I haven’t been to Darebin tip shop (more correctly known as Outlook Environmental Market at Reservoir tip) for the whole year. Last year when Scarlett was home I went pretty much every week – she played with bikes and stuff, I browsed. Perfect.

I went yesterday again, and was reminded why I used to go so frequently. So many great things …

When I go the first thing I always do is walk down the chair aisle – inspiring for the chair auction at Art4All and feeding my general interest in re-upholstering furniture. And I came across a chair that took me back to my childhood. We had 6 of these chairs around our mission brown laminated oval dining table. So 1970s.

Then there was the Art Deco table with the glass top and 4 chairs for $120 (hello Katrina) and the stripy armchair (hello Lu).

Some hair rollers (how fun), some great pillow cases, a blackboard I meant to buy but forgot about (only $3), some great kids clothes (if I knew anyone needing size 1 stuff) and a cute yellow hand made blanket, and outside some lovely blue tiles (hello Elise for your new house).

And if only I didn’t already have 2 boxes of china under the bed I would have bought the 4 Johnson plates with blue flowers and the 11 geometric English stoneware plates … and the coloured glasses – I arranged these nicely, took a snap, turned my back for 5 minutes and somebody had bought them! Great purchase.

I came home with a very restrained haul of 3 Country Road bowls with a blue trim (to match in with my willow pattern blue collection), a GREAT tablecloth, some fat wool/twine (hello macrame my new/old friend). And a Spanish cookbook. All items $1 each.

Oh, and check out this unfinished project … Way to much work, but good on someone for starting it …

A note to me … I love the tip shop.