Vintage Valentine’s Vow. Did We Succeed At Only Buying Second Hand Gifts?featured

A few weeks ago I wrote about how my boyfriend and I were setting ourselves the challenge of having a Second Hand Valentine’s Day and promised to only buy each other gifts from charity shops. And now Valentine’s Day is here, it’s time for the big reveal and to show you what we bought each other. First things first, did we succeed at this momentus challenge? No. No we didn’t. Jake and I failed at this task miserably.

There I was, this time last month banging on about how it’s possible to find lots of lovely gifts in charity shops and how we should all do more to stop things ending up in landfill, and now here I am with a brand new pair of bike earrings and here he is with a new cafetiere.

I considered keeping the new presents a secret and only blogging about the charity shop stuff, but figured that would be a bit dishonest.

I had the best intentions. I really thought that by popping into every charity shop I came across I’d eventually find the perfect gift for my favourite person. But the truth is, it was bloody hard, and I barely saw anything that I knew Jake would like. I saw countless things that I liked, and ended up buying myself loads of charity shop clothes. But nothing amazing for him.

Although I often see preloved things that I’d love to own myself, I’ve come to realise that charity shop shopping is a very personal experience. It can be difficult enough to find the right gift for the people you love in a regular shop on the high street, so of course it’s going to be ten times more difficult when you’re looking for a present amongst tons of records that no one has ever heard of and coats with unusual stains on them. I kinda thought I’d spot a diamond in the rough.

To be fair, we did buy each other a few second hand gifts, as well as new things.

I bought Jake a couple of books from Oxfam. He loves reading, but I didn’t want to get him a really scruffy looking book with yellow pages and folded corners, so I spent ages looking for books with immaculate spines. He is looking forward to reading The Gods of Guilt, but not so much The Circle, but hey, there’s a new book for me!

But as I wandered round numerous charity shops, struggling to find things for him, I remembered Jake saying that he wanted to buy himself a new cafetiere since the one that’s already at his student house is rubbish. So I went and bought him one from Whittards along with a bag of coffee.

Jake bought me an Oxfam diary, which is perfect because I’ve been needing a new diary to help me get organised when it comes to blogging and getting things in order at work. He also bought me a cute little book that is filled with random little notes that people have written for one another. It’s one of those silly little coffee table books that I think are cute but he thinks are a waste of paper. (Will add photos soon)

But, unsatisfied with the things he had bought me, Jake also gave me a new book, a pair of earrings with bikes on, some heart shaped candle holders and some giant chocolate buttons and Twirl bites! My favourite

All in all, while we didn’t stick to our Second Hand Valentine’s Day pact, it certainly wasn’t an expensive 14th of Feb, and I hardly think we’re guilty of giving in completely to Valentine’s consumerism. I mean, we didn’t buy anything extravagent or cliched, we probably would have bought a cafetiere eventually anyway and since I’m obsessed with things with bikes on, I know Jake would have bought me the bike earrings no matter what time of year it was.

Photo credits: Vintage books, Creative Commons