Thrifty Manor in St. Helena

Was riding my bike around St. Helena this morning and found the Thrifty Manor tucked behind St. Helena Catholic church. Today was "fill your borsa for $2.50". I filled a paper grocery bag with several items including tshirts and some nicely colored pale green, peachy, and beige jeans that just need to be fitted. Here's a link for a step by step on tailoring your own jeans, it's so easy.

http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/skinny_jeans

(This tutorial talks about skinny jeans but if you want to let those calfs breathe it's simple. follow the instructions but keep the line's a bit wider for a more tailored look.)

You can find business hours on the Thrifty Manor website though you'd have to visit in person to see when they're having sales. I suggest checking in at the beginning of a new season because they have a pretty small space and it seems they regularly need to clear out.

My best finds of the day were a Run DMC shirt and a children's art book about Henri Rousseau. I have a pretty decent sized collection of children's books from my travels, some in English some not, but I especially love kids books about artists they tend to be well illustrated and I don't know, maybe I secretly hope to raise little multilingual bohemians.

Gracias Pedro!

Just a quick note to say muchas gracias to my new amigo Pedro who saw me waiting at the bus stop in front of Castello di Amorosa and offered me a ride to Napa. I ended up spending the afternoon helping him finish a job in Rutherford painting some guy's house and then after lunch we took a drive around the valley where he showed me the beautiful brickwork he's done all over the valley. Such a good-hearted, talented old man with lots of great stories and knowledge he's willing to share.

Here's just a few pics of Pedro's work...

(Quintessa winery)










( Markham Winery)

Recycled Fashion @ Crossroads

Having navigated many of the dusty and musty aisles of goodwills and thrift shops, there's really no competing with the West Coast used clothing store chain,Crossroads Trading Co.,which provides name brand, second-hand goods on the cheap and eliminates perusing through piles of holes, rips, and questionable stains.

Selling your gently used threads is also an option and pretty straight forward. Here I've provided a link to the site where stylist,blogger and long time CR customer goes into detail about selling your clothes for cash or store credit.
http://crossroadstrading.com/buy-sell-trade/tips-for-selling/

Last weekend I visited the Berkeley location off Shattuck, unloaded a moving box worth of Fall/Winter clothing and walked out with a $115 store credit which isn't bad given that most of their items cost between $5-$25.