Book Pals and the Saga of a Turtle

   So another recent thrifting revelation we have had is that if you dig through those bins of stuffed toys, you can find Book Pals for very very cheap.  If you are not a teacher or a children's book lover, you may not know about Book Pals.  They are stuffed versions of the characters in a book.  It is like having a book come to life.  After pricing them online, (anywhere from $15- $50) we decided to try and recreate them.  See our Fancy Nancy here and our Pete the Cat here.  While out recently, we were looking for stuffed characters we could adapt and re-purpose for pals when we came across these friends.

That's the dinosaur from How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? (among other sequels.)  Next is Thing 1 from Cat in the Hat.  He is sitting next to Sam I Am from Green Eggs and Ham.  On his left is Franklin the Turtle.  Finally there is a dinosaur that we do not know the name.  He looked familiar and he is a Kohl's for Kids creature which is usually a book pal. Any ideas of the book?  We didn't pay over $1.50 for any of them.  WooHoo!

   So we first found this guy at a Goodwill.  We thought he looked just like Franklin without a hat.  We thought we could create a hat for him.  We were sure we had found our Franklin.

  Then we stopped at another Goodwill and found this guy.

   What were we thinking???  We hang our heads in shame.  How can we call ourselves book lovers when we make this kind of mistake???  They look NOTHING alike.  

   So now we have this unnamed turtle.  Maybe we can find a rabbit and then we will have the characters from The Tortoise and the Hare.  Despite our confusion, we still think we scored big in our search for book characters.  What do you think?

Mama Thrift and Thrift Chick

Book Pals - Pete the Cat

   We have just made our second book pal and we are in love.  If you haven't read the picture book series Pete the Cat  by Eric Litwin and illustrated by James Dean, you are missing out.  To get an idea, click on the books and rock away.  Just imagine a class of first graders singing away...you will fall in love too.

    We knew we wanted to create Pete, but weren't sure we what to do about shoes.  We thought we might find infant shoes at a thrift store, but no luck.  Then we found these at Marshall's.  Perfect!

   We dug some blue fabric out of the fabric scrap box.  It was a little dark, but we thought it would work.  Mama Thrift just cut it out by eyeballing it.  She is so good, she only had to re-cut the head twice.  The eyes and nose were from felt and the mouth and eyebrows were black floss.  My job was the stuffing the body.  I love the final result.

    Since Pete is a four footed friend, we are left with four rockin' shoes that while very cute, do not match.

   We have decided to have a giveaway.  If you think you want to make your own Pete, leave us a comment and we will select someone at random to send them too (Of course, the most comments we have ever had were five so your chances are pretty good.)

   "And we 're rockin' in our thriftin' shoes.  Oh we're rockin' in our thriftin' shoes"   Catchy isn't?

Thrift Chick

Book Pals - Fancy Nancy

My mother may have over-exaggerated my book mania by just bit.  However, I do love a great children's book.  Besides looking for books, I have been on the lookout for plush book characters for my favorite books.  You can buy them, but my bank account cannot handle the prices.  My current favorite picture book is Fancy Nancy.

I think that Fancy Nancy is what I was as a child.  I loved nothing better than dressing up in as many ruffles and bows as I could pile on.  As a teacher, I love Fancy Nancy for her wonderful way of choosing extraordinary words to say ordinary things.  So of course the first character I wanted was Nancy.

Madame Alexander Version $59.95                                              Amazon Version $33.00

Mama Thrift was sure we could create  Fancy Nancy.  Remember these she bought for 25 cents each?

We took the legs off one doll and attached them to another.  We took purple tulle and hot glued on a dress.  Then we accessorized.  Beads, ribbon, jewels and a boa (a ribbon that we gathered).  The glasses are made from craft foam and colored cellophane.  Everything we used was from our craft junk drawer.  I love the final product.

  Total cost...50 cents!   Stayed tuned for our next book pal project...Pete the Cat.

Thrift Chick

I've linked up to:

For the Love of Books

For the past few years, Thrift Chick has been amassing books.  Lots and lots of books.  She says it is for the classroom she will one day have, but I think it really is to feed her habit.  Since she was little, she has loved to read.  Now she has an excuse to buy books.  She initially began her collection by doing what all teachers do...buying from Scholastic Books Clubs.  Then she discovered Goodwill book bins on half off day.  Books galore for a quarter apiece (or 50 cents if they are hardback.) Oh my...she thought she had died and gone to heaven.  Now our spare room looks like this.

Over the past two years, she has collected close to 350 books.  She said she was organizing them, but I think she spread them out so she could gaze upon all their loveliness.  She has promised to stop for awhile.  However during our thrifting day last week I found her head deep in a bin shrieking "Junie B. Jones, Horrible Harry and Flat Stanley!!"

If you have young readers, you might want to check out Goodwill.  Just watch out for a redhead with a crazy gleam in her eye.  She just might pepper spray you to get that Fancy Nancy book you are holding.

Mama Thrift