The post about Farm Chicks 2014 that involves way too many asterisks* (and quite a few parentheses)

Every person attending has a version of this photo on their phone. It's Farm Chicks law. 

After several hours of driving and Skittles-eating, my traveling companion, Pam, and I arrived at the Farm Chicks Antique Show a few hours after the event opened on its first day and I made a beeline to my favorite vendors, the Vintage Linen People.**

I immediately gave them all my money (holds up hands and says “I have this many”) and then got to work selecting the items which would ultimately return home with me to join their friends who were eagerly awaiting them in my vintage linen hoard/stash /collection/whatever-we’re-calling-it-these-days.

I was recognized right away by one of the Vintage Linen People thanks to my repeat performances on the exact same spot in 2011 and 2012. 

Three years later they still remember me because of my previous summit attempts on their vintage linen mountain.  

Vintage barkcloth 1.o

Once completed, this transaction resulted in a drop-off trip to the car because it’s physically impossible to navigate the aisles of Farm Chicks while carrying a garbage bag stuffed with vintage tablecloths, barkcloth and doilies. Trust me on this.

(I secretly suspect those shoppers pushing baby strollers through the Farm Chicks venue don’t have human babies tucked away in there.  I now believe their strollers were filled with toddler-shaped gobs of vintage tablecloths in an effort to avoid multiple trips out to their cars. Smart.

Note to self:  Begin bookmarking folding baby strollers on eBay.)

Vintage barkcloth 1.2

Occasionally I would cross paths with my friend Ethel and her rock star, vintage-toting mom, signaling acknowledgement with just a friendly wave and a nod because Ethel was in her ZONE, a ZONE which prefers to skip over non-essential chitchat while there is still vintage goodness to be discovered.

That’s why dinnertime was invented. For the chitchat.

And I get that.***

Wrinkled. So very wrinkled. 

The second day of Farm Chicks was very similar to the first day for me. I spent some time with the Vintage Linen People (they had replenished AND FOLDED (!) their inventory) and then I moved on to some general junk browsing since the crowds were lighter this morning (that changes quickly as the morning goes on). 

This day I was actually able to see more of what was for sale rather than who was in front of, behind and all around me, buying it before I could reach it.

I exercised great restraint and these signs were my only other purchases and I plan to resell them. 

As if I need one more thing. Or one more vintage tablecloth.

Except maybe for these.

The drive home included one small unscheduled detour because someone was talking while her smartphone GPS was waving its arms in the air, pointing and shouting to let us know TAKE THIS EXIT. NOW.

Whoops.

I made it home eventually, happy with my very own mini mountain of vintage linens.

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*See what I mean?

**Vintage Linen People, if you have a formal business name, I apologize for not knowing what it is and for bestowing you with such a McBasic (yet apt) descriptor. Maybe hang a sign or something? Or not. Whatever.  I love you.

***One of these days I’ll write a post about THE SECRET TEST**** Ethel gave me the first time I ever went junking with her.

****I passed. (spoiler alert)

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.

Just in case

Late last night, when normal people are winding down and relaxing, Ethel and I pulled into town after 4 very full days of hardcore junking and unloaded a car packed-to-the-gills with vintage finds from our road trip to Alameda Antiques Faire.

Today I’ll be processing my finds, going back to Ethel’s house to pick up a second load of vintage junk (!!), and thanking my lucky stars for all of our good luck and great vintage scores.

Please stay tuned for further updates as they become available.

Click photo and prepare to be amazed

 Meanwhile, as my thoughts turn to junking closer to home, I thought I’d share this *beyond amazing* score at a yard sale.

Gives me hope.

Texas Antiques Week 2013 and what started out as the abridged version but then ended up rambling on a bit

Is it okay if we just pretend that since returning from Texas a week ago, I’ve been mentally processing all that which is Texas Antiques Week and was not bogged down by tedious and boring technical difficulties?

La Bahia Event

I knew you’d understand.

Day One, Stop #1. A random tent on the side of the road.

My most amazing traveling companion*,  Laurie/Magpie Ethel has written THE BEST day-by-day account of our trip, from sweet tea to rolling garbage cans and everything in-between,  starting HERE.

Beautiful display by Marburger vendor J Hill Designs

For me, this trip was first and foremost meant to be an adventure into the junking unknown (cue up theme from Star Trek) and a fact-finding mission for possible future trips. I also hoped to do a little buying for re-selling. And be inspired.

Mission accomplished!

A few of these came home to join my collection

Generally, prices were somewhat higher than what I had anticipated which is what happens when junking 2,100 miles out of my very affordable Pacific NW comfort zone.  I had a bit of sticker shock at first but as a reseller, I also understood why the prices were what they were. 

Not-yet-ironed but terribly affordable.

I confess I didn't understand the $125 very-nicely-ironed-but-nothing-I-hadn’t-seen-before vintage tablecloths. Ouch.  

Luckily, I found plenty of tablecloth bargains. 

Why we kept the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on our hotel room door. 

There were definitely deals to be found, especially toward the end of the week when the “50% Off Everything” signs started appearing and in the end I had no trouble at all filling two suitcases. 

To. The. Brim. (Thank you for the suggestion to nest one suitcase inside a larger, empty suitcase on the trip there – worked like a charm).

Good grief, I'm tall.

One of the absolute highlights of this trip was meeting my longtime junking idol, Sue of Vintage Rescue Squad.  It was a thrill to compare notes about junk, reselling and blogging, in person.  

Enamelware bought to resell.

I really do heart the internet all over again when it makes connections like that possible.

Out in left field. 

Sue, Laurie and I shopped the fields one day and I’m not sure which was more interesting … the shopping or watching what each of us gravitated toward.

Overall, I would give the entire Antiques Week experience 5 gold stars!

Marburger vendor A Wilder Place in Time

Would I go back? Of course!  Want to go too? Let’s make a plan for next year!!

*I could not have asked for a better or more compatible traveling / junking companion. Every single day we marveled about how well it was going and we were together, literally, 24/7 which included minimum 12 hours days of driving, junking and eating.  Thank you, Ethel.  You’re a peach. 

A little hodge mixed in with some podge

For some reason, I want to say mod podge even though I mean hodge podge.

It’s possible I have a mild case of Craft Brain.

This little vintage camera was purchased while on a recent non-junking trip.  (and yet, the junk still found me)

That’s right, I do my souvenir shopping at Salvation Army thrift stores.

And I needed a cheap suitcase. Somehow the things I brought along on the trip multiplied or expanded or exploded but in any case, another suitcase was required for the return trip.

It was good practice for Texas.

There’s some mini-purging going on around here.

When a drawer hasn’t been opened in so long that I don’t know what’s in it, it’s time.

A recent shot of my mall space at Monticello.

Do you see the ‘swan’ decoys? I found those on my junk trip to the Oregon Coast.

They remind me of what an odd assortment of stuff has taken a ride in the back of my car over the years.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve uttered the phrase ‘Doily Factory’ here but at long last the cobwebs have been removed, scissors sharpened and fabrics sorted and I do believe my sewing dry spell is over.

If you’re in the Portland, OR area this weekend, don’t forget to check out Plucky Maidens Junk Fest! I’ll be there shopping the junk on Sunday.

Hope you have a wonderful week ahead!

Even the road trips are big in Texas

Not to get too philosophical here but is a road trip still a road trip when there’s an airplane involved?

After a couple of years of discussion and reading about other’s adventures there, we decided this year was the year to see it for ourselves.

Next month, Magpie Ethel / Laurie and I are grabbing the biggest, emptiest suitcases we can find and heading to the Junking Promised Land known as Round Top, Texas (and beyond)! 

Here’s the deal: Between Austin and Houston there’s a series of small towns, Warrenton, Round Top, Carmine, Shelby & Fayetteville to name a few, where thousands of antique & vintage dealers from all over the country come to sell.

And in between those towns are even more towns with more antique shows, shops & vintage events happening. From everything I’ve read, there is more to see than is humanly possible.

More than humanly possible.  Wheeee!

We toyed with driving the 2,000+ miles (and that’s only one way!) from Oregon to Texas, but that would have allowed for zero stops other than gas and sleeping (unless we wanted to be away for a few days weeks months) and I don’t know about you but Ethel & I, we like to stop.

To junk.

Eventually we came to our collective senses and decided for our inaugural visit we will fly to Texas, rent a car and then head for the hills, fields, shops and tents filled with junk, patiently waiting just for us to discover it.

And now, this junker turns to you for advice, suggestions, directions, things to see & do, things to definitely avoid, places to eat and anything else you might think of to share with us.  I thank you in advance.

As Ethel has been saying to me for weeks now, YEEHAW! 

Where vintage gathers

I’ve now officially completed one full revolution in my adventures as a vintage vendor.

You may recall it all started last July when I drove a giant cargo van out to the country, packed Beverly Hillbillies-style with vintage anything-&-everything, and set up shop at my very first vintage event, A Vintage Gathering.

Green garden cart has moved on to a new forever home.

This July I hooked up a u-haul trailer to my freshly installed trailer hitch (look at me grow!), stuffed it full of things from the Garage Where Cars Can’t Park and rambled off to the country & A Vintage Gathering. Again.

And it was awesome.

Again.

If you're looking for milk glass, I think I have all of it now.

And I learned a few more things this time around.

Little pink dresser didn't sell but everything around it did.

I took my time unloading and was beyond careful in order to avoid breaking any (more) bones.

That plan seemed to work better than the last one.

Miracles can happen! I remembered to hang the sheet banner!

Having a u-haul attached to my car makes me want to buy crazy-big vintage things because I have a way to get them home. (But I didn’t. I don't have enough crazy-big space. Still…)

The Square credit card reader is a wonderful thing to have as a vintage vendor, especially when selling at a venue that may not have an ATM machine. I didn’t use it until the last hour of the day which seems to be when buyers have spent all their cash. Then I used it a bunch. Love it!  

It’s also handy to have if you’re holding a garage sale; those handwritten, neon poster board YARD SALE signs around town can now include the Visa/MC logo!

I can never predict what will sell.  Some of the things I think will sell right away sit there and gawk at me. Some gawk all the way back home again. Some are still gawking from the “What was I thinking?” pile.

Me and my friend Annette. Why didn't I tuck in that shirt?

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who worked so hard to make this amazing event happen!

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PS I’ve created a board on pinterest with the rest of the photos in case you want to see the other vendor’s spaces. Just click here.