Another Coach bag...Love it!

It was only the last week when I was out at a thrift store with the other blond and her mom, Lee, that I complimented Lee on the beautiful leather purse she was carrying. She always has the cutest bags. And, of course, she had found it at a thrift store for only a few dollars. I told her I was jealous as I never seemed to find very nice leather purses when I'm out poking around.

Well, the goddess of vintage leather bags must have heard me because it was the same day I found the two bags I mentioned in my last two blogs and I just found this Coach bag in perfect condition at the Salvation Army early Black Friday sale.

Oh, how I do love a nice bag...and shoes, but that's a whole-nother fetish.

This one looks like it might go to a buyer in Australia, and I'm going to keep my eye out for more at the thrift stores.I know I'll find one that will have to be ripped from my cold, dead hands before I put it for sale in my etsy shop, but so far I'm happy to send them out in the world and make a little profit to boot.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone and happy thrift storing! I'm going to a sale at a thrift store on Black Friday, can't wait!

Juggler - A Circus Act or Recipe for Disaster

An update on the leather bag in my last post (the one that hadn't sold yet and I was kind of hoping didn't because I wanted to keep it for myself) - it sold too. Which is good for my etsy shop's bottom line, but not for my wardrobe.

So today I will box that up,


along with a divided vintage Melmac bowl that also sold the other day, and head to the post office.

Then home to put on the domestic goddess hat and clean my house and catch up on the laundry.

Because tomorrow I have my second day on my new job and a half-off sale at the Salvation Army for some new merchandise for the shop.

And I really want to get two submissions out to agents of my last manuscript, still can't quite give up on my pursuit for publication.

And my youngest has a food drive for Boy Scouts on Saturday, so up early to drive around the neighborhood scoring canned corn.

And my oldest needs to be run back and forth for set crew all week and weekend because the play starts Saturday afternoon....
Can you hear the circus music in the background as all the balls are juggled in the air, or is that just me?

Ah well, nothing more than most people do anymore with jobs and kids. I'll just keep smiling like the clown...no, wait...not the clown. Clowns kind of creep me out. More like the lady on the high-wire as she smiles brightly while walking carefully across the abyss.

You know what? Its all good, I just remembered I love the circus.

Bloggidy Blog

I got an email today through my etsy shop from a great blog that highlights cool items on etsy.com. In fact that's what its called...the blog...what's cool on etsy this week.

http://www.scoop.it/t/whats-cool-on-etsy-this-week

I am just tickled pink that they featured two of my items in their blog.

One was this portable radio which appears to never have been used.
The other is this super-mod phone in yellow. You know someone wore bell-bottom hip-huggers once as they pushed the giant square numbers on this phone.The bloggers , Nina & Kristina from Norway, think my stuff is cool! Where were these people when I was in high school?

And They Were Good

On Friday I went to not one, but two, fundraiser sales at two different retirement communities. This caused me some consternation because these - next to church fundraisers -- are my favorite kinds of sales and don't come around very often, so I don't usually have to decide which to go to first. This is important because the best items are nabbed early.

I flipped a coin.

I arrived at the first sale just as the doors opened and then had to make more decisions as there where six separate rooms of items...and I wanted to go to all of them simultaneously...I have yet to figure out how to do this. Would be such a handy skill.

I chose the room with kitchenware and was happy I did. I found this unusual vintage stainless steel Revere Ware pan with a Sea Horse design. Never saw one of these before.

And then spotted this great set of 6 matching mid century high ball glasses.
The next room had electronics...found this cute Tensor lamp.And another room had linens...found this fantastic Eames era linen towel with cocktail recipes.

When I had picked through each room, twice, I decided I'd go to the other sale just to see if there was anything left.

There was...not much, but enough.

The best find was this Bates bedspread in perfect condition, like it was never used.
The picker Gods were smiling that day and my cup runneth over.

Ahhhh...its the Carrot People

This was once a normal couple that lived down the street from me and then they went on Weight Watchers and found out carrots were zero points and ate so many they turned into Carrot People.

Sorry, feeling a little silly today. And hungry...I'm on Weight Watchers too.

Can't wait for not one, but two retirement village sales tomorrow bright and early. Hoping they will distract me from wanting to eat Ring Dings instead of carrots.

No offense Carrot People.

Broken Bindings

I am not going to talk about my vintage stuff, my teenage sons or my writing (lack of) career today.

Not even going to show you any weird stuff I found on the thrift store shelves (even though I saw a ceramic angel this week with huge nipples - but the picture didn't come out very well, so no one would believe anyway how disturbing it was to see an angelic little cherub with giant headlights).

After a snowy pre-Halloween weekend where I was grounded from all yard saling, I'm going to write instead about my second shop on etsy.com that I opened a little over a month ago, Broken Bindings.

After a slow start I was losing all hope that any of my handmade jewelry from old children's books, atlases and dictionaries would sell, and then five pieces went in the last few weeks - and that just makes me happy.

This Sacred pendant made with a piece of antique dictionary was the one to break the ice. Felt like a spiritual blessing of the shop as its first sale.

 The next two sales to leave my worktable, made their way to the same customer. One is made from an old reading primer, See Pat Go, and a silver vintage Sarah Coventry bracelet.

The other is this fun set of a ring and earrings made from an old Lets Go to the Circus children's book. These are both some of my favorites that were sitting unnoticed in my other shop for quite awhile, so I was extra happy to see them make their way out into the word. 

I almost kept this one for myself, but decided to put it in the shop as well, and glad I did as it sold next. A little Yoga and Yogi definitions from an old dictionary, now a necklace.

And last (hopefully just for now) is a piece of vintage atlas of Key West I put under a glass cabochon and mounted on a silver-toned pendant setting with little flowers around it. Kind of wanted to keep this one for myself too, but I was a good shopkeeper and sold it to a lovely lady in Alabama.

My sales in Broken Bindings are not near those in my vintage shop Found Things, but there are only 17 pieces in total for sale (vs. 250 in the vintage shop) and it has just started so doesn't have the same exposure, but I'm good with that. Just enjoy making these pieces from old paper and hope someone else will enjoy wearing them...although certainly an added bonus to make a little extra money doing something I enjoy so much.

Here they come...weird Santas

When I was at the post office on Friday the postman - who, after sending 500 mailings over the last 15-months, I've gotten to know pretty well -- was teasing me about Christmas coming in only 60-s0me more days. Ahhh!

But he was a little late in freaking me out about how close we are getting to the holidays, the thrift stores are way ahead of him. Everywhere I look now there's snowmen, reindeer and, of course, so many, many incarnations of old Saint Nick.

Some are cute. Some are kitschy. Some are even regal.

And some are just weird, or even a little gross. This rubbery santa in the bathtub caught my eye first because it looked like Santa was an amputee - and you don't see that everyday. Then I realized his arm was just bent behind him holding a towel stretched between his two arms, which moved back and forth if you hit a button on the bottom.

Plus, he's naked. I don't need to think about the big guy naked.
The actual gross part comes when you take a closer look to find rolls in his belly made of dirty-rubber that move too when its turned on. Eww.

And its not just Kris Kringle who lands on the shelves. His wife is there too.
In all the Christmas stories Mrs. Claus is portrayed as super-nice and friendly. Baking cookies for the elves and feeding Santa a big Christmas Eve meal because "Nobody likes a skinny Santa." So what's with the angry, librarian-looking-over-her-glasses incarnation of Mrs. Kringle here? She needs some gingerbread and cider, I think. Right away.

But not all the old Christmas decorations are bad. I picked up these cute, vintage, Homco angels and I'm happy to put them in my etsy.com shop.
They remind me of my father-in-law. Every year I ask him what he wants for Christmas, and every year he answers, "A blond, a brunette and a red-head."

I should give him these. Probably not what he meant, though.

More pretty

In my last blog I gave a little taste of some of the more...unusual...things that turn up on the thrift store shelves that sometimes make me pause and think, Oh, my. Someone actually bought that on purpose, at some point, and put it in their home for decoration, or...holy crap...gave it to someone as a gift.

Today at another thrift store I was struck with the same thought, and here's why...

The photo isn't even doing justice to the matching girl and guy with the livestock, their outfits are florescent orange. The cow to the right looks friendly though, more so than the spray-tanned blond with the holes in her skirt.She looks a little pissy, her bow is probably too tight.

Although today there were some things on the shelves that reminded me of why I do look for - and often find -- some more desirable old thingies.

This 1950's tea pot made in Japan was on the thrift store shelf at 10:00AM this morning, in my etsy shop at 12:45 and sold to someone in North Carolina by 1:00...now that's how I like it!

And this mid century magazine rack may be hard to part with, looks so cool next to my husband's favorite chair (which also came from an estate sale - just an irrelevant fun-fact).

 I do get a kick out of wading through the weirdness at the thrift stores and estate sales to unearth the cooler old collectibles and atomic ranch decor. Sometimes I'm not sure which I like better.

Oh yeah...its the cooler stuff.

Pretty, pretty, pretty

This is going to be a very short blog.

I was at the local Salvation Army today and noticed the following collection of items on the shelf.

I just want you to look at them and realize that each one was at one time purchased - or given as a gift -- knowingly, willingly and probably with excitement.
P.S. Yes, that is a multicolored ceramic monkey on the left.

Enough said.

Halloween is Coming...yay

You wouldn't know it to look at me..housewife, 43, driving the car pool to football practice...but inside beats the heart of the Queen of the Damned Vampires from the Underworld Werewolf Coven..in other words, I LOVE HALLOWEEN!

It probably stems from Halloween being my first taste of freedom. When I was little my father and our neighbor would follow far behind us, sipping beers (this wasn't frowned upon in 1975) and letting us run ahead to ring doorbells. We felt like we were big kids out there on our own - although secretly happy to catch a glimpse of moonlight reflecting off the Bud cans in the distance.

When I was eleven my parents released the reins completely on Halloween and my friends and I were allowed to go out in the neighborhood on our own unsupervised...at night...dressed up...scoring Reeses Peanut Butter cups...in the dark and everything...it was the coolest thing EVER. None of this was frowned upon in 1975 either in case you were thinking of calling child protective services.

So when October 31st approaches, I get that old giddy feeling and my jewelry-making takes a decided turn to the spooky. I already enjoy making steam punk pieces, so it doesn't take much to push a little more over to the dark side

Here are some pieces I made the other night and put in my etsy shop.
This is a vintage necklace and pendant I found at a yard sale, but it once held a plastic cabochon with a smiley-faced-sun picture...not anymore...bwaahaaa...I ripped out that smiley face and replaced it with an illustration of a cobweb from an old children's fairy tale book and sealed it with resin. Hoping this will make some little witch very happy.

I got a little spooky-Steam Punk with this piece made from a vintage chain and adorned with a crystal from an antique chandelier (picked up at an estate sale last summer). Also with a pendant made using an illustration from an old Four and Twenty Black-Birds book.


This one isn't really macabre, but has an old, mysterious feel. I cut out the word "sacred" from an antique dictionary and put it behind glass. The clear sealant gave it an even darker, more aged look than it had originally. Perfect gift for your secret society friends.

I am just a little sad this year that the boys might be officially too old to go out trick-or-treating. But maybe not, they may surprise me. They also like the freedom of running around with their friends in the dark without parental supervision. Although I never walked behind them with a beer in my hand...some spiked cider or a Cosmo in a coffee-cup maybe...but not beer.

What is that?

Sometimes I find an item at a yard sale or on a thrift store shelf that I really just don't know what it is, or what its trying to be, or why anyone thought it was a good idea to make it at all...this would be one of those times.
Linda actually found this little beauty and - although it frighted her a little - she held it up for me to photograph thinking it would be a fun item for the blog.

A sunflower... a child... a sun-child?

Is it surprised, angry? Doing a jig?

My etsy shop is running a little low on super-cool things, and this angry sun-child is not going to help me turn my inventory around. Yard sale season is coming to a close and I am going to turn my attention to auctions.

I will miss the yard sales, but I'm hoping to find a better quality of items at the auctions, although I'm sure the strange and odd-looking things will be lurking in the boxes there too.

Buxton, Mele and Farrington...oh, my

I have always had a little thing for pretty jewelry boxes since I was a kid. The top of my dresser was a collection of trinket boxes I bought every time I went somewhere, a heart-shaped one made of pink stone from Florida was my personal favorite.

My collection started young, my first jewelry box looked something like this one shaped like a cottage that's currently in my etsy.com shop.

And apparently I am not alone in my obsession because leather-like jewelry boxes, particularly those made by Farrington, Buxton and Mele, have been good sellers.My most recent sale was the first men's jewelry box I've come across. I bought this at a retirement community fundraiser, it was from the 70's but was in such great condition it looked like it was brand new.
This little leather travel case in red I bought at a thrift shop and is now enjoying world travel...lucky jewelry case.



I bought this pink Farrington box at an auction filled with costume jewelry. It was actually the first thing I ever bought at auction and I paid more than I had originally wanted (the lady next to me was bidding too and I just couldn't let her win - mine...mine...mine).
The jewelry inside was the best part about this box. Here are some of the fun novelty earrings I found inside and sold as part of a collection.



I think this Lady Buxton was the most elegant and largest of all the jewelry boxes I've had in my shop.My theory is that people enjoy these vintage boxes because they just make you feel like a pretty, pretty princess...or that could just be me.

Please don't put me on "Hoarders"

In the far, back corner of my basement is a room that was once called my "craft room." It held a computer, antique drafting table, sewing machine and old cabinets containing various arts and crafts supplies for the kids and I. A place we could go and create and then leave if we were in the middle of something without having to clean up, so we could continue on with our creating.

Now, not so much.

When I started the etsy.com shop I decided this area would be a good place to store my merchandise - the boys are not into doing "crafts" with mom anymore and I was taking a break from writing so I wasn't visiting that computer as much either -- and at first, I kept everything fairly tidy and organized.

Now, not so much.

This summer has been a whirlwind and I have been running in and out of this backroom either grabbing something that needs to be shipped or throwing in a pile of stuff I just bought at a yard sale. There is no more order, only chaos.

This highlights a pitfall to this business, the ever-present possibility that you will make the transition from someone who is finding "merchandise" to sell, to someone who is a hoarder. I do not like a lot of clutter around me. That is not to say - as anyone who has entered my house will attest to -- I'm not a clean-freak, nor am I a minimalist with one Eames lounger in the middle of the floor and a white canvas on a white wall...I have some stuff around.

But there is, for me, an acceptable level of stuff. I have crossed that level and am at the threshold of freaking out and throwing everything away. I know if I just spend a day in the basement sorting, organizing and cleaning, my instincts to throw it all away (or just burn the house down) will calm. I just have to find that day.

That will probably come on August 30th...the day the boys return to school. Which will probably be a good day to distract myself from the fact my oldest "baby" will be going to high school and taking another big step in his size 12 Converse towards adulthood.

I do want to get rid of the clutter. And we are all ready for school to start. A clean, uncluttered, quiet house is coming...of course, there will have to be some chaos, just keep life interesting.

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

So International

Along with selling old stuff that appeals to people who like to buy old stuff in my etsy.com shop, I also make and sell jewelry (also made from old stuff) as well.

My favorite way to make jewelry is to re-purpose old pendants and necklaces, and create cabochons by cutting out pieces of old (damaged beyond repair) children's book illustrations or maps and atlases.

The last three pieces I sold were made by placing text from vintage books under glass cabochons and mounting them in findings from another etsy.com seller who sells jewelry-making supplies. This "go" ring is a favorite of mine and I'm very happy it is headed to a buyer in the mid-west.I enjoy creating jewelry from items that were once discarded and I really get a kick out of it when someone likes these creations enough to spend their hard-earned cash to buy them. And I get a double-kick out of it when it is someone from another country - I don't know why, just makes me feel all international and cool and stuff.

These two necklaces were just sent off to their new home in Nice, France.

And these two pendants I made from re-purposing vintage jewelry pieces and illustrations from an old "Four And Twenty Black Birds" children's book wended their way to Greece.And this brooch is currently adorning the lapel of someone's coat on the Isle of Kent in the UK.Now if I could just figure out how to package myself up and mail myself along with my jewelry to these wonderful places, I'd really be excited!

A Little of This and a Little of That

When the other blond and I go out to yard sales or thrift stores, we are always looking for that really great find that we can list for forty-plus dollars and will sell the same day because its so beautiful and rare.

Those things do come along every week or so, but they are usually accompanied by a lot of other little this-es and thats that may only be worth 10-plus dollars and appeal to a smaller range of buyers. But these things do add up and are part of making the bottom-line come out black instead of red.

This past Friday was a perfect example of a day that turned up lots of these smaller and less-expansive items, rather than one or more really choice pieces.

Linda and I - along with our combined three boys -- headed to a nearby town having a town-wide yard sale, which is always nice because you can basically park the car and explore the town on foot rather than driving from place to place.

It was a sunny, summer morning and the boys were happy to run off with a few dollars in their pockets to see what treasure they could find. My youngest son found some things for himself, like a remote for his Play Station.

My older son decided he wanted to find some things for me to put on etsy for him, and he didn't do too badly. He found this hand-carved tray originally made for deviled eggs, but would be great for sorting beads or jewelry findings.

And I found a couple smaller items like this 1950's View Master... And a pretty bar set with and ice-bucket and matching snack bowls...
So no silver-spoons from Tiffany or Quezal glass lurked among the housewares at the yard sales we went to, but a few pretty things were found none-the-less. Not to mention a nice couple of hours walking around a quaint Pennsylvania town on a sunny, summer morning.

Vacation, Cake Stands and Letting Go

My husband, two sons and both my in-laws all loaded up in the old Suburban on the last day of school and got the heck out of Dodge...or rather, south-eastern Pennsylvania...and headed for sights southward.

We went to Monticello and marveled at one of the founding father's homesteads, and we drove along Skyline Drive and oohed and ahhed at the Blue Ridge Mountains. We went far underground and walked through Luray Caverns, listening to an organ that actually uses stalagmites to make music.



We ate wonderful food on patios built on the cobblestone streets that saw soldiers from both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars march down them.

And we even slept one night in a Yurt...yes, a Yurt - a round, semi-permanent structure made with wood and canvas -- in the Shenandoah Valley

So, with all this activity you'd think I would put aside any thoughts of finding things for my etsy.com shop...you must know me better than that by now.

We were traveling down a back road on Saturday morning - leaving the Yurt and heading towards Skyline Drive -- when, at forty-miles-per-hour, I spotted a glass cake stand with dome sitting on a folding table at a yard sale on the side of the road. I yelled for my husband to stop and we all were flung forward in our seats as my husband slammed on the brakes and then made a u-turn.

I love him.So among our baggage rattling around in the back of the Suburban was this cake stand and dome that somehow made it back home without being damaged...there was also the additional baggage of my back-and-forth internal dialog of what to do about opening a shop.

Any quiet time on the trip, and since we got back (and already took a another trip back to New Jersey - but that's another story), my mind was preoccupied with deciding whether or not to take the plunge into store ownership. The other blond has been wrestling with the same thoughts.

I would love to write here the answer that would make for a good story, that even though we have a million bureaucratic hoops to jump through, fees to pay, a store to renovate and supply with merchandise, that we were going to forge ahead anyway...but this is not a story, this is our lives.

Both blonds came to the same conclusion...although we can both picture this cute little shop filled with wonderful things, the complications, overhead, hours and expense of opening and running it is not something we have to deal with in our virtual shops. And we decided to keep it that way.

So with heavy hearts we closed the door on the dream of a brick and mortar store, but feel a renewed thankfulness for the opportunities our etsy.com shops have given us.

I have traveled a lot of miles this last week, and not all of them were in the Suburban.