Retail Binge

This year I wanted to challenge myself to only use thrifted Christmas cards, thrifted gift bags and wrappings for gift giving. This idea came sporadically when my friend and I were shopping in Boomerangs, an amazing thrift store located in Cambridge, MA. A very eclectic collection of thrift goods including clothes, shoes, accessories and home items at unbelievably great prices. While shopping there, I came across a little pile of unused Christmas cards. They were in such great quality, all unique and so inspiring of Christmas in their own way, I started picking up 18 of them. The total of my purchase for 18 Christmas cards was $2 dollars. I was on such a high. I was like, this is how I am doing Christmas cards this year. I have to find thrifted Christmas cards. This was going to be my fun little challenge.

I then broadened my thrifting Christmas card search to online. On Ebay, there were tons of listings for pre-owned, unused Christmas Cards. To help keep my search budget friendly, I searched for listings with free shipping. I then found a listing for “Vintage Christmas Card Mixes Lot of 34 with envelopes” from thriftingtexas for $14.90 (including tax) with free shipping. Matching envelopes! The quality looked great. This was exciting and would complete my Christmas card search. Then I started seeing gift bags…

I would indubitably need gift bags. Need. Funny isn’t it? Yes, I wanted gift bags. In the past, I have sewn gift bags. This year, I wanted to keep this thrifting challenge going. Thrifted gift bags it was!

Filtering with free shipping, I found a listing for “Lot of 10, Gift Bags, Holiday & Christmas, Assorted Designs and Sizes” from vertigogarden for $21.43 (including tax) with free shipping. These gift bags looked big, a nice medium size for an assortment of gifts. This was an exciting find.

I placed orders for both the cards and gift bags. When they arrived in person, I was so pleasantly surprised by the quality, care of packaging, and how unique each of these items were. This felt special and made me even more excited to use these for gift giving.