Moist Ski Toes

There has been rain here.  A lot of rain.  And warm temperatures.  So, it feels like a lovely swamp.  With all the mosquitos you could ever want.  You've got to run to the house from the car at lightening speed (and hope there is someone inside ready to open the door and shut it again after you zoom in) for fear that you may pass out from blood loss on the way.  It's straight up gross outside.  I'm shocked there aren't crocodiles and boa constrictors roaming about out there.  And the most terrible part is that while we are experiencing days like Noah, the opposite coast is having the worst drought in many, many years.  Something is dreadfully out of whack.

I took yesterday off to attend the annual sale to benefit The Advent House.  It's an adorable hospice house run by a devoted group of volunteers.  It's an amazing place and the benefit sale they have each year is not to be missed.

I hit up jewelry first as I usually do.  I wasn't disappointed.  A gorgeous pair of nice, heavy turquoise earrings for $5, a cute pair of Asian inspired black and red earrings from the 80's for $2, and a huge, ridiculous, multi-stoned, lion (gargoyle, beast?) headed cuff for $5.  Sometimes you just need a ridiculous statement piece.

The Florida shot glass is from a sale a few weeks ago.  Love me some Florida.  The wooden bangle was $1 and fits my child wrists really well.  Which almost never happens.  I've been interested in getting a wooden bangle for a while now.  It could have something to do with my recent obsession with all things tiki.  (Thanks, Pinterest.)  The hombre Christmas tree with iridescent sparkles was $1 as well.

I also scored some great gifts and a bunch of things for the ol' Etsy store, so it was a pretty good day.

Today is Saturday and I was finally able to get to some more estate sales.  It feels odd that my sale-ing days will not end this year, but will continue out into the fall and through the winter.  Cold weather is generally the death of yard sale season, but estate sales go right on through the winter.  What a novel idea!  Will I get sick of it?  Is there any such thing as TOO many sales??

Most of the estate sales we hit today were half off.  God, I love that phrase.  These tiki dudes are shot glasses I think.  Some vintage stoppers and a tea ball complete the set of kitchen kitch.  Each of these items were a quarter.

Tiny vintage mice ornaments!  One of my favorite things ever.  This set was $1.50  The hankies were a quarter.  I know, I need more hankies like a need a kick to the shin.  They just jump right in my bag, I don't even know how to stop them!

Alicia came sale-ing with me this morning.  She scored big:

She covets old crates, but in these parts they are generally too rich for her blood.  Today she found one for $3!  A dream realized.  The mid century cream pleather ottoman was also $3.  Ridiculous.

She got a pair of gorgeous glass lamps for $4, and a pie wedge server, a spatula and some assorted kitch for a quarter each.

Please don't miss the most wee bird.

So, In Summary:

Edward Cullen has nothing on these blood suckers.

Delicious Addiction

A few more estate sales this weekend.  After a weird 15 minutes where Google navigation lead us in an actual circle and through road work, (Which has never happened before, I've always been able to count on Google.) we found our destinations and set about making short work of the goods.

I found a gorgeous little white enamel colander with strawberries on it for $4 and a lovely Christmas corsage for $1.  I love vintage Christmas corsages.  The usually look like some coked-up four year old put them together.  They've got a bow, they've got a plastic piece, they've got a pine cone and an ornament and some fake snow flocking.  They have it ALL.

 And then I found...another trove of vintage paper lanterns?  Don't you judge me!  I clearly don't have enough yet.  Clearly.  I just need enough and then I'll stop.  Don't ask me how many is enough.  I'll know it when I get there.  And then I'll stop.  Because I can stop.  Any time I like.  Just as long as it's not right this minute.

Besides, this box had some BIG ones in it!!  Bigger than any I've got right now.  Which leads me to wonder, how many sizes, shapes and designs do they come in??  Probably I need to research it by buying a billion of them and cataloging them.  For posterity.

So, In summary:

Sometimes a summertime addiction is utterly delicious. 

Saint Pius X

I cannot help saying that name in an utterly triumphant manner and also picturing Kurt Wagner when I do.  It's a pretty ridiculous name, as church names go.

This year Saint Pius, that wall crawling mutant, was pretty good to me, a mere human.  Check out these Christmas cuties.  Now, I'm not going to mince words here.  These look like ladies in drag.  Women in beards, Christmas carnival ladies.  But still cute, don't get me wrong.  I'm not here to judge. 50 cents for the lot.

Next is what I'm calling, Dave.  I know it's not The David's head.  But it looks similar.  And I'm calling him Dave.  Also, he is a perfume dispenser. 50 cents. 

I've never gotten there in time to get any jewelry worth having.  This time was different. Vintage cold cream container from a dresser set (25 cents), penny earrings ($2), 3D palm tree earrings($1), and some funky earrings with a Polynesian flair ($1).  I want nearly everything in my life to be Tiki these days.

I've saved the best for last.  You guys aren't even going to BELIEVE this story.  Or maybe you will.  Because, I admit, it's sort of boring for anyone else but me.  Probably.  For better or worse, here we go.

When I was a kid I had an ice cream cup.  A plastic cup shaped like an ice cream cone that had a part that fit over like a lid, shaped like mint ice cream.  Then a part that stacked on top of that, which looked like chocolate sauce.  The top bits had a hole in them wherein you could place a straw. 

Recently I started thinking about this cup.  Yearning after this cup.  I thought it had probably been made by Avon, as most of the items in my childhood were.  I looked everywhere for this cup, to no avail.  (And by "everywhere" we all know I mean, "the internet".)

But, people, people, get THIS.  On my way OUT of the Saint Pius sale, I swung by the plastic table.  The plastic table is strewn, piled even, with all manner of plastic kitchenware.  Plates and wine glasses mix with thermoses and silverware.  All plastic, all a colorful jumble.  And sitting on top of this glorious mess, what did I spy?

Yeah.

It's not the gorgeous mint ice cream cup from my childhood, but the strawberry version of the self-same cup instead.  I'll take it.  I'll take it and drink milk from it like I did just about every day of my young life.  And then I'll know happiness.

So, In Summary:

When Nightcrawler hands you a strawberry ice cream instead of a mint one,

you take that sucker. 

Estate Side

Another week and another set of estate sales.  One of the things about estate sales is that they very often occur during the week.  Since we all have full time jobs we can't make it during the week days.  But, there are lots of estate sales that occur on the weekends too.  Generally Saturday is the last day of the sale.  Yes, that means that the merchandise is generally picked over, but it also means that it's half price day.  We can dig a half price sale, real well.

At the first sale I found an amazing deal.  A jadite glass dish for $4! Look how cute!  A little flower basket.  I've never seen this one before, so it was pretty exciting.  I also got a few vintage necklaces and a crazy chipped Christmas ornament.  Another pair of gold earrings to help me work on my budding relationship.

The second sale we went to started on Saturday!  That's right!  A very rare occurrence and super exciting.  I'm convinced it's the only reason that I found the bag of vintage paper lanterns.  If it had started a day earlier, they would have been gone for sure!  I mean, who wouldn't want a big bag of old, musty paper lanterns?

Some of them have koi designs.  I'm so excited to put them up all over the house!  Lanterns in every room!  It's going to look like a scene from the Mad Tea Party up in here when I'm done.  Jealous?

Alicia found a few treasures as well.  Some vintage jewelry...

And this mid century modern record stand FOR FIVE DOLLARS.  You heard me.

I have a hatch back, but we also had quite a few treasures in the back by then.  So, Alicia (and her roommate Steph) are pictured here "taking one for the team".  They had to share a seat with the cabinet the whole ride home.  For $5, sometimes you just make it work.

Speaking of Steph, she's new to this whole "saleing" thing.  But I'm here to tell you that she took to it like a fat kid to a bake sale.  Her level of excitement was up to 11.  I even heard her trying to talk the other members of our party into buying more things.  That's right.  Feel the power of the dark side, young Skywalker.

Here are her treasures.  Her first haul.  The tin looks like a book, and she is storing jewelry in it already.  The pin is for her "good pea coat" and she doesn't even care that the glass dish is an ashtray because, to quote her,  "it's Asian and I want it".

So, in summary:

Fresh Blood

Switching Teams

So, I've made the switch.  No, not that switch.  The switch from garage sales to estate sales.  I know, I never thought I'd switch teams either.  But lately I've been getting that feeling.  You know the one.  The feeling that you've seen it all, perhaps even bought it all.  The sad, anxious feeling that there isn't any junk left to unearth.  That feeling.

For the last few weeks I've said goodbye to neighborhood sales and hello to Estate sales.  They are very different types of places, let me tell you.  A neighborhood garage sale is a place where, the people have chosen things to get rid of.  They are alive, they need more of their junk still.  

An estate sale usually comes on the coat tails of a death or sometimes of someone moving to a nursing facility.  They won't need any of their things anymore and their families can't even deal with the piles of stuff.  So, they hire a company to put on a sale.  You just walk right in to the house, right into the last remnants of someone's life.  They put a price on the memories someone has collected through a lifetime and you pay the fee.  Happily I might add.  Because, these houses probably haven't ever had a garage sale.  They are FULL of stuff.  Junk and bits and nice antiques, too!

Yes, it is a bit sad, picking at the wreckage of someone's carefully assembled life like vultures.  But, I do feel as though I'm honoring their life a bit by rescuing a piece of it and loving it like it was my own.

I even have a sweet secret stalker site.  Estatesales.net  You put in your zip code and search the sales near you.  They almost always have pictures which is so helpful, you can't even imagine!  You don't have to waste your time with sales that don't have things you are interested in!

The first weekend that I really committed to the new team we hit up two sales.  The first one was a regular run of the mill estate sale.  Smelled like old people, tons of craft supplies, lots of old men's clothing.

I got a vintage felt santa ornament and a lovely velveteen strawberry pin cushion.  I think I paid a dollar total.  Look at the design of that santa.  Delicious!

The second sale we went to was in a very pricy part of town.  The Park Ave. area.  It was a huuuge old house that was cut up in very odd and small ways inside.  I can't imagine having a huge old house cut up into such small rooms. It sort of defeats the point.  But this place was filled with treasures.  There were so many nice antiques that anything else was priced to move fast.  So much craftsman era pottery, tons of frog items and way too many parrot things.  These people were dedicated collectors who knew how to commit to a theme.

I got two pieces of pottery.  A large white pot with a little crack and some crazing for $5 and a little frog on a lily pad hugging a flower for the same.

Alicia was with me at the sales and she really scored big.  At the first sale she got a great mirror for under $10 and a bunch of other things totaling just over $30.

Alicia and I both have a love for Florida/tropical inspired items.  Look at all this great stuff!  The vintage flamingo and ...other bird statues were $5 each and the tin was as well.  I already had the tin, or I would have knocked her down and bought it up before she could.  All is fair in love and estate sales.  But seriously folks, look at that color scheme.  It's so good it hurts. #ouch

Here is a close up of her brass shell wall-mounted dish and a ridiculous squirrel guy.  Because sometimes you have to.

So, in summary:

Go (new) Team!

Golden (Girls) Summer

Let's just assume that I never watched Golden Girls as it originally aired, when I was a kid.  Let's just assume I just started watching it for the first time, ever. Let's maybe say that I have become somewhat obsessed with it.  Perhaps even maybe I've started referring to Blanche, Dorothy, Sophia and Rose as if they were my awesome lady friends.  Crazy, right?  Welcome to my world.  Miami, Florida...pastels everywhere...bamboo furniture.  Ahhh...yes.

Something I didn't expect was that the show seems to be affecting my personal aesthetic.  I want ice cream colored pastels, large earrings, bamboo everything, and most of all, I want Blanche's bedroom wallpaper.  Madly, deeply NEED Blanche's bedroom wallpaper.

I went to the flea market with some friends over the weekend, and though I was just barely able to walk away from a bamboo living room furniture set that was the cousin to the set used on the show, I could not ward off all the big, pastel, vintage earrings.  Look at these lovelies.  I think the (Golden) Girls would be proud.

The white feather earrings are from the 50's.  They are plastic clip on earrings in which the feather goes up your ear.  They do not hang down from your ear.  This is a little too much for me, seeing as how I'm not a Vegas showgirl.  But I do love them enough to make them into a fabulous hair clip.

The gold pair are something very new for me.  Namely: gold.  I haven't worn gold for 30 years.  This year seems to be my year to make peace with it.  I'm cautiously exploring a relationship.

Then I bought these.  Just to prove that I'm still a badass.

We also stopped in to a shop that is too odd for words.  It is essentially a huge pile of junk contained in a very small warehouse like building.  You can't imagine the things they have there.  Piles of sewing notions, reels of movie film (including about one billion copies of Judge Dredd), the earth's supply of drinking glasses, and everything is coated in dust and dirt and...time.  I unearthed one little cutie that I could not bear to leave behind to that world of ruin.  This Christmas mouse.

I'm pretty sure he's the mouse from the poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas'.  He's not stirring, "Note how the hand never touches the spoon!"

On another note, I walked outside the other day and heard a duck.  Like, a very close duck, quacking.  We have geese fly over all the time and you hear them honking.  But this was not a goose, it was a duck and it was...on my neighbor's roof.

Loud and proud.  I see mallard ducks in our neighborhood sometimes.  Which is odd because the nearest water is the Erie Canal and it' at least a mile away.  They hang around under crazy bird feeder lady's bird feeders.  They also roost in trees, did you know?  I was walking to my car one day and saw a lady mallard fly up into a tree.  I went over for a look because I couldn't imagine such a thing.  Then I saw it, in a hole up in a tree, with it's nest and it's babies.  Surreal. I grew up out in the country and didn't see shit this weird.

So, In Summary:

Is Dorothy Your Favorite?  Dorothy Is My Favorite.

Junk Drawer Gone Horribly Wrong.

Ducks.  Who Knew?

Let's Talk More About Blanche's Bedroom Wallpaper.

Unsettled

Change is in the air.  Smell it?  

People are moving, getting new jobs, starting new parts of their lives.  It's making everything feel uncertain, temporary.  It is also lending an air of excitement and adventure.  People are pondering things they never have, all options are open, the future is unwritten and inviting.  It's making me appreciate things, plan things, hug longer.

In the midst of this haze of change I'm also doing my thing, working on Etsy and going to sales.  I'm finding so much less that needs to come home with me these days.  I know I've wondered before, have I found everything already?  Have I tapped out this region?  Damn.

I've been doing better at Estate sales than yard sales.  For the first time, ever.  Food for thought.

Anyway, I bought these things.  

A fun feathered headband that makes me feel a little like Miss Kitty who works upstairs from the saloon.  The mask is the first of hopefully many vintage Halloween masks that I will collect to form an awesome wreath.  That I saw on Pinterest.  Told you I was in love.

In Summary:

Will Things Ever Be The Same Again?

It's The Final Countdown!