The Snug Bungalow: That's What She Said: #1 I'm Not Very Good At This

Ann (@magicsummervintage) and I have been friends for a long time. More time that I'd like to readily admit. Because, then we'd have to talk about how old we are. And neither of us are doing that.

When we were younglings we had a website devoted to selling toys from the 1980s. We went to thrift stores and yard sales to rescue said items, and then spent lots of time washing, photographing, and putting them online to be sold. We had an e-commerce site far before many of our peers even had email addresses. That's right. Bad ass.

The summers we spent on the hunt became known as Magic Summers. Hence the name of Ann's Etsy shop: Magic Summer Vintage.

As adults we have jobs and families and all kinds of crap that gets in the way on a regular basis. But, come summer, we have Fridays off. A whole day of Magic Summer each week!

Let me tell you, the thrill of the hunt hasn't subsided just because we are now adults. We still get chills and butterflies just as often. Still looking for the next great score.

We've decided to blog about our antics. Me from my perspective, and Ann, from hers. A she-said / she-said kind of a thing. Hopefully it will be fun to read. You can take a look at her post over at Magic Summer. I'm warning you now that I'm terrible at this. I'm too excited when sale-ing to be "in the moment" and to do things like "remembering to take photos" and that we're trying to "document the experience".

Check her matching blog post out here.

We rolled up to the first sale just as the line was going in. It was a church sale, and we all know those are the cheapest and best. I'd stumbled upon the sale last year and was well prepared when I saw it in the listings this week. Previously I'd found a few cute vintage dresses for Ann, and a $1 Pez dispenser (no feet) for my brother, who collects, as well as a smattering of vintage holiday decor and kitchen kitsch for myself. This sale is not to be missed!

To keep everything civil and fun, we have one main rule. If we both want a thing, but one wants it to sell and one wants it to keep for their personal collection/use the personal use wins. We don't want to be snagging good stuff from each other to make a profit. It almost never happens, because we have very different taste, but when it does, it's nice to have the rule.

Once inside, we split up immediately. Ann always hits the clothing first, and I go directly to holiday. Diana (Goddess of The Hunt) was with us and the first thing I unearthed was on my all-time want list! This little dude!

Vintage Hallmark Halloween owl Merry Miniature guy! Last year I scored the honeycomb version. I think all I have left to go is the pin! My goodness, he's adorable. I dug him out of a box on the floor, under a table. It pays to be thorough!

I tried to get Ann to buy this, but she said no. She has a really cool coconut head guy, and I thought he needed a friend. Even though he didn't come home with us, we still listened to what the coconut monkey was trying to tell us. We did, little monkey dude. We totally did.

Meanwhile, Ann was busy loading up on dresses.

She got some great stuff, including an Old Navy does vintage novelty print dress, a modern Lily Pulitzer, and this fricking amazeballs rainbow dress that everyone in the world is going to be jealous of. The colors! The 80s! 😍🌈 Behold:

That's the face of success, people!

Here is what I ended up with.

Slimer was gifted to me by Ann and I'm going to use him for fall / Halloween decorating. The rainbow assortment in the back is an Ikea set of stir sticks. Tiny clothespins, elephants, and swordfish. Two Hallmark Merry Miniatures - an Easter bunny in a basket, and the cute owl guy. The Florida spoon rest has googley eyed gators! (This item was found at a later sale in the day)

I scored these items from the church sale for my Etsy shop. I have quite a backlog, but they'll show up sooner or later. Speak now if you'd like a price on anything!

We looked around for jewelry but there was none to be found. We asked a worker bee and were told that no, there wasn't any jewelry. Now, this is a church sale. Church sales take donations from the people who attend the church. And you know there was jewelry donated. WHERE DID IT GO?? We want the jewels!

After the church sale we headed to an estate sale. Neither of us got anything. Ann took a bunch of pictures and I just took this one. We've had so much rain this spring that Lake Ontario (One of the Great Lakes) is flooding. And there is lots of water laying around, like this:

(Note the awesome flamingo shopping bag!)

Our third and last sale was to benefit a local animal rescue. A cause near and dear to both our hearts. When we first got there, it looked pretty crappy. Just a few tables of stuff in a yard and some tires. I did find this cute MCM wire stand for my mom, but that looked like all there was.

But, wait! The sale continued inside the building! Wahoo! Rooms of treasure waiting to be unearthed!

We stepped into the first room and it was heavily laden with jewelry. Old and new! And oddly, the vintage pieces were cheaper than the new! Don't worry. I didn't do anything so stupid as to take a photo to show you. You'll have to skip over to Ann's blog in order to see it. Because I'm real good at this blogging the experience thing.

Later, when we got back to the car, I did snap a photo of this beauty! Vintage pop-bead necklace with matching earrings! Totally looks like glass beads, but is in fact, soft plastic!

I also wanted to snag a picture of this vintage looker. When I showed it to Ann she made primal, guttural noises. Noises her dogs would have been terrified of. Noises that sent me into hysterics.

I had her recreate the feeling here:

You're welcome.

Here is a closer look at the spoon rest that I found at this sale. Look at them peepers!

Since the sale was to benefit an animal rescue I thought it was fitting that there was an entire bin of tiny animal costumes. Who wouldn't want their Chihuahua or kitten to dress up as Bert?

There was also a giant collection of vintage skunk items. Super cute, and I thought about getting some to re-sell, but I tell ya what, I hate shipping breakable items. Hate, hate, hate. So I just took a photo instead. So much cute!