How to find good gifts in charity shops

This vintage camera was a birthday present for my husband. It was made the same year that he was born. I bought the camera from the local Oxfam shop. 

Some people think it is a bit weird to buy secondhand presents, but I love finding gifts for people in charity shops, for the following reasons:

• you can choose something really special, rather than a standard present
• no wasteful packaging
• your money goes further
• a contribution to the charity

The trick is to buy presents when you spot them, and then stash them away until the next birthday or Christmas. 

I have even managed to find gifts for the 'hard to shop for' men in my life. The chess books shown above were for Dad. He was delighted with them.

The casserole dish shown below was a housewarming present for my youngest sister Hannah (who has recently started an excellent blog called Hannah and Her Thriftiness).

I also enjoy receiving gifts from charity shops. When I was about to go to university for the first time, my mum gathered up various pre-loved kitchenware items to get me started. The Pyrex dish shown below is still going strong 24 years later!

If you enjoyed reading this, you might also like how to find good stuff in charity shops.

Linking up with this week's Magpie Monday at Me and My Shadow, The Op-Shop Show-Off at Blackbird Has Spoken and The Nifty Thrifty at A Living Space.

Bedside reading

I thought you might be interested to see the current pile of books on my bedside table. 

Three of the books are recent charity shop finds:

• Appetite by Nigel Slater - spotted for £4.99 in the Beeston Oxfam Books & Music shop. I'm amazed I didn't already have this in my cookbook collection because I am a big Nigel Slater fan. His books are always very readable, and I'm really enjoying this one.
• The Bad Mother's Handbook by Kate Long - only 80p in the Treetops Hospice shop on Bramcote Lane. I've previously read Swallowing Grandma by the same author, so I'm really looking forward to reading this.
• Just My Type by Simon Garfield - £1.50 in the Loughborough British Heart Foundation shop. This is a fascinating cultural history of fonts, with lots of photos showing how different fonts are used and what connotations they have.

The other book I'm currently reading is Angels by Marian Keyes. I read The Mystery of Mercy Close in December and have been inspired to go back and re-read all the other Marian Keyes books featuring the Walsh sisters. I started with Watermelon and recently finished Rachel's Holiday. If anything, these have been even more enjoyable the second time around because I am taking my time and savouring every paragraph.

As well as the books I also have some hand cream, a mug and a magazine on my bedside table. The mug is my favourite Twitter Addict mug from Name Art which is customised with my @nyssapod twittername.

Thanks to RedHead Beauty Diaries for alerting me to the fact that the latest issue of Marie Claire magazine comes with a free Bee Lovely hand cream from Neal's Yard. This cream smells really gorgeous and has a lovely texture, so I will definitely be replacing it when the free one runs out. I've already spotted the mag has a discount code for Neal's Yard, which could be very dangerous...

What reading material do you have on your bedside table? Has any of it come from charity shops?

Linking up with this week's Magpie Monday at Me and My Shadow.

It's World Book Day later this week, so I'm also linking up with the World Book Day Blog Hop at Catch a Single Thought.



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Magpie Monday - Sam Stern cookbooks

Have you noticed I'm starting to turn into a bit of foodie? 

Symptoms include:

• Posting photos of food made, and food eaten in restaurants onto Instagram
• Writing blogposts about Nigel Slater recipes
• Reading food blogs like Kavey Eats and AMummyToo
• Scanning the shelves in the local charity shops for cookbooks

On this last point I've struck lucky recently with three Sam Stern cookbooks, found in two British Heart Foundation shops over the last month. 

Although these are aimed at 'young people', they look pretty good for a relatively-inexperienced cook like me. Especially as my 'sous chef' is 4 years old and likes cookbooks with lots of photos!

Linking up with this week's Magpie Monday at Me and My Shadow.

 

We love Elmer

The original Elmer book by David McKee is one of my favourite ever stories, so I was very pleased when my little boy started to love it as much as I do.

Elmer is a beautiful, multicoloured patchwork elephant who decides he is tired of being different and disguises himself as a ordinary grey elephant, before realising that the other elephants love him for who he is. I think this message is particularly valuable for boys, as our society puts pressure on boys and men to appear to be dull and drab and not stand out in the way that they dress.

I recently spotted two more Elmer books in the local Oxfam Books and Music shop. My son usually asks me to read both of these stories together as they both feature Elmer's black and white cousin Wilbur.

Another Elmer item that came from a charity shop is this money box, which was bought on a trip to Buxton last autumn.

And my son calls this knitted blanket the 'Elmer blanket' because it is made of brightly-coloured squares. This was purchased in the local Oxfam shop.

Another handcrafted Elmer item is this cross-stitched picture I made using a chart from a book called More Storybook Cross-Stitch by Gillian Souter.

I'm linking up with Magpie Monday at Me and My Shadow. I'm looking forward to seeing what other pre-loved items people have found.

This post was also added to a favourite blogpost linky at TheAnaMumDiary and 

the World Book Day Blog Hop 2013 at Catch a Single Thought.

Goodreads 2012 Reading Challenge

At the beginning of the year I signed up to the Goodreads 2012 Reading Challenge, setting myself a target of 25 books. This may not sound very ambitious, but I don't get as much chance to read as I used to before I became a mum.

This is a quick audioboo I recorded at the beginning of this year when I'd just started the challenge:

listen to ‘25 book challenge for 2012 @goodreads’ on Audioboo

I am pleased to report that I have now read 25 books. It feels like a good achievement, even though some of the books were quite short and easy to read!

2012 Reading Challenge

nyssapod has completed her goal of reading 25 books in 2012!

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25 of 25 (100%)

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