Excuse Me While I Buy This Junk

What’s new?

• June 17, 2011,

Sheesh! I terrible at multi-tasking! I’ve been busy working – or what I call working, even though we’re supposed to be on vacation this week. We had planned to spend the week with my son, daughter-in-law and grandfurbabies, but plans changed. Ricky has worked on my new craft room all week. He’s sheet rocked, mudded and sanded. You may remember the beginning here. That was back in April. Here’s where we are now:

The pictures were taken from the far corner. Get a load of that trunk. Does that shout 80′s or what? It was back in the day I was really into folk painting. Too bad I never developed much of a talent.

We should start painting the room this weekend. Can’t wait to get my junk moved in there!

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The big news is Sylacauga is getting a new antique mall, The Pickle Patch. It’s in an old car dealership on a major state highway. I’m really excited about it and am moving as much of my shop as possible over there. I was the first to pick out my space and I chose a well lit room:

(See that closet to the left in this picture? That’s Tiffany’s booth. She already has it set up and it’s just darling!)

This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. I was going nuts staying at the shop all by myself every day. I’m such a home body and finally put a sign on the door that I was open by chance or appointment. I tried seasonal events, but that was so much work for so little return. I needed a booth somewhere, but needed to still sell on the internet – my real love. The software they’ll use will enable me to check online any time to see what, if anything, has sold. Perfect! I think. Sounds good anyway. The mall opens July 30. If you’re interested in a booth drop me a note and I’ll set you up with the right folks.

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And finally, I now have an Etsy shop, JustVintage2! But I think I’ve mentioned that before. I’m really liking it. We seem to be a good fit. I need to devote more time to circles and favorites and stuff, but have been spending most of my time listing things. And selling. I’ve closed my eBay store and will mainly just do auctions there now. I’m keeping the web site, because it’s my baby. So what’s new there and on Etsy? These and more I didn’t picture here:

Hope everyone’s having a good summer so far!

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Last week’s fav finds

• June 7, 2011,

Whew! The heat broke today. Finally! It was only 97 degrees. Almost felt like a cool snap. Except for the sweat dripping off your nose and running in your eyes. Anyway, I had a bit more get-up-and-go. So I got up and took a couple of pictures. Thought I’d share my absolute favorite finds from last week. There’s a bunch of stuff that I’ll try to take pictures of later, but I really liked these two things and am keeping ‘em for my very own self. And you know what’s really nice about them? They were rescues! They were going to be tossed. Two different families getting rid of their parents’ stuff.

I’ve begged and nagged and tried to educate people I know not to throw stuff away without letting me take a look first. How many times have I heard, “Oh, it was all trash. You wouldn’t have wanted any of that.” Then I’ll ask if there were, say, any buttons. They looked shocked. And yes, there were. So I keep on begging and nagging and trying to make people understand not to toss anything.

So, at the home where I got this clock, a whole house full had already been thrown away. There were a few closets left. I came out with a car load, but most was just storage type stuff.

I’m in love with the clock and trying to figure out where to put it. But can’t you see someone throwing it out? I mean, it’s all crusty and messed up and probably doesn’t even work.

Then at another friend’s parents’ house, they’ve been cleaning out for awhile, but I did manage to tell them early on not to throw anything away. Got lots of tooky stuff there, but my favorite is this picture:

I’d taken the glass out to wash it when I took this picture. It’s just lying on the floor. I know exactly where it’s going.

Just look at that sweet, little, curly headed shepherd! He looks a lot like Cupid in my collection of Cupid pictures (Cupid Awake, Cupid Asleep). He should fit right in.

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Linking up with Tales From Bloggeritaville’s Thrifty Thursday.

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Hot enough fer ye?

• June 6, 2011,

No pictures today. Why? It’s too dang hot to move!

I’ve gone too long without posting. Why? It’s too dang hot to think!

It’s too dang hot to do anything, but I did get out and go to a couple of sales this weekend and got to load up some tooky stuff that was going to be thrown away. I gathered all the junk up and brought it home, but here it sits in a huge, messy pile in the den because…. IT’S TOO DANG HOT TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!

The heat came on too quickly. Just a couple of weeks ago I was sitting here with the windows open, the ceiling fan going and was comfy. Our house stays cooler longer than anyone else’s I know. Then all of the sudden we knew we had to turn the AC on and then… WHOA! The South was blasted with an early, energy zapping heat wave! If you’ve never experienced a summer in any of the states like Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, you haven’t experienced heat. Our summers are what give people the misconception that Southerners are lazy. It’s just too dang hot to move!

We, as a people, learned a long time ago to move a little slower in the summer. We also learned to jump in the swimmin’ hole. (Bathing suits optional if the company wasn’t mixed. Or if you were naughty, even if it was.) And ladies learned a nice, damp cloth helps to cool a glistening face. We know the value of a good shade tree and a tall glass of nice, cool, sweet tea.

All that brings memories of sitting on the front porch shelling peas with grandmothers, talking to neighbors strolling to the store. The ice cream truck coming up the street. Playing outside at sundown because it was too hot to play outside during the day. Or riding our bikes during the day just to get a breeze on our faces. I remember trying out sitting in a dark closet to see if it was any cooler in there.

In spite of how this post began, I want it known that I actually love summer and love hot, steamy, tropical heat. I just haven’t had time to acclimate to it, yet.

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Tee’s pocket swap

• June 1, 2011,

Encouraged by Tiffany I participated in my first hand made swap. The project was to flatten a toilet paper roll and make something pretty with it. Sounds impossible, doesn’t it? Tee of Altered Paper sponsored the swap and you can see all the pockets here: Altered Paper . See the slide show on the right.

Kelly of Dreaming of Vintage was my swap partner and look at her, oh so pretty pocket.

It’s sooo cute! You can see a much better picture on her blog.

She actually cut her roll and flattened it, so it’s bigger than mine (below).

And I decorated the back thusly:

Both pockets were filled with as much as we could cram in them. Lots of paper stuff mostly. And lots of fun! So now I think I’m ready to do another swap. Although it was rather traumatic to get this done in a week’s time. Kinda like homework. So hard to do when you “have” to.

 

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May’s giveaway winner is….

• May 30, 2011,

Drum roll :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Random Number Generator chose a number between 1 and 237 and came up with #131. Who was that you ask?

Kelsey of Tattered and Inked!

Congratulations to Kelsey! And thanks to all of you who commented throughout the month and to my new followers. I appreciate you so very much. I lost track and didn’t get to visit every one of you, but will still try to make it all around. I love finding new to me blogs. There’s so much talent, creativity and inspiration out there.

So your name’s not Kelsey? Are you like me and always congratulating somebody else? We even see people who win multiple blog giveaways and we can’t seem to win the first one? Well, maybe next month will be your month. I’ll have a June giveaway going on. Haven’t decided just what will be in it yet, but I’ll try to make it good. All comments throughout the month of June will be put in the pot.

 

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Lovely hand made gift from a friend

• May 26, 2011,

So I got my orders from Melanie to post something interesting. She’s taking her turn every evening sitting with her mother-in-law in the hospital and is getting tired of seeing nothing new on the blog. However, I don’t think this is what she had in mind. You see, this is a gift she made and gave to me.

She’s been playing around with transfers and was having a ball! I think she did really good. One would never know it was one of her first attempts.

I do believe the ladies symbolize Melanie, Tiffany (aka The Cranky Queen) and me. Three antiquing and crafting gal pals. We do have a great time together.

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And sometimes the pickin’s are slim

• May 19, 2011,

You know I told y’all that I just haven’t found much worth mentioning in the past few weeks? This is what I bought over the past week. One or two things I’m glad to have found. The rest? Enh.

(Keep reading to the end. If you haven’t heard, there’s a great contest going on over on Rhoda’s blog, Southern Hospitality.)

Warning. The following picture quality is embarrassing! Horribly so. Ugh.

Darling baby clothes, big stencils and chalk thingies I thought might be pretty glued to a piece of furniture and painted. Someday. When I finally paint some furniture. Eventually. Maybe.

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The round box is quite heavy. It has an undetermined date with a can of spray paint. I kinda liked the dancers. Dancers? What are they? Anybody know? Or know anything about them? The cat will most certainly go in my Halloween collection. But look at his butt.

What do you suppose was in there originally? A brush? Maybe a weighted tail so it was like a bobble head? Or bobble butt. (Snicker, giggle.)

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I thought these hot pads would be cute to put out at Christmas.

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Sigh. You can hardly contain yourself with all this excitement, can you? I know. I can feel it through the air waves.

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Pickle jar and sitting on top a woodpecker. Elf planter that I realized after it was bought and on the way to the car that it had a chip on his foot. Two pretty butter pats. A small chess box that seemed like it might make a good altered art thing. When the man was deciding how much to charge, he looked at the larger box and said, You know that box is dovetailed? That scared me. I mean, it’s a cheap box. Just because it’s dovetailed doesn’t make it expensive. I think it might have added to the price, but oh, well. The antlers partly make up for the ones almost identical that I PASSED UP a few weeks ago. Have no idea why I didn’t buy them. Oh yes. I remember. There was only one. Stoopid me.

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I almost didn’t buy this, but I seem to be incapable of passing them up. Nobody else seems to have that problem because they’re always waiting for me.

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And that’s it. See? I told ya. Worse than that, there have been so many dry weeks in a row this week might be a winner and I’m broke! Arghhhhh!

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And now, just in case you’ve missed it, Silhouette is sponsoring a giveaway over at Southern Hospitality. You could win a Silhouette paper cutting tool! So head on over to Rhoda’s and get your entries in.

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We Want To Know Wednesday

• May 18, 2011,

Have you seen the “We Want To Know Wednesday” posts around? A few weeks ago Seriously Shawn, Confessions Of An Impulsive Addict , The Johanson Journey and Our Dandelion Wishes started this Wednesday ritual. I thought I’d join along today. The questions are:

I’d like a Samantha nose twitch or a Jeanie blink. If those aren’t super powers, I don’t know what is. They can do what all the super heroes do put together.

My first frivolous purchase would be a Aston Martin. Oh wait. That might use up too big a chunk of the money. How about a Jag convertible or some other flashy sports car? Or maybe it should be spent on a house. Forget the car. The house I’d want would probably take the whole million. But I don’t consider that frivolous.

I searched for a picture of a dream home, but all the houses I could find under a mil were just blah. So maybe I should go back to the Aston Martin.

But you know what I’d really do with a million dollars? Pay it on bills as far as it would go. LOL

 

The computer. Or the washing machine.

 

Wisdom would be the noble choice and the wise choice, but I need money!

 

VS

 

A hammock, sunglasses, a boatload of cookies (Fruit would get old and I don’t like fish), a series of books, and I dunno. Tom Berenger maybe? I started to say James Franco, but that would be weird. He’s my kids’ age. I couldn’t think, right off the bat, of a good looking guy closer to my age. Then Tom came to mind. Oh, oh. I forgot. I’ve got a good, kind and loving husband who, like me, doesn’t take a good picture. So I’m sticking with the picture of Tom at the bottom.

 

(All photos courtesy of the internet and The Graphics Fairy.)

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Sometimes ya just get lucky

• May 16, 2011,

Have you noticed that I haven’t been posting my weekend finds lately? That’s because they’ve been so pitiful they just haven’t been worth the time it would take to talk about them. So sad. And honestly, this weekend wasn’t much better.

I happened to look at the things I was buying and selling this time last year and spring was a great time! The most memorable was the antique, empty Colt Revolver box I bought for $3 that sold for $200. This year though, yuck. A cool or fun thing here and there, but nothing much that helps pay the rent.

Rhoda at Southern Hospitality hosts Today’s Thrifty Treasures every Monday and since I did find a thrifty treasure yesterday I thought I’d join in.

You know I don’t normally tell how much I pay for things. It just seems a little tacky if I’m going to sell something. Suffice it to say, I get some pretty darn good deals. But yesterday’s deal at one estate sale surprised even me and since none of this will be for sale, I feel OK in sharing the price. Here’s what I got. Nothing earth shattering, but….

OK. The Bingo game might be pieced out and sold and I’ll even say it was one of the two things priced. It was a dollar. Pretty average around here. The stack of envelopes was the other thing priced. Twenty-five cents for the stack. I’ll probably give the sprinkler to a friend. The chalk box is in bad condition. And did you know I collect empty, vintage Christmas boxes? Proof to the saying,
“Name it and there’s someone out there who collects it.”

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More spoons to decorate or make jewelry with.

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More molds. What am I going to do with all these molds I’m accumulating??! Two little tin fuse boxes. Just ’cause they’re so darn cute. Slide thingies. I’m thinking altered art? And a box full of teeny tiny screws and hinges. Oh, and that dark blob on the middle tin?

It’s a cute little plastic dog.

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I saved the best for last. I got there at least two hours into the sale. Down in the basement, where most of this came from, in a back corner of the “man” room with all the greasy, oily tools and cans of nails and such, hiding behind a tarp or something was this:

Now, I know watering cans aren’t bringing what they brought a few years ago, but I still like them and have a little collection. But I don’t have one with a cool, red sprinkler on the end.
And now I do!

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So how much for all this? Remember all I knew when I took it up to pay was $1.25. I pulled everything out of my bag, the guy’s adding it on his little adding machine, I’m worried he’ll want $20 for the can then he says…………

$4.25!

I pointed to the can and asked to be sure he got it and he said he did. I still wasn’t sure, but didn’t say anything, picked my winnings up and left, expecting him to stop me and say that he had in fact missed the can. But he didn’t.

The moral to this story? The deals are still out there. Don’t give up. And look in all the dark, dusty corners, behind doors, under tables. You’ll find the goodies that escaped everyone else.

I’m also participating in Apron Girl’s Thrift Share Monday.

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