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.

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.

Pickin' in a Pavilion

The first stop this weekend for the other blond and me was a church sale held in a pavilion a few towns away. The air was autumn crisp, leaves starting to turn, met my aunt at the sale too...all made the morning wonderful...but not the picking.
Left with nothing but a few pieces of pink depression glass...pretty, but not exactly the treasure of the Sphinx.
I did come across this statue of an eyeless girl eating a baby arm or a tree limb, or playing the flute, not sure. So creepy.
But it was all worth it anyway - not only because I got to be outside on a beautiful fall day with some of my favorite people looking for treasure in a churchyard -- but because I found the perfect Thanksgiving Day hat.Turkey hat...yay!Best $1.00 I may have ever spent. Buddy likes it too!

I Could Build a Robot

Stuff seems to come in clumps for me. One week I'll find five jewelry boxes, and then not another for months.

The next week I'll find half-a-dozen pieces of extra-pretty Pyrex. After that, nada, not one kitschy bowl for ages.


Its the same with electronics.
Clocks, radios and cameras were everywhere I looked last weekend as I poked around some yard sales.
This is a flip-number clock...do you remember these from the late 70's and early 80's? My parents had one next to their bed. I remember staring at the numbers on Christmas morning, willing them to flip down from 5:59 to 6:00...I wasn't allowed to go out to open presents until 6:00. It took forEver for the stupid numbers to flip!
And this radio looks just like the one my husband's grandfather kept on a shelf in the kitchen to listen to baseball games while he read the paper.

Just love this old Polaroid camera that I found with the original case and paperwork, another great piece of nostalgia, and mid-century design. Makes me want to "shake it like a Polaroid pic-tcha."

Not sure why I'm suddenly finding all these cool old electronics, but I have to wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something. Like I'm suppose to build a robot...or listen to the radio while taking pictures in a timely manner.

I wonder what the next group of things will be.

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.

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.

New Record

The fastest thing I ever sold on etsy.com was a set of silver salt-and-pepper shakers shaped like owls. My son, actually, was the one who found them and I put them on the site for him. He was thrilled when they sold in three-minutes flat.

The second place winner was a Cosco child's booster seat from the fifties, very mid-century modern. It sold to a man in Italy in ten-minutes.

But yesterday, there was a new winner that supplanted the salt-and-pepper shaker, shaving more than a full minute off the best time and pushing the Cosco chair into third-place. And the winner is...Ta da...this approximately 40-plus year-old metal storage shelf from a garage sale. Sold one-minute after I put it on the etsy shop. I had a feeling it would go quickly, such a great rustic piece and still very useful. The industrial look is very hot right now, and one I like myself.

Ah, rust and dents, big sellers...quick ones too.

Two Blonds and Several Brunettes

It doesn't get much better than this morning...70 degrees, sunny, a church sale on the horizon and the Suburban filled with some of my favorite people...ahhh.

The free community newspaper gave us the heads-up on a church fundraiser in the lovely area of Seven Valleys on this Thursday morning. So, I picked up Linda and her mom Lee, and then headed to my aunt Joan's to pick her and her daughter Gail (my most awesome of cousins) up too for the twenty-minute trip northward.

We arrived just as the doors were opening and the long, long line of our fellow pickers shuffled in to see what the church ladies were offering. The space was large, open and spread out in three areas. When I first walked in I got the same overwhelmed, and slightly confused, feeling I often get at these things. There are so many people and so many directions to go in, I become a little like a deer in headlights.

Eventually, I shook off the feeling and headed towards the jewelry section. I didn't find any jewelry and was beginning to despair that I'd find anything I wanted, when I looked under one of the tables - my heart got a little lighter. I saw this old GE Show-n-Tell player. I had one of these as a kid and loved it. Had to have it!
As I stood up with this find, I glanced up on a shelf in front of me and saw one of the coolest old metal, tub radios I've ever come across. I snagged the radio too and then worried I was spending $10 on only two items, and then I shook that feeling off too and headed for the check out.Once I'd paid for these bulky items, I deposited them in the Suburban and then headed back inside to see if there was anything else I had to have. I ran into Linda with a joyful look on her face, she'd found one of her favorite things, a vintage clown costume (everyone's got their thing).
Blonds and brunettes alike had a successful day at Grace United, as you can see from the back of the Suburban.











I reversed my trip and deposited everyone back at their homes with their treasures.

By 10:00 the Suburban was empty and I was home and putting my finds on etsy.com, hoping for another morning just exactly like this one in my near future.


twoblondsandavan.blogspot.com/

Just Me and My Boys

Yesterday morning my two sons woke up on a Saturday that they could have slept in to go find a church sale with me...aww, their little picker instincts are already embedded in their DNA.

The good part of the day was the gorgeous drive through the countryside, it led us to a little town just on the west side of the Susquehanna river. When we arrived we found there was not only a church charity sale, but it was a town wide yard sale, as well.

Plus, a Bricker's Fries truck had come for the occasion and was parked on Main Street, so the boys couldn't have cared less about anything else - they would have made the trip just for a breakfast of greasy fries.

In the end, we had to be content with enjoying a beautiful May morning, and for me, the company of my teenage sons, but not much in the way of finding things for my etsy.com shop. I have never walked to so many yard sales within such a small area and found so little.I literally found one thing in the entire town to put on etsy. Although it is a pretty cute thing, this mushroom soup tureen from the 70's.

The boys, however, were excited to find an inflatable boat still in the box for $1. So as a reward for being troopers and walking around this town full of cra...stuff we really didn't want...I took them and a friend to a park nearby with a creek. They spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the water with their new boat while I sat on a blanket (incidentally, found at a yard sale the week before) and read a book I had also bought that day. So our yard sale finds may not have been good money makers, but for about $1.75, they helped create a priceless day nonetheless.


twoblondsandavan.blogspot.com

Song Birds, Bowls and Burn Out

I have been remiss in my blog entries lately, and somewhat in my hunt for merchandise for my etsy.com shop. Life with two boys winding down their school year has gotten in the way, but I also experienced a little burn out. A saturation of "stuff" accumulating in my basement has curbed my appetite for hunting down more treasures.

I am not a collector by nature, although I love looking for interesting, old, forgotten things and bringing them out into the world for those that do. But business has slowed - spring is here and people are more interested in being outside than ordering online (as it should be). Plus, I had a bad experience with a buyer that cost me some money and soured me on the etsy experience somewhat...but the good news is I went to my favorite retirement village fundraiser sale Friday and the old enjoyment is back!

There was the gorgeous mid century carafe...

And this sweet pair of ceramic songbird salt-and-pepper shakers...And this gold-embossed bowl...
How can I not want to go out wherever I can and find these pretty things? Can't. Have to. Want to.

And to solve my clutter-phobia, having a yard sale on Saturday to clean out my own accumulations. Of course, had to schedule it so it didn't conflict with a church sale I want to go to.

twoblondsandavan.blogspot.com/

Floating Vintage

This past Easter weekend I was lucky enough to spend in one of my favorite places on the planet, in Maryland at my aunt and uncle's farm near Chestertown. I love it so much, it is the inspiration for my first published novel Lake Meade.

My weekend was filled with egg dying, catching up with family and too much ham and mashed potatoes, so any thoughts of going to yard sales or thrift stores was put on hold. Ironically, I stayed in a house filled with beautiful antiques, passed down for generations, so thinking about buying and selling vintage items was put aside only with some difficulty.Easter morning my family and I went for a walk around a local marina, taking in the scenery and the mix of new and old boats moored to the warping, wooden piers. My husband and I fantasized about how nice it would be to have a boat to go out on the Chesapeake, and true to form, we liked the old ones more than the shiny new ones. The one pictured above was for sale...but we didn't call to ask how much, because we also realized boats require a lot more disposable income than we've got in the old piggy bank.But it was still fun to dream about taking one of these lovely old ladies to explore the bay and drift away a sunny afternoon.So whether china, linens, glassware...or even boats...I love the older things with charater and charm. Things that look like they have some stories to tell and have weathered a few storms. Come to think of it, the same qualities I enjoy in people, too :-)

twoblondsandavan.blogspot.com/

Abbotstown with Joan

A large part of my days are spent in solitary pursuits: food shopping, writing, laundry, putting inventory on-line in my etsy shop, packing purchased items to be shipped off, housecleaning...you get the picture. And this is not a complaint, this suits me just fine. But it does make for a pleasant change of pace when I get to go with someone on one of my searches for inventory to a yard sale or church fundraiser. Pickin's more fun with a friend...I should make that into a bumper sticker.

Which means, I was more than happy when my Aunt Joan told me she'd found a few ads for church fundraisers north of us in the Abbotstown and Hanover areas, and would I like to check them out with her. So, right after the kids got on the bus Friday morning, I grabbed a cup of coffee and headed to her house - about 10-minutes from my own-- we jumped in her Yaris and made our way to the first sale, which was held in a picnic grove.

There were a lot of nice things, but many of them were priced too high for me to make any kind of profit. But I did find a couple cute items. My favorites are this owl coffee canister and a set of chenille bedspreads.

The next stop was a church fundraiser which had the opposite problems as the first, great prices but not much left on the tables. We didn't get there until 9:00 and the sale started at 7:00 - so it was picked pretty clean by the time we got there.









After a few more stops at a rummage sale (VERY picked over) and a yard sale (mostly newer plastic kid's toys), we went to a great book store/ cafe in Hanover - interestingly, also in an old church -- for lunch.

So Friday was both successful for my shop and I got the bonus of enjoying a morning out on a beautiful spring day in the company of my aunt, doing what seems to be in our blood.

twoblondsandavan.blogspot.com/