thrifting horrors

St. Vincent de Paul charity shop
2352 W. Main St.
Mesa, AZ 85201
(480) 644-0887

this shop is usually hit or miss, but usually pretty good on loud print sofas from the 70’s and wonderfully creeptastic amateur art, usually in heavy gilt frames.

Bookman’s Entertainment Exchange
1056 S. Country Club Dr.
Mesa, AZ, 85210
(480) 835-0505

LOVE LOVE LOVE Bookman’s! don’t usually find a lot of horrors there, as they are more focused on resale books, music and movies. But I usually find good vinyl and their book selection is huge. What makes them better is its a buy/sell/trade operation, so you can go trade the crap you don’t want and get new crap! And they have a little cafe/coffee shop inside the store that accepts the trade credit as payment. One year before we were married, my husband and I bought both our families Christmas presents using only trade credit at Bookman’s. I am sad though because since we moved to central Phoenix, the Bookman’s that is closest to us now isn’t as good as the one we used to shop at in Mesa. Especially the vinyl, their selection absolutely sucks at the Phoenix location.

Goodwill
3122 S. McClintock Dr.
Tempe, AZ 85282
(480)-755-4092

I always liked this goodwill. I usually found a a little bit of good craft supplies every time I went (mixed bags of cheap yarn and unused cross stitch fabric), and ALWAYS a lot of great horrors. This is also one of the only thrift shops where I’ve found a t-shirt I liked and also fit. It was a plain black shirt (i think it was custom made), on the front it read “I’m a virgin.” and on the back “but this is a really old shirt”. I thought it was funny and a wore it to a get together that night and it went over really well. Unfortunately I am no longer friends with that crowd, and my other friends don’t quite have that sense of humor. oh well. $4 for one night of humor isn’t bad.

Deseret Industries
1020 West Broadway Road
Mesa, AZ 85210
(480) 964-8738

Antique Sugar
724 West Indian School Road 
Phoenix, AZ 85013
(602) 277-5765

can you believe this gorgeous little evening coat was on CLEARANCE! it was in gorgeous shape too… after a little digging, I found a dress that I think was meant to go with it as well.
Antique Sugar has THE BEST vintage clothing selection in Arizona. It is inside Zinnia’s on Melrose Antique Mall, and is a decent size, very light and airy. To make things even better, they have a pretty nice selection of sizes, styles/eras, and prices. I’m on the curvier side, but what really gives me trouble is my abnormally large boobs (38G). I can find lots of dresses that fit up until I try to zip them past my chest, especially vintage ones (plus they have less give then modern clothes). I tried on two 1950’s shirt dresses at Antique Sugar, and I had my usual problems with the first (it was too sheer anyway), the second one, an olive green casual day dress, fit perfectly! I didn’t buy it but am still debating it. It was $36, which isn’t a bad price at all, but I am poor, and to complicate things further, I found a GORGEOUS pair of glasses there for $30 that I definitely am going to buy. The owner of the store was super lovely and a great pleasure to chat with, and she informed me that every Thursday is 20% all merchandise, so I am going back for at least the glasses, if not the dress as well.