheap n' easy.

The pink roses were plucked from the rose bush in the front of her home, and all she did was snip 'em and plunk 'em in some plain white bowls and voila: instant centre-pieces!


I love the cake - so girlie, so sweet, so preety - and so easy!

All she did was put yellow, pink and orange smarties on top - you see they match the dollar store napkins she bought!

Way to go, sis. Lovely party.

And Happy Canada day to fellow Canadians!

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Lupins and long-ago gardens

I love Lupins. They're one of my fave flowers, possibly because they always bloom around my B-day - and they're just so funky to boot.

I saw these at the flower market and they made me nostalgic for the flower garden of my youth.

My dad planted a beautiful flower garden when we were younger, and Lupins bloomed near the stream.








Here's a pic of my older sister by the Lupins, many years ago, in our beautiful garden.

The big evergreen tree in the background - we used to call in "The Giant."


My sis with my Dad ....

Why aren't I or my twin in the garden pics? We would have been really young.

And I guess by the time we were old enough to be in pics, the camera was gone. Maybe the garden was already on the decline by then ....

My sis again, this time with "The playhouse" my Dad built in the background.

I remember The playhouse as more dilapidated, so I never really saw it in its heydey.

Funny how you can feel nostalgic for things you didn't wholly experience. Still, I love and will always remmeber the garden of our youth .....

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Uncle Ugly

It's rather apt that the only piece of furniture my family has hung onto over the years was picked up years ago by my parents at a garage sale.

It's of no value, but somehow they've held onto it. Now I have it.

Uncle Ugly, as my folks called him, was a claw-footed table with glass on top that was out coffee table when we were younger. Here are my sisters playing around it (yes that's a turquoise Betty Crocker oven in the background).


Over the years Uncle Ugly degenerated to the point of having his glass broken and before that having coke slop onto the glass and seep underneath to form an icky-sticky layer that made neat patterns under the glass (my memory of that is so vivid I must have been the culprit!).

That's yours truly sulking over Uncle Ugly in her polyester pink pantsuit ....

By my teen years Uncle Ugly had graduated to life as a plant table in the upstairs hallway and eventually, to the cold storage room in my parents' new house, where I rescued him four years ago when I moved to Toronto.

Since then Uncle Ugly's come a long way. I spray painted him silver to give him a bit of glam, then fitted a thrifted mirror over the top where the glass used to go.

I change things up often when it comes to what I put on top of Uncle Ugly. My most recent living room manifesto resulted in some major book-piling on top. I like the look for now.

I've loved this table for four years now, though I took it for granted over the years growing up. I can remember making a Barbie house under it when I was wee, with my twin sis.


I love the shape, the curves, the bow embellishments you see on the side - and yes - even those claws.

I hope Mom and Dad never ever ask for him back!!

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Reunion outfit was second-hand!

So after obsessing about my highschool homecoming outfit for months and purchasing SEVERAL dresses, grunge queen ended up wearing a largely second-hand outfit to the first night of her big reunion....

Go figure.

It worked out pretty well. The jeans were thrifted at Stretch Thrift a few weeks ago for a mere $5.99 and they're now my fave summer jeans.

The top was given to me that day, a castoff from my very well-dressed best pal Di. Under it I wore a bodysuit I bought at Costa Blanca (column coming soon on that shop).

The necklace you may recall from my garage sale dig a few weeks ago, and the square gold-tone 1970s hoops were dug up at a thrift shop for a couple bucks.

The purse and shoes were bought new months ago.

My sis (the one that looks like me) has followed the thrifting bug too: she bought the Mexx pants she was wearing at Stretch Thrift as well for a few dollars. Her top and jacket? Let's just say Di-Di came to the rescue again, this time with a loaner.

God bless best pals for their great wardrobes.

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Peacock thrift shirt I wore as a teen

This is my sis and me walking into the sunset in Vancouver, British Columbia the summer before grade 11 or 12 (I'm in the green skirt).

We've walked into the sunset again: she and I are currently in Ottawa for our big high school reunion, which means grunge queen won't be posting until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

Then I'll be returning to regular grunge queen programming - thanks for your patience letting me stroll down memory lane this week.

I actually still have the green skirt I'm wearing in this pic. I found it in a second-hand store in Vancouver that summer so long ago, and I wore it for years. In my early 20s, after high school, I busted the seam and got it repaired. It looked kinda funny after that but I just couldn't let it go ....

Now it's being used as a makeshift cover for a thrift store stool. I'm going to get it made into a pillow because I love the green peacock print. So I'd say this 1960s skirt still has some mileage left in it!!

See you in a few days, and take care!!

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Blue jewel earrings

My sis and I bought these earrings the summer before grade 9, at the Ottawa Exhibition - and I still have them.

We wore them a lot in grade 9, and so did our pals! The fun thing about being young: wearing eachothers' clothing and accessories!

So as we prepare for our highschool reunion this weekend, here's my tribute to grade 9 fashion, and to hanging onto special things that hold fond memories: my grade 9 class pic.

This is one of my fave pics of myself. Quelle hair! I threw a bottle of blond hair dye on my hair - stupidly - hence the brassy look.

I'm wearing my fave royal blue wool sweater here, with a black scarf I bought the year earlier and wore to death for a few years - wonder what happened to it? I lent the sweater to a friend and never got it back, alas - it still smarts that she never gave it back nor recognized how important it was to me.

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This is me in grade nine

You know that Barenaked Ladies song, "This is me in grade 9"?

Since I'm off to my highschool reunion this week I'm taking a trip down memory lane ....

And this really IS me in grade nine, my first day at Canterbury High School for the Arts in Ottawa, next to my (fraternal) twin sis, right.

Yes, my glasses are the size of my head.

I agonized long and hard over my outfit: my fave skinny jeans (in style again), a cotton tee worn under an oversize cardigan borrowed from my sis, and plastic beads picked up the year before in England - plastic beads were ALL the rage back then (as they are again now). You can't see them but I think I wore flats - either that or the very strange boxer-inspired boots I picked up that year. Old army bag I bleached a fish-belly white, don't ask me why.

My sis's look was a little more 1980s pop: Billy Idol hair, plastic red earrings and kerchief at the neck, Flashdance-inspired cut sweatshirt with Esprit de Corps jacket over top (God we wore that thing from grade 8 until it must have disintegrated), and best of all, those red harem pants, bought that summer in some strip mall in Weyburn, Saskatchewan with our dear cousin Clayton.

We were still so green, and I think our innocence and enthusiasm showed through in our garb.

That was the best autumn of my life. And Canterbury was a great school. So looking forward to being there again.

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My Amazing Sister

Happy Easter! I spent a lovely day with family, then friends and new friends - and am so happy to be reminded of such fab people in my life. I'm dedicating this post to my amazing twin sis (fraternal, not identical), who not only designed the "grunge queen" logo exactly as I wanted, but who also, over the years, has given me many wonderful works of art by her own very talented hand.

To the left, "Red Cup, Green Tea" (with yours truly as the model), and to the right and slightly cut off, a man on the beach - can't remember exact name as she sold the original - ... and like any twin sis made me a another one as I loved it so ....

The vases are made of newspaper and I will post their information once I find it.

www.gadzala.com

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