Hippity Hop, Hippity Hop...

Easter's on it's waaaaaay......

Every year I think that we won't do much for Easter but then I decide that you are NEVER too old for coloring eggs, chocolate bunnies and Easter dinner.  So, that's what we shall do.  Tomorrow we are going out to eat Chinese with my Mom and Stepdad and call that our Easter Dinner.  Tuesday I am going thrifting with my Dad, so that will be our Easter.  Sunday we will have an early dinner since The Breadman has to go to his horrible job at 4:00.  

I decorated the usual spots in the living room.  Always the same stuff, in the same places, but always a little different each year.  

Vintage bunnies over here.  I am always on the hunt for those foil eggs, but I just have the two.  One is an old German egg and the other is newer.  But you can't tell which is which, so if I find an old one or a new one that is okay by me.  

These two are some of my favorite possessions.  They stay our all the time on a shelf in the hallway.  But for Easter, they come out into the living room.  I would love to find lots of old pink bunnies.  

A couple more favorites - stuffed with straw and loved on over the years.  

Dude.  This is blurry.  My camera battery was flashing and I was taking photos SO quick.  Sorry.  Flocked bunnies, vintage plastic baskets and Egg Dye boxes.  

More vintage this and that.  I didn't' have much time to decorate, so it's all just sort of lined up this year.  I tossed in some shredded paper Easter grass and some Chenille Chicks and called it good.

The famous (ha) white shelves full o' goodies.  

That top shelf is full of some seriously deranged plastic bunnies.  The one with what I think are bloody fangs is really sketchy.

Quirky vintage chicks and bunnies.

Vintage tin baskets, pails, tins and eggs.  Squeakers and silly stuff.

VIntage basket chock full of my favorite vintage bunnies.  

Rushton, Steiff and Annalee's.  

Vintage Easter Baskets, chicks of all sorts and my beloved German eggs.  I pulled out a bunch of the eggs to take to the Junk Ranch.  But, I saved the best for me. 'Cause I'm not crazy.  

Vintage bunny planters and a wee nesting doll set.

Newest Annalee from Chanelle. (Thanks, girl!)

Such a cute face!

NOT SCARY!

When I was four years old, we made our first trip to Arkansas to see if we wanted to move here or not.  We were staying at a hotel and it just happened to be Easter Weekend. We were in the hotel on Saturday morning and I was playing on the floor.  I saw a box under the bed and I gasped out loud.  A treasure!!!!  (Even then I was looking for treasure!)  I pulled out the box as I heard my Mom say, "Shara Lee.....Nooooooooooooooo"  I pulled off the top and saw chocolate and jelly beans and Easter Grass and marshmallow chicks.  I looked up at my Mom and she looked so sad.  But, I was SO excited - "The Easter Bunny found me, Mama!  He found me!'  It wasn't until several years later I realized that I had found out the truth about the Easter Bunny without even realizing it.  

I hope you have a Happy Easter with family, marshmallow chicks and chocolate bunnies. 

March Phone Dump

Earlier I was trying to figure out how much more month I had left at the end of the money.  I was SURE that there was another payday this month, but the calendar said otherwise.  That's when I noticed that I still had it on February.  Dude - April is next week!  But, hey - I was right - five paydays, BABY.  :D

Okay, here we go - random phone dump post.

Pumpkin Spice WATER.  I mean, Come ON!

The biggest strawberries I have ever seen.  I love eating two strawberries for lunch and being full.  I also think it is fun to eat six halo's for lunch.  I am easily entertained.  

Spotted these plastic succulents at the Dollar Tree.  I am not into the whole succulent craze, but I think these look really real and would be cute in vintage pottery.  I might try some in some vintage pottery at the booths.  

Hey - guess what? I cleaned up that crib from the last post and I found cute graphics already on there. The Cat and the Fiddle.  So darn cute.  Who would cover that up???

The Bean telling me goodbye as I left the other day.  I need to make this his photo on my phone.  

EASTER SNEAK PEEK!

I got an Azalea plant for Valentine's Day and it's still in bloom.  So pretty.  

Pickles.  Spicy.  Maple.  Bourbon.  No.  Freaking. Way.  

It conjurers up smells of drunks and pancakes.  

This email keeps coming to The Breadman.  I don't know exactly why he qualifies for ass......and I really don't want to know why!  :)

That old tool box I found that I said I would plat with flowers for The Junk Ranch?  Well, I put it on it's side and discovered it's a rustic cubby.  I have all sorts of ideas for that bad boy now.  And yes, I will be keeping it for awhile.  

Today we cleaned out the dryer vent.  The clothes were taking forever to dry so I knew it must need a cleaning.  I wasn't expecting to pull out almost a half a pound of lint and an entire birds nest!  We bought a Pest Guard to put on the outside and a new dryer hose for inside and I was able to dry a huge load of jeans in twenty minutes.  Yay!  (I hate laundry.)  

So there you have it - the Phone Dump Post for March.  I will be back with my Easter decorations before the bunny comes hopping into town with some eggs.  

A Quick Thrift Stop

I stopped in to the thrift today - I hadn't been to this particular thrift in a few weeks.  I was on the hunt for vintage Easter, but didn't have much luck.  I found a few little things, but I ended up putting them back since they weren't the greatest vintage  - a few flocked bunnies and a vintage Easter basket. Both of which I collect and you know I would have just ended up keeping them all anyway.  :D

But, I did find a few really good things - all destined for the Junk Ranch in June.  

This old divided tool caddy would look fabulous full of geraniums on a porch.  I need to clean it up a bit, knock off the loose paint and I think I will spray some clear coat on it to see it the red pops any better than it's current state of pinkish.  (I also know it would hold my vintage garden tool collection, but I must NOT keep it.)  

This giant old oil painting had a big hole in the center, so it was only $1.99.  But would you look at that frame!  It's beautiful!  Chippy, ornate and some pink peeking through the edges. 

It's a shame about the oil painting - it was of a sweet craftsman style house.  But, then again, if the painting was perfect, it would have cost a LOT more.  

  

I spotted this little pink doll crib and swooped it up lickety split.  It was the 50% off color code, so it was a great deal.  

Then I rounded a corner and found this amazing Jadeite green colored doll crib.  It has drop down sides and is just the sweetest darn thing.  It didn't have a price, but I was able to get someone to price it for me.  They used to rip it out of your hands and take it to the back for pricing but you couldn't buy it.  I wanted this crib SO bad, so I was really happy that they priced it for me.  (There's also an old baton that a baton twirler would have used.  I thought that would be a fun thing for the JR.) 

I will clean up the cribs - the green one has patchwork scrapbook paper modge-podged on the ends. But, I soaked it with a wet towel and it's coming off great.  I just need to go slow and not scratch it up.  When it's all clean, I am going to put an old waterslide decal on each end.  

I'm leaning towards the deer on the green crib.

And the duck on the kitten on the pink crib.  

Last Fall I flipped a little wooden doll high chair for $20 that I paid 50¢ at the same thrift.  I put this sweet little deer on it and that cinched the deal for cute.

It was a quick stop.  But, it was a good one!  

***The Mansion sale was today and not tomorrow.  I didn't go since I couldn't buy the mansion and most of the things in it looked either too fancy (the furniture) or too utilitarian (dishes and tools).  But, who knows what I will find to do tomorrow!  

What? Another Auction? Okay!

I went to an auction on Saturday that was in a closeout store that was going out of business.  It was all new stuff - pallets and pallets of new stuff.  Lots of tools, registers, shopping carts, pallets of industrial toilet paper and paper towels, security systems, a scissor lift, pallet jacks, ladders, extension cords (SO many extension cords!) and on and on.  As I did a quick run through I spotted two vintage items in the whole place - an old metal milk crate (which had been on my wishlist) and a handmade tool cubby shelf.  I decided that they would be mine.  (Insert maniacal laughter here).

After about an hour and a half they got to the pallet with the cubby on it.  It was hidden in the center of a pallet and not very noticeable.  The auctioneer had been doing "choice" on each pallet, so I assumed that is how it would go.  But, Noooooooo.  The helper guy plucked that cubby right out of the middle and twirled it above his head - "Let's auction this beauty off!" he said.  Ugh.  

As it turned out, it was a different mindset of bidders and no one wanted the old stuff.  There was one older man standing right beside me interested in it.  But, he and I were the only bidders.  My stomach was in knots.  I bid $5, he bid $7.50, $10 to me, $15 to him, $20 to me and then he stalled and dropped out at $25, so I got it for $20.00.  There was a 10% Buyer's Premium (I hate those kind of auctions), so I paid $22.00.  More than I like to pay since I am CHEAP, but still a good deal.  It will go in the booth eventually full of doodads, trinkets and tchotchkes.  

It has adjustable inserts so I can make them whatever size I need.  I know it looks like there is no bottom, but that's just the color of the bottom.  It was chock full of stuff when I bought it - saw blades, wood putty, screws, nails, WD40, utility knives, lamp parts, bolts, screwdrivers, tape and all sorts of stuff.  Most of it was new which was a bonus.  Lots of odds and ends will go to Goodwill and Lara is getting a big jar full of weird screws. nails and findings for her projects.  

I was able to get "choice" on the next pallet for $5.00, so I got the metal milk crate too.  It had three nice vintage wire bail canning jars in it (priced $6.00 each for the booth), a bunch of brand new rubber jar rings (listed on ebay) and fifteen brand new packages of click pens that The Breadman uses at work.  So, $5.00 was a deal for all!  

I made a rookie mistake and thought I was bidding on one thing, but I was really bidding on something else.  I ended up with a teak waste basket, a flower pot you put a patio umbrella in and a small metal stool for a total of $2.00.  At least it was a cheap mistake!  

The little stool had a vinyl top with some bleach spots on it so I thought it was a goner.  But I manged to take the top off and recover it with some groovy vintage fabric I thrifted not long ago.  Sadly, that justifies my theory of buying things and hoarding them "in case I need it."  :)  My $2.00 mistake turned out pretty good.  It's headed to the college booth along with the other two items.

I spent $28.00 after the Buyer's Premium was added.  (Luckily I had cash because there was a 5% credit card fee too.  If you spent $1,000 (Which people were doing easily) you would pay a lot more after both of those fees.)  If I sell everything at what I have it priced, I will sell it for $104.00 (minus the $28.00) for a profit of $76.00 and I will still have the cubby and the milk crate to keep which is all I wanted in the first place!  I guess I did pretty good after all.  

So, where's the next auction?  Here's a hint......a 7,000 square foot mansion!

I bet I don't buy anything there, but it will be fun to see!

The Junk Buddy Circuit

I started my week off by bagging up a bunch of things that I wanted out of here.  I was on a roll - rearranging, tossing things, clearing out some space and making room for some new projects I have locked up in my noggin.  But, then.  The junk started to flow on Tuesday.  And it continued every single day until Saturday.  Lord a mercy. Now, mind you - I am not complaining.  But this junking thing is hard work.

Tuesday:  I sold a few things on ebay and as luck would have it, I ran out of ink in my printer.  So, I had to go to the library to print out my ebay shipping labels.  It's right across the street from the post office, so it's easy enough to do that anyway.  When I walked in to the vestibule there was a FREE cart.  And, what was on that cart?  Reader's Digest Condensed Books!  The good old ones with the pretty colors.  And there were fifty of them!  50!  I asked at the desk if there was a limit on free books (sometimes there is a limit of five) and they said, "Oh, please!  Those are impossible to get rid of - take as many as you want!"  You can probably guess how many I took. All.of.them.

I cut the covers off the ones that had broken spines, dirty end pages or that weren't that attractive and saved only the prettiest of the books.  I still find it a horrible thing to cut books up, but, I tell you - once you start slicing those covers off.....it's really quite exhilarating.  Like you are being naughty.  :)  

Wednesday Lara and I had an invitation to go to a fellow junkers yard sale a few days before she actually had the sale - first pickings!  Woot!  It was in a storage unit in a town about 45 minutes away.  I went one way and Lara went the other and we met up at the sale.  You guys  - there was so much good stuff and the prices were right.  I bought a big basket full of ephemera, spun heads, wooden heads, millinery flowers and on and on.  An old metal camp stove thingy, some great old tins, a fabulous folding rack and some other things.  I hate to tell you that I have hardly any photos from that load. 

I spotted this old swim cap cardboard advertising topper on the wall and knew immediately who needed it - Magpie Ethel!  I spent a bit more on it that I normally would, but I was sure she would like it.  And she did!  It is enroute to her as we speak.  

 Here's the folding cart I got - all folded up for easy storage.  But......

Open the sides and BOOM! it's a handy dandy shelf.  This will be great for The Junk Ranch or for shows.  I could cute it up with paint, and I might.  But then I just KNOW people will want to buy it.  It's too handy to sell.  

* On an unrelated junking note after the sale and a thrift store stop, I went to the Casino to eat and play a few slots.  I left $320 ahead!  Yay me!  The junk, the buffet and a day of fun for FREE plus money in my pocket.  Why can't every day be like that?

Thursday morning my Dad called to tell me about an old clothing store/beauty salon that was going out of business.  He thought I might be interested in the clothes which were all $1.00.  I decided to make a quick trip there to see what it was like.  You guys, this place was frozen in 1972.  Thick orange shag carpeting.  Big mirrors with peacocks on them.  1960's display cabinets.  Wood paneling. It was amazingly awful.  I went back to the Beauty Salon and it was equally outdated.  The man running the sale told me that it had been there 65 years.  I remember it always being on that corner, so I knew it had been there a long time.  

There were two vintage barber chairs and two fabulous old hair dryer chairs for sale cheap.  I had no way to haul them or store them, but I wish I could have gotten them.  There was a fabulous old display cabinet with glass doors that held all the beauty products - they thought a lady was coming back to buy it (FOR TWENTY DOLLARS) so they were holding it for her.  I gave them my name and number in case she didn't come back.  But she did and it's gone. BOOHOO!

You could dig through all the drawers and the cabinets and pull out whatever you found.  I loved all the old packaging - the farther back you dug, the older stuff was - which is, of course, what I LOVE!  I would have dug out lots more, but there wasn't any place to move things out of the way to see what was really far back in those cabinets.  Plus it was only me shopping and four people watching me shop.  They were super nice and interested to see what I found,. but it was still odd to have four sets of eyes on me and the whole place was mirrored, so I kind of panicked.

I bought an old cigar box full of old make up - it has the prettiest packaging.  I also found the business stamps, receipt book stack of old business cards and a box of greeting cards.  

This sweet Santa's Beauty Salon is my favorite.  It's a pop-up card in the middle, but the front is just the best,  

I bought an old curler cart - I think I can use it for my piddly junk in the booth and price it for sale too.  Vintage packaging, the Thanks! Sign off the door, an old Barbicide Comb Sanitizer (found that in the way back of the bottom cabinet!) and a few other goodies.  I had to really persuade them, but in the end I managed to buy the sign off the store!  After all that persuasion the price was only $2.00.  It will go to The Junk Ranch.  But, I really, really like it.  *sniff*

The worst thing about the Salon was that it positively reeked of smoke.  Like 65 years of continuous smoke embedded in the carpet, the walls...everywhere.  I am super sensitive to smoke and after about an hour of digging, I could barely talk or breathe.  As I was shopping, a lady in there with an equally husky voice dropped down into a chair and said, "Do you mind if I smoke in here?"  Uh, lady.  I think it's a requirement!  Amazingly enough when I got my things home, they didn't smell at all.  

So, Friday was "stay home, don't go junkin' and find homes for all this stuff you drug home all week" day.  I was plugging right along when I got a text from a fellow junker who was coming buy to pick up something I had for her. "Do you have room for a few things from me?" she asked.  Well, sure.  A few things.  

BOOM! (again!)  A truckload of vintage goodness that she no longer wanted from her booth. All for me and all for FREE.  Crazy, right?  I managed to get her to take three of my feedsack necklaces, a set of old bedsprings and an arm full of old rake heads and things like that she can sell in her booth.  I know I got the better end of the deal on that though.  I mean, LOOK AT ALL OF THAT FABULOUSNESS! It took me the better part of the day to go through it all and look at it.  That's not a complaint.  That is FUN!  Two good junking buddies in two days to share their stash with me.  I'm in a good circle of friends now.  (EVEN IF THEY DIDN'T SHARE WITH ME!)

In one box was a waffle maker - very old and very ornate and very black and smelly.  I can only assume it was in a house fire at one time.  Well, I love a good project.  So, I soaked and scrubbed and polished and guess what I found?

BOOM!  (Again)  Shiny silver waffle maker with BAKELITE handles and feed.  I mean, come on!  It's a work of art.  I do have the cord, but I would never ever plug that thing in or advise anyone to do so.  I think it is just lovely on a shelf.  

Two of my favorites from the surprise drop-off.   The little handmade doll in the gingham dress makes my heart sing.  And that little breakfast set (albeit missing a footed saucer and salt shaker hat) is totes adorb.  (Too much?)

Saturday was Family Day and we were to meet up with my Mom and Step Dad at a Kite Festival. We were all getting ready when I got a text from yet another junkin' buddy who said there was a pretty good sale around the corner from me and I might want to check it out.  Well, you don't hve to tell me twice!  Off I went!  

I got a huge vintage suitcase in lovely condition, bags and bags of old letters, papers, and ephemera, some vintage Christmas with spun heads (!), vintage baby clothes and some other great old stuff.  As I was shopping, I realized that a lot of the fixtures and racks in the yard looked familiar.  I asked if they happened to pick all those up on the curb at a house a few blocks over recently.   She said,"Yes! That's my favorite house!  They have all the cool old stuff in their yard and on their porch. I'm always driving by to see if they have anything out at the curb."  "Well, that was my house!" I told her.  After that she even went in the house and found another big bag of old letters and gave them to me.  Man, I really AM in a junking circuit!  

So, now this really MUST be "Stay home, clean house, put this stuff away, price a ton for the booths and make a path in the office" week. There is a 90% chance of flooding rains, so it sounds like a good plan.  As long as I don't get any text messages!  :)