Chemex Coffee Maker, Kitties and A Booth Update...Oh My!

Sorry, I was having a moment.  : )  Anyway...based on a few comments from recent posts here and here, it seems to me like everyone is kind of slowing down at the thrifts right now.  I imagine that has something to do with the increase in temperature since people are more willing to do a yard sale when it's warm and sunny and donate when it's cold and yucky.  I know those of you who are yard sale queens are going to hate me for this, but I miss the winter time!!!  The thrifts are killing me right now, and with The Little Dude it's really difficult for me to get up at the butt crack of dawn (that, frankly, kind of ruins it for me too) and track down the good sales like so many others can.  Though I found a few good things at the thrifts, I might have to look into other options more seriously.  I haven't found a piece of Butter Print in months!

These sweet little kitty salt and pepper shakers caught my eye mostly because of their outstanding condition and their cute gold bows.  They will go to my Etsy shop soon.  

I love it when my counters look like this!   These all came from one shop.  I'm keeping the yellow stripe for my personal collection, but the rest went to the booth.  Speaking of the booth.

April was great, fantastic, my very best month!  May on the other hand ...sucks!  I'm getting killed so far but I think I know why.  It's getting warm, people want to be outside!  Understandable!  And my neighbor to the left of me moved so now it's just a blank wall when you look into my little alcove from the main hall.  I could have taken her space, but the rent was 5 times what I'm paying now, and that is entirely too much pressure for me!  They said I'll get a neighbor soon...I freaking hope they move in quick, I'm dying out here!!!

Re-sellers, what is your worst month?  Do you slash prices or do you tough it out?

These are a few things that went to the booth before I had time to properly photograph them.  

This brass lamp is cool because the shades have little holes in them that sparkle when the light is on.

Mooooooo!!!  It's a zoo around here!  Ha!

The deer has been with me for what seems like forever but the cool Danish butter dish is new to me.  It is in crazy good shape with no scratches and no dents at all.  

This is my favorite find from this week.

I've never seen one of these in the thrifts before, and I only know what it is because at Chris and Julia at  A Living Space found a bunch a few months ago.  It's a Chemex Coffee Maker from the 60's or 70's.  You can tell it has some age to  it because the glass is thick, heavy and imperfect, plus the leather tie has a bit of cracking and the wood shows a little wear.  I'm not entirely sure how to use one of these, but I still think it's cool!  

I'm joining the parties at Apron Thrift Girl, Sir Thrift A Lot, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Remnant, The Thrifty Groove and A Living Space. Have a great week everyone!

Bench Conundrum

This cool bench is at the antique market where my booth is.  I have a great deck where it could live plus it is on sale from $80 down to $50.  That's such a steal, buuuuuut  the adorable little lawn gnomes might be clouding my judgement.  I have been looking for a metal shell backed glider bench (hopefully that makes sense, I'm not sure of an official name) for a while. 

 Should I hold out until I find a fun retro glider or get this cute alternative, which also glides?  

Thrift Madness Thursday

This week has been rough at the thrifts.   Prices are sky high and stuff is either low quality or non existent.  Let me share some of my pain with you.

This Butterfly Gold cup was in great shape and the only vintage Pyrex in the store that day, but guess how much it was...  You ready?   It was priced at $4.00!  Holy crap,  not only no, but OH HELL NO!  One little cup...  lost their damn minds... End rant.

Horse stuff seems to sell well for others so I've been trying to keep an eye out for good pieces.   Too bad the piece of glass to the right of the first Horse was broken. 

I walked around with these antlers for a while before I put them back.  I know they are trending hard right now,  but eeeeeewwww man!   They really do gross me out!   Where I live we have a TON of deer, so it is likely they are from a natural shed, but still, yuck.  And now that I look at the picture a little more, I'm realizing hey probably weren't naturally shed.  I think there is some skull there...  Oh double eeeeeeeeeewwwwwww!!!!!!  There is a good reason these aren't my style! 

But this table totally is!  

 Look at those sexy legs and the mod colors.  And that mosaic top is...well not so good.  From far away it looks great. But when you look closer you can see how crooked the white tile was laid down.   I was bummed for sure,  and if I had the storage space or a bigger booth, it so would have come home with me.  But alas, I have neither of those things so it had to stay at the store.

Would you have bought It?

Homer and Bart didn't come home with me either.  Something about stuffed Simpson's characters just isn't right...  They always look scary.

Did you guys have better luck this week?  

Saturday The Mom and I are heading up to Denver for a little vintage market and then to a Mid Mod store she saw listed on Craigslist.  It's not terribly far, but an adventure is exciting, no matter how short the distance!  

Linking up with The Colorado Lady.

Cadillac Jacks

Last Saturday The Husband gave me some much need "me time" so I decided to go on a quick road trip way out East to Calhan Colorado.  I had seen an ad on Craigslist for this shop called Cadillac Jacks that had "More than 100,000 Antiques, with stop lights from Colorado Springs and much much more!"  He had me at stoplight!  I don't know why, but I love them and the idea of having one is so cool to me.  I just have never been able to find one that wasn't at a "requires second mortgage on the house" price.

Us landlocked folks have seem to have this weird thing for the ocean.  We are constantly trying to recreate it...with a totem pole.  Ha, not really!  He did have seagulls and pelicans all over the place though.

Oh holy crap there was a lot of stuff in this store!  I don't know if it is because I'm still riding my Junk Bonanza high but it was awesome!  So much stuff, yet it was well lit, and easy to see.  Normally crazy hoarder stores bug me a bit, but this one didn't.  Do you have a store like this that you like to go to? 

He had stuff floor to ceiling.  Like actually hanging from the ceiling.  One probably should wear a hard hat in there!  

 He had an enormous range of stuff from gas and oil products to delicate fancy china.

Little rooms full of treasures were tucked away all over the store.  Below is a shot looking out from one of them.  If you are claustrophobic  this is sooooo not the store for you!  

This is one of the stoplights I mentioned above.  Well no big surprise on the price, $250!  Yeah...NO, dangit.

Son of b**** that is terrifying!  

And this guy either wants to be my best friend or wear my skin like a coat.  Even so,  I kind of liked him...

This was the one thing that I desperately wanted.  All of those dots on the clear casing are constellations and inside it showed the rotation of the moon. Super cool, super super expensive.  He originally had $195 on it, then crossed that off and had it priced at $122. He said he would go down to $95, but even that was a bit much for me.  Good strategy though!  ; )  He was willing to add the dust for free!

This was the only thing I came home with.  It is an old advertising perpetual calendar that changes the number when you rotate the globe.  I had never seen one before and had to have a little something to show for my adventure.  And I at least got some version of neat globe!

I knew I wasn't going to get thrift store or flea market prices, but dang, I wasn't expecting that kind of mark up.  I could have come home with so much cool stuff if only the prices had been a little bit lower.  Oh well, it was a fantastic store and I'm glad I went and I will probably be going back here and there to check out his new stuff.  He says he rotates items, but the dust says otherwise!  

 After seeing the pictures of this store, would you go in or would you steer clear of that hoarder madness?

Thank you everyone for your sweet comments and frame suggestions for the Paint By Numbers my Grandma gave me.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, maybe black so they pop off my white walls.  And thank you Grandma for giving me such a special gift, I love them!!!

I'm linking up for the first time with Hey Whats For Dinner Mom for the Penny Worthy Project.

Free Day!

A few weeks ago I posted here about a few paint by numbers that I was so excited to find.  Well The Grandma saw this post and called to ask why I was all a twitter.  We talked about the colors and the different designs and how people used to do them a lot back in the day and how it was funny that they are collectible now.  She said something like, "I did a bunch of those in France in the 60's while your Grandfather was working his second job.  I never did anything with them..."  So some of you might assume that I just commented on how cool that was and let it go after that, because that was 50 freakin' years ago, no way they still have them.  Oh but I know my grandparents pretty well.   I asked her what she did with them and she then asked my Grandpa, who said they were in a box in the garage, but he wasn't telling me where because he didn't want me getting in there and stealing their high class art, : ) Long story short (kind of), when they got home from Arizona he found them in two seconds (in 30 years worth of stuff, how does he do that?!).  This is what she showed me.  I almost had a stroke...  for real!

Are you freaking serious?!  They are awesomely done and in great shape.  It took me a minute to get it together, but I explained how some of us look for PBNs every time we thrift and how we rarely find them. She smiled her, "kids are strange these days" smile and then gave them to me!  Oh happy day!  What color frames should I eventually do?  This is where they live until I can get them framed and hung up properly.

This is in our basement family room which I will do a post on in the next few days, I did some cool stuff in there!  Those red books are Photography Encyclopedias that my Uncle Ronald gave to me a few years ago because he knew I was interested in photography.  He was a photographer for the Pueblo Chieftan for many years.This is the first time I've decorated with them.  Don't they look cool?!   The thicker books are super old patent books that The Husband saved from the trash at his office years and years ago.  I've used them for tons of different things, great score for The Hubby!  Oh, and that fireplace used to be pink.... yup.


Last but not least are these awesome letters I scored on the way home from The Grandmas.  It really was a glorious day!

I was driving past this building I drive past all the time when I noticed that it was being remodeled.  I turned around and asked the guy there if I could have these sweet letters since it looked like he was just going to toss them. He totally didn't get my excitement but happily helped me load them into my car.  I haven't decided their fate yet.  Booth or keep?  I also asked him about this big neon sign...

Thankfully, he said he was keeping the huge,cool old sign!  It will never be "Hayes Motor Co." again, but it will always have that old sign.  Awesome!
Yay for a day full of great stuff and no pennies spent!  The thrifting has been a little bit rough lately, so I was super excited to have hit this little jackpot.  Have you guys hit any free jackpots lately?  
 I'm joining the parties at Apron Thrift Girl, Sir Thrift A Lot, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Remnant, The Thrifty Groove and A Living Space.

Booth Update and Snow

Yup, you read that right, snow and lots of it.  So yesterday I made this sign for my booth.

It says "hello spring,  we missed you!"  Well apparently I spoke too soon or jinxed us because this is currently what it looks like outside here in Colorado.   We need the moisture desperately so I'm not complaining.  Crazy Colorado, it's May!!!

Another inch or so has fallen since this picture.  

So thankfully that globe is not the same one that I complain about all the time because that one sold!  This one just is the same exact style...lets see how long it takes for this one to sell.  I'm also happy to report that April was my best month yet!  The globe, type writer, lamp and a ton of Pyrex has sold.  Keeping up has been tough, but fun.  I love this stuff!  I can't wait to see what warmer weather will bring us!

Resellers, how was your April?  How do you guys normally do during the summer time?

The Goods

Finally, enough of this stalling crap!  I've talked a lot about how cool Junk Bonanza was and how much fun The Mom and I had but I haven't shared my haul yet, and I have a few decent reasons for that.
 1. It takes time to get everything cleaned up and put away and displayed just right.  Can't just put stuff away in any old place!  : )
2. Driving for four days is exhausting and I was pooped!  So really, The Mom drove most of the way, but sitting makes my bum sore!
3. And finally I just had so much fun that I wanted to draw the experience out as long as I could!
And now without further lollygagging and dithering, here are my fabulous new goods from our trip to Minneaplois.

Happy Earth Day(,a week too late...)  I came back with four globes, three of them from The Bonanza and one from a thrift.  My favorite is this one with the astrological signs on the base.  Everyone has given me a good bit of crap for my new collection, but I don't care because I love them!   I will NEVER be lost again!  : )

The The Little Dude turned 1 in January and we asked party guests to bring him a letter for his playroom wall.  We had a few missing so it became my mission to find them, which I thought would be difficult.  Yeah, not so much.  Letters were everywhere so I had plenty of choices.  I brought home the L, M, Q, and Y.  What do you guys think?  

Like I said, letters were everywhere so this giant "B" came home with me too.  It's huuuge!

Sneak peak at our new bathroom.

This golf club toilet paper holder was one of the first things I bought (The Husband is a golfer) and it is now living in our new bathroom.  The artist had some of the coolest handmade furniture there.  He took old tailgates and made tables and benches.  He had the neatest bars too.  I really would have loved to come home with a big Studebaker table, but he was priced way out of my budget, and rightly so.  I'm glad I was able to come home with a little piece.














A few pennants to go with my little collection.  I love how they add so much color to my entry way for such little money!











This fabulous bracelet was my only jewelry purchase.  There were a lot of really great jewelry artists and they were all different from each other.  The Mom bought a great necklace made with a flattened spoon from one vendor and a pendant with a map of Boston from another.  I could have spent so much on jewelry, but I refrained.  The Little Dude makes it hard to wear much anymore, what with the pulling, the tugging and the yanking...

There were quite a few Paint By Numbers, but this one was my favorite.  They look a little crazy and I like it!

I recently gussied up that table with some maps and white paint.  It was my Grandma's and she had it for forever, so when she tried to get rid of it years ago, I saved it out of nostalgia.  It's super cool now, I'm so glad I saved it!

And last but not certainly not least... Look, LOOK LOOOOOK at what I found!  Can you tell I'm excited?!  I don't know if you remember, but in this post I talked about these biology charts that I really wanted a few of one day.  Well now I have one and that's a good start!

It's French, hand painted and fabulous!  The animal is a very primitive fish called a Lamprey and I now get to look at that handsome mug every day because I hung it in my bedroom!  I freaking love it!!!
So that's pretty much it.  I got a few small things like buttons for jewelry making and a cool giant safety pin, but that was it for small items.  I could have lost the farm there for sure, but I was trying to behave.  Everything was marked too high for me to resell, so what I bought I'm keeping and I'm trying really hard not to have too much.  It's a struggle for sure, but I think I'm succeeding.  I know it doesn't seem like I came back with much, and you might be wondering if it was worth the 13 hour drive and expense.  HELL YES it was!  It was awesome and I'm beyond excited to go next year!  You should come too!  : )
I'm joining the parties at Apron Thrift Girl, Sir Thrift A Lot, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Remnant, The Thrifty Groove and A Living Space.