Summer Travels and an Anniversary

I have been remiss in my blogging of late; I have been off and running with my boys (excuse me, young men) this last month and haven't stopped long enough to sit down and put two thoughts together.

My excessive wanderings have been prompted by the realization that this July is really the end of an era for my sons and I. Carefree summers with easy schedules are coming to a close.

By next summer we will probably all have jobs (in addition to the etsy shop) and sundry sports and Boy Scout activities that are already making way more black marks on my calendar than I care for...life flows on.

However, in all our activities of this last month - as I squeezed out as much fun and memories as I can possibly fit into this precious summertime -- you know I've made time for some pickin' too.

On our camping trip to New Hampshire, I found this great, hand-tooled leather briefcase in a thrift shop. It sold two-weeks after we got home.
A few weeks ago, I was able to go out in the van with Linda, her mom and my aunt to a tiny burg in south-eastern PA, their community center was having a fund raising sale. I found this, one of the prettiest pieces on Milk Glass I've ever come across...shaped like a bird's nest.
The boys have found a few nice things too on our travels. Will picked up this green, Russel Wright baking dish.

Evan found this fun 70's ice bucket.


And while I was off camping, my one-year "etsy anniversary" passed. On July 8th my etsy shop had been open 365-days, and I had sold 408 items...yay. My goal had been to average an item a day and feels very good to have passed that goal.

I do love etsy.



twoblondsandavan.blogspot.com

A note from the other side of my brain

As I've mentioned in my blog before, my primary creative outlet, dream, torture and love is writing fiction, but the process of getting published by a mainstream publishing house can be long and frustrating.

So after seven-years of writing regularly, and being published by a small press (see book cover/link below), last July I decided to take some time to regroup and turned my attention to my etsy.com shop. I've been enjoying rummaging at yard sales, thrift stores and church fundraisers for fun, unusual and beautiful vintage items to sell.

Then this morning a wonderful thing happened, I woke up and the first thing I wanted to do was write...that is the first time that has happened in almost a year. I wanted to say thank you to etsy.com, and my customers, for providing me with a thoroughly fun vocation and a way to give the left-side of my brain time to recharge the old creative batteries.Yesterday, these two parts of my life even overlapped when I had a convo with an etsy customer - he was interested in possibly buying a typewriter I have for sale -- and in the course of our communication found out he is a freelance writer and journalist. He suggested I look into e-books. This is something another friend of mine had mentioned only the day before, and when something like that is mentioned two-days in a row, I listen. I did some research and have found the world of e-publishing to be an exciting prospect , giving me whole new outlet to look at for my writing.

So I continue on the journey of both finding cool old stuff to put in my etsy.com site, and writing fiction - don't know where either will take me, but that's the fun part. It feels good to remember that again.

Easter's Coming...you know what that means

More weird bunnies!


Linda, Lee and I haven't been out poking around together in the thrift stores for weeks and were having withdrawal, so we went to two of our favorites today.
Lee won the best picker prize, scoring a few nifty doo-dads like two antique wooden shoe-forms and a souvenir tray from the 1967 World's Fair. Linda found a couple interesting things too, and I found a vintage enameled copper bowl and some funky 70's mugs.

I couldn't help notice the thrift stores are getting ready for Easter, so the shelves that were recently wiped clean of Santas, are now full of bunnies - and a lot of them are not very cute. Some are down right creepy.






I've said it before in this blog...beware, demented bunnies multiply on the thrift store shelves.

Fun Friday

Last Friday was one of my favorite days that comes but only four times a year, a fundraiser at a very nice retirement village called the "Treasure Sale"...and it usually is.

This time I was only able to run in the sale for about 45-minutes. Usually, the other blond, her mom, and anyone else that wants to hop in the van, spend a good two-hours there fighting the crowds and making sure no box has been left unexplored. Friday, however, the other blond had a dog emergency and I had an appointment in the afternoon.

So, as I checked my watch and made my way through the crowds of people, I wondered if it had been worth the fairly long drive down to get jostled around as I tried to sort through linens and poke around the housewares table.

I'm still not completely sure how to answer that question as I didn't find anything that blew me away as I have on past occasions - like the antique chenille bedspread, bright-blue mid century modern enameled casserole dish and 1970's green sewing basket -- but I managed to grab a few nice goodies to bring up to the retirees who tally your purchases by hand at check-out.

Here are a couple things I have added to my etsy.com shop from the Friday trip...

What's Up With the Rabbits?

In at least three of my posts (see below) I have commented and shown pictures of the weird ceramic rabbits I've come across in my picking.

http://twoblondsandavan.blogspot.com/2010/12/good-bad-and-ugly.html

http://twoblondsandavan.blogspot.com/2010/10/wimp.html

http://twoblondsandavan.blogspot.com/2010/11/silly-rabbit.html"

It's not unusual to come across a strange looking cat, the requisite duck planter, the odd turtle soap dish, but consistently I have found at least one demented looking bunny each week huddling on the shelf, hoping a lover of demented bunnies will come along any moment and snatch him up for her collection at home.

I just returned from Ohio where I was able to fit in a quick trip the local Goodwill store, and yes, even in Ohio they are following me...strange looking, sometimes purple, ceramic bunnies...













Ahhh! They are following me!

Maybe I should just give in and start a collection.

Snow...ice...no pickin' for me

We have had a heck of a winter. Seems like every other day there is snow or ice, and I have a confession, one that makes my winter-weary neighbors cringe...I love it.

I love how the weather keeps you close to home, slippery roads making you not want to run around like a crazy person to all the places we seem to endlessly need to run around to like a crazy person. Fires in the fireplace, snow men in the front yard...bring it on.

The only thing that has been a little bit of a drag is the lack of places to pick or ability to get to the thrift stores, and even the post office to mail off the goodies people have bought in my etsy shop.
The brighter side is that I have used the time to do more jewelry making, and that part of my shop has become more active. Here is a piece that just sold yesterday...
And I just bought a baggie full of broken watches...bet you never heard someone excited about that before...and I plan on sitting in front of my fire again this afternoon taking them apart and using the pieces to make some Steam Punk jewelry. Here's one I made with some watch parts that also sold fairly quickly in my etsy.com shop...So I will count the days to spring as I stare out at the snow, waiting for the thaw...and yard sale signs to blossom on telephone poles, steering the two blonds in the van to picking once again.

Goodwill Hunting

Saturday was a family hunt at the local Goodwill stores...I know, you can probably think of a few other things your family would like to do on a Saturday morning. But, one member of my family, my sister-in-law Corey, works for Goodwill Inc and once a year she gets 50% off coupons she is good enough to share with us.

So Corey, her sister, my boys (who thought they might find something really great they had to have, their allowance burning a hole in their pockets), my husband (who is convinced one day he'll come across an Eames chair and a McIntosh stereo system lying around the housewares department) and I loaded into the Suburban and made the rounds of the local Goodwill stores.

The stores were crowded - other employees taking advantage of the discount -- and the shelves did not yeild any great treasures (certainly no Eames chairs lurking in a forgotten corner), but I did find some nice mid-century china...
And my son, Will, spotted a 1960's globe, so he bought it and I put it in the etsy shop for him.

And my oldest son, Evan, found this great vintage glass decanter and bought it for me to put in the shop as well - they will probably both make more money than me this week!

Now?....Now?...Did I sell something now?

Hello, my name is Heather and I am addicted...to checking my etsy.com shop.

I am sure there has been some study done somewhere, sometime, with rats, where they step on a button and a food pellet is released into their cage. One rodent steps on it and every time a pellet comes shooting out at them, while a different rat in the next cage steps on it and only randomly does a food pellet appear.

If I had to guess, the rat that always received the food whenever it stepped on the button would just step on it when he, or she, was hungry, with calm certainly that each time they would be rewarded...not obsessively, like the rat who is randomly given the food, I bet that rat hits that damn button every chance it gets thinking that this time...no, this time...no, this time...ahhh...the *&%*?! pellet will shoot out.

Sometimes I feel like the rat with the random rewards. There are times when it seems that I have the right stuff in my shop and I sell one, maybe two, items in a day. This makes me feel on the right track with what I'm selling and that I'm not wasting my time or my life -- and I am rewarded by the food pellet gods.

Other times, I can go several days without a sale, and each day that ticks by, I notice the amount of time between when I check the etsy site becomes shorter and shorter. Did I sell something now...now...now... (where are the darn food pellets!)

Getting Closer

I took another stab at participating at an auction yesterday, got a little closer to actually buying something. I did register for a number and I stayed for a few hours to observe the ritual of the auction house, kind of like an anthropologist studying a unique society...and that is not far off.

Although I didn't buy anything I did get to have a cup of homemade ham and bean soup with my aunt Joan and cousin Gail...which made it worth the trip anyway...then poked through the offerings and watched, observed and studied, making mental notes.

Mental note number one: When in the room where box lots are being auctioned off, stay near the box you're interested in and don't move. There are about 20 people all huddled around the auctioneer and unless you are right there, you can not even see what is up for bid. I was so jealous when I saw a man walk off with arm-fulls of beautiful Pyrex bowls he bought for a $1, but I just couldn't get close enough to jump into the bidding.

Mental note number two: Take a little notebook (a suggestion from Joan) so you can make a note of which items you are interested in and how high you are willing to bid. The auction moves fast, so you want to make sure you're bidding on the right thing and you're not getting caught up in the action and go over what you wanted to pay for something.

Mental note number three: Mostly just for me...don"t get so caught up in the extraordinarily good people watching that you miss bidding on anything.

To understand better why I find this process a little intimidating and fast-paced, here's a little sample from yesterday's auction...

My Office

I had to laugh yesterday as I poked around one of my favorite thrift stores while I talked to my husband on the cellphone, he was speaking to me from his nice office in a glass and marble building...I was not. I was moving dusty nick nacks around on a metal shelf and avoiding tripping over a Formica-topped table and plaid covered couch.

I, too, once had a nice office - back before the dinosaurs, and two little baby boys -- it had a door and a window and everything. I reminisced on this as I looked around, and I had to smile at the strange twists and turns in life, choices made, some made for you, priorities changing, and for me, my journey at the moment bringing me to places where people discard the debris of their lives. I sort through it to see if there is anything someone else might like to have; quite a different vocation from the one I had envisioned for myself all those years ago sitting at my desk and looking out my office window.

Yet, this is not a tale of woe. I am actually excited when I wake up in the morning and think how I can arrange my day to fit in a trip to a thrift store, yard sale or auction. Or plan a few hours to photograph whatever I found the day before and add it to my etsy shop.

So for now, this is my office....

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

With all the holiday running around, I was only able to get to a few thrift stores this week, but I did find a few interesting things.

I thought I'd give a quick, down and dirty view of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly from this weeks picking...

The Good
A set of eleven atomic ranch dessert plates, love them.

The Bad
A ceramic figure of two rabbits...one has fake eyelashes (what is it with weird bunnies at the Salvation Army?)

And the Ugly
This is a lamp made with a piece of plastic and a dented old root beer can...really, you can just throw stuff out, you don't need to bring every treasure to the thrift store.

Neat Mixer...Neater Lady

When I went to the church sale on Saturday with my Aunt Joan, I found the most unusual mixer I'd ever seen. You can't tell from this picture but the base is actually triangular.
When I went to put it in the trunk of Joan's car, I noticed on the cover of the instruction manual (yes, it still has the instruction manual!) that there was a blender that went with the unit as well.

When I'd paid for my items, the woman who was tallying my order had mentioned that this had been her mother's appliance, so I went back inside to ask her if the blender part was still on a table somewhere in the sale and I'd missed it.

Immediately, she remembered she did have it in her basement but had forgotten to bring it to the sale. Without missing a beat, she asked for my name and phone number so she could call me when she'd found it so I could pick it up.

There was no hesitation that she was going to invite a stranger to her home, no hemming and hawing that it was just a pain-in-the-butt. She genuinely wanted me to have this missing piece and she was old enough to be of a generation that welcomed people - even (gasp) strangers -- into their homes without a can of mace at the ready and poised to scream "stranger danger" at the top of their lungs.

And true to her word, she called me the next day and I arranged to stop by her home on Monday. I found her home easily and was welcomed by three adorable little dogs and this lovely woman in a Christmas sweater holding her door wide open for me, someone she'd met for only a few moments two-days before.
She handed me the blender and then offered me a seat. We chatted for awhile as I looked around the room, where every square inch had been decorated for Christmas. She even took me to her bathroom where all was Kris Kringly too.

In the twenty-minutes I was in her home, this wonderful lady shared with me pictures of her grandchildren, some of the heartaches she had to endure in her long-life, and expressed interest in my own. An authentic, human connection made between two people who had simply been strangers before a 1950 Nutone Power-Maid blender introduced them.

A Little of This and a Little of That

You always want to find that one great thing hiding among the cra...old things on the shelves of the thrift stores or the folding tables at someone's yard sale...and I have found a few, enough to make me keep going back looking for more.

One of my best finds was this super cool child's booster seat I found at a yard sale just on the other side of town. I bought it for $2 at 8:05AM and sold it for a whole lot more by 11:30 that morning to a man in Italy.

Or the set of three 1940's Pyrex bowls I found in perfect condition and bought for $3 and sold a few days later for $45 - maybe not a fortune, but enough to keep me hooked.

But the truth is, I end up making most of my sales on smaller items...twelve dollars here, ten dollars there...it adds up. Again, not a fortune, but enough to keep me going back like Pavlov's dog to yard sales and thrift stores scanning the cast-offs.

So while the single larger sale is great, and needed if you're going to stay in the black, it's the accumulation of smaller sales like this vintage Lefton planter shaped like a bowling ball I bought for a quarter and sold for $12.And the beat-up old suitcase I found at a church sale for a dollar and sold for $15 a week later...those are the sales that build up little by little in the old Pay Pal account like little nuts getting stored up for the winter.

Whoo Hoo Friday

Whoo hoo Friday! That's what I like to call the last Friday of the month, four-times a year, when these two blond's favorite retirement community has their sale. It's a charitable event to raise money for members of the retirement community who have run out of funds - so its also not a bad place to spend your money either.

This last sale on Friday did not disappoint. I don't know what it is about this particular community that makes it so great to pick at, maybe its that the residents there that donate their cast-offs for the fund raiser were all furnishing their homes in the same era that I like to buy (50's, 60's and 70's)...and they all had really good taste!

Here is my absolute favorite thing I found, and one of the first things I spotted. A vintage chenille bedspread in near perfect condition. Gorgeous. I'm actually having some trouble putting it up for sale!


Linda and her mom, Lee, introduced me to this wonderful quarterly event and I will be forever grateful, it's a pickers dream. Which is also why it has gotten progressively more crowded each time we've gone. It is at a point where you need to get there almost an hour before to get in line, and then be prepared to just about run to the area you have the most interest in - I usually go for the craft table first because I have a thing for sewing boxes, and then I head for the linens table, where I found the chenille spread.

This is a cute green pot from the 60's I snagged in the housewares area.


This event has gotten to be such a madhouse that Linda, Lee and I devised a plan to most effectively survive, and even enjoy, the day. We got there a half-hour before they opened the doors so we could be in the first wave, and then brought our armloads of purchases out to the car where we snacked on sandwiches and donuts we'd brought to fortify ourselves. After a half-hour sanity break, we headed back in and found the crowds had died down somewhat and we could poke around at a more leisurely pace.

Good day. Whoo hoo!

Chance Often Better Than a Plan

Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings I am a master strategist with the paper, craigslist and yardsale.com print outs spread out on the table. Three types of highlighters at my fingertips for circling different ads, one color for each day.

But for all my planning and strategizing, life often steps in to make it all irrelevant. This week it was my oldest son who had to go to the orthodontist on a Friday morning...Friday!...but it was OK, I had a plan for when he was done, I could just make it to York to a moving sale after I dropped him at school. And then he informed me he forgot his cafeteria money on the kitchen table, we had to go back home before school. OK, so I'll try to get to another sale a little later. We're almost at school...he forgot a paper for English class, we have to go back home again...ahhh!

But because of this, I ended up going through town a different way and came across a yard sale that hadn't been advertised. They were just setting up and we were one of the first people there, and there was some very cool stuff. One of the things was an old heavy metal "Ladies" Room sign from a garage - that sold in 2 hours after I put it on my etsy site, and paid for all the rest of the shopping I did all weekend. Yeah for forgotten papers!


This isn't the first time something like this has happened and I am starting to notice that if I just relax and let life take me where it wants to instead of trying to plan it to death, I end up exactly where I need to be.

Morning in Maryland with Mary

This morning Linda and I found ourselves driving to Maryland through gorgeous fall light shining on hills, countryside, farm houses, barns and horses...really, it was like driving through a Thomas Kincaid painting...until we spotted the cardboard sign with "Yard Sale" on it we were looking for.

We were directed to a garage by a gray haired woman with a broad grin and deep wrinkles standing at the end of the driveway, she was still putting up a sign. Linda and I both looked at each other and decided we already liked her, then we got out of the Suburban and met Mary, and knew we'd been right.We followed her to the garage where she hit a button and the doors went up to display tables of housewares and a clothesline with sweaters, housecoats and dresses hanging from it. As we poked around her belongings Mary told us how much she loved yard saleing herself and pointed out Avon jewelry she thought we might like.

Then, as I made a small pile of items, she pointed to an empty "Stay Free Panty Liner" box and said, "I'll give you that to put your stuff in, can't give it to a man or he might freak out." We had a good laugh at that and then she told us how she remembered when panty liners first came out with the adhesive strip instead of the belts and that she wasn't sure which way they stuck, up or down...more laughter.

Once we'd both spent our dollar and listened to a few more of Mary's stories, Linda and I climbed back into the Suburban. Mary waved to us and wished us a great day.

We were off to a good start.

The Stories

I didn't expect when I started selling vintage things on etsy.com that I would enjoy the stories and backgrounds about the items so much. Here's a couple of them...

A woman from New Jersey wrote me a really nice note about how happy she was to find this squirrel cookie jar for her sister. It's the exact kind her sister had in her kitchen in the 70's, she loved it and it broke, and she could never find another to replace it...until now. I think the buyer is going to sneak it on her sister's counter when she's not looking and surprise her.

This vintage child's chair/ stool was bought by a woman who had an aging dog and wanted something cute for the end of their bed to help the dog get up...and her husband's name is Thomas, how perfect is that.


A woman in Finland saw this sewing box in my shop and fell in love with it so much, that she paid over twice for shipping than what she paid for the actual box. I was worried when she got it that she would regret her decision, but she wrote me a very nice note and said she couldn't be happier.

I get such a kick out of the fact that all these things were basically forgotten in someone's attic or garage only a very short while - sometimes only hours or days -- before someone else saw them on etsy and were thrilled to find them.
I feel like Match.com for stuff.

The Giant Hole in the Floor

Today both my Aunt Joan and I had appointments in Lancaster County. Joan had told me about a warehouse she'd been to in that area a few months earlier that was filled with crates of stuff... good stuff, crappy stuff, all kinds of stuff. So of course, we had to go.

This is how I found myself in an old brick warehouse with a giant hole in the floor. It was a staggering amount of stuff, almost hard to believe. The picture of it is above, and I doubt it does it justice (click on it to make it bigger and really look). The entire basement of this huge building is filled with these crates, all owned by Mike, his picture is below.
Mike's parents owned a farm in Lancaster and their barn was filled with things they had collected over their long lives, and Mike had collected as well. Now, a large portion of this collection is stashed in the basement of this warehouse. Mike is converting it to a kind of flea market, where his items are for sale, and he rents space to other people to sell their antiques, as well. Mike is also a painter, entrepreneur, developer and frankly, a hoot.

There was another part of the building that had been semi-renovated and got my aunt's and my imaginations humming as we wandered around. This could be the next Torpedo Factory or Goggle Works (old factory buildings that were converted into artist studios and gallery space). We had plenty of ideas, just short on time, money, energy...but the ideas were flowing, and you never know, someday...
In the end we listened to Mike's stories, I bought an antique "All Detergent" bucket (see below), we gave the giant hole in the floor one last look and were on our way.
If this blog is to chronicle some interesting places and people I meet along the way in the pursuit of old things, this was a banner day.

Wandering

I drove the boys to school this morning because we all forgot to set our alarms and jumped out of bed a little late. We missed the cut-off for dropping off at school without being considered tardy, so I had to fill out a form in the school office. I stared for a few moments at the line on the form that asked "reason for being late"...um, we're just dumb and forgot to set our alarms, should I write that?

As soon as the boys were groggily on their way to homeroom, I jumped in the suburban and headed to Red Lion where I'd seen a "multi-family yard sale" advertised on Craig's List. A half-hour later, I pulled onto a narrow street and found three yard sales in a row. The first made me particularly happy because the woman who was having it was still taking boxes out of her shed and said I could look through them if I wanted before she set them out. I love getting to be the first one to dig through a box - sometimes I wonder at the things that make me happy.

Once I was done there I just couldn't seem to give up the hunt and wandered the countryside for another hour. I didn't find any more yard sales, but I certainly saw a whole lot of beautiful views on a sunny fall morning. I found myself (see below) in the tiny town of Muddy Creek Forks and had to stop and take a picture to share it was so pretty.

There's an Estate in Glen Rock?

It's Saturday morning, which means one thing, time to fire up the van, make a to-go cup of coffee and hit the road. This morning both Linda and I had to drop off our sons with the Boy Scouts at 7:20AM. Once the boys were deposited with the right people, we raced back to the van and consulted the list of yard sales we'd compiled from the paper and Craig's List - which I, very shortly after, lost.

We were especially excited for the first sale because it was advertised as an "Estate Sale in Glen Rock." Wow. How fancy.

Actually, not so much. When we arrived at the advertised address, we were faced with a steep gravel drive with cavernous pot holes and a rusted tractor in the distance (see picture to the right). The van ground it's way up the drive and we ended up in a small home, although with some nice things, meeting two very pleasant women running it. I bought a vintage Christmas tablecloth and Linda found a neat old clock.

After bouncing back down the drive, we headed out in search of more sales - without the benefit of the list. As we kept our eyes out for yard sale signs, Linda and I chatted, mostly about our concerns that both our usually docile sons had a love for shooting, war-type games on the X-Box. How could two such peace loving moms allow it? We never did reach an answer, but we did stumble upon another really good yard sale.

Linda's favorite find for the day was an old child's size aluminum rocker folding chair (check it out on her site - link to the right - very cool).

My favorite buy is an antique toy tool set (see below).
Unfortunately, no super weird stuff today - I'll try to find some more next week.


Can't wait to see where we end up next.