Phone Dump - Birthday Recap and Booth News

Hey, hey, hey - it's time to clean out the phone.  So that means......PHONE DUMP!

I dropped the menfolk off at the movies to see some ungodly superhero movie and I went thrifting all afternoon.  On my last stop of the day I found my very first Cathrineholm  enamel pot.  It's not my style, but I can appreciate the beauty of it.  I can also appreciate the fact that people like to collect these - so I threw that bad boy on ebay PRONTO.  It sold for $65.00 in less than 48 hours.  I paid $4.95.  

I'm having really horrible sales at my booth.  I am going to give my notice next week and clear out. It makes me sick.  I have been there for five years, but the sales are just lower and lower each month.  I need to make money - that's why I have a booth - so I have to do what is best for me.  Lately I make rent and get a very small check of less than $100 - way less some months.  It will be hard for me to tell them, but I must do it.  

Since I wasn't 100% positive that it wasn't just lackluster sales overall and not just me or my booth or my store, Lara (sweet Lara) offered to let me put some things in her booth at the main store in town. Which, happens to be directly across the street from my store.  There's this whole competitive vibe up and down the street and if you leave one shop and go to another shop, you are shunned by the first shop.  It's crazy.  So since I was putting things in the competition AND I still had things in my shop, we had to do it all on the sly.  The day we stocked it, I snuck in the side door and kept a low profile.   (Do you know that spell check says 'snuck' isn't a word???  I have used that my whole life.  WTH!)

Lara specializes in her cute and clever prints and lovely painted furniture.  I brought in a few tote bags of items and a couple larger items like that little wicker rocker to add to her already ADORABLE booth.  I tried to pick things that had the same look, color palette and theme that she already had in her booth. 

I added in my feedsack pendants, flash card pinwheels, framed flash cards and some back to school themed items and other vintage things.  After less than one week I had sold well over $100, which made me realize for certain that it's not me or my things that are the problem - it's the shop.  So, I must move on.  I'm going to sign up for a booth in Lara's store and hopefully have it set up before the holidays.  

The day after we set up the booth - this photo appeared on the FB page for the store.  That's a banner that I made on Lara's chalkboard.  Of course, the owners think Lara made it.  But when I go to sign up for a booth I can show them that I actually made things they are already featuring.  (I love that silly banner made our of recycled book covers.)

About five weeks ago this cat showed up in the driveway and never left.  He stayed under the cars most of the time.  Over the years we have had five cats and each one of them has just show up at our doorstep.  So, I knew this one was meant to be ours too.  Two weeks ago I picked him up and brought him inside and he was ours for sure.  He is very sweet and docile.  He sleeps under the bed most of the day which I think is the inside version of sleeping under the car.  He comes out for head rubs and dinner then goes and sleeps on top of the bed.  He is a very good boy all day long.

But.  But, then night time comes and he turns into the DEVIL.  He runs up and down the halls.  He careens up on the cabinet in front of the window, shoving his head through the mini-blinds, systematically snapping the slats off one by one.  He stands on his back feet and claws at the window while he yowls " Heeeeeellllllllllllooooooooooooo?" then jumps down and races down the hallway and repeats the entire production all.night.long.  As soon as the sun comes up, he is calm and sweet again.  Once you see that photo above, it is obvious that he is a VAMPIRE and that is why he is up all damn night.  I think he is getting a little better with each passing night.  Or it could be that I have started wearing a sleep mask, earplugs and taking a ZZquil before bed.  One or the other.  His sweetness outweighs his horrific behavior by just a hair.  Just.a.hair.  We shall see how he is behaving when I put the Christmas tree up.  He may be sleeping under the car again.  (I kid.  Kind of).

I forgot to take a photo of my cake this year.  THE HORRORS!  So, here is a half cake photo.  It was pink and had buttercream roses.  What else could I want?

My Mom brought me to tears when I opened a package with this ring inside.  This is one of her most prized possessions.  When she was 13, her Daddy took her tot he Pawn Shop and let her pick out anything she wanted.  He was not surprised when she headed straight to the jewelry area and picked out this ring.  The owner told her that it was handmade in France and that there is an uncut diamond, a garnet and a cut diamond.  She wore it from that day and all of my life.  Since her accident, she can't wear rings anymore, so she wanted me to have it.  I begged her to keep it, but she said NO, I want you to have it now.  I am the keeper of the family jewels, so to speak.  I wear my Great Grandmother's Diamond (set on my Grandfather's band) every day.  I have a little box full of family rings from every member on my Mom's side.  It was an awfully thoughtful gift to say the least.  

Speaking of thoughtful gifts - Lara made a special print just for ME!  

She used this old photo of me as her inspiration.  

Would you just LOOK AT THAT?  First of all - GINGHAM background - then a VW bug with flowers and my name on the plate!  "We didn't realize we were making memories, we just thought we were having fun."  Isn't that the nicest quote?  I hope that's what I did with The Bean - having fun and making memories.  Thank you, Lara.  I LOVE it!

While we are the subject of thoughtful gifts and sweet friends......look at what came in the mail from Heidi (her blog Vacuuming in High Heels and Pearls was one of the first that I ever read. And, when she started commenting on MY blog - I thought I had been kissed by royalty!  Now I consider her one of my dearest friends. Her blog is gone now, but she really needs to start a new one!)  Anyway, she made me this wonderful Magpie Necklace chock full of things that she said made her think of me.  She NAILED it.  Look at that wee cookie cutter! And, BONUS, it's a cat!  There's a tiny bottle of sprinkles!  A toadstool! A BINGO card! Pink things!  Cherries!  A ducky! A Shiny Brite Cap! And on and on and on.  I couldn't have picked out better things for myself.  Thank you Heidi.  I LOVE IT!

So there we have it - another phone dump, but really more of a what's been happening around here sort of post.  Hope you are all well!  

Birthday Decorations

It's birthday month over here.  Not that I celebrate my birthday for a month - but mine was yesterday and The Bean's is September 6th, so I leave my birthday decorations out for about a month.  I love the pops of happy and all the PINK.  I am sure my almost 21 year old LOVES pink birthday stuff - but really most vintage birthday decorations ARE pink.  (Lucky me!)

Those white shelves of mine - what would I do without them?

All sorts of birthday and party fun.  I added in the Squeaker and an old doll head for fun.  My vintage candle boxes are one of my favorite collections.  I love it that people saved them from year to year.

Sweet vintage happy Birthday record and the squeaker I was supposed to sell.  We all saw that coming, didn't we? Treat cups and candle boxes.

I have a couple old Donkey Party game boxes that I added in this year.  

The area above the couch that everyone thinks is a mantle.  My favorite party decorations and framed book pages.  It's a lot of sweetness, but it makes me happy.  

Oh, silly me.  I forgot to mention how old I was this year.  

Damn straight.

:)

Bargains Galore on 64 - 2016

The Bean and I headed down over the mountain Thursday morning to go to Bargains Galore on 64. It's about fifty miles to get over and down the mountains to Alma, where the sales start - then they run for about 160 miles.  We only made it about 25 miles down the road before we came back to Alma to hit a bunch of sales there.  I like this sale because all the sales are set up right along the road - no detouring or side streets to find sales.  Just drive, pull over, see what they have, then load up and go on up the road until you find another sale then repeat, repeat, repeat.  It will be no surprise to you when I say.......IT WAS HOT.  Lord a mercy.  100 on the thermometer all damn day with a heat index of 115.  I looked like a drowned rat most of the day.  At one point I realized that I had salty sweat line on my shirt.  I have only ever seen those on construction workers and marathon runners.  Ick.  It is not a good look on me.  But, we had water and ice and an air conditioned car.  But, getting in and getting cool, then getting out again made it feel just all that worse.  We hit sales from 8:50 until 4:45 then we decided that was ENOUGH.  We hit Sonic up for a shake (not realizing it was half price cheeseburger day so the place was PACKED), then drove back up over the mountain.  

We ended up stopping at nearly every sale that we stopped at last year.  I guess if I lived along there, I would have a sale every year too.  I even remembered what I bought at each one last year, so that was our gauge whether we should stop again this year or not.  The Bean was on the hunt for knives, Nerf and Pokemon.  Knives for collecting, Nerf for collecting and reselling and Pokemon as in Pokemon Go.  (Dude, our data is running low from the Pokemon hunting.)

You didn't come here to hear me babble, so here is the LOOT.  And some random photos.

Big squeaker elephant.  A lady was walking up from one direction and I was walking up from the other direction and we both reached out for the him at the same time.  She laughed and said she only wanted to poke his stomach and that she didn't want to buy him.  So, she poked and I purchased.  :) She thought he was a hard bank so that's why she wanted to poke him. He will be Junk Ranch bound.

Oh how I wanted this HUGE pile of trophies.  But it was my very first stop of the day and they would have filled up my car.  They were at a church and they had religious themes - golden bibles, crosses, loving cups and all sorts of angels and I don't even know what else.  I love to dismantle trophies and sell the pieces.  People like to dig in them.  Now that I think about it - we drove past there on the way back.  I should have stopped and asked about them.  Darn.  

This little hutch is about three feet tall.  It's really heavy and made well.  I like the colors on it, but I think the paintings on the doors might date it a bit, but not sure.  I "might" do something about the doors, but most likely lazy me will sell it as is.  Someone said it would be a good cactus display.  It will go to the booth.

..

Random roadside shot.  I stop at some of the swap meet looking places so The Bean can shop.  He likes new knives and new Nerf.  LOSER.  :)  

There was a truck load of watermelons for sale and they had one cracked open on the table.  "Would you like a piece of watermelon?" they asked.   Me, all hot and sweaty and dying of thirst -"Oh, that would be delicious!  Thank you!"  The guy pulls out his knife and cuts off a 1" x 1/2" piece and hands it to me.  Uh, thanks?  

We drove by one house that we remembered from last year.  It was one of those sales that looked SO GOOD.  Lots of merchandise, tables upon tables of STUFF and a side yard full of old furniture and farmhouse stuff.  But, it was really high priced - not yard sale prices, but more like Vintage Market Day prices.  Anyway, I vowed not to waste time going there, but the lure of all that stuff sucked me in, so I pulled over to the shoulder and reversed all the way back up to the sale.  They had a lot of good stuff, but it was pretty pricey as I suspected.

As we were leaving, I spotted a box of very old dolls in a box.  They were in disrepair, yet still cute considering how very old they are.  They Kewpie doll really was the one that struck me as needing a new loving home.  I decided to ask the price, just for chuckles.  Based on the rest of the items, I was thinking anywhere from $25-$45 each.  When the lady told me that the whole box was $10 - I bit because that sounded like a great deal.  That's only $3.33 each (plus a penny) and that's not a bad deal for such old dolls.  Eddie might disagree, but I like them.  I'll research and list or sell somewhere.  I'll probably foster Miss Kewpie for a bit though.  She needs some lovin'.

I thought the old red plaid suitcase would be good in the Christmas booth.  That's a cape there on the right - handmade by Edith.  A handmade cape just seemed too great to leave behind - especially for a quarter.  The other thing is (or should I say was...) a dried flower arrangement under a glass domed frame.  I had grand ideas of a framed horse ribbon wit embellishments inside it.  I wrapped it in a coat that I bought so it would be safe and - you guessed it  - I unfurled that coat and flung it into the table, shattering the glass.  How can something survive for forty years and then I can break it five minutes after I buy it?

I should have rotated this photo, sorry.  It is huge and old and gilded and sort of amazing and completely not my style.  But it was only $1.00 and I liked it.  I'll take it to the booth.

How's THIS for tacky yet fabulous?  Believe it or not, it isn't homemade but an actual store bought manufactured item!  I think it is completely fabulous.  It will go on ebay or to the Junk Ranch.

I found one really great sale late in the day.  It was across the street from the sale where I bought the dolls, but we were only doing sales on one side of the highway as we went.  I do wonder what I missed at that sale, but I am happy with what I did get.  They had a ton more that I wish I could have bought - old board games in mint condition for $5.00, a 3 ft. Aluminum Tree for $30.00 and much more.  I asked where they got so much and they said it was a storage unit they had purchased.  If I would have purchased that unit, I would have dropped dead at the first box I opened.  They had looked up a lot of items and you could tell.  There would be a piece of pottery and the tag would say, "Rumrill Pottery - $28.00"  then right beside it would be something just as wonderful and it would have a sticker on it for $1.00.  I bet you can guess which things I bought.  :D  

This sweet little Mr. Kitty biscuit jar was a good find.  To ebay he will go.  

Here is a trunk shot ala Eddie.  Most of what you see came from the one great sale.  A few things were found up and down the highway at different sales along the way.

The cutest baby planter ever, a trick pack of gum I remember from my childhood, restaurant creamer, owl S & P shakers, four very chippy Santa mugs, a plastic bank, recipe box, q couple flocked Santa's, two mini pieces of pottery, a tiny pink West German clock, glass flower frog (they asked me if I knew what it was and I replied yes.  A few seconds passed and they said, "Can you tell us what it is?"  They had tried to research it but didn't get far.), two ornament hanger boxes, pink pottery piece, Scottie Pottery, Lefton Pixie planter, old cookbook. Reddy Kilowatt Ashtray and a fruit cake drum.  That little hutch makes a great display for all my smalls.  

More pottery.  I tried NOT to buy pottery this trip, but it was painfully cheap so I HAD to rescue it. The purple heart tray bears researching, a couple religious booklets with the DEVIL on them, lots of old cookie cutters and a Humpty Dumpty spoon holder. 

One lone box of Shiny Brites, a Spinach bank (purchased in the spinach capitol of the world...), MORE POTTERY (*cough*) and a cherry Jello Mold.  

These were my favorite finds from that sale and really from the whole trip.  I paid a little more for them than I think I would usually, but when you are on a trip solely to BUY things - well, you BUY THINGS.  There are ten in all, each one cuter than the next.  Some are Rosbro, some are Knickerbocker.  There are four rattles, a couple lollipop holders and just some fun figures too.  I have never found these out in the wild, so it was a happy find to keep finding one another on the toy table. I will list them all on ebay tomorrow.  (Except that happy chick in red, he needs to stay with me ahile to make me chuckle.

We had a much needed day away from everything around here, celebrated my birthday a little early, found some cool junk, met some fun people, saw some pretty sights and ate ChickfilA TWICE in one day.  It was a good day.  

The Week in Junk: One Ringy, Dingy

The junk has been few and far between here as of late.  Mostly it was so very, very hot.  Then it rained every day for a week.  Now it is hot AND rainy.  What the heck?  Also, I am trying to be good and not buy much because in two weeks it is the BEST DAY EVER!  Bargains Galore on 64.  I have always wanted to go, but until last year I hadn't made it.  But last year, I went and it was the best fun I have had in a very long time! Here is the post I did last year after the trip.  I bought one thing here and one thing there and when I got home and unloaded - I had a lot of great stuff!  The old cake decorations turned out to be my most profitable items and I still have two giant bags left to sell!  The Teletubbie cake toppers sold from $22-$27 each set and I had dozens of sets.  Oh, that was a good find.  I am anxious to see what is waiting for me to find this year.  There is one specific sale I want to head to first then we will just wing it from there.  Yippee!

Anyway, I have bought a few things here and there lately.

Antlers for a pickup truck.  Yep.  You read that correct!  They are in the college booth waiting on a frat boy with a truck.  *Fingers crossed!*

This is a beautiful print.  I don't do well with religious prints, but this one was just lovely and under a buck, so I grabbed it.  I will take it to the Junk Ranch.

This old print has metallic PINK embossed foil in the background and an gold metal decorative frame.  It was at the SCT and the price sticker said FREE.  I debated whether I should take it or not. But I decided I had the best chance of getting into appreciative hands.

Advertising on the back.  Hopefully I can find someone to appreciate it.  (And I just might give it to them.)

This Dachshund condiment dish is funny. 

It's even better with all four pieces.  Ketchup, onions, mustard and relish for your hot DOG?  This might go on ebay although the idea of mailing it is daunting.  Maybe to the Junk Ranch.

A small child's wicker chair.  It isn't perfect, but it's pretty darn cute.  Nice and sturdy for a kiddo or teddy bear.  Or my cat as it seems to be so far.  

This silly little pumpkin head was 35 cents.  I'll transform him somehow before Halloween.  It'll be here before you know it!  

I found one of these vintage hand painted plates on the shelf at the thrift, then I spotted and another and then another and before I knew it, I had a dozen in my arms.  They are quite lovely and well done.  I don't know if they are great sellers, but I had to rescue them and try to find them a new home. To the booth they will go.  

A repro tin tray - to the booth.  

I found this old Redmon picnic hamper at the thrift yesterday.  It has some condition issues, but since I had never seen one before - I had to bring it home to put in my pile of baskets. It's the size of a cooler, so it will make great storage.  I don't buy much to keep anymore, but this is a keeper.

Now, let's discuss these little darlings.  Tiny salesman sample telephones.  Seriously.  Have you ever SEEN anything so damn cute?  Saturday the family was with me when we stopped in at the Super Cheap Thrift.  A huge storm came out of nowhere and we were trapped in the thrift for about an hour. It was THE BEST DAY EVER.  :)  As we looked out the window at the storm, we were all pawing through the big toy bin.  The Breadman pulled out the beige phone and said, "Need a tiny phone?" and THREW IT BACK IN THE BIN.  Well, DUH.  Yes, I dove in headfirst after that phone!  Then he pulled out the BLUE phone and then the GREEN phone.  It was the hottest, sexiest thing I have ever seen him do.  HA HA  He is NOT a thrifter and he found the best find ever.  That particular thrift is funded by the local telephone company and I have HIGH HOPES that they donated a truck load and I will slowly find them one by one.  I really, really, really NEED to find a PINK one.  Really, really!  I need to sell them, but come on -three is a COLLECTION. (And they were only a quarter each....so I am not even out the price of a candy bar....)

(I still have then lined up on the coffee table so I can just stare at them all the time  Do you do that with a new find?  Keep it close and just admire it?)