All Decked Out for December!

Yesterday was Dealer Day at the antique & collectibles mall where I have my booth. I had a TON of work to do to break down the Fall/Thanksgiving display and to deck it out for Christmas! My car was filled with all kinds of vintage Christmas goodness. When we pulled into the church parking lot this morning, ever so carefully so as not to upset the crazy packing/stacking job to get it all in, some things clanked together in the back and we had a good chuckle thinking that no one had a clue about what was in my car!

We only had to bring home a few fall things-everything else was able to find a place-hopefully it will all hurry up and find new homes so I clear out more stuff from the house! I know I sold at least one thing today, while I was setting up, a couple of people were pretty excited about a wooden Santa I brought in. The first lady said she'd let me finish setting up, but she was coming back to buy him. Then my friend Auntie swooped in and bought him!

The lady was also interested in a sled I had and some blow molds...today might end up being a really good day if she comes back!

Here is what it looked like when I pulled it all out of the car..

Here is what it looked like before Santa got pulled out to go to his new home...

Here is what it looked like after Santa left...

 Whew!!! Now hopefully a lot of this will find new homes by the end of the month!!!

Fingers crossed!!!

I'm Pretty Impressed...

I've been a shopper at Livingston Antiques Outlet since they first opened and have always been very impressed with the mall and the booths of the all of the dealers in the mall. I've also been impressed with the sales staff over the years-they've always been very friendly, professional and helpful.

This past week, I've been a "dealer" in this same mall, and have experienced the other side of the coin-so to speak. After setting up the booth last week, and going in today for "Dealer Day", and getting a chance to talk to other dealers-I have to say this is really a GREAT antiques mall!

What is "Dealer Day"? It is one Sunday a month where the mall's dealers are invited to come in from 10am until noon for breakfast/brunch, a chance to get to know other dealers, a chance to froof, and tweak your booth without being in the way of shoppers, and...a chance to win $50 off of one month's booth rent or a $20 gift certificate!

The owners really work hard to make things easy for the dealers who rent space in their mall!

How AWESOME is that?!?!?

On top of all that, the dealers and staff that we have met have all been really friendly, and helpful! It's been a very enjoyable experience meeting them all!! I had a really nice conversation with the previous renters of our booth space...it seems their daughter and I share a love for Fiesta!

I shopped a little after I got done adding more stuff and some froofing, (I bought a couple vintage Fiesta plates from the couple who used to rent our space-they just moved closer to their other booth) and while I was checking out, I heard someone call out my name. When I looked up, it was Mitzi, from Mitzi's collectibles! Thanks for saying "Hi" Mitzi and making me feel welcome!!!

Since my last post, we've added a few more things to the booth-so I thought I'd show you what it looks like today...

Last Friday, while we were out treasure seeking, Auntie and I saw a really neat display made out of wood lath and a rusty old farm fence. We thought it would be a good thing for the booth, but were worried that the rusty metal might come off on our hankies. So I've been trying to figure something out to display the hankies better than just setting them out or leaving them all piled up on a box.

This is what I came up with...

The square frame has stainless steel wire and mini clothespins (Kevin made this one-probably the last project for me from him for a while). Kevin bought the stainless steel wire last summer at the Greenmead Flea Market, and it's just been sitting out in the barn waiting to be used! I also made some hankie hangers out of strips of wood and clothespins that I tacked on with Kevin's pin nailer. I had a blast making them today-hopefully Auntie will like them!!

I also found these giant clothes pins and painted them red and added some polka dots-what do you think?

Our First Day as Booth Renters!

Today was the long awaited, highly anticipated move in day at the antiques & collectibles mall---AND we survived!!! We had Kevin's truck loaded down with all of the cases (inside and out). My car was loaded with an enamel top 1940's kitchen table and 9 bins of junk awesome stuff! Auntie's car is tiny so she was only able to bring 4 bins and a few larger things.

We were there almost 7 hours. This is the before shot, showing the big empty booth and the shelves and  border that the previous renters left.

Kevin stuck around for about an hour helping us screw the cabinets to the walls and hauling the heavy stuff in-I am so grateful that he was able to take today off from work to help us. We would never have been able to do as much as we did today without his help!

The walls are actually a really light blue-they almost look white. We decided not to paint the entire wall and just paint the border. We used chalkboard paint. So that we can write stuff on the back wall...like Welcome, or Happy Valentines Day, or Merry Christmas...or whatever strikes our fancy. When we go back on Thursday, we are going to paint a bunch of polka dots (in different bright colors) on the border on the two sides.

This is what it looked like when we took a break to go get some lunch.

After lunch, we worked for a few more hours, and this is what it looked like as we were leaving for the day.

I'll be taking a big flat top trunk, a console table and maybe a giant crock on Thursday. Are you wondering why I keep saying Thursday instead of tomorrow? Well...tomorrow we will probably be snowed in at home! The snow-pocalypse is supposed to hit us tonight-the weather forecasters are calling for about 15" with freezing rain and a lot of blowing. It will be interesting to see how much we actually get!

Adam has to work until midnight-right about the time the roads should be really nasty-so he's planning on just sleeping at work. He works at a rehab facility (for people who've had knee, back, or some other surgery or injury that they need to therapy or to recover from) and he says they have whole wings that are brand new, and have never been used so he'll just sleep there. I'm glad to hear that! At least I'll know he'll be safe!

The best news of the day though, is that both Auntie and I made our first sales today!! Two workers at the mall came in and bought one of my things and one of hers! That was really exciting and really encouraging!!

We DID it!!!

We signed the final papers today! We are officially crazy  booth renters in a local antiques and collectibles mall!! Auntie called them up today and I met her there on my lunch break and we got the whole spiel and signed the final contract!

Woo Hoo!! I'm very excited to give this a try, but also very nervous about displaying/decorating our booth! I'm VERY grateful to Auntie for priming and painting the wooden display cabinets that Kevin made! The few hours I spent shopping for the wood and helping Kevin with them out in the barn is nothing compared to the hours and hours of painting she is doing! THANKS Auntie!!!

Brrr...Windburned Cheeks, a Few Good Finds, Sparkling Cherries and a Sale Filming for HGTV!

Yesterday my friend Auntie (because her original blog is called "Thoughts from the Chicken's Auntie"...check out her new blog!) and I left before the sunrise to go to the east side of the state for an impressive list of 8 estate sales! Can you believe 8 estate sales in January-in Michigan?!? All within a 23 mile radius of each other-too bad they were over an hour from our hometown!

The first sale was at the home of a former Chrysler executive. When we got there, it was single digit temperatures with a 15 mile an hour wind. We waited outside for about a half an hour. My cheeks are still red and sting a little bit today from getting windburned!

The company hosting the sale pretty much just piled the junk stuff wherever. It was almost like an episode of hoarders-there was so much stuff! They only priced a small amount of stuff, and the rest of it was up for interpretation (meaning they look you over, they look the item over, and they set a price based on what you look like you mind spend on it.). My least favorite way to shop sales!

I picked up a few things, and when I went to pay and was told the prices, I said a few times, "no thanks-I don't want it that bad". The owner/cashier then came back with lower prices and I ended up with everything I carried to the check out-and at prices I was willing to pay. Hopefully other shoppers didn't just accept the Interpreted prices! I hope they dickered a little bit!

For some reason, I've been drawn to vintage thermoses ( I picked up 5 at the first sale yesterday!). I think that it's Shara at Monekybox's fault-LOL! I saw a photo of her thermos collection and ever since, I've kind of been drawn to them!

I also got a bright green Glasbake jumbo mug and a red Carlton cake saver/carrier, and a few hankies with crocheted edges-sorry...I already got them cleaned up, priced and packed in the bin to go-otherwise I'd show you the pictures!

The next sale we went to was just 5 miles from the first one, and it was in an old mini-mansion. It had really high ceilings with crown molding, dressing rooms, servants quarters, a grand oak staircase with 3 levels. A servant's staircase to the second floor and third floor as well as to the basement. It was a gorgeous house-I'm bummed that I forgot my phone in the car-otherwise I'd show you!

After the cramped, hoarder quarters at the first sale, this sale was wide open, very well organized everything was priced and clean-and best of all...there were LOTS of workers. Even the check out line went really fast! I will definitely be interested when I see sales come up from this company!

At the mini-mansion, I got a pair of adorable little red leather baby shoes all scuffed up, a glass punch ladle, a yellow Pyrex loaf pan and a Kate Spade purse (looks like new-for me!). Everything but the purse is the same place the other stuff ended up. I'll take pictures of the booth once it is all set up and I'll try to remember to show you what I bought.

Here's the purse...I thought it was something fun and whimsical for a cold, dreary, winter day!

 After that we went to some other unremarkable sales and then to a sale where they were filming for HGTV. I've seen ads for a few months for sales that say they are filming for HGTV, but from the pictures on estatesales.net, I haven't seen anything worth the trip to one of those sales. This time, since we were in the area, we decided to stop and check it out.

They were filming for the show "Cash and Cari". We both really didn't want to be on camera, so we were glad to be able to sneak in behind the cameraman while he was filming Cari at the checkout table, but a few minutes later, he caught up to us and another woman in the kitchen. As soon as I saw him, I turned away and tried to squeeze past him and out of the kitchen. Unfortunately, I didn't see the giant black camera equipment box on the floor and smashed my shin into it and now have a scrape and bruise as a souvenir of my time at the estate sale filming for HGTV!

We ran out of time and weren't able to shop the last two sales on the list, but that was OK, by me. I had a lot of wrapping and packing waiting for me at home. I have about 90% of my stuff for the booth priced and now 90% of that is wrapped and in bins ready to go!

The new stuff from yesterday is cleaned, priced and all tucked into the last bin. All that is left is to paint the display shelves (Auntie has offered to do this, because I hate to paint!), load the stuff into Kevin's truck and my car and head out to the mall on the first! That and hope that I didn't price my stuff too high, and that it's stuff other people would want to buy!

Rainy, Gloomy, Dark Day

With both boys gone to my parents in the U.P. it gets pretty quiet around the old house-and it stays clean! With nothing pressing to do around the house today, I decided to wander around a couple of my favorite antique places just to have something to do.
It was 47 degrees and pouring rain when I left. For a while, it was hard to even see the cars in front of me it was coming down so hard! The first place I stopped at used to be called "Startin' Antiques". Now it has new owners/operators and the name is now "Six Corners Antiques". The whole time I was there, it was just me and two other shoppers along with the two owners.

I found this amazing wall unit. I took pictures and measurements-I think something like this is just the thing for our sunroom, on both sides of the doorwall. Now the hard part is to convince Kevin to make them!

I found this Manhattan cream and sugar set, the white bowl and lid with a red stripe, and this small mixing bowl. The tag said it was Pyrex, but there aren't any markings on the bowl to either confirm or deny that-guess I'll have to do some research to find out for sure!

I went to Livingston Antiques and boy was it c-r-o-w-d-e-d! I kept hearing people say that they couldn't believe how big it was! There were also several people who either said they were lost, or that they had seen the same rows 3 or 4 times and couldn't figure out how to maneuver through the mall.

It's good to see new people coming and shopping there. It's a really nice mall! I don't quite understand how they were getting turned around though. It's pretty straight-forward with wide, long aisles. I went the opposite direction of what I usually go and I highly recommend for everyone to do this a couple of times a year. You get so used to seeing stuff in the same places if you go the same way every time you shop. When you go the opposite way, you find "new" treasures that have probably been there right along!

There were a few dealers cleaning out and packing up their booths. Some vendors who were there at the beginning of the month were gone, and some had rearranged everything, and brought in some new stuff. I didn't find anything that I couldn't live without, but I had a nice time wandering and looking!

Friday Fix

Finally there were some promising looking estate sales within decent driving distance! It has been pretty sparse around here lately, I was almost starting to go through withdrawals from not getting a vintage thrifting fix for a while.

Luckily for me, there were three pretty good sales today. One was in Sterling Heights, one in Hamtramck and one in Ferndale. Auntie and I met early and planned to be in line at the Sterling Heights sale a half an hour before it was scheduled to open. When we got there, we saw lots of cars lining the street, but no line! They actually started earlier than they advertised and were letting people in. It was great because I sure wasn't looking forward to standing out in the cold for at least a half an hour!

It was a very dirty house. I found a covered refrigerator dish that was so dirty, the dirt looked like paint! I forgot to take a before picture to show you how bad it was-I was just so anxious to get the grime off of it, I didn't even think about taking pictures. It cleaned up pretty good, and doesn't have any chips-just a little scratching on the lid (probably from all the dirt).

I got a box of small old ornaments for $1. I looked at them in the dingy basement and they looked fine. When I got home in my bright kitchen-they look not so good. There are more tarnish spots than I was expecting.

I picked up this little juice glass-not sure if it is an official Swanky Swig or not, and a never used, in the package vintage flat sheet and a couple of pillowcase sets. I like to use flat sheets to spread out in the back end of my car to keep the carpet from getting stuff on it, and this one is bright and cheery-I'm excited to open the back end and see it!

Then we headed to the sale in Hamtramck-boy do I feel bad for making this one second on our list! Poor Auntie-she really wanted to go to this one because it looked really good online, and I chose for us to visit the other one first-sorry Auntie!

This was part regular estate sale, and part digger sale. As we were going in we saw lots of vintage tablecloths  going out-WAHHH! We did manage to find a couple of tablecloths each and a couple kitchen towels each-so we sorta got our fix, but we missed out on some great ones, I'm sure!

In the house they were burning some sort of incense that was ugh-probably one of the worst flowery smells I've ever smelled! I still can't get that smell out of my nose! Out in the garage there were boxes and bags and bins full of stuff to dig through-and dig we did! It was fun, but dirty! I also picked up this folding ruler for $1-now to just find a place to hang it...

The last sale of the day was in Ferndale. I found a small embroidered square tablecloth, and that was all for me. It was fun to be out and about today visiting estate sales and catching up with Auntie-it's been a few weeks since we've been to any sales.

Tomorrow we are going to Williamston and Howell for the two antique mall open houses I mentioned in an earlier blog post. It looks like 3 other ladies from work will be joining us-how fun! After paying estate sale prices, it is hard to even imagine going in to an antique shop to buy anything...it never hurts to look...and it's always fun to hang out with friends! We have a first time antiquer going with us, so it should be fun to see her reaction to things, and what she finds intriguing.

If you live close enough to Williamston and Howell, you should check these sales out! You might even bump into our group-we'll be the ones looking at vintage Fiesta, jadeite, vintage table linens, vintage Christmas, LuRay, and anything out of the ordinary that catches one of our eyes. We'll probably be laughing a lot too! :)

I can't wait for Saturday!!!

I am sooo looking forward to Saturday! I am going to 2 antique mall open houses with Auntie and some friends from work.

We'll be going first to Williamston Antiques Mall and then Livingston Antiques Outlet. What are your plans for Saturday? Wanna join us? We always have lots of fun and LOTS of laughs!

Mark your calendar!

There are a couple of sales coming up at local antique malls-mark your calendar now, so you don't miss out!

Friday -Antiquing and Thrifting...

Since it is finally warming up here in Michigan and today was my day off, I decided to head out to Livingston Antique Outlet for a little mindless wandering. I was hoping to find some vintage linens at bargain prices! I was very happy with what I found...

My very first vintage tablecloth! It is huge and in really great shape...and it was a GREAT bargain!
I LOVE it!!

I know this purse isn't old, but it is cute and the price was right!

 Cute little embroidered napkins!

Then I had about an hour to kill before I had to pick my youngest son up at school, so I stopped at our local Salvation Army Thrift Store. It was really packed today! I didn't realize they were having a 50% off kids clothes sale until I got in there and heard them announce that you had to be in line by 2:00 in  order to get the special price. I was afraid I'd get stuck behind a million moms and be in line forever! I checked out at 10 minutes til and none of them were even in line yet-whew!

This is what I got:

Easter egg candy dish (minus the M&M's).

Not sure if these are candy dishes, or what they are. I kind of thought they'd be neat turned upside down and used as a pedestal to raise up other dishes...

When I got home, I got the bug to do some spring cleaning and decided to move a recliner out of the living room (it hardly gets used), and move in one of my antique trunks so we could enjoy looking at it. Of course, that meant having my snarly oldest teenage son (almost 19) and his friend move them...after about 5 minutes of him complaining and telling me he hates my trunk-I reminded them who buys their pizza every Friday, and that ended that discussion really fast!

I love this trunk! I got it at a garage sale in Ann Arbor last summer when I went out garage sale shopping with my friend Pam from work. I actually left without it, and went back several hours later, because couldn't get it out of my mind and regretted not getting it, and thankfully it was still there! It was painted white on the inside and had a bunch of Christmas cards glued into the inside of the lid, with what looked like wood glue! It actually was pretty easy to get all the cards and glue off with Kevin's electric scraper.

I touched up the black and brass colored paint. The wood was already in great condition.

The inside I lined with hydrangea wallpaper I picked up at our local Habitat for Humanity Store. Notice my little paint boo boo? I didn't realize the paint ran into the inside until it was already dry. I'd like to add some finishing touches to finish it all off and to try to hide the paint drip.

I'll have to take some pictures of my inadvertent trunk collection and post them at a later date. For some reason last summer, every garage sale we went to, just about, had an antique trunk for sale from between $3 and $20. So, not being able to pass up such bargains... we ended up with 5 trunks!! No more trunks for us!! We both love them all, and probably won't end up getting rid of any of them. We'll spend some time fixing them up and use them around the house...I might give up one...my mom has always wanted a camel back trunk, and we really don't need 2 in the same size.