It’s no secret that I love thrifting – I love the thrill of finding something amazing (or something ugly that could be amazing) in a pile of what can often sometimes be described as junk. I find however that in Toronto it’s hard to find that amazing score – I don’t know if it’s because there are just so many others in town that have the same affinity for the hunt that I do or, if it’s just a case of luck not being on my side whenever I head to the local stores (which aren’t that local when you don’t have a car).

In August I visited my parents in BC and on a couple of occasions my mom and I went out to explore the local second-hand stores. They live in a small-ish town that has what seems to be a larger number of thrift stores in comparison to Toronto. It may be the demographics are different – there is a large retiree population, but they also have a number of stores which are run in benefit of local charities like the Hospital Auxiliary and the Woman’s shelter which I haven’t seen here (I’m sure they exist – I just haven’t found them).

I don’t know what it was on this trip, but I found a number of great pieces. So many I had to get creative when packing to get them back to Toronto.

I finally found some milk bottles – these are originally from The Dutchmen Dairy in Sicamous, BC, which is, according to my mom, a mandatory stop when traveling on the Trans-Canada highway. I’m not entirely sure if these are ‘vintage’ as apparently this dairy still sells milk in bottles, but they were just $2 each.

Anyways, I was lucky enough to find two Kaiser vases in BC, so I've got the start of a little collection. The first round vase was $7 and the second, slightly larger vase, was an incredible $2.

Does anyone else find a difference when thrifting in small towns vs. big cities? Or was I perhaps just lucky enough to be visiting when there was many great things for sale?