Car Boot Sale Loot

Martijn and I hopped in the car and headed about 50 km due north of here to a car boot sale. A car boot sale, for those not in the know, is exactly the same thing as a flea market only it has a silly British name.

A view of part of the car boot sale.

The weather was perfect, and we were right next to the beach.

We managed to walk away with some pretty good scores too!

• A new Fiskars paper trimmer- €2
• An external CD burner for €3 (we had plans for this, but they didn't quite work how we were hoping... who knew that CD and DVD burners weren't a standard physical size?!)
• A pizza pan set for €2
• Tupperware popsicle molds for 25 cents (they're orange so they match my existing ones)
• A Canon flatbed scanner for €6 (it's a bit older, but it works perfectly for what we need and was way cheaper than buying new)
• A cute key holder cabinet for €5 (we'd been searching for something like this since our current arrangement of "throw your keys anywhere" isn't working very well for us)

The hole in the front of the key cabinet had a clock in it- a very odd clock. It liked to tell time backwards, and not very well for that matter. So in true Martijn-like fashion, he had it whipped apart and dismantled in no time flat. We're going to install a new movement and hopefully it'll work like new!

It really was a fun day spent with the person I love and some GOOD DEALS!

In other somewhat related news- I found this Print Gocco kit a few weeks ago at a flea we went to, and I can't decide if I want to keep it and use it or sell it on for a rather tidy profit. I'm torn because I think it would be fun, but supplies are getting harder to come by... and if I sell it on I'll have more money to put towards the sewing machine I want! Decisions decisions!

Thrifty Finds!

From about March until the end of May, the Dutch have about seventy-three national holidays. I swear I'm not exaggerating. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, but it really would be handy if they could SPREAD THEM OUT a little bit because from now until about Christmas there's nothing!

Since today was the last holiday for a long while, Martijn and I decided to go to a rommelmarkt (also vlooienmarkt- flea market in English). We managed to hit up a good one! I found a magnifying lamp to use when I sew for €4, a new (well, to us, it's actually quite old) double tosti-ijzer (sandwich grill) for €1, and some crummy old rusty chairs with potential for €7.50.

This picture doesn't really do justice to the flaky filthy ick of these chairs! BUT, aren't they cute? I have been looking for some sort of folding chair to put out on our balcony. We've got some plastic chairs out there right now, but they don't fold up so they take up a lot of space. We've already taken a wire brush and some sandpaper to these and purchased paint to pretty them up! Now we just need to wait for the weather to cooperate. It's been raining on and off all afternoon and we don't want to suffer from "paint that never dries" syndrome. Once we get them repainted we can grease up the joints so that you don't have to have muscles of steel to open and close them. I'm quite chuffed with the finds!