In case you missed it, check out the stash of suitcases Melissa from Melissa's Antiques found at ONE. YARD. SALE.
I am still in shock.
I thought I had a collection. These have been in my basement all winter. I sell 4 or 5 at every Clover Market, but have been saving these…
To someday make this (sorry, I don't know where this image is from; it's been sitting on my desktop forever).
Melissa has three trees!
For years, my workstation has been a little desk squeezed in behind the family room dining table and the wall. Not the most optimum of work spaces, but I like to be able to help with homework, make dinner, and just generally be nearby when my kids are around.
Recently, my daughter has been pulling up a chair to my right with her ipad plugged into my charger, blocking my access. One of the cats settles in on the chair to the left -- blocking my access. It had become a bit claustrophobic.
Here's where I used to sit. It is now a Littlest Pet Shop film and recording studio.
This buffet was a $20 yard sale score, including the fabulous color. It's been sitting at the other end of the room, since I knew I wanted to use it somewhere somehow.
I thought it would make a perfect workstation, but it was way too high for me. We thought (only for a second!) of cutting off the legs, but that was one of my favorite features. Plus, sacreligious!
A bar stool was also not a solution, since I needed some back support and I am not the most coordinated of people. (Unless I am holding a Dirty Martini; then I am much more capable of getting on and off of a bar stool).
After months of searching, I finally scored a great swiveling high chair with slatted back at an estate sale. I paid $10. Mr. VJIMT painted the rusty metal base white.
And I know you want that tissue box holder.
Now I was at the right height but still too far away from the keyboard.
Our solution? We pulled out the top drawer, fitted it with a piece of board on top, painted it, and covered it with scrapbook paper, sheet music, and Mod Podge*!
It doesn't close any further than this, but it doesn't have to! I can pull it out further to access anything I want to store inside, and can pull the entire thing out to access the drawer underneath.
*Has anyone else been mispronouncing it "Modge Podge" all of their lives? Just me? Ok.
Last week, temperatures hovered around 100° with almost as high a humidity level. Heat indexes were at 115°. So what did Mr. VJIMT decide to do? Pull everything out of our detached garage (it never housed a car), repaint the interior, decorate with some of our vintage junk, and turn it into a party barn!
He was out there every single day from 8am until 8pm. He has more energy than that proverbial Bunny.
Earlier this month he bought a shed and we moved all of the Clover items into it. So now with the garage emptied (save for his work benches and tools) he could get to his project.
We didn't take any "before" pictures but this will give you some idea:
Dark, dirty, and packed to the gills.
First he removed all the boards that were lying across the rafters. They provided good storage but blocked views of the cathedral ceiling. I had no idea of the gorgeousness that lay beyond!
Then he sprayed the entire interior with white paint. Twenty-five gallons of it. And hung a chandelier.
Those purple spots? Disco lights!
He re-painted by hand the entire lower section.
Added lots of accessories (don't worry; they're all nailed securely into the beams!) and, of course, lit some up, including this amazing tractor grille!
Painted the floor and added flecks of confetti -- Little Miss VJIMT approves!
I'll stop talking now so you can browse in peace.
All of his work stations are now on casters so they can just be wheeled out when it's party time. Brilliant!
Little Miss drew this a couple of years ago and it is now hanging proudly in its new space. Pretty accurate representaion.
Good thing we never seem to run out of projects in this house -- or reasons to have a party!
This weekend's yard sales were just ho hum again. April definitely held less treasures for us than in previous years, and May started out along those same lines. We were out for three hours on Saturday, and this is all we found -- a small red chest, ugly brown shelves, a box of broken clarinet pieces, and a few other smalls.
I don't photograph everything we get at yard sales, though. I'm pretty sure you don't want to see the stuff that's not vintage.
Like these "LIttlest Pet Shop" animals my daughter bossily orders sweetly asks me to find. She only has about 400 of them. Fortunately they live in a large bin and aren't teeny tiny. Her obsession is daily video and animation production. I guess I should be grateful it's a creative outlet. [Please let me know if you have any of the older ones like these for sale, especially cats and dogs.]
So back to my vintage finds. More colorful books. The orange and black will get some Halloween-themed ribbon and hit the shop/shows in the fall.
This vintage fashion print will head to Etsy.
As will these child's skates, but I may wait until the more appropriate season.
I thought this vintage French polka dotted decanter was adorable, although there is a chip on the top and no stopper. Came with 4 equally cute little glasses.
A little bit of bling is always fun too.
The little painted chest is in the Clover Market pile, which is in less than two weeks!
Mr. VJIMT already painted those wooden shelves a pretty blue. What an improvement!
And then he turned the broken clarinet pieces into a fabulous lamp!
Pretty cool, huh? See more of his repurposed lamps here and here.
Friday: Vintage Junk Party, 2012
(also on Friday): Unidentified upper and lower jaw pain begins.
Saturday and Sunday and Monday: Unidentified upper and lower jaw pain continues and accelerates through face and head.
Tuesday: Visit to doctor and probable sinus infection diagnosis, myriad asthma and decongesting medications, and prescription for prednisone.
Wednesday: Intestinal distress due to prednisone prescription plus flu-like symptoms.
(also on Wednesday): Collapsed on couch at 6:30pm with fever and chills (don't forget face pain) and instructions to soon-to-be fifteen year-old VJIMT son to care for Little Miss VJIMT.
Awakened 20 minutes later to sound of multiple containers of leftover Chinese takeout falling out of the refrigerator and onto the floor.
And our cats don't eat rice.
Thursday: Dental visit. Endodontist visit. Subsequent root canal surgery.
(also on Thursday): Grocery shopping for son's birthday, preparation of said birthday dinner and baking of birthday cake.
Today: Survived! No Christmas preparations yet, but hey, that's two whole weeks away.
See less stressful Junk Party recaps here (2011) and here and here (2010).
I live in an older small town surrounded by other older small towns. Each of these small towns is within walking distance from my own. (Each small town also has its own police, school system, government services, and crazy tax scale, but that's a different story for a different day on a different blog).
You may have noticed I've been to a few town-wide yard sales recently. There was this one in May, this one in September, and this one in October.
My town's community yard sale is today.
And I'm selling my vintage wares at another (within walking distance) small town's Fall Festival.
Today.
Which means I am missing my own town's community-wide yard sale!
Mr. VJIMT will drive his packed-up car alongside mine to the Fall Fest, and then he will be off to scour the yard sale lands.
Don't worry; I gave him a list…
I must have gotten yesterday confused with Labor Day, as I spent eight hours cleaning, decluttering, and rearranging Little Miss VJIMT's bedroom instead of enjoying a leisurely picnic somewhere.
Most everything in this room was either discovered at a flea market or a yard sale, trashpicked, recycled, or handmade.
(I just realized the cat rug, which was a catalogue purchase over fifteen years ago, looks exactly like our less-than-a-year old feline, Stella.)
Like this $3 pink bookcase I scored just a couple of weeks ago. It replaces a bigger blue cupboard from another part of the room, that, although larger, was not working out as storage for all the treasures an almost 8-year old girl can accumulate.
Especially when her mother drags her to yard sales! Here it is holding her many art projects.
I moved the bed away from the wall a couple of feet to create this little reading nook. Luckily, she loves it! Whew.
Got this new-in-package ribbon memo board for $2 (yard sale). I am relieved she was agreeable to removing all the papers she had been taping to her wall to put here instead. Although the wall behind the entrance door is still available for that purpose.
Cute little white shelf ($1 yard sale find) filled with miscellaneous yard sale treasures.
Another art project.
A sweet Cinderella illustration, free from a friend's yard sale years ago.
When Little Miss VJIMT was born, we started collecting prints of little girls and their animals to hang in her room. Love the frame on this huge one discovered at the Bouckville show years ago.
The subject matter is pretty adorable too. Is she wiping a tear from that poor dog's eye?
This was once a plain white shelf, again a yard sale find. A couple of years ago I painted it pink and green to match her room and added some stamped flower images and buttons to hide the screws. Someone had no trouble filling it with stuff. I'm sure I have no idea where she gets that from.
This display of vintage children's clothes has been hanging here since she was an infant. I painted the clouds on the ceiling 15 years ago when it was the teenaged Mr. VJIMT's baby room.
I don't remember where we got this one. Love the cat's glare!
STELLLLLLLAAAAAAA!
This is one of the two tiny closets in her room. I've been itching to remove the door to at least one of them for a while, and was finally inspired to do it after seeing a similar treatment in a friend's home. The beads used to be in her front doorway. This closet is her hideout, complete with pillows and blankets on the floor and dress-up clothes on the back rod.
In case there was any doubt.
Another print; this St. Bernard stands guard over his sleeping mistress.
This vintage biscuit tin with glass lid holds my favorite childhood stuffed animal and roller skating doll. Fluffy was an appropriately-named squirrel, until I got ahold of a pair of scissors and gave him a fur cut. He's also missing one leg and the alternating arm. And has markered-on eyelashes.
They sit on a green bureau trashpicked by the Mister.
Mr. VJIMT found this wonderful flapper-era child's dance costume at a local antique store a long time ago, already framed in a shadow box.
I got this framed dog and cat children's book at, you guessed it, Madison-Bouckville -- way before I was a vintage blogger.
Another little white bookcase full of stuff.
This is a shot of the room looking back towards the entrance. The bedspread and sham were my only splurge, from Pottery Barn Kids when she was a baby. Mr. VJIMT made the fence bed thirteen years ago when the boy was a toddler.
Stella enjoys the crocheted afghan made by Mom-Mom Grace for our baby girl.
And appears exhausted from all the activity.
What a fantastic day at Clover Market! The weather was fabulous, and the crowds were enormous! For about the first four hours of the show I couldn't even see the vendor across the way from my booth, the throng was so big.
I had a great show, and it was definitely worth all of the preparations. My good friend Karen hung out with me most of the show and stayed to help me pack up AND provided her vehicle to transport the big items back to her house that I was unable to fit in my car.
Mr. VJIMT was only available to transport items with me INTO the show, as teenaged Mr. VJIMT competed in the State Spelling Bee Championship later in the day (he finished 4th without studying a lick the whole competition and was disappointed in the result; I'm thinking it's a good lesson learned and still something to be proud of).
Here are LOTS of photos, as promised. The view is going clockwise around my booth starting from the back.
Unfortunately, I didn't bring any of these with me!
Little Miss VJIMT decorated my chalkboard frame for me.
Here are two of the six typewriters I brought with me. Glad I did, since Every. Single. One. Sold! And sold quickly!
One mom bought one (from the sixties, in a case) for her son, who admired that Bob Dylan typed his lyrics and wanted to emulate him. Another bought one for her daughter who is a copywriter. Loved that the younger generation appreciates the charm of the typewriter!
My scary doll got a lot of attention and little hands couldn't do much more damage to him!
Someone bought the green suitcase and was going to add legs and convert it into a table. I'm hoping she sends me some photos -- would love to see its afterlife.
Colleen of Fresh Vintage took pity on me and bought my crib springs so I didn't have to cram it back into my car! Drinks on me next time!
What was I thinking? Didn't bring any of these either!
And that's the day -- thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hi -- it was fun meeting you all! See more photos on the Clover Market Facebook page.
Next spring dates are May 6 and June 3; I won't be back selling until September, but am hoping to be able to go back next month to shop!
Last month one of my co-workers left for greener pastures. Much greener, Texan pastures. Land of 90-minutes-to-Round-Top pastures.
Sigh. Hoping to shop visit one day.
Although we hadn't been co-workers for very long, and she is about half my age (there, I said it!), we connected on a deep thrifty level. We discovered a shared love of yard sales, vintage treasures, Etsy, warm artichoke cheese dip, and this vintage camper. We even managed to get to this church rummage sale together.
So when she left I felt I had to make her something special -- vintage-y and handmade.
As you know, although I have puh-lenty of supplies, I have yet to make any wearable art except for repurposed vintage earring rings (you can see one here). I thought I might try to make a lace cuff bracelet, one that maybe wouldn't take much time or skill.
I had this vintage crocheted bit that sort of had a bracelet shape.
I sewed a vintage button to one end to act as a closure base, since the other end had that looped part that could be used as a closure hook.
I also had a crocheted flower piece and a sparkly vintage earring.
This is what it would have looked like after I used some good old industrial-strength glue to adhere them.
Only this wasn't what the final version looked like. E had purchased a vintage earring ring at my last junk party home show, and I had the remaining matching earring. I gave her the option of choosing which bauble she wanted on the lace cuff bracelet, and she did indeed choose the matching earring.
I'm not sure how well you can see it, but the earring was a celluloid flower-shaped piece surrounded with little rhinestones. I also used a vintage piece of brass hardware to separate the two, since they were similar in color and needed something to set them apart.
She's modeling it here. I love the way it turned out!
I had an extra little burst of creative energy and even got out my old (dusty) scrapbooking supplies to make a card to go with the bracelet.
This was a vintage Easter postcard image that I scanned, printed, and cut out with a scallop punch. It was adhered to a piece of scrapbook paper, then edged with glass glitter. (I {heart} glass glitter!)
Could this be the start of a new Etsy shop? ;)
So if you were wondering what I was doing all week, this was it.
Preparing for and hosting my Holiday Vintage Junk Party… and a local craft show the very next day!
What was I thinking?
I’m pretty much exhausted, what with the glueing and the tagging (and the redesigning of the tags) and the email invitations and the pricing and the cleaning and the menu selection and the drink mixing and the setting up and the tearing down.
But it was definitely worth doing. Even if I needed some of these afterwards.
The usual assortment of vintage pedestal plates were for sale.
I had well over a hundred.
You may remember this yard sale table.
Rings and barrettes repurposed from vintage earrings and buttons were also available.
As were vintage door knobs and faucet handles converted to wine bottle stoppers.
The event started at 9am and lasted until 9pm, so these were also in order.
My chalkboard frame sign was much improved after Little Miss VJIMT got a hold of it!
She also took the photo, so please excuse the fuzziness.
