With All The Frills Upon It....

I love my vintage Easter decorations almost as much as I love my vintage Christmas decorations.  One of the first collections that I ever had was bunnies.  I've passed up the cutesy bunny stuff, but I still have a deep love for vintage bunnies.  I also think that there is nothing in the entire world as adorable as a chenille chick.  So, Easter is definitely a favorite.    

One of my very favorite things is this old revolving tiered dish chock full of all the tiny vintage things I have collected over the years.

I love to look at it for a day or two and then give it a quarter turn then I have all new vintage goodness to enjoy.

There's just so much yummy Easter goodness in there!

Then there's the pink Bunny that the Easter Bunny brought me when I was six years old.  He's about four feet tall including his ears.  He's a part of our family.

I've been lucky enough to pluck a few vintage bunnies out of toy bins at a couple yard sales.  That little pink one in the middle, he stays out year long because he is just so darn adorable.

Vintage Easter baskets and flocked bunnies.  The biggest basket on the right is my own Easter basket that I have had since my very first Easter.  I started picking up the flocked bunnies about a year after The Breadman's Mother died.   (I tell this story every year, so bear with me).  As we cleaned out her house, I would find a brown bunny in a drawer and a pink one on the dresser and then a yellow one in the kitchen and so on and so on.  I threw them in a box as I found them one  by one.  When the house was all emptied out, I had a big box full of about thirty of those bunnies.   I had them in the TO KEEP pile on a table, but a man that was helping us clean took them to the Salvation Army instead.  I wanted those rabbits!!!  So, now I have to buy them whenever I see them.  

My incredibly sweet Annalee bunny that came in the mail one day from sweet Heidi back when out friendship was just beginning.  I added the ducky slippers because, well, they fit! 

My collection of paper mache eggs.  Most are marked West Germany inside.  I love finding these at the thrift.  I rarely do anymore.  But, I'm always hoping!

Ode to a Chick.  Lots of chicky things, vintage postcards and other sweet things.  

Like I said, I love all my Easter things.  So, the sad thing is, I didn't put any of it out this year.  It is killing me not to see all my bright sweet happy things.  But, I am barely keeping my head above water right now with all my responsibilities   I guess if the one that that doesn't get done is putting out my Easter stuff, then that's not so bad.  But, boy do I miss it.  :(

Next year I will put out every Easter thing I own, boil a million eggs, buy a dozen chocolate bunnies and make ducky cupcakes until my arms fall off.  Come hell or high water.  

I hope you have some Easter good news at your house.  Happy Easter!

Monday Finds

I drove across town today to go back to a thrift where I had spied something last week.  It was an old display shelf from a store, I think.  It was a filthy dirty yellow and the top needed to be fixed up somehow.  But, that's just the sort of thing I like to put in my booth for display.  I saw it last week, but had no use for it. Fast forward to yesterday when I bit the bullet and doubled the size of my booth.  Now, I need lots of weird shelves and such to fill it up.  Sadly, that filthy beat up old shelf was gone.  Someone else saw the potential in it, I suppose.  I just hope it doesn't show up in my very own Flea Market to taunt me.  It's happened before. :(

So, I left without the shelf and nearly without a thing.  I figured in that huge darn store there had to be something in there for me.  So, I walked up every aisle and looked and looked and looked.  I was almost ready to give up when by almost pure desperation I found something.

An older receipt book.  I can add it to Ephemera packets or use them for price tags in the booth.

Almost to the check out and I spot a big Ziploc bag full of corsages for weddings of days gone by.

I can part some of these out or include them in different holiday displays in the booth.

These two are the best - the big foil leaves and the millinery flowers on that strawberry corsage are worth keeping.  

I was almost to the check out when I spotted a girl from the back bringing out a tub of new merchandise.  So, I followed her.  :)  She went to the craft area and started putting out bags of different items.  At this thrift you cannot touch items before they are put out.  So, I waited.  Finally she was done, so I swooped in for a look.

At the bottom of the pile, I pulled out this packet that said Picto-Lotto.  I wasn't positive what it was, but I had a pretty good feeling.  I told The Bean, "This is why we came!" 

 When I got out to the car, I opened the bag and saw this fabulous flash card on top.  Score!  

Now before I go on, I should tell you that I spend many hours on ebay looking for vintage flash cards.  They tend to sell for crazy money, but I am always in hopes that I will find a nice big box with a misspelled title or something.  (That has happened before when I bought a Rushton Zippy the Monkey for $3.00 and a box of 125 spun heads for $8.00.)  Anyway, I have sold a few vintage flashcards in my booth before, so I would love to find some more.  They are great framed in a kid's room, kitchen, mudroom or about anywhere depending on the image.

These flash cards are definitely from the 1950's.  Love that flower design on the glass.  Do kids even know that a phone ever looked like that?  And a saddle shoe!   

Skates with four wheels that snap onto your shoes.  And, isn't that a CAR, not an auto?

Some of my personal favorites:

Cake?  Yes, please.  Twins - going to my favorite twin girls. Rabbit  - look at that cute little bunny!

A sweet bird and a dwarf.  

Of course, they can't all be darling.  

Some are harder sells like meat and bone.  Still, maybe for a kitchen?

There are at least a hundred different words.  A few are keepers, but most will go in the booth.  I can't decide if I should frame them or just sell them individually.  I'm tempted to frame them.  But, I am super cheap and lazy, so I bet I don't.  (!)

WHOOMP.....

Whoomp.....There it is!

If I Would Have Won The Powerball

This is one of the very first things I would have purchased.  

It's for sale not to far from my house.

And, I WANT IT!

Aqua and red?  Yes, Please.

It's a golf cart.  

But, I think it would make a great local yard saling vehicle.  

Not to mention an eye catcher for my own yard sales.

It's just the cutest thing EVER.

Maybe I could sell cupcakes out of the back of it.

Toot! Toot!  

I die.  

All By Myself

Wednesday is errand day at my house.  The Breadman is off so we usually go grocery shopping, pay bills and do whatever we need to do.  But yesterday I decided to do all that stuff a day early.  That left today a clean slate.  I suggested that they boys stay home and watch the nine hour movie "The Hobbit".  Okay, it's really only three hours, but I simply do not have time or the willpower to sit through a three hour movie in one sitting.  I've read the book and I know the movie is good, but I am just not into it right now.  So, the boys stayed home to watch that and I decided to hit as many thrifts as I could before I went to see my Mom for the afternoon.

Now, in theory this sounds like a great plan.  In actuality, it was kind of a waste of gas.  But, I enjoyed myself and I did end up scoring a few good deals at my very last stop.

First stop was a thrift that used to be in a huge location then they relocated to a much smaller location.  I went once and found it to be not great, so I hadn't gone back.  I decided to give it another shot today, but it still wasn't that good.  I did find a nice soldered pendant like I like to wear for $2.00.  They also had a grocery cart full of new calendars from Barnes and Noble.  I got The Bean a Hunger Games calendar and I got a 365 Cake calendar.  A different cake for every day of the year.  Great Googley Moogley.  Just what I need to look at every single day.  CAKE!

On to my second stop - a big thrift - giant in fact.  It used to be a furniture store.  It is packed to the gills, but I honestly could not find one thing in there worth buying.  Not even things that were overpriced or cracked or anything - nothing was my style or stuff I like to resell.  On my way to the door, I walked up the kitchen aisle one more time and spotted one small thing that at least made the stop worth it.

Okay, so it didn't really make the stop worth it.  But at least I didn't leave empty handed.  That's a no no!  This little piece of stoneware/restaurant are is marked United States Army.  I'm not sure what it is - I thought it was a little creamer, but it doesn't have a spout.  Or a handle.  Maybe a toothpick holder?  Or a mini spittoon?  Or a cotton ball holder.  I kid.  Except maybe about the toothpick holder.  

Third stop and I was out of time.  This had to be the place to find something.  This was the Goodwill across the town where I usually leave empty handed.  

I spotted this rocks glass on the shelf in the glass section.  I thought it was colorful and would be good booth fodder.

Especially since there were ten of them.  

Then I picked one up and saw the name Georges Briard and knew I had found something good.  I'll put them in the booth this summer with my Patriotic/BBQ summer display and see what happens.  That mid century stuff is hot, so hopefully I'll get a bite on them.  I'd put them on ebay, but the idea of packing and shipping ten glass items is just not appealing to me.

I also found this giant tray with raspberries on it.  You can see how big it is behind those rocks glasses.

I like the raspberries.  I don't think I've ever seen anything with raspberries as a motif before.  

See where the store marked it with an old Garvey marker?  $1.29.  Poor placement for the price as far as aesthetics   But, I think it adds to the vintage charm.  

So, that's it.  Just a couple of things and all destined to resell.  Still it was nice to get out by myself and take my time poking around in stuff.  There are a few sales in the paper for this weekend, but there is also a mix of snow, sleet, freezing rain, ice and regular rain coming.  So, I don't see any of those sales actually happening.  But, soon!  I just know it!

The Five Minute Goodwill Run

I seem to be running on fumes lately.  I go and go and go until I just can't go anymore.  To put it mildly...I am tired!  This to shall pass.  My Mom is doing so much better.  She got the good news a few weeks ago that her back had healed and now we find that her neck is healed as well.  She is out of her giant turtle shell back brace and is being weaned out of her neck brace the next few weeks.  It is so nice to see her without all that equipment on her.  She is still working on strength and getting her right arm and hand to work again.  She can do a lot now that she couldn't do before.  But, she still has things to improve.  But, my gosh, she works SO hard in therapy.  She never says no or complains - she just does it.  She wants to go  home so badly.  But, not until she can do certain things for herself like grooming and hygiene.  I can't believe all the things that she has been through and acclimated to being in rehab - like having a stranger shower you.  But, she does it because what other choice does she have, right?  The hardest part mentally has been having different roommates.  She got a new one tonight and she is a DOOZIE.  She is on oxygen and there for her COPD and guess what her very first question was?????  "Where's the smoking area?"  When they announced that it was smoke-free campus (as is our entire city) she CALLED A CAB TO TAKE HER HOME.  My Mom was happy that she was leaving since all she did was talk about smoking, cigarettes, not smoking and lack of cigarettes.  But, then her son went and bought her an electric cigarette and that seemed to pacify her, so she decided to stay.  She still needs to learn roommate manners such as deciding what to watch on TV TOGETHER and to NOT jerk the partition curtain back any old time she feels like it.   Anyway, I digress as usual.  The point is that my Mom is doing better!  I will be glad to get her home and out of there.

In between all my chores and responsibilities at home and the time I spend with my Mom, I sometimes still have about five minutes to pop into Goodwill on my here and there.  Here are this weeks five minute picks.

Two beat up old Disney Readers for the booth.  I sell a lot of old kids books.

A funny vintage BBQ tray.  I'm working on a BBQ/picnic display for the booth this summer.

A bunch of old shoe stretchers.  I saw something somewhere made out of these and told myself to find some.  So, now that I have found some, I cannot remember for the life of me why on earth I wanted them!  Any ideas?????

A neat stork with a baby honeycomb decoration.  It's from 1989, which is not vintage in my book.  But, it;s a Dennison and cute, so I picked it up.

Another old book with great graphics.  This one has crayon marks on a lot of the pages, so I will either sell it cheap or cut it up as ephemera.

A wooden Fisher Price Queen Bee pull toy.  A lady was standing about a foot away from it when I reached it to pick it up.  She let out an audible sigh when she saw it in my hand.  But, she had already worked her way down the aisle past it and didn't see it, so it was fair game.  It's really quite cute.

Lastly a small handmade felt ballerina doll.  Se sits in the palm of my hand.  She's really funny to me.  I love old handmade things.  

Today I had five minutes to pop into the Super Cheap Thrift and find a few things.  But, that is a post for another day.

*I'm sorry for my crummy photos. I'm never home much during the day to take nice bright outdoorsy photos.  Someday soon though!

Even MORE Junk!

I hit a few thrifts this week and  I went to TWO yard sales on Friday.  They weren't anything to write home about, but TWO is TWICE as many as last week, so maybe FOUR next, then EIGHT, then woo-hoo!  Today I went to a Church Rummage sale that ended up being mostly clothing.

I bought this Ottoman for $2.00 at a yard sale on Friday.    It's pretty big - I guess it's more of a footstool than an Ottoman, but you could sit on it to put your shoes on.  It's a groovy swirl of red and black leathery stuff.  *Since I took this photo, I cleaned it, polished it up, put stain on the legs, took it to the booth and SOLD IT!

Now, the next thing I bought might very well make you delete this blog forever.  You might think, well, Shara has officially lost it.  And, the truth is, I very well may have lost it.  But, sometimes you see something and it intrigues you, so you better buy it, right?  So, what did I buy?

Peepholes.  Yes, you read that right.  Peepholes - like you stick in door so you can see out. Ninety of them to be precise.  The box said, $1.00 each or all for $5.00.  Seeing as how there are 90 of them, I think that is a good deal.  They are kind of like teeny telescopes when you hold them up to your eye.  I'm thinking I might mess around and fashion necklaces out of them and other "junk".  I'm sure the scrap value of the brass alone is far more than $5.00.

I've always said that you can put anything in an old blue jar and it looks great.  

Ninety peepholes are no exception!

*If you have any ideas for these, let me know!

I also went to Goodwill Friday.

Someone had cleaned out Grandma's game closet.  I got all these games for $3.50.  I'm keeping the old LOTTO game and the game pieces from Boggle and Triple Yahtzee.  The other two went to the booth.  

I also found this sweet piece of pottery in a lovely blue for $1.00.  

Surely you have guessed that it is a KEEPER!

My best deal of the day was at the other Goodwill across town on Wednesday.  This new Goodwill has only been open maybe four months or so.  I have only been a handful of times, but I have never bought anything there. Wednesday I was about to leave empty handed when I spied a set of 1937 My Book House books on the shelf.  They were color coded to be full price, so I thought they would be $2.00 each.  That was a tad more than I really had to spend that day.  So, I left them on the shelf and started to leave.  

Then I started thinking that Children's books are only $1.00.  Maybe I could persuade the checker that they were children's books.  I mean they technically are for kids, but they are antiques with color plates.  No one in their right mind would willingly hand one of these over to a kid to read alone.  They are more of a "Let Mom hold it while you look at it" sort of set of books.

So, I carried the big heavy stack of books all the way to the front of the store.  I set them down and selectively opened this book entitled, "In the Nursery" since it featured mostly Nursery Rhymes and big color plate photos (I'm shameless, I know) and said, "Are these Children's books?"  The lady at the register flipped through it and said, "Looks like it to me".  In my head, I am jumping up and down because I just got them down form $2.00 each to $1.00 each.  Yippee!  Then she said, " So, Children's books are fifty cents each and you have twelve, so that's six dollars."  Good gravy, I went form $24.00 to $12.00 to $6.00 in about five minutes.

They are absolutely gorgeous old books with lovely stories and color plates.  And, even though they have a good resell value, this might very well by my first official "For when I am a Grandma" purchase.  

Lord,  I have to sit down after even saying that.  

A Deal For You

The other day, I saw this Pin on Pinterest using old Playing Cards as packaging for jewelry.

I thought it was a great way to display all the jewelry I am making now.  Oh, you read that right, I have been bitten by the jewelry making bug BAD.  I am making glass tile pendants by the dozens lately.  I love wearing one each day do I decided it was high time I learned how to make them.  And, that was either a very good thing or a very bad thing, I don't know which yet.  I think it is a good thing, because I am enjoying making them.

I knew I could find old cards, but I wanted them more personalized to my booth.  That's when I found a deal on Artscow for a deck of personalized playing cards.  I love Artscow - they often have really great deals on watches, puzzles and playing cards.  (I am not getting paid to say this - it really is a great site with cheap prices and great items!)

I made a deck of cards with the picture of my Great Grandmother from my header.  I will punch a hole in the card to attach the pendant, price them on the reverse and put them on an old chip clip display.  I think it will be great!

From now until March 31st, you can order a deck of personalized cards for 99¢ including FREE shipping.  These make great gifts and great business cards of sorts.  

Just click here to order your cards and use the code: MONKEYBOXBLOG to get the cards for 99¢ with FREE shipping.  These do ship from Hong Kong, but they ship quickly and they are of very good quality.  

(*I will received a small referral token if you order these, but I really just wanted to share the deal with you!)

A Little More Junk

Today The Breadman got home early from work and decided to take a nap.  So, The Bean and I slipped out to hit some thrifts all by ourselves.  Dad just doesn't "get" thrifting, but he always tags along.  He kind of hovers over me and cramps my style - I need to look at EVERYTHING and he doesn't understand that.  But, I have found vintage pottery with the gardening stuff and other things that were in areas that they shouldn't have been in the first place.  So, I really do HAVE to look everywhere and at everything.  The Bean is used to that and he has a route he takes too - books, music/DVD's/video games, glass case in the front for knives and swords and the toy area to look for Nerf Guns. 

We went to three thrift stores.  Left empty handed at Goodwill.  I usually find something, but nada today.  On to a thrift that used to be my favorite, but it has moved to a new location and it is "eh" at best.  I spent twenty five cents there for a 1937 book entitled, "Food for Fifty".

 Because I very often have 49 of my best friends over for dinner.

And, they LOVE *Braised Tongue*!  

Can you believe they think you need 20 pound of tongue for 50 people?  That's a lot of tongue.  My Grandmother loved tongue.  (That is a weird thing to type). She would ask me to look for it at the grocery store every time I went shopping for her.  When I would come in the door she would say, "Did they have tongue?" and I would say, "Not today."  But, I never, ever looked for it.  Not once.  

Despite the tongue recipe, there are some interesting recipes.  I was reading the pie recipes and the Bean chimed in that a pie for 50 people would be a really, really BIG pie.  I hated to tell him that it was actually a recipe to make 8 normal sized pies.  He looked at me and said, "Well, duh. I was kidding."  I can't tell him that I had actually thought it was a recipe for one huge pie myself.  :(

My big splurge of the day was this older Arkansas Razorback Picnic Basket.  When I brought it in, The Breadman said, "Finally a picnic basket I like!"  But, too bad - it's going to the booth.  I spent $15.00 for it, but I know one sold for about $50.00 at the booth last Fall.  So, I will make it part of my (much hated and dreaded on my part) Razorback display in August.  Those "Roadhogs" with the huge RV's and deep pockets just love that vintage razorback tailgating stuff.  

This tiny cigar box will go in my cigar box collection.  Oh, yes, I collect them.  Surprised?  I thought not.

A large paper mache pumpkin that isn't old but looks it and that is good enough for me.  

Especially since it was only 25¢.

I also found two old Math Games, two Easter pails, and a vintage apron to round out the day.  It's all for resell.  Except that Food For Fifty book.  It will be resold eventually, but I've got some Scrapple to make first.  

I KID!

Have you found any good junk lately?  I'm just scrapping by on what I find lately.  

I need a GOOD JUNK FIX pronto.