Standing in a warehouse of secondhand clothes, Nicole Muster is contemplating a white Hanes T-shirt that reads in green lettering "Fortunate are they to whom gardening is a joy."

It's not exactly what one would think of as a great vintage find, but then again, it's only $1.99 — fitting comfortably inside her $20 budget — and personifies Muster's self-described eclectic, chameleon style.

"If something's way ugly, it could fit really well and then it's not quite as ugly as it used to be," the business administration and apparel and textile design freshman explained, as she plopped the top in her basket.

Muster's quirky fashion sense worked to her advantage during this excursion to Volunteers of America Thrift Store in Lansing, as she and four other innovative students were on a mission proposed by The State News: To create complete secondhand outfits for $20 or less.

Scouring the racks alongside Muster were two students who had, respectively, seldom and never been to a thrift store — Ashley Stewart, a classic-slash-trendy apparel and textile design senior, and Sonia Manjeshwar, a retailing graduate student who designed T-shirts and women's corporate wear in India before coming to MSU. Manjeshwar defines her style as feminine and sophisticated.

Rounding out the chosen five were the fashion-forward, layering-enthusiast Tony Gianacakos, who is an apparel and textile design junior, and advertising sophomore Erik Meath, who describes his style as simple and subdued.

If they were at all intimidated by the racks of clothes, purses, shoes, hats and jewelry, there wasn't much time to panic. They immediately began grabbing baskets (later up-sizing to shopping carts) and began rifling through hundreds of items, quickly discerning between the rejects and those worthy of potential outfit creations.

The classic and trendy one

Stewart first tackled the tops and picked up a black, short-sleeved, long floaty shirt she thought might be able to suffice as a dress.

"I like longer shirts that are belted," she explained. "I'm not sure if this will be long enough — maybe with leggings."

She placed the top in her cart, which accumulated a color pallate of black, hot pink and white items. These pieces included tiny, hot pink, flat suede boots (which she desperately tried to fit her feet into — Gianacakos even helped push and shove them in — but alas, the boots had to be put back on the rack), long, wispy white and hot pink blouses (both were tried on with leggings and a waist-cinching belt), black leggings and a black velvet cropped jacket.

If one lesson was learned from this secondhand mission, it's that treasures can be found in departments other than your own.

Take Stewart, for example. She wore an oversized, tan Christian Dior cardigan that Gianacakos found in the men's section. Though he was proud of his finding, it didn't fit him. But it worked for her — especially when it was on sale for $2.50 — and she wore it with an adjustable gold ring, black leggings, a black waist-cinching belt and a black slip underneath, which Gianacakos ripped a couple inches off, as it was too long.

The simple and subdued one

Perusing other departments also solved Meath's dilemma, as he had trouble finding pants to fit his thin frame. He ventured over to the women's racks and found Gap jeans, which he pointed out were "boy fit, whatever that means." He wore them with white sneakers, a brown and blue belt, a red Lacoste polo and layered a white polo underneath, ingeniously cutting off the sleeves so the shoulders didn't look puffy.

He also tried on a bright yellow, plaid lumberjack shirt — a find everyone loved, but Meath thought was a tad too big.

"What I ended up getting was a little more creative than I usually am," he said. "I usually never wear polos. Nicole (Muster) said it was like the vintage-preppy look that I ended up going for. I don't usually do preppy or anything like that, but I ended up liking what I got for me."

The eclectic one

Similar to Stewart and Meath, Muster wanted to utilize a different department — the children's section — to find overalls. But after examining them, she realized they might be cutting it too close, size wise. She found the most luck in the "grandma section," as she described the women's shirt department, because she said trends today allow tops to be loose-fitting.

It didn't take Muster long to amass a plethora of shirts, such as a long and printed '80s tunic that tied at the hip (at which she announced, "We've got the side tie. Something tells me I've gotta give it a try" — but ultimately decided it was "tragic" after trying it on), a white SAAB sweatshirt and several variations of striped tops (one blue and white striped, one yellow-and-white striped, one red-and-white striped and a white terry cloth shirt with thin red-and-blue stripes and red buttons at the shoulders).

"There's going to be all stripes in my closet," she said after looking through her treasured finds. "I tend to like kind of tacky things."

After cleaning out the "grandma section," Muster headed over to the jeans. Finding pants proved to be the most problematic task for the five students.

"I've got to tackle the jean issue — dad jeans, mom jeans, I'm not discriminating," she said.

Though she gave soccer-mom jeans a chance, Muster ended up buying boot-cut Levi's and wore them with black suspenders (her favorite find), the Hanes T-shirt and a long, plum-colored Target cardigan.

"The suspenders are my favorite because I like things that you're not seeing people wear every day," she said. "(My style is) loud. It changes drastically from day to day."

The sophisticated one

Manjeshwar, a thrift store first timer, tried a shopping method different from Muster's grab-everything-you-like technique. When Manjeshwar discovered a reversible checkered halter that was black and white on one side and red and white on the other, she created the rest of her outfit around the top.

Since it is winter, she decided to wear it over a white, button-down shirt to create a unique, classy look. She added a black pencil skirt, low-heeled, red, satin shoes and placed a red tie around her waist.

"I think it's in trend to pair black and white pieces, and just to blend it in with the red look," she said. "I think my personality shown through because I kind of like to pair fun pieces with formal wear."

The fashion-forward one

Still another way to thrift shop, Gianacakos demonstrated, is to find all the designer labels — a skill he excelled at, as he happened upon a Christian Dior cardigan for Stewart and a chocolate brown Pierre Cardin sweater, which was $2.99, for himself.

Though he was swimming in the sweater, he already had given up the Dior and couldn't possibly pass up the Cardin. He made it work and layered it over a black tank top and a Kelly green button-down shirt and worn with gray dress pants.

"I really layer a lot — that's my new thing," he said.

Gianacakos thought about attempting a daring new look — starting the waist-cinching belt trend for men.

Regardless of how innately original the fashionable five were before hitting Volunteers of America, they all agreed this assignment made them think creatively. Muster, who occasionally thrift shops, said finding a complete look was challenging.

"It was kind of difficult to make a full outfit because I don't usually do head-to-toe thrift store, but I think everyone came out with some really cute stuff," she said. "I think with Urban (Outfitters) or a normal store, you can go in with an idea of what you want. With a thrift store, you have to go in with an open mind because everything changes so often, you're not guaranteed anything there."

Muster couldn't resist buying additional tops for herself and said her clothes sparked envy among friends.

"One of my friends hijacked my sweater," she said. "Everyone was really excited about the stuff that I got. My friend Carli and I are going to go back."

As for thrift-store newbies Stewart and Manjeshwar, they both said they'd go to secondhand shops again.

"I've never done something like this before, so it was quite fun to use your creativity and come up with something on a fixed budget," Manjeshwar said. "It's such buried merchandise, you need to have creativity to pull something together that will look nice. It was kind of fun. It was like a treasure hunt."