Just another day at the office. And a winner!

 

 

The last few days have been spent pricing, packing, loading, hauling and unloading items for my antique mall space in preparation for what I hope will be an onslaught of holiday shoppers in the coming weeks.

Or better yet, holiday buyers.

I spent a large part of one day shuffling things from the left side of my mall space over to the right side and vice versa.

It really does work to promote sales, I promise.

 

Phase 2 will involve the addition of shiny, little Christmas doodads

 

Except for dressers, of course. 

 

Garage escapees.

Meanwhile, the team of accountants here at Into Vintage really burned the midnight oil as they tabulated the entries for the vintage ornament Christmas tree giveaway.

After much cutting up and folding of many little pieces of paper with commenter’s names on them, one name has been drawn from the hat and I’m happy to announce the winner:

 

From one Amy to another, congratulations!!

 

 

And to ALL of you: THANK YOU!

I am honored & humbled that so many of you took the time to enter -- you blew my doors right off their hinges! 

If you made the trip over here from Meadowbrook Farm, so nice to meet you!

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!  

 



Practice Makes Not-Quite-Perfect and a Giveaway

If you’ve been coming here for a bit, you may recall the vintage Christmas ornament tree I made a couple of years ago: it was a spur of the moment idea, assembled with a lack of permanence, knowing it wouldn’t be going anywhere beyond my living room.

But ... then I thought, "What if I make a version that can travel?" Maybe all the way to my antique mall space where vintage-Christmas-loving-folks can find it and (very carefully) take it home?

What. If.

So I unleashed the vintage ornament stash, pulled a rusty screen from the stack in the garage and experimented with making an ornament tree that’s put together somewhat more permanently than the original one.

  There were some tough decisions to be made involving beading wire, string and heavy duty sewing thread. Not to mention a scary moment with a GIGANTIC needle.  

Please, always wear sturdy shoes when crafting.  Bedroom slippers do not qualify.

 In the end, a slightly less GIGANTIC needle threaded with the heavy duty thread worked best for tying the ornaments to the screen.

I guess my inner seamstress is still lurking somewhere after all. 

( It took about six whole minutes of gluing the caps onto the ornaments, my lap and the tips of my fingers for me to decide that step needed to be eliminated from the process.

Immediately. )

Working my way to the top.

No more split ends.

     I knew that rusty wire would come in handy someday.







      So after gluing, tying, wiring and knotting, I think I have this figured out.

And if you’re not opposed to having my vintage Christmas experiment arrive on your doorstep, I’d love to give away this vintage Christmas ornament tree.

Just leave a comment before midnight PST, Monday, November 5th, and you’re entered.

 This giveaway is open to anyone, anywhere in the world.



My Vintage Soul Sister

 

There's a vintage crafter on the opposite side of the country from me and more than once, usually after she’s posted some especially heartbreaking photos of the mounds of vintage Christmas she’s brought home or maybe an amazing vintage find that was just sitting on the curb, I’ve had to control my instinct to get in the car, uninvited and unannounced, and drive like crazy for three days in order to pillage the vintage loot she's found.

And it would be nice to meet her in person while I’m there.

Pillaging.

For now, I’ll be happy with the idea that some of her vintage loot just might come to me (or you!) because this generous vintage crafter is kicking off the vintage Christmas season in the very best way possible: With a giveaway!

 

 

If you’d like, you too can drive on over (before midnight this Friday) to Linda’s blog, My Vintage Soul, and get entered to win her handcrafted vintage Christmas wreath.

Merry Vintage Christmas!

  (Too soon? No way.)

 



A vintage tablecloth winner and even more giveaways I think you’ll love

Thanks to everyone who entered the vintage Christmas tablecloth giveaway!

Lucky comment number 57 was randomly selected and congrats go to artteachergirl!

*******************

While traveling the internet, I came across several other giveaways you might want to check out. Click the caption below each photo to go to the giveaway.

Fiona & Twig is giving away Vintage Rescue Squad’s 2012 Junking Calendar

How about a $50 gift certificate to Post Road Vintage?

I think this photo says it all. Made by GeorgiaPeachez.

Maybe some vintage holiday décor for your person?

Or a little holiday R & R (reading & relaxing) over at Oodles & Oodles?

... and Le Creuset for the holiday meal!

Good luck!

A Vintage Christmas Tablecloth Giveaway

Subtitle: From My Drawers to Yours.

Did you see this coming?

Somehow I’ve ended up with more vintage Christmas tablecloths than I need or can possibly use so perhaps you’d be willing to give a good home to this colorful, old friend?

It measures about 48 x 60” and looks lovely layered over a larger, solid-colored tablecloth or maybe it’s just the right size for you as it is.

I would show it to you on my dining room table but have you seen it lately?

Neither have I. It’s buried under shopping bags, tissue paper, jigsaw puzzles and serving pieces that were last used on Thanksgiving day.

I know. Thanksgiving.

If you’d like to enter to win, just leave a comment.

I’ll draw a name on Tuesday, December 13. This is open to anyone, anywhere in the whole wide world.

And while we’re waiting for Tuesday to roll around, I’m going to introduce this tablecloth to my iron!

Happy Holidays.

xo!  -amy



With the hope something might sell

My first vintage event as a vendor is less than a month away.

Yesterday involved scrubbing some suspicious goo off of a dresser (Attention: People who sell things at yard sales -- what are you doing to your furniture?!) so today I rewarded myself by making a batch of price tags.

Much more fun than scrubbing goo.

Back in the days when I sold full-time at several antique malls, I made my price tags on my printer using little images of vintage goods.

This is when it pays to never throw anything away.

The 2011 version of those tags. A little less black than the previous ones.

I wanted to find a way to attach the tags that would leave the least amount of mess behind when the tags were removed.

And I wanted to break the chains of the grease pencil pricing cycle.

 This tape seems to be the answer.

I won a giveaway on Amy Cartwright’s blog for a cutetape gift certificate and went on a little shopping spree.

The tapes have fun motifs with just the right amount of stickiness so I don’t think a bunch of goo will be left behind when removed.

This is fabric tape – I don’t know what I’ll use it for yet but I just liked it.

 I hope I’m not counting my MacGillivray’s Warblers before they’re hatched by making these 'SOLD' tags.

Making the world a better place one glob of goo at a time. J

Junk Drunk

 

 Please pardon me while I decorate this post with some unrelated photos of my thrifted finds.

American Pickers are here! Well, sort of.

(Wouldn't that be nice? They could pick out in the Garage Where Cars Can't Park)

 The American Pickers Season One DVD is here because I won it (so very excited to have won something!) from Sonya at Dime Store Thrift. Thank you, Sonya!

{ If you're not familiar with American Pickers, please check them out. I'll wait here. }

I confess -- I've been watching American Pickers since the very first episode and I think what I love most about this show is that it exists. Mike Wolfe has such a passion for what he does that he knew other people would be interested enough to watch an hour long TV show about two guys climbing over heaps of rusty, old stuff that many would walk right by on their way to the antique store...

Thanks Frank and Mike! You make junking fun. And I think the non-junkers out there are starting to understand the rest of us a little better now. 

Another one of my gratuitous photos of old stuff I found.

Here's a link to a funny story + interesting interview* with Mike Wolfe. I've never met him but he seems like a charismatic & funny guy. Goofy too. 

OMG. If I didn't know better, I might think I have a junkin' crush going on here.

Move over, David Cassidy. 

 Last one, I promise.

And if you're feeling lucky, here are a couple of giveaways for you:

Kathy at A Spectacular Mess has a spectacular bunch of prizes!

Jen at {the cottage nest) is giving away something especially for us fabric collectors :-)

Good luck to you!

*(I can't recall where I originally saw the link for the interview but I think it was over at Vintage Rescue Squad. That's where the pic of Mike & Frank came from. Thank you, Sue)

a vintage Christmas giveaway *winner*

 

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who joined in for the vintage Christmas giveaway -- so nice to meet some new faces and say hello to some old friends. And thanks for all of your kind words on the post about my ornament-screen-Christmas-tree thing! Wishing you much joy and happiness this holiday season!

In selecting a winner for the vintage Christmas giveaway, I resorted to Ye Olde Random Number Generator because I was far too preoccupied with holiday frivolity which included arranging vintage Christmas ornaments into numbers.

 

Comment #45, come on down -- congrats to Heidi Ann of gold country girls!

Happy Vintage Holidays to everyone :-)

It's just like a Christmas tree but without all those annoying pine needles

Several months ago I came across this vintage Christmas ornament + screen door photo on Linda's blog, My Vintage Soul, taken while on her junking / pie-eating adventure in Syracuse, New York.

And it gave me an idea...

Remember these? I know I do because they've been hanging out in my dining room for quite some time now.

I combined them with an old window screen I had stored in The Garage Where Cars Can't park to make this:

I taped some string to the frame of the screen to act as a guide for the shape of the tree and then just poked the wire ornament hangers through the screen. 

 I didn't have enough ornament hangers so I ended up using pieces of pliable wire and that seemed to work much better -- the wire made it easier to adjust the height of a hanging ornament without having to take it out and poke it back in twenty times in an effort to position it where it needed to be. The ornaments seemed less likely to to fall out too because I scrunched the wire on the back of the screen.

I didn't take a photo of the scrunching.

 

In other vintage Christmas news, I hope you'll enter my vintage Christmas giveaway over here.

Thank you, Linda, for the use of your photo.