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!