Are we there yet?

After many conversations in the car regarding things neither Laurie/Ethel nor I could recall about our previous road trip to Alameda Point Antiques Faire (Did we stop here last time? Does Roseburg come before or after Ashland? Where was that place with the great cupcakes?), I decided to take some notes this time around.

FRIDAY

As planned, we left Laurie’s house in Portland, OR at 8 a.m. to head to Alameda Antiques Faire in the San Francisco Bay area. Woo-hoo! So excited!

One scheduled stop on the way out of Portland at a church rummage sale was quickly followed by two unscheduled stops at estate sales.

 Which resulted in another unscheduled stop back at Laurie’s house to unload her car which was now completely full. Four hours and 16 miles later we are still in Portland.  

Yay us!

New plan!  Leave for Alameda at noon.  The goal is to reach Redding, CA, about 420 miles away, where we’ll stop for the night.

That afternoon we went to three antique malls, a thrift store and a vintage shop before eating dinner and eventually keeling over.

It is weird that it took us 9-1/2 hours to travel 420 miles? The junkin’ just can’t be rushed.

SATURDAY

Laurie/Ethel admires a combo stove/refrigerator. 

We hit the road at 8:45 a.m., eventually ending up in Emeryville, CA, about 200 miles away (an *easy* 3 hour drive) and just a short distance from Alameda Point Antiques Faire, our Sunday early morning destination / reason for living.

We managed to turn a 3 hour drive into 10 hours and here’s why: 3 vintage shops, 1 flea market, 3 yard sales, 2 rummage sales, 1 thrift store, 2 huge antique malls, 2 random shops and 1 estate sale. In 4 cities.

SUNDAY (aka The Really Big Day)

 Got up painfully early at 5 a.m. and the reward was attending heaven-on-Earth, Alameda Antiques Faire, for 7 hours of some mighty fine vintage shopping from (not a typo!) 1,000 vendors.

Eventually I had to rent a shopping cart (as in the type used at a grocery store) to collect the items I’d purchased and left behind with the vendors. I kept it all straight with my Patented System for Remembering© by writing the vendors’ booth numbers on my arm.

In sharpie.

Tired, happy, sunburned and loaded down with vintage junk, we left Alameda at 1:30 p.m. to begin our drive back to Oregon, stopping in Yreka, CA for the night.

MONDAY

Random antique mall vendor in Medford, OR? It's all a blur to me now.

We left Yreka around 8:45 a.m., thinking we’d be back in Portland by 4 p.m., only 325 miles/5 hours away.

After stopping at 8 more antique malls (and one ice cream shop) in 2 cities, we rolled into Portland at 8:15 p.m., taking almost 12 hours to travel 300-ish miles.

 To recap: 4 days / 1400 miles / 3 estate sales, 3 rummage sales, 13 antique malls, 2 thrift stores, 4 vintage shops, 1 flea market, 3 yard sales, 2 random shops and 1 Alameda Antiques Faire (because there’s only one Alameda!).

Thanks for traveling along!

Click the photo above to read Laurie’s version of events.

Alex, I’ll take “Things that cost less than a gallon of gas but are bigger than a breadbox” for $3, please.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the vintage industrial look holds out long enough for me to sell these in July at A Vintage Gathering.

 If not, that’s $3 I’ll never see again.

This rolling shelf filled the entire back of my car and part of the passenger seat in front. I had to drive home with my head pressed against the driver’s side window.  

I was told the rolling shelves were used to wheel flats of tomato plants out to the garden.  I assume the chair was used for sitting.

I’m considering conducting a Craigslist experiment just to see if I can sell this and how far someone will travel for it since I live an hour’s drive from Portland, OR, home of the nearest Craigslist city.  

Meanwhile, it resides in the GWCSCP.

I have a big weekend ahead hanging out with other vintage people as I’m making my inaugural trek/roadtrip to the Pacific NW Vintage Promised Land known as Farm Chicks.

Of course, this is strictly a fact finding mission although there may be some random frivolity mixed in. And a little treasure hunting.

I even had some cards made in case I forget my name or email address.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Behind the scenes at a rummage sale

Yesterday I learned exactly what it’s like to be the person who sorts through all the donated items collected at a thrift store when I helped organize a massive rummage sale for a local charity.

I know! Sounds like a thrifter’s dream job, right? I envisioned myself unwrapping box after box of long-forgotten-yet-still-perfectly-intact vintage Christmas ornaments or maybe opening tissue-filled storage bins with carefully preserved and perfectly clean vintage linens...

I was assigned clothing. 

Mountains and mountains of clothing.

 In plastic bags and boxes and shopping bags and just plain WOW.  There was and still is a lot of clothing. I made a dent in it – sorting the sellable from the (insert any gross reason why here) unsellable. Dodging dried bugs and random non-clothing ‘surprises’ tucked inside along with the occasional bag of someone’s garbage (oops)  that I hope was accidentally mixed in with the donations since it was all in trash bags.

And there were so many donations of one shoe, one sock or one glove.

these pretty dishes were donated to the sale

I did eventually make it over to the non-clothing side of the building to preview the  treasures that might be waiting and there were quite a few. 

My friend who is in charge of the rummage sale gifted this to me as a thank you. She knows what I like.  :-)



by the sale date of June 3, this warehouse will be packed!

I’ll post the details about shopping at this rummage sale in an upcoming post on my other blog, Vintage Market Guide. If you’re from the Portland, OR area and plan to drive to Farm Chicks, you’ll probably drive right through my town and may want to stop and check out this rummage sale on the first weekend of June. 

Great deals happening on single shoes and gloves.

Nuts for Vintage

Can you tolerate one(-ish) more vintage-holiday-show-and tell? I'll hit just the highlights, I promise.

As mentioned on my previous post, I found a few more holiday treasures at a recent 'living' estate sale which, when I drove up to it, didn't look like there would be much to see. 

The sale was held in a ramshackle warehouse of sorts, in the middle of an orchard (you may recall I live in the Fruit Loop) and the woman whose estate was for sale was there and very much alive & kicking. And she was downsizing in a major way.

{all photos can be clicked to enlarge}

Buried in a box, I found this set of vintage cornhusk nativity characters but with spun heads instead of cornhusk heads. Sort of  1970s crafts meets 1940s crafts.

Did you notice the fellow on the far right dressed in purple? I don't know the particulars of his situation but somehow he ended up with an acorn for a head and a nut shell for a hat.

Maybe it's me but he kind of looks like he's wearing a cowboy hat.

This is just the tip of the shiny-vintage-Christmas-iceburg I found at this sale. There were so many ornaments I couldn't bring myself to unwrap them all to take a photo but they did provide lots of ideas/justification for purchasing that I'll share in another post. 

Some serious vintage honeycomb madness was happening too. 

I love that metal hanging decoration on the right, made from vintage tin molds. The Living Estate Sale Lady told me she made those to sell at church bazaars back in the day -- they're for hanging on the front door or from a doorknob. I have some holiday plans for that piece too.

 And finally, picks of all kinds -- witches, pumpkins, Santas, dolls, glass balls, elves and my favorite on the far left, the Black Cat. Some of the picks even had leftover cake clinging to them which always mystifies me. Maybe someone was in a hurry. Or wasn't wearing their reading glasses. 

Which never happens to me. 

Whew - feels good to get all of that out of my system. Thanks for indulging me. 

Yard Sale High

Yard sale-ing out in the countryside of Oregon is a much different experience for me than in the more urban areas of Northern California where I used to live. There are fewer shoppers in general and definitely fewer vintage shoppers -- prices seem lower to me too. 

I'm still a little shocked & thrilled when someone wants only a dime or a quarter for something or says "Just take it."

Sewing loot courtesy of Estate Sale, Day Two. Fill a grocery bag for a buck.

Some of you asked about my recent yard sale endeavors and due to the excessive amount of loot acquired in the past seven days (some of it purchased to re-stock my neglected 'things-I-find' etsy shop, PeppermintBark, now patiently waiting to have pictures taken...), I'll just hit the highlights here. 

Hiding in a vintage hat box.

Also, in order to photograph said loot, I move it from the Loot Holding Area (downstairs) to the Loot Photography Area of Better Daylight (upstairs) and then return it to the LHA (downstairs).

Loot + Stairs = Lazy.

Vintage Christmas picks, corsages and spun heads. Dee-lightful. 

A festive and excited group of holiday revelers.

More vintage Christmas stuff. Missing from this photo are the rolls and rolls of vintage wrapping paper. 

(See Loot + Stairs).

 Your garden variety spun head Santas wearing what looks a lot like some sort of fur-trimmed holiday lingerie. Standing next to an avalanche of vintage chenille.

And some Bluebirds of Happiness. I think they're happy because they like vintage tablecloths.

My unbridled enthusiasm for vintage Christmas collecting/hoarding is beginning to stack up in the LHA so later this month I'm renting a case in an antique mall so I can unleash some of the madness. I'll fill you in on the details once I get moved in.

 No idea. Maybe you know?

Have a wonderful evening!

The Free Box

 

Yesterday while out at the yard sales, I kept thinking about starting a new blog called The Free Box just so I can have a place to share all the odd, creepy and sometimes gross things waiting in the Free Box.

You know, that box of stuff that the seller's standards have deemed 'unsellable' for whatever reason so they're giving it away. Often times, it's things that are in a transition phase I like to call Pre-Trash.

And it seems Free is rarely synonymous with Clean.

Out here in the country, there's an occasional live mouse too. Oh, how the other yard sale shoppers laughed and laughed when this former city girl yelped and shot several feet off the ground the first time that happened. 

Good times.

But I always look in the Free Box. With just my eyes now.

And I'm happy (and a little amazed) to report that everything you see came from a Free Box.

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend so far.

Countdown to Crafty

I was in the mood to make something today so I made a list of 'Crafty Vintage Resolutions'. Nine things that sound like they'd be fun to do which gives me hope I might be tempted to accomplish them. Or at least start them. Sounds like there's a procrastination resolution lurking in there too.

1). Learn to Crochet

After all, I work in a Doily Factory.

2). Make a Duvet.

I've been trying to cross this off my list for a couple of years. I think I've put it off because of the avalanche of related projects that will come with the duvet - making a dust ruffle and pillows, painting the nightstands, new shades for the lamps and finding a new-to-me vintage dresser (this is a plus because of the vintage treasure hunting involved).

3)., 4). and 5). Make a Dust Ruffle & Pillows and Paint the Nightstands.

6). Make a Slipcover for the Couch. Stat.

 Don't even know if I can show you the 'before' pictures. Ack.

7). Take a Thrifting/Junking Roadtrip.

One car, one week and as many stops as possible. Maybe one passenger too. Anyone want to join in? You okay with holding stuff on your lap?

8). Go to Farm Chicks.

I missed it in 2009 so I'd love to go in 2010 and hang out with the other vintage-loving people.

9). De-Stash.
Less hoarding and more sewing as I'm now running out of space for new vintage fabric and that simply cannot happen. And then where will my as-yet-unpurchased crochet supplies go?

The vintage Christmas fabrics are now packed away and I'm starting to see colors again other than red and green. I've been working on new designs for my etsy shop and I'll do an update after January 1st. This is a little sneak peek of what's currently in the works in the Doily Factory (see Resolution No. 9).

My neighborhood today. Add 12" of snow and that's what tomorrow will look like.

Wishing you a wonderful New Year!