Useless shopping, anyone?

[Lindzee]

Ok - I'm back. Took me awhile to get some photos and I could have many more... However I decided to make a page showing this stuff for the photography challenge, but I think its OK to show it here...

some stuff is semi useful. Under the dollar sign are cups and plates and cute individual gravy boats I actually use often. The phony wedge-wood is in the bathroom with cue tips, cotton balls or bath salts. The critters, are just my way of decorating.. The HoHOHo sign was totally cool - I had it at work for Christmas but after Christmas switched it around as OHOHOH - gave my team some fodder for thought on their problems... Candles are always useful, wind chimes are cool and the hand painted flower tiles were too neat to pass on. Its so hard to find hand made stuff these days - I collect it wherever it presents itself.

 

[MrsPeel]

OMG Terii!!!!!!! @meterr LOVE those coool chicks even before you started coloring!!!! oh I would be making a disaster here cutting them of and making art journal pages!!!!!! I guess (as I can't really buy comics and can't use my hands wuith the scissors at the moment.... I ll have to dig into my stuff from Paula Kesselring for some cool ones..... ( or get you to make more @paula kesselring LOL

I'm a sucker for pens. I'm in an eternal search for the perfect pen, and that has lead to many many many pens around the house. They are not usually expensive, they are useful, don't take up a lot of space, and that makes it so easy! This is just about 1/2 of my collection. They had to find a new home.

When we go to the local donation place, we almost always end up bringing home a nerf gun or two. At a buck or two, my kid has a pretty huge collection. It used to be cars and trains, but now it's Legos and Nerf guns.

oh we are on this together too!!!! LOVE love and love more all types of pens and markers!!! and everywhere we go (well, we used to go) we always got cool pens... I remember going to a DNA exhibition and buying a syringe which had red ink, in the Oceanic Studies Museum we got pens with miniatures ships that navigated in water, two ships moving side by side or up and down the water effect was amazing and so was the super craftsmanship on those tiny vessels.... we can be here hours on the pens... Some I had to recycle because we had so much stuff...and I think isa time for some purging (not only pens, am afraid) now.... love that photo, you should scrap it Court!!!

I am definitely addicted to school supplies. It's almost that time too. My husband and i are definitely past school age and I haven't had sons living at home or in school for years... Something about new markers, clean paper, just calls my name.. I think, instead of repurposing old books as journals, which I actually find destructive, we need a way to repurpose spiral bound notebooks into journals. Hummmm...

Us here too, apart from what I mentioned to Courtney above, we used to get all types of writing books, note books, I would dream for a while to make scrapbook paper pages so I bought my fare share.... not so much these days as the house is full of everything and I hardly ever leave my room...
I also used to think using books would be destructive, but we have so much stuff that doesn't make for high class (or even middle class ) reading, and there are so many examples in Pinterest.... I just need my printer to work again, so I can start making some art journal in paper...

I have taken composition books and recovered them with scrapbook paper to make journals. We also did spiral notebooks one year for Operation Christmas Child boxes using old scrapbook paper. With all the cool digital kits, you could design your own cover and apply it. We used sticky contact paper to cover ours or you could use clear packing tape or just leave it as.

the contact paper is almost a staple in this house!!!!
great ideas ... I used to make pages and sticking them in my handwritten journal, but now you mention... I could cover even the pages to last longer!!!

I have a darling yellow duck for loose tea! I hardly ever drink hot tea but it was so cute that I had to buy it! I am a sucker for office/school supplies. I think one of the many reasons that I loved homeschooling was buying the supplies, organizing the supplies, using the supplies, and buying more supplies! My husband thinks I have a problem! Now I'm a Dollar Tree shopper -- so many fun things to see and buy there. We also have a Daiso Japan "dollar" store nearby. I haven't been, but I think I will remedy that soon!

In South America, even state schools send the kids on first day of class with a HUGE list of materials and books, text books and more.... that used to be my fav when we lived in Brazil when Sarita was little: go shopping to the nearest Town to do the school list shopping!!!!!
When we were in Buenos Aires in November 2014, they have a China Town (even though they are anything but Chinese LOL mostly Koreans, but also Japaneses Cambodian, Indonesian) and when a friend took us there, we bought so much (not only school supplies but all kinds of stuff) the minimum over there is 2 pesos, which was like 20 pence for us!!!!
I still have things we bought and haven't used though LOL

I had to stop! At Walmart they have the $5 movie bin and I was always bringing home a DVD... then hubby put the breaks on and made me stay clear of the $5 bin (Due to most of the $5 movies weren't that wonderful and we were ending up with too many movies we never watched again!)

oh, I used to have this thing of coming back from the charity shops with all sorts of videos VCR, even when we already had a DVD player...I think they are still in the house , but I think a few of them we watched and even like.... yyou really reminded me now of how much clearing up I had to do!!!!!!

Ok - I'm back. Took me awhile to get some photos and I could have many more... However I decided to make a page showing this stuff for the photography challenge, but I think its OK to show it here...

some stuff is semi useful. Under the dollar sign are cups and plates and cute individual gravy boats I actually use often. The phony wedge-wood is in the bathroom with cue tips, cotton balls or bath salts. The critters, are just my way of decorating.. The HoHOHo sign was totally cool - I had it at work for Christmas but after Christmas switched it around as OHOHOH - gave my team some fodder for thought on their problems... Candles are always useful, wind chimes are cool and the hand painted flower tiles were too neat to pass on. Its so hard to find hand made stuff these days - I collect it wherever it presents itself.

oh wOw Lindz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the page is great and some of the stuff you have I would have bought myself!!!! I have some plant buckets like the ones on top, we used to paint them ourselves as the Pound store would sell them metalic silver.... I need to find them now!!!! Gorgeous page!!!!!!
I think I too will make a useless shopping page!!!!!
Thanks for the inspiration!!!!!!!

 

[paula kesselring]

OMG girls so fun to read all your "addictions"
I LOOOOVE to buy hair products...I have hundreds that I never even used yet or that I leave aside after use and do not like the effect...

 

[tkradtke]

Does this count?

It's a vintage Russian wind up tin toy that I found at the thrift shop on Monday. I'm a HORRIBLE impulse shopper at the thrift store. You find such unusual things and I know that if I don't buy it then, I may never see another. Ugh... it's an illness. But this toy made me happy and it was cheap!

 

[cookingmylife]

"I'm a school supply hoarder," omg I love pens too but right now it's absolutely killing me to be cleaning out my horde. I got rid of most of the pens a couple years ago via the Boys and Girls club. Fortunately, I know a woman (military wife) who made it her mission when they came back to the US to deal with the waste she saw everywhere. She will take most anything you have and find a person/organization for it. She also works with some churches to send stuff to their connections in the US and South America. I love her!

However, that said...I get a strong pull every time I see a Dollar Tree. That is the only chain (of so called $ stores) I'll go to. But if you need a paperclip - metal or plastic - or any type of office supply, I've got it! I even have some of my husband's graph papers he brought into the marriage from HIS early working days!

 

[angiekey]

When I was working, I was absolutely awful about senseless shopping. I could go to the mall and drop $500+ on shoes and another $500 on business suits in just a couple hours. Awful, I tell you - awful!

Not to get all "Christian-y" on you, but - during a Bible Study a couple years ago, we were tracing the pattern in scripture when sin is described: I see it, I want it, I take it. That was the case for Eve with the apple, for Achan in the book of Joshua, and King David with Bathsheba - I see it, I want it, I take it. The discussion went something along the lines of, if we can stop ourselves at "I see it", it can interrupt that cycle.

Not that shopping is sinful, but it was something I was struggling with - I wasn't working because of health issues, and my husband very much wanted me to cut way, way back... and boy, oh boy, was I feeling deprived! So it dawned on me that perhaps I should stop "seeing" stuff I wanted. So I stopped window shopping. I stopped reading magazines full of the high-end cosmetics I loved to buy. I stopped browsing through stores online unless I was looking for something specific.

I was shocked just how quickly I developed a contentment with what I had, rather than the focus on what I didn't have.

Of course, every once in a while I slip. You know those videos that kept popping up in our Facebook feeds for those air couches? The ones where you scoop in some air twice and roll the bag down and all the sudden you have a comfy place to sit when you're camping, or at a music festival, or hanging out by the pool?

Yeah, I bought one. Let me tell you, I was the most comfortable person out there watching fireworks on the 4th of July...

Brilliantly-designed toys are my kryptonite. I'm not allowed to browse The Grommet's website any more. <sigh> I see it, I want it, I BUY IT...

 

[MrsPeel]

OMG girls so fun to read all your "addictions"
I LOOOOVE to buy hair products...I have hundreds that I never even used yet or that I leave aside after use and do not like the effect...
View attachment 166417

we LOVE hair stuff!!!!!! actually is all you can buy at a store for toiletries.... body wash, creams, sun protectors, deodorants, we take more pleasure buying kitchen and toiletries in general Perfumes , perfumes too!!! but we gad to stop when we realized we had 5 bottles (huge ones) of shampoo and 5 of the conditioner from Vidal Sasoon in an offer and then without realizng we bought almost same amount of Tressemme LOL
Now that we both have shorter hair, we have been good about it.... but it also has to do with the fact that I haven't been going out to shop!!!

Does this count?

It's a vintage Russian wind up tin toy that I found at the thrift shop on Monday. I'm a HORRIBLE impulse shopper at the thrift store. You find such unusual things and I know that if I don't buy it then, I may never see another. Ugh... it's an illness. But this toy made me happy and it was cheap!

LOVE it!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm the same about thrift stores!!!! I think, what about if I never find anything like this? and the compulsion is difficult to avoid... I think, like I said to Paula above, we are doing better because I haven't been able to go out for a while now!!!!!

"I'm a school supply hoarder," omg I love pens too but right now it's absolutely killing me to be cleaning out my horde. I got rid of most of the pens a couple years ago via the Boys and Girls club. Fortunately, I know a woman (military wife) who made it her mission when they came back to the US to deal with the waste she saw everywhere. She will take most anything you have and find a person/organization for it. She also works with some churches to send stuff to their connections in the US and South America. I love her!

However, that said...I get a strong pull every time I see a Dollar Tree. That is the only chain (of so called $ stores) I'll go to. But if you need a paperclip - metal or plastic - or any type of office supply, I've got it! I even have some of my husband's graph papers he brought into the marriage from HIS early working days!

A woman like that would be great to have around here...even though I need to get over a different problem...which is the fact that I keep thinking we can make money on the useless, or used and not used for over a year stuff...I thibnk we could sell it... but, of course, we end up never getting it together for selling...
If I could get someone who could help with doing the ebay sales, I think our finances would get much better.
We used to give a lot of stuff to the charity shops around here...lately, I haven't been able to drive much so...not even the recycling gets done around here....oh this is reminding me of how much I have to do am starting my pack attack LOL

When I was working, I was absolutely awful about senseless shopping. I could go to the mall and drop $500+ on shoes and another $500 on business suits in just a couple hours. Awful, I tell you - awful!

Not to get all "Christian-y" on you, but - during a Bible Study a couple years ago, we were tracing the pattern in scripture when sin is described: I see it, I want it, I take it. That was the case for Eve with the apple, for Achan in the book of Joshua, and King David with Bathsheba - I see it, I want it, I take it. The discussion went something along the lines of, if we can stop ourselves at "I see it", it can interrupt that cycle.

Not that shopping is sinful, but it was something I was struggling with - I wasn't working because of health issues, and my husband very much wanted me to cut way, way back... and boy, oh boy, was I feeling deprived! So it dawned on me that perhaps I should stop "seeing" stuff I wanted. So I stopped window shopping. I stopped reading magazines full of the high-end cosmetics I loved to buy. I stopped browsing through stores online unless I was looking for something specific.

I was shocked just how quickly I developed a contentment with what I had, rather than the focus on what I didn't have.

Of course, every once in a while I slip. You know those videos that kept popping up in our Facebook feeds for those air couches? The ones where you scoop in some air twice and roll the bag down and all the sudden you have a comfy place to sit when you're camping, or at a music festival, or hanging out by the pool?

Yeah, I bought one. Let me tell you, I was the most comfortable person out there watching fireworks on the 4th of July...

Brilliantly-designed toys are my kryptonite. I'm not allowed to browse The Grommet's website any more. <sigh> I see it, I want it, I BUY IT...

oh I want one of this!!!!!!!!!!!

I never felt the need to spend much money in clothes or shoes, but I think this was because from a very early age, I knew I wanted to see the world so I keep thinking if I could have money for travel I wouldn't care what I wore.... and I'm glad Sarita turned same way.... she is actually proud to be able to say to her friends that she doesn't pay for brands, and that she loves traveling as much as I do.... I think for us, unless totally proven that it will be a much better quality, we rather buy cheap stuff.
I did buy her a pair of Hunter Boots when she was in secondary school: £83 at the time....(at the time US$160) because she had to walk to school in a lot of rain and snow, and those boots are amazing, but I refused to pay almost £3000 for a Prada purse even when I could comfortably paid for it when I was working....
with that money we could on a Disney cruise!!!!!! LOL

 

[scrapsandsass]

Brilliantly-designed toys are my kryptonite. I'm not allowed to browse The Grommet's website any more. <sigh> I see it, I want it, I BUY IT...

The Grommet is HORRIBLE!!!!

I bought a fold-up hood with a scarf attached that is just the coolest thing since most of my jackets/coats don't have hoods and it rains 90% of the time here.

https://www.thegrommet.com/rainscarf

 

[cookingmylife]

I finally unsubscribed from the Grommet because it was waaaay too tempting! (I never did buy but the more you see the more likely it would be to click, send!)