Excuse Me While I Buy This Junk

Easter’s upon us. It snuck up on me. I am not prepared. I have no Easter decorations out, but I think I’ll drag them out in the morning. In the meantime, I thought I’d share my very small religions item collection.

I collect these for two reasons. I love the subject matter and I love the art form. Southern Baptists don’t traditionally have these things in their houses, they’d have a picture of The Lord’s Supper, but I’m not very traditional in anything I do.

This picture was bought a year ago, but has just now come home with me.

I had trouble getting the color right in the pic, but it’s close enough. The picture is quite large, about 18″ x 24″ would be a good guess. Finding the right spot for it prompted a gathering of the other religious items. I’m particularly fond of the Italian Florentine triptychs. I only have two and was shocked that they do so well on eBay! Won’t be buying any there. Guess I’ll just have to wait until I find more at estate sales. Here’s what I’ve arranged so far.

Now, that’s not all the collection. I was asked last week what was in the blue box on the mantle. More of this stuff, but I was afraid to put it all out. Concerned it would start to look too cluttered.

Another thing I’m especially fond of is the primitive, Bible School craft-night crosses. And I only have two of them.  I also have a couple of Madonna planters, but haven’t decided what to do with them or the little things in the cabinet.

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Tomorrow’s the last day to enter for the locker basket. I apologize for not getting around and reading all your blogs. I’m only 772 feeds behind – as of this writing.  My intentions, as always, are good. I keep Google Reader open at all times. And right now? I’m so sleepy I can hardly hold my eyes open. There’ll be no blog reading tonight.  Heck. I don’t even know if anything that was written tonight makes any sense at all.

I was geared up for this weekend’s sales. Looked like there would be some worth going to. I had money from eBay. Granted it was money for bills due next week, but that’s next week. Who thinks that far ahead? I’d worry about that later. Tomorrow’s another day. Blah, blah, blah. Then last night – LAST NIGHT – a couple of unexpected bills popped up. Hubby asks if I can transfer some money over. Pooh. There went my fun weekend.

So this morning I scraped up all the change I could find, the dollar bill I found in my jeans pocket the other day, the one I’d hoped was a twenty, but wasn’t that lucky, and grabbed the couple of dollars in the cash drawer plus a five that doesn’t belong to me and set out.

First sale. Piled up all this:

A cracker jar and jars of buttons that I just sniffed and found they smell suspiciously of cigarettes.

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Celluloid manicure pieces and a scratched up Scotty dog box with three of the box feet missing.

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An old, rusty rake head because I liked the way it looked, some keys with a smiley face Samsonite key, a bottle, a Baby Ben, an iron candle holder thing (I think I’ll keep that – probably the only thing anyone else wants.), a white, metal doorknob and two casters. I’ll show you why on the casters another day.

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The girl said $18 for all that. Who knows how she came up with that figure? I don’t usually tell what I paid for things, but I’m making an exception this time. Especially since there’s nothing there I’ll be making a killin’ off of. I reached in my pocket, pulled out all I had, and said:
How ’bout $8 and some change?
She said OK. Yay! I think. Gathered up my treasures and was on my way.

I realized I still had a dime in my pocket and somehow, by some miracle, I scrounged up another dollar. In change. From the car’s cup holders and ashtray. Went to another sale and bought this cool, 1970′s am, flip clock radio.

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So there it is. Poor, pitiful me. Boo hoo. Thought I’d spend the day adding things to the web site and eBay so I could make some money, but ended up cleaning part of the day, Twittering and Facebooking the other part and never got around to the putting stuff up for sale work. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll do a couple before going home. Or tomorrow. I made a dollar today. That might take me to a sale or two, but I’m grounded tomorrow, too.

There have been a few things done around the house. A very few, but I’m so itching to do more. Got the living room mantle rearranged. I thought I had a picture of the way it looked before, but darned if I can find it. I know it was the subject of a previous blog post. I even paid for a Flickr pro subscription, convinced it must be in the pictures I couldn’t see. There were only 4 hidden pictures and none of them were of the old mantle.

I even scrolled back through the old blog. The one over on Blogspot. Back in the day when I blogged regularly. And…. it was a pretty good blog! I was impressed! LOL That was before the shop took over my life. Got to get back up to at least that level again. But there was no picture of the old mantle.

Anyway, I present to you…. the new mantle. A piece of Roseville from my mother’s, some Homer Laughlin bowls and pieces I’ve picked up here and there. The bust of the man lost his head one day and got stuck back on. The little, rough, blue cabinet was found at a church sale. The only thing worth having (to me) at that whole sale. I’ll probably redo what’s inside of it. Right now it’s part of my religious collection. A collection that might be moving to the foyer.

We interrupt our not so regularly scheduled postings for a quick report on the eBay On Location, Atlanta event.

I went with a reluctant husband in tow.  A husband who has been sick with a cold or allergies for three weeks. He’s not up to par. We’re in east central Alabama, a 2-1/2 hour drive to Atlanta and this short trip was typical of our “vacations”. The trips where these things only happen to us and the Clark Griswold family. I’ve shared some of those trips with you before.

We didn’t get three miles from our house before it started. Sitting at a stop sign, Ricky let his foot slip off the brake the tiniest bit and we rolled into the car in front of us. But no harm was done to either vehicle, so we went on our merry way, each of us wondering if this was just a one time thing or if it was a sign of things to come – and afraid it was probably the latter. We took our cat to Erin’s thinking she’d be happier there than being left home alone. Big mistake. She pooped on me, on the console and the back seat on the way. Said poop was patiently scooped it up in an Advil box and thrown it in the garbage can at the gas station. We dropped her off at Erin’s hissing at her cat brother, the one she used to get along with very well. So we had the concern that our baby wasn’t happy all weekend. (She wasn’t. Poor little thing was miserable.)

But on we traveled. Running late. Got almost to Atlanta and there was a wreck making the last 8 miles take an hour. The hotel we were staying at should have been easy to find, but we kept missing our downtown turn. At last, we checked in and took off for the Omni for the promised finger foods at the welcome reception.

Now, we live in the South, but I think I can speak for most of the rest of the US when I say that we’ve grown accustomed to being able to make a meal off finger foods. Finger foods usually means Momma brings pigs in a blanket and chicken salad sandwiches, Aunt Rose brings cucumber sandwiches and cupcakes, Grandma Beulah brings a pound cake, or two, Cousin Millie brings veggie pizza things…. You get the picture. What a surprise we got when we began to look for the food! Broccoli, carrots, squash slices, celery and dips. And some crackers and I think some tiny bread pieces. That’s it. Not even a cookie! Maybe it was because we were late. Maybe everybody had eaten all the good stuff already. Not that that’s not good. Broccoli is one of my favorite foods, but I personally didn’t care for the dips and it was hardly a meal for hungry folks. Strike one for eBay. We had to go in search of food.

There were a couple of parties going on afterward, but my tired, grumpy guy wasn’t up to going to anything, so I can’t report on those. eBay had nothing to do with them anyway and they might not be at every event. However, not going turned out to be a wise decision for us. We Could Not Get back to our hotel 4 blocks away. The simple route we took (or tried to take) to the Omni, didn’t work going back. One way streets, then the street that was the right way said no turns, then one would say buses only and there was massive road construction going on blocking Peachtree. It was a royal mess! Literally took another hour to get back to our hotel. (Lesson learned – stay at the hotel of the event if at all possible. It wasn’t possible for us. I waited too late to book.)

Why have I spent so much time on everything that happened before the event? Because it was so much more interesting. I found the whole event to be disappointing.

Saturday, they redeemed themselves with food. Fed us breakfast, then the sessions started.

Let me say that if you’re a beginner or you’ve just piddled with selling on eBay, you might get a lot out of the event. I’ve been doing this 12 years. I truly wanted classes that would help me to learn more how to do my business better, more efficiently, and how to use the system to make more money. What I got was them telling us what tools are available. (This can be found anywhere on the site.) They preached to use online shipping labels. (I do that.) They told us the different stores we can have and how much they cost. (How hard is that to find on the site?)

I wanted to be motivated. There was one motivational speaker, Mike Michalowicz, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, that I’d liked to have talked to and learned more. Thank goodness he gave us all a transcript of his presentation since I’ve now forgotten everything he said. I’d also have liked the opportunity to buy his book at the event, but apparently he wasn’t allowed to sell it there.

So eBay covered the basics. We paid $35 each, plus our room, plus a couple of times we ate out, plus the gas to get there, to learn things we already knew. But I’m glad I went. I’d rather regret going than regret not going and wondering what I missed. But if you’re contemplating attending one near you, if it’s in your city and you’d only be out the registration fee, by all means go! Don’t miss it! But if it’s going to be an expensive trip, you’d better be ready to network, because if you’ve been around the eBay block for awhile, that’s where you’ll get your money’s worth. Not what eBay is bringing to the table, but what the other sellers are bringing.

We did get to see them interview Elvis, though. My picture, naturally, is crappy, but maybe you can see the sideburns?

And they did feed us a good lunch.

Here are a few of the items from the estate. All will work their way to the web site or auction.

Friday was off to a rocky start. Had me singing:

Rocky Start
You’ll always be
So annoying
To me……..

Ricky started his vacation on that day. Of course, he’s the only one vacating. I’m still at work. But on a rare whim, he decided he’d go with me to the sales in Birmingham. One said something about some trains. We were already running late – I’ve never been able to get him to understand that you absolutely have to get there early. But off we went. We got about 5 miles down the road and he realized he didn’t have his medicine with him. He needs to take it with meals or it makes him sick. Back to the house we go. Knowing how I’d be flitting around quickly then and knowing how slow he drives when it’s not somewhere he feels the need to be, I told him to stay home — which he was more than happy to do.

First sale. I’d written down the wrong sale I wanted to go to first. I was confused. This one turned out to be a shop that said “estate sale”. Well, doggone-it. I’m sorry, but once a dealer has pawed through it and done away with the junk drawers, icky bathroom stuff, picked out the things of value, thrown away the stuff I like, well, it’s just not an estate sale any more. Estate items, but not an estate sale. I politely walked around and headed to the next sale. The one I’d intended to hit first. The one that sounded so good.

Toys, toys and more toys. Older toys, but none I recognized as good sellers. I bought a bag of wine corks and something else already forgotten.

Next sale. Very small sale. 15 miles from where I was and it had already been in progress over 2 hours. I got these:

I collect the little bar things. Actually I just like the little people. Don’t really care about the rest. I thought the chicken was cute and I also got a cheap, dollar store “egg” Easter bunny. It was really looking like Saturday was going to be a total waste of time. Then the phone rang.

Someone told this fellow that I might be interested in his momma’s stuff. Be still my heart! Here’s the story. A sad one, but good for me.

He was laid off and between that and finding another job, he lost his house. Or his mother’s house. I think he might have been living in Mom’s house. Or maybe he was just responsible for paying for Mom’s house. I never understood the situation exactly, except that Mom had gone on to her mansion in the sky. A local real estate got the house to sell – however that works – and he told the agent that he needed to sell his mother’s furniture. Lots of antiques. Another agent, a friend of mine, overheard all this and gave him my number. Yay, friend! The sad part is I had very, very little money. No way could I buy any furniture, but he said all the nick-nacks had to go, too.

When can I come?This afternoon? I’ll be there.

Now, I honestly wasn’t expecting anything. I was expecting to see the typical newish junk and just grabbed a few boxes and a roll of tape I happened to see as I was walking out the door, thinking I’d probably jinx things by having even those few things. I couldn’t have been more surprised! We made an easy deal. He knew he wasn’t in a position to dicker and I told him I wasn’t in a position to offer a fair price, that I’d do all I could afford to do. He figured anything was better than nothing, so I got all the nick nack-y stuff. Lamps, pictures and glassware galore. Not my typical fun, funky things, but stuff that will bring a little money. Here’s a teaser:

I cleaned crap for two days! Still cleaning the odd piece here and there, but am now beginning the photo session and listing. This stuff will be on the web site, in the eBay store and on auction. If I could raise the money this week, I’d go back and buy the furniture, too. And there are a couple of things I didn’t grab that are haunting me. We were in such a hurry. If you watch American Pickers, the episode where they feel they wore out there welcome by staying in the barn too long? That’s how we felt. Oh, did I say Ricky was with me? Another reason I was rushing. He’s been sick with allergies or a cold and I could sense him fading on me. Running out of steam.

So, I’d better get to work. I’ll try by tomorrow to have a gallery of all the stuff.

It’s a little late to get started, but I’m giving away a locker basket this month. Chosen entirely at random – it was the easiest to get to and wasn’t stuck inside another. And it just happens to be the kind I find the most visually appealing.

Remember, all you have to do to enter is leave a comment on any post this month. Any post or every post. Each comment on different posts counts as an entry. Since I didn’t post much in February, I’ll be pulling those comments for entries, too.

Good luck!

It took a week of doing nothing but rearranging. I had help two days and not everything in the shop has been moved. There are still things not in place. And, did I say, it still took a whole, stinkin’ week! It whipped me. Mentally and physically. Kicked me in the shins. Made me rethink wanting to go to being an event only shop. Can I do that to the larger degree needed to have events? Can I handle it? I dunno. Maybe. As the days go by, the pain is fading. Like childbirth. We’ll see.

Here are some pictures of a few of the newly redone areas. Nothing as fabulously wonderful as Curious Sofa or many of your booths, but OK.

Somebody already wants to buy the flower at the left. I hadn't intended to sell it.

Hmmm…. It all looks better in person. I promise it does.

As promised — I’m really impressed with myself that I’m actually following up on this the very next day — here are pictures of the things we drug out from the junk yard. Somehow, I think I’m missing something. We had a trailer load and this doesn’t look like that much… Oh, shoot. I did forget to get a picture of a chair.

Yellow, metal tool carrier.

Mid century yellow chair with black wire legs.

It's hard to see anything about this, but it's an aluminum table. I've got it slid under some shelves and a pink cornice on the table's shelf. Trust me when I say the table's pretty cool.

Another metal tool carrier. This one's all rusty and stuff.

These are little roll around stool things.

Of course I got the bicycle. Sorry about the mess all around it.

Wire gym locker baskets. I'm in love with these! Love the look. It will break my heart to sell any of them, but I do believe one will be in the March blog give-away.

We’ve got to get back over there before it’s all smushed. Scrapped. We need to pull bunches of things for Jeri to eBay. That should be exciting. I know I want the little chair. Don’t know why we didn’t load that up the other day. I’m also wanting the F-O-R off the front of that truck piece in one of the pictures. That’s if we can get them off. Another thing I’m thinking about is all the painted, tin tool boxes. And there’s a metal cabinet or two and a chippy wood frame…. shelf…. kinda like…. thing. Oh! I can’t wait to get back over there!

I’m still in the middle of the erupted volcano I lovingly call The Rearrange. It takes me so long. I work so slow and deliberately. But it’s ever so tiring. Physically and mentally. I’m ready to get back to business. Sure, rearranging is part of the business and I do enjoy it – for a day or two. After that, I’m ready to move on.

Subtitled: Erin and Wanda’s BIGGER Adventure

Did I tell y’all my sister-in-law, Lisa, put her monogramming business in the shop with me? She did that last August, but is going back to work. Work that carries a regular, known amount paycheck and insurance. So she’s leaving me. I’ll miss her. I’d got used to her being there. Her leaving and taking her stuff home meant a huge, major, move everything around, marathon rearrange for me. Melanie helped me for a couple of hours on Saturday, Jeri helped Monday and Erin was coming up Sunday to give me a hand. But what did we do? Not a single bit of rearranging. Not one iota. We went galavantin’ off to Jeri’s dad’s place.

Jeri’s now deceased dad was… a collector. A pack rat. I refuse to use the word hoarder. Hoarder is a fad word that is hurtful and mean. I don’t like it. And really, what he had was more a junk yard. (3 actually.) He collected old school buses, trucks, parts and pieces, metal, wood, tires, this, that, t’other… I’m betting 3/4 of you are already salivating and wishing you could have gone with us. Am I right?

We brought my granddog, Ross, the white with black spots dog above and Jeri had her Nicky – or is it Nikki? – and oh, did they have a ball! It was a clear, almost warm, beautiful, day and while the doggies romped, we clambered. We poked. We peered. We pulled. We tugged. We lugged.

This post will be in two parts. This one, heavy on the pictures, is showing you just some of the areas we ventured into. So walk with me through this wonderland of junk……..

That’s all for today. Tomorrow, I’ll share what we drug out of there. Jeri came and helped me in the rearrange yesterday and I worked to finish the front room today. Got it almost there, but there are two more rooms to do. I’ve got complaints that I don’t blog enough. I know, I know! I agree. But if you could see what takes up my time sometimes… It can get really frustrating.

Oh! I almost forgot! If you’re still reading, I just created a Facebook Fan Page for Just Vintage. It’s brand, spankin’ new. I’m a little slow with doing it. Should have done that a long time ago. I’d love to have all my blog friends on there. You can find it here: Just Vintage Facebook Fan Page. I think.