A Girl's Gotta Play Once in a While!

If you think I haven't posted in a while, you're right!  There just isn't enough time in the day.  Shopping takes time away from prep work and prep work takes time away from working online and blogging (and then there are dishes and laundry, too).  For the past 10 days, we've had the annual Spring Sale at the antique mall, so all my energy in the weeks leading up to it was focused there and everything else has had to wait its turn.

Still, a girl's got to play once in a while...
My friend Bargain Hunter surprised me last Monday with an invitation to go shopping -- she normally works on Mondays, but had the day after Easter off.  I had to choose between shopping and doing housework and booth-prep work; a hard decision, I know, but I chose shopping!

We went to several shops north of us and found that many of them were closed on Monday...not fun!  Still, we found some good stuff at Swan Creek in Perry and Battle Alley in Holly.  We ended up at the mall where I have my booths, Livingston Antique Outlet, and shopped the Spring Sale.

Here are my goodies from Monday...

I'd never seen a round canister like this before  -- I'm in a yellow & white phase.  The little paper hat is from  Pickin' Chicken in Miami, Florida

These paint by numbers are wonderful!

Another horse item...I'm into western stuff lately, too

No shopping trip is complete without vintage Christmas!  (The pose doll's not Christmas -- she just looked cool sitting on the box...)

In other news, here are some things I've picked up in the past 2 weeks at my local thrift and at the antique mall's sale:

Such great finds!  The royal family and the soap pitcher will stay here, I think

I found all this on one quick dash to the thrift.  A pink gooseberry 444 bowl -- score!

Now it's time to get back to work.  I've listed 10 things on Etsy in the past 2 days, so I have to keep going while I'm on a roll!

Gooseberry and Butterprint, Oh My! - Treasures from the Michigan Thumb Yard Sale

I promised a peek at the things I got at the Michigan Yard Sale Trail in the thumb.  I meant to post on Sunday but, as usual, life got in the way...

This pink gooseberry was the highlight of the trip -- I could have gone home immediately and been THRILLED with what I found!

Three butterprint pieces plus one horizon bowl.  

These two Verde fridgies aren't great, but the price was right.  The little clothespin apron is hand painted and embroidered

Remember Margaret's straw hat?  It's 2 feet wide!

The other hat is a more fashionable one from Winkleman's department store.

I broke my self-imposed moratorium on vintage Christmas at the second stop!

This is a vintage Davy Crockett shirt from the 1960s -- it's pretty sad, though.  I really liked the little doll-sized chest of drawers, too.

This is some great made-in -Japan Christmas stuff

Have you ever seen a twin faced alarm clock?  Perfect for Ozzie and Harriet twin beds!

Just a few vintage linens, but they were very nice.

This big lot of feedsack strips (all 2-3' long and about 8" wide) was super-cheap.  I wasn't even positive it was real feedsack, because it looked so bright and new

Here are all the paterns -- multiple strips of most of them

This primitive home-made hen & chicks will go out by the girls.  

I just loved this kitchen from the 1970s-80s.  I almost walked away from it but knew I'd regret it if I did.  I still have to arrange with the seller to pick up the box of 'accessories' (dishes and toy food) that she forgot to bring to the sale

I picked up this sad lamp to make a globe lamp.  It needs to be cleaned up (really dirty) and rewired.  You'll see this one late when the project is done

Getting Back to Work!

I haven't posted in two months, but I've been BUSY!  I hope you haven't all deserted me because you thought I was never going to post again...

In those two months, I went for an extended weekend to Mackinac Island for a conference, then a week later went to Australia for 3 weeks, followed by 2 weeks of playing catch-up and dealing with killer jetlag and then trying to regain my momentum on the Etsy shop and the mall booth.  If you've ever watched a hamster run on its wheel and the wheel gets moving so fast that the hamster can't keep up...that's how the past many weeks have been.  Now that life's getting back to normal, I will (hopefully) be posting more often.

Sales are always down in July.  My first year selling, I panicked and thought I'd made a major mistake when the summer sales were so slow.  Now I know it will happen and I use the summer slow-time to really ramp up for fall and Christmas shopping.  As I've been shooting pictures, wrapping and writing listings, I've realized just how much stuff I have!  Even though this is prime shopping time (with flea markets and yard sales) I've really tried hard to avoid buying.

Until Thursday, when there was a jam-packed sale 4 miles from my house!  I was #25 and, since there were lots of tools, most of the people before me were men, so I thought I might still find something good.  Another dealer from the mall (who sells industrial stuff) was #3 and she had a sheet of neon orange SOLD stickers that she used to just buy everything she looked at.  What a great idea! There were 8-10 little metal tool drawers (that sell really well on Etsy) and she just stuck her stickers on all of them, along with the lockers and about 15 other things -- all in the first 5 minutes!

So, with no joy out in the garage, I went into the house.  I found two things that have been on my wish list!
Two pink gooseberry cinderella bowls were tucked inside some other, not exciting bowls and were dirt cheap.  Then I found a papier mache owl decoy, which I've been looking for for years!  I was so excited to find those 3 things I almost dropped them doing the happy dance.

After that, all the other things I got were good, but all to sell -- the owl and the bowls will stay here.

Christmas linens -- the sheer apron is especially cute

red and green Pyrex bowls

I always like anything with ships

both of these are Oven Serve bowls ane one is marked Kitchen Kraft, too

glass insert Crown canning jars from Canada -- these always sell very well

I've been avoiding dolls and doll stuff, but this bride doll is complete and the box is dated 1960

I had to hunt all over the garage to find this canister set, and never did find the 4th lid.  They were all so dirty and filled with solder, nails & screws and electrical parts.  I'll let you know how they clean up.

This nativity set was all in the box.  The man who's estate it was sat in the living room chatting with everyone -- he was a great salesman!  He told me there were a 'few extra pieces' in there, that he'd made.  All together there were about 40 extra

A fun bonus to the owl decoy is that little Grace loves it!  I have it in the kitchen by my crow decoy (okay, I know it's wierd) and she just kept looking at it and laughing.  This pictures blurry, but it's hard to hold an owl  out of reach in one hand (you can just see it in the lower left corner) and shoot a picture of a moving baby with your phone in the other...

I hope you found some good sales this week, too!