Turning Trash Into Treasure

Shari Elf from Good and Sturdy Art is my new hero! She’s into scoping out garage sales and thrift stores for her art pieces and her husband is into it too. She has been so successful doing what she loves that the last I heard she was charging $125 dollars an hour.

She is not only an artist but also a musician and I love her quirky sense of humor. It brought back some bittersweet memories of my dad. He used to create these beautiful lamps and clocks out of bits and pieces he would find at garage sales. He also painted and was in a band so he and Shari would have got along.

If it was a decent day he would always be up early and off to the garage sales. I loved when I got to go with him. It was like a giant treasure hunt and we had so many laughs. One time he asked this prissy woman if her dog was a potbelly pig. I guess it was some fancy breed and she was highly insulted but I couldn’t help but laugh.

People sell the strangest things but you can find some very cool one of a kind things at garage sales or thrift stores. I have a lovely painting of a sunset and trees a man sold me for five dollars, a huge sturdy mirror that graces our entranceway for the same price and my kitchen curtain cost a whole dollar. I still have a gorgeous antique dresser dad refinished for me.

Anyway, I’m happy that Shari Elf is enjoying such success. She’s inspired me to continue with my own clumsy creations and shared some unique ways to recycle. She also sells her CD on her website entitled “I’m Forcing Goodness Upon You.”

She has definitely made me smile.