Friday, April 27, 2012

One Good Sale and LOTS of Frogs!

I've really missed getting to shop on Thursdays.  Even if I have maxed out my hours on Monday-Wednesday, my boss wants me to make sure I have enough time left to be there on most of Thursday -- which means that I miss all the good stuff at the sales.  Yesterday, though, I found one that was pretty good even by the time I got to it.

The husband's mom had passed away and they were selling a lot of her household stuff.  I thought it would be a frog when I got there and a 1960s wood china cabinet (with lots of replaced sections) was priced at $300!  Once I got into the garage, though, I found a few treasures.
A Capitol album carrier
The cake carrier is a triple layer one -- can fit a cake plus 2 pies!
These are two large pictures from the 40s
A Hires rootbeer crate and an old 7UP carrier (with a metal frame)
A bunch of kitchen odds and ends.  The pyrex casserole has the original 2-burner warming frame!  I really like the drinks shaker with the olives painted on  and I've never seen a tiny Foley food mill like this, either.
These were a great find -- it took some research to figure out what they are:  muddlers!  I'd never heard of them, but a muddler is a masher or crusher used in bartending.  These spoons have flat edges to crush the fruit in a drink.  The smaller ones are new old stock, still in their original wraps in the box.  These would have been used with tea, to crush the sugar cubes!  Both sets are silver plate, made in Sheffield, England and have red knobs.  I'm sure that the longer ones' knobs are bakelite, but I need to test the shorter ones.



Today I slept in (a little), got some things ready for the booth and set out for garage sales.  They aren't my favorite way to shop -- I really hate all the short trips and going in and out of the car.  Like all  of the shopping trips, they're not as much fun when you're by yourself, too.  A local small town was having a city-wide garage sales so there were LOTS.  Unfortunately, besides lots of sales, there were lots of 'frogs' and lots of Little Tykes sets (no offense intended, moms of little ones, but when you don't have any littles in your life, there's only so much kid-stuff you can look at)!  I made lots of stops and only got a couple of good things.

The best buy of the day was this Argus 150 slide projector!  I recently bought a whole box of slides to sell on Etsy and it's really hard to see what they are with an old hand-held plastic slide viewer.  This projector is so cool (actually, it gets quite hot...) and it works perfectly!  It turns out that the slides I bought are from the 1950s and are from trips to Florida, some other coastal areas and Lapland, Finland and (I think) some Soviet bloc countries! 
The Argus 150 projector
 Here's a little of the slide show...
These are people at a lakeside in a central European country in the 50s -- I hope they aren't spy-slides!
Sorry for the blur -- my camera was confused by the light & dark exposure. 
Stylin' men from the 50s -- they really know how to 'loosen up' at the lake, don't they?
Check out the car!
After I visited so many 'froggy' garage sales that I couldn't stand it another minute, I went to the mall and worked on the booth.  That always cheers me up!  I love catching up with all of my friends who work there and I really enjoy talking to the shoppers, too.  It's so nice to hear their stories and talk about our common love of old stuff!

When I got home, I went out to do some 'farm' work (ha!)  Our lilacs are just coming on, the girls are laying like crazy (even Pee Wee -- see her tiny egg in the upper right?) and I had to pick ALL of the asparagus because we're going to get frost tonight.  Spring might just be my favorite season!

Well, now that I'm finding time to post again, I hope to keep it up -- I have so much to tell you!  We went on a trip to Holland, Michigan (the home of all things Dutch) and I won a giveaway (my first ever).  I've been doing some painting projects and, instead of straightening up the basement, making a bigger mess!  So much to share and so little time...

Have a great weekend!  I can't wait to see what you all did (and what you found) this week!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

A little blue, a little tired and a LOT busy!

I just saw that I haven't posted since March 22... I think that's a (bad) record for me!  I've been so busy -- between my day job and the booth and Etsy, added to things to be done around the house and shopping for the booth and Etsy, I barely have a minute to breathe.  A few years ago one of our pastors did a teaching on margins and how we all need some margins (white space) in our lives.  Well, lately there isn't any margin! 

Being too busy makes me a little tired and also I've been a little blue.  I don't know if that's an expression used much anymore, but it exactly describes the funk I've been in.  I feel like I just need something (maybe a string of nice weather, a good sale or two, a few extra days off or a visit from a moved-away friend) to give me a lift! 

Anyway, I've got LOTS of blog posts in my head!  There are so many things I need to tell about -- when I finally start putting them up, it will be day after day and most of them ought to start with "This should have been posted on...(fill in the date in the past 3 weeks).  So, no pictures yet, or posts about shopping or things I've been doing, but they'll be coming soon (I hope)! 

Thanks for stopping by, even though there hasn't been anything to read.  More to come...