Thrifting 1, Pottery Barn 0

I got the new Pottery Barn catalog the other day and was flipping through it when I stopped on this image:

That is their Colorful Cafe Glassware. A set of six of the aqua goblets sells for $57. It reminded me an awful lot of my recent thrift find:

Wouldn't you agree that the goblets second from the right are a darn good likeness of the PB version? And don't forget that I bought 30 pieces of my beautiful aqua colorful cafe glassware for only $15!

Thrift shopping for the WIN!

Rue de Noel--what I made

If you follow me on Instagram, you have already seen most of these pictures already because I had fun posting the items I made before I packed them away in my boxes to take to the market. I made a ton of stuff and even though it was so much work, it certainly is FUN work!

One of the things I had in my stash was a bag full of covered buttons that I'd covered with scraps of feedsack quilt squares. I made them earlier this year and then stuck them into a bag in the closet because I couldn't figure out what to do with them. I pulled them out and made two different types of items to sell:

the first is these bookmarks. I had a box of huge oversized paperclips in my stash and the buttons fit perfectly on top of them. I was afraid that glue alone wouldn't hold the metal together and would look messy, so I ended up pulling out my soldering gun and soldering the paperclips to the backs of the buttons. It looked a lot neater and hopefully they are nice and secure! I packaged them up by folding a piece of old book paper and clipping the bookmark to the flap, then wrapping the whole thing in a self-closing cellophane bag. I wanted these to be able to be given as gifts and thought they might be more appealing to shoppers if they already looked like they were ready to give.

The other item I made with my buttons (once I ran out of paperclips) are these hair elastics:

I had purchased the elastics on post-Christmas clearance last year so they were in my stash as well. I packaged them on old Flinch playing cards and put them into cellophane bags as well.

These are one of my favorite things that I made! I used some of my old milk bottle caps and some magnets from my stash and created refrigerator magnets. For packaging, I had some old metal game tins that I bought from the dollar store back when we lived in Georgia, 10+ years ago. I covered up the graphics on the lids with cute vintage-style scrapbooking paper, stuck the magnets to the metal and packaged the whole thing up in a cello bag. I had enough magnets and milk caps to make only 4 sets and I must admit I was a little bit surprised that only one set sold! Oh well, I thought they were so darn cute that I'm happy to hang onto them for a little longer.

These snowman tags were one of the very first things I made to sell. I raided my collection of mother-of-pearl and shell buttons to create the snowmen and made their hats from an old Bingo card that I cut up. I stamped the 'snow' on the kraft tags with white ink and tied the tops with two different colors of seam binding ribbon. I sold out of these on Friday (the proprietor of a very upscale antique store bought most of them--I know she was planning to mark them up hugely and resell them but I'm flattered at having something of mine in her shop!) and these are one of the things I made more of on Friday night to take in on Saturday.

Several years ago I bought a bag of balls of crochet string at a small-town thrift store. I've used them as jar fillers before but this year I decided to make them into snowmen! Their hats are made from old wooden spools of thread and black checkers and they have vintage glass buttons on their bellies. These both sold (as did the tree in the pink LuRay sugar bowl, the tree in the white ceramic trophy, and the clear paint can full of vintage Shiny Brites that are sitting in the background)

I also had enough of the big thread balls to make one big snowman! He has arms made of brown floral wire and carries a glittery cupcake pick tree, which is a bit hard to see in the photo. His face and buttons are all vintage (his nose is an old celluloid button and his tummy buttons are glass). His hat is my favorite part--I was stumped what to use because a spool would be too small. I used the text-a-friend option for help and after I thought about it for a few days, I found an old gelatin mold in my stash that was just the right size and shape. I covered it with black glitter (thanks, Shara!) and added a vintage holly leaf thrifted earring. He didn't sell on Saturday and I'm not sure I really mind because I love him! Now I get to enjoy him for a while.

I raided my vintage canning jar collection and made the few clear ones I have into waterless snow globes using bleached and glittered bottlebrush trees, fake snow, glitter, scrapbooking rub-ons, and various lace/ribbons/seam binding and old bling earrings. These are hard to see but they have little sparkly stars dangling from threads glued inside the lids.

All of these except the pink jar sold. Surprising to me since so many people are into pink vintage Christmas decor!

These cute jars with red lids had wider mouths so I was able to fit a tree and a cute vintage plastic deer inside, along with some cute vintage spun cotton toadstools! Both of these jars sold.

When I ran out of big jars, I moved on to the wee jars! The salt shakers were from a garage sale a few years back--they're special because they have beautiful mother-of-pearl shakers lids! You may have seen the teeny jar on the right on Melissa's blog--she came and visited me on Friday! All three of these jars sold, in addition to the salt shaker's mate.

And two more, one in an old olive jar with a red lid. Wish I could find more of those because they sure made cute little snowglobes! Both of these sold as well.

For a few years now I've been collecting thrifted silverplate sugar bowls and cups to use for holding bottlebrush trees. This year I finally got around to making them! Some of the trees are actual vintage (thifted) and some of them are new trees that I bleached and/or dyed. All of them are decorated with vintage feather tree ornaments and mercury glass beads and other trinkets like sugared bells or tiny reflector flowers. All of these sold except the gold and silver tree that is second from the right. I also made some smaller trees in thrifted vintage Lefton candlestick holders, but I didn't get any photos of those.

Another jar with a deer and a tree in the middle. It's sitting on a pair of vintage books I bundled together and tied with jute. Every single thing in this photo sold!

More bleached and glittered trees. These topped vintage wooden spools of thread and were fancied up with seam binding and a bit of vintage bling. I made 8 of these and all but one sold on Friday. Friday night I found more trees and spools in my stash and made up 9 more of them to take in on Saturday, and all but one of those sold too!

I made three ornament wreaths this year using tinsel, wreath forms, and ornaments that I already had. The large pink wreath in middle was the first to sell, and it went early on Friday morning. Unfortunately, it's the only ornament wreath that sold, which is a pain because they are a drag to transport and store given their fragility. However--having those big, shiny, beautiful wreaths at the back of my booth was 100% worth it even though they didn't sell, because of the amount of people they brought into my booth to look at them! I believe I was the only one at the market who had any ornament wreaths and they were so pretty and eye-catching that they really worked well to draw people in.

Even though the ornament wreaths didn't all sell, the two wreaths I made using vintage light bulbs did both sell, as did 2 of the 3 vintage-style dangly ornament things I made (you can see them near the top, hanging between the big wreaths).

And of course there were banners. This one was my very favorite and it was also the very first to sell! I don't have any more of the red and green diamond ribbon but I think I have enough of the other materials left that I can make one like this for me to keep. I used vintage bingo (actually Beano!) cards for the base, red glass glitter on the letters, my favorite black and white striped ribbon, hand-sewn red crepe paper ruffles, and cute green vintage-style washi tape to make this one.

This one sold too. It had glittery silver letters, iridescent ribbon, jewels, beautiful felt snowflakes, and striped ribbon. The banner pieces were covered with canvas and now I wish I'd bought more of those because they were so fun to work with.

I loved how this one turned out! It wasn't what I had started out making but it turned out so cute. The black stripes in the middles are covered with tiny black jewels and there are glittery black balls on the bottom of the points. I am in love with tissue fringe and used it on several of my banners. This one sold.

This one didn't sell, and I'm kind of surprised. The colors are bad in this photo but those circles are red and aqua peppermint swirls that are actually from a package of Martha Stewart coasters I bought post-Christmas last year. The pennants are glittery silver paper and I used some red striped and aqua ribbon as well as red tissue fringe.

Another one of my favorites--this sold before I even had a chance to pin it up on my board! I had some green bingo cards in my stash that were perfect bases for the metallic red and silver striped paper rosettes, glittery silver letters, green tissue fringe, and glittery red balls. This one had glittery red polka dotted ribbon and green ribbon with red stitching. It was so fun to mix and match ribbon for all of these banners!

There are many more things I made that I just didn't take individual photos of, but that I can see sprinkled around my photos in my previous post: vintage-style foil-covered cardboard bells adorned with vintage Christmas corsages...greeting cards made with vintage sewing pattern girls...book bundles with red and green Readers' Digest books...glittery vintage cookie cutter ornaments and garlands...tags with trees made from folded vintage sheet music...tags made from vintage button cards...rickrack flower pins...Christmas card holders made from vintage folding rulers...stationery folios covered with old sewing patterns and tied with vintage cloth measuring tapes...all of it SOLD! I do regret not getting photos of all of the banners I made that sold but I didn't have a good place to take them before I packaged everything up and then things literally sold out of the boxes before I had a chance to pin them on the board on Friday morning. I took 15 different banners/garlands and I brought home fewer than 5, so those were good sellers and they're one of my very favorite things to make because they're all one-of-a-kind.

I'd definitely love to do this market again next year, so I'm already trying to think of things I can make so that I can take advantage of post-Christmas sales to stock up on materials and supplies. And I think next year I'll start making inventory in June instead of in November!

Rue de Noel antiques and artisans Christmas market report

Well, it's been a week and I think I'm finally recovered enough to report on how my Christmas market went! As a recap, December 6-7 I participated in an 'antiques & artisans' market called Rue de Noel. It was pretty much the sole focus of every minute of free time I had for weeks. The market itself was held indoors, in a vacant retail space in a mall that used to house a Borders bookstore.

There was plenty of space and the aisle were nice and wide. I had many customers tell me that the arrangement was much better than the previous year's market, when it was in a much smaller empty retail space and it was so crowded and jammed with people that they couldn't even shop. We were allowed to set up our booths all day long on Thursday, which was a lifesaver!

On Wednesday we had a huge snowstorm and then that night the temperatures plummeted. The high temps during daylight on Thursday were in the single digits and the parking lot was snowpacked, though the roads were clear. The mall is WAY across town from where I live--a good 35-minute drive, if there is no traffic and if you take the pricey toll road. It took us 2 trips with 2 cars completely full to get everything over there and loading and unloading all of the boxes in the frigid temperatures was no picnic, let me tell you!

Thankfully, with the help of my husband (and the neighbors who watched my kids and let us borrow a truck at the last minute) I was able to get my booth completely set up Thursday night by about 9:30 pm so at least I didn't have to get to the market until 9 am Friday morning to put the finishing touches on everything.

Friday's and Saturday's weather forecast was pretty much the same as Thursday--high daytime temps in the single digits, though much of the day it was below zero. I was so worried that nobody would venture out in the nasty cold weather and I would have a repeat performance of last October's market, where all of my preparation was ruined by the stupid weather.

I needn't have worried, however, because the shoppers turned out in droves! There were so many people waiting to get in the doors the first morning that we let them in 5 minutes early so they didn't have to wait in the cold any longer. My booth was completely slammed just a few minutes after opening and it didn't let up for a couple of hours!

I was absolutely floored at how much stuff I sold on Friday. In fact, by Friday afternoon when things started to slow down a bit, I started to freak out that I wouldn't have anything left to sell the next day! In my downtime I began making a list of things I had at home that I thought I could bring in to sell. I didn't get home until about 8:00 pm and frantically started pulling things out of closets and ransacking my own Christmas boxes to find things to sell! I hurried and was able to make a few tiny things--my husband and even my sweet dad stayed up until midnight with me, sorting buttons and tying ribbons on tags. I got up early the next morning too and put together a few more things to sell so I was able to make the booth look not quite so picked-over.

Saturday was just about as busy as Friday. Tons of shoppers in the morning, and less of a slow-down in the afternoon. Having the market at a mall was definitely a huge advantage because we got the people who came just for the market as well as the people who wandered in from the mall entrance as well! And thankfully for this 8-months-pregnant lady, I was just around the corner from the restrooms and had a great booth neighbor who watched my stuff while I ran to use the facilities!

Things slowed down a lot on Saturday evening. The Mister had to work all weekend long but was able to get out a bit early and come over so that I could have a break and finally walk around and check out the other booths. The market closed at 7:00 pm and my dad brought my kids, and they all helped me break down the booth. Loading up was definitely easier because I'd sold so much inventory, but again the unbelievable COLD made things less than pleasant when the guys were trying to shoehorn everything into our 3 vehicles so that we would only have to make one trip. Then once we were home, we had to completely unload all the stuff into the house. We were all frozen and exhausted by the time all the work was done that night.

In all, the market was a WONDERFUL experience for me! I still can't believe how much I sold. It's funny to look at my photos now and see that almost everything in the pictures sold! I had a mixture of handmade and vintage items, and the majority of the handmade stuff was made with vintage materials. My sales on Saturday were not as high as they were on Friday and I firmly believe it's because I had just run out of things to sell! I absolutely think that if I'd had more stuff to sell on Saturday, I would have sold it. I just plain ran out--in fact, nearly everything that I hurried to make or to dig out when I got home on Friday night did end up selling on Saturday, so it's a good thing I took it with me!

Really, it's a good problem to have--selling more than you expect. I wish I'd been able to make more inventory but honestly I did the absolute best that I could have. I'm actually really proud because the vast majority of things I made were done with materials I already had in my vintage Christmas and craft stashes! I had to purchase another bottle of Mod Podge and some tags, two spools of ribbon, a container of plaster of Paris, a package of bottle brush trees, a large package of chipboard letters and fewer than 5 sheets of fancy scrapbook paper. When you consider the amount of stuff that I made, I think that's pretty remarkable! That goes to show you what kind of a craft/vintage Christmas pack rat I truly am. ;) But see--it all got used! Sometimes it takes me 10 years to get around to using something (like the rub-ons I used on some of my snow globe jars) but I do use it...eventually!

This post is already long enough so I'll do a separate one to show you some of the things I made to sell.

Vintage collection: Beaded multi-strand necklaces day 1

It's no secret to anyone who knows me in person that I'm a big fan of accessorizing when I get dressed every day. Even though I'm a stay-at-home mom, it's important for my mental health for me to look nice, even if nobody but the eight- and four-year-old are going to see it! Obviously, some of my very favorite accessories are vintage. I can't stand wearing scarves around my neck but I wear a necklace more days than I don't, and one of my favorite types to wear are from my collection of vintage beaded multi-strand necklaces. All of mine are thrifted--some from stores, some from garage or estate sales. One day last year I dragged them all downstairs along with my dress form and had a little photo shoot but I never blogged any of the photos. Today I want to share a few of them with you.

I don't have any orange clothing in my wardrobe--never have and I can say with almost all certainty that I never will! I just don't think I have the coloring to pull it off. I do, though, have a few orange necklaces, including this one. I wore this several times during October and on actual Halloween. It's a fun pop of color without being too much of an orange commitment and I like the texture on the beads.

I wore this necklace yesterday, which is actually what reminded me of these photos that I took last year! I love the combination of the turquoise blue and green. I have the matching beaded clip-back earrings for this set but that's taking it a little too far into grandma territory, IMO. I do love the oak leaf findings on this necklace--what a pretty little detail!

This gold necklace is a fun one to wear for dressier occasions, although I wear it for everyday too--I love bling! The crystal beads have an aurora borealis finish that adds just the right amount of sparkle.

I know statement necklaces are still very much en vogue right now but that trend is definitely nothing new--these necklaces have been around for probably 50 years and they still look great!

Life, through aqua-colored glasses

Last week the kids were out of school for Fall Break. That combined with The Mister staying late at work on two nights plus working the entire weekend meant that by the time Saturday night rolled around, I was anxious to get out of the house alone! After dinner I sneaked out for a quick hit of the local thrifts. I was really hoping to find a motherlode of vintage Christmas ornaments (not very likely, since the early Saturday shoppers would likely have snapped them up first) and I was rewarded with one (1) old plastic Santa ornament.

Boo.

Even though I wasn't swimming in Shiny Brites, I did find something I love:

What used to be my favorite thrift store underwent some big changes recently as part of being bought by Saver's. I'm not at all a fan of most of the changes, but one thing they do now is maybe not so bad. When someone donates a set of matching dishes or glassware, the workers pile it all in a basket, tape the heck out of it and charge one price for the lot, rather than each item individually. That's how I found this basket of turquoise glassware on Saturday night. The color caught my eye first, but when I noticed that it just happened to be 50% off that weekend I knew it was meant to be!

The next day I was able to untape the whole thing and figure out just what I'd bought. I was happy to find 6 of the coupes, 4 of the tallest glasses, 8 of the water goblets, and a full dozen of the smaller wine glasses on the right. That makes 30 glasses (plus a giant wicker basket) for just $15, which I think is a darn good deal, especially for something so pretty! Honestly, full price of $30 for 30 glasses still wouldn't have been too shabby, but cheaper is always better, amiright?

While I've been contemplating just where exactly to put 30 new glasses in my already-full cupboards, I've been admiring them all lined up on my kitchen island. I've come to the conclusion that part of the reason I love them so much is that they're just a hair darker than the antique blue glass canning jars that I love so much! My wedding china is a pretty but quiet bone/platinum neutral, and I think these beautiful aqua glasses will add a lovely shot of my favorite color to the table. I think tonight's meatloaf and mashed potatoes will look awfully nice with my fancy dishes and new glasses, don't you?

Is it a catastrophe or an opportunity?

Until yesterday afternoon, this was what the wall adjacent to my front door looked like (well, not exactly like this because this photo is several years old but the arrangement on the wall is just the same):

I found the trio of antique oyster plates back in 2009 at a thrift store. I seriously love these plates even though I've never eaten an oyster in my life (unless you count Rocky Mountain Oysters--those I have eaten!) They have an awesome scowly Neptune face at the bottom and then mermaids around the sides. I looked high and low for the fourth plate but never found it, though it all worked out in the end because I was able to use the three plates in a nice symmetrical arrangement.

The mirror in the middle of the wall arrangement was an early thrift find when we'd just moved into this house nine years ago. The small silhouettes are actually John Derian coasters from Target that I have stuck with poster putty to some of the saucers from my wedding china.

Yesterday afternoon I was in the kitchen when I heard an almighty crash from the front room, and walked in to find this:

Somehow the mirror came off the wall and took out an adjacent oyster plate on its way to the ground. The plate shattered into a zillion pieces and the corner of the mirror made a nice series of gouges and paint marks on my wood floor. Boo!

I'm bummed to lose one of my pretty oyster plates and now my nice symmetrical arrangement is toast too. I suppose I could move the top center plate over to the side and find something new to fill its space, and I may just do that for a while but I think actually that I might be ready for a change! I'm bored with that mirror and I wouldn't at all be opposed to sending it right back to the thrift store--it has been nearly nine years, after all! I bought a new chair last weekend at World Market so I'm in the mood to switch things up a bit. I love a new decorating challenge so maybe losing one of my pretty plates isn't such a bad thing, after all!

The FREE antique typewriter

Antique Royal typewriter:  $65.99
plus tax                            $5.28
total                                 $71.27
less store credit                -$73.88
Final price                        FREE plus $2.61 left over


That's right, FREE! It must have been my lucky day, right? I stopped into my favorite little consignment store yesterday afternoon and spotted this awesome Royal typewriter with a price of $65.99. Now, that really is a pretty good price by itself because I regularly see antique typewriters around this area priced around $100. But the best part is that I had consignment credit that was $2.61 more than I needed, making the typewriter FREE!

It looks like it has been living in somebody's very dusty attic or shed so I'm going to need to clean it up a bit, but I'm excited to have it. I'm sure I could throw it on Craigslist and sell it pretty easily, but I think I'm going to hang onto it for a while and have fun using it for display. Hooray for FREE!

Weekend Junk Finds: Christmas in July

I haven't been doing much thrifting this summer, which is sad because it's prime garage sale season. Things just haven't lined up right to do it and truthfully, I just haven't had the desire. I did read last weekend that the local Goodwill Outlet stores were doing a Christmas in July promotion and offering 10% off any Christmas goodies you manage to dig intact out of the bins. Well, the prospect of finding even a little bit of my beloved vintage Christmas was enough to make me willing to drag my kids all the way to two different Goodwill Outlets--twice in one week, even!

I only had any luck on the first trip, making the other ones a total waste of time and gas money but this was enough to make me happy! I tried to show Maren what I was looking for and she worked hard to find me more vintage ornaments. She's still learning how to tell the difference between the new and old, but I'll turn that girl into a vintage Christmas spotter yet! She was excited to help me shop. Both kids were really well-behaved and I had no problem rewarding them with some books from the bins--at 30¢ each, that was a bribe I could handle!

The Goodwill Outlet is tricky--they roll out the huge bins and leave them on the floor for some predetermined amount of time. Then throughout the day, they take rows of bins to the back and bring out new ones. The 'inventory' is rotating but not quick enough for me. Only a small fraction of the bins on the floor even had Christmas stuff in them, so waiting around and hoping those would be replaced was just not going to happen. I'm lucky to have even found these goodies!

In other junk news, my favorite local thrift store is making major changes and I really hate it. :( It was a small chain that was apparently bought by Savers/Value Village sometime in the last year. The last time I visited a few weeks ago, I noticed that they had changed the pricing structure and brought in new tags that look like the ones they use at Savers.

When I stopped in the other day, I found the entire store had been rearranged and reorganized. This thrift is housed in a former grocery store space so it is HUGE but for some reason they squished all of the clothing racks together. Now you literally cannot pass two carts down an aisle. Heck, even if you don't have a cart yourself, if somebody is standing there in the aisle with their cart, you have to ask to squeeze by them and run into the clothes on the racks to do so. For all the bric-a-brac stuff, they went from having 4 rows of shelves with LONG, wide aisles to turning the shelves perpendicular and creating about 20 short rows with narrow aisles. It's a total pain in the bum and will be even worse if you're trying to use a cart. It's all just so squished together and I can't figure out why because there is a ton of empty, wasted space all over the store now, except for where the actual merchandise is.

That thrift was my favorite--it was also the closest to my house, the cleanest, and had the most selection because it was so large. I'm so disappointed in the changes they made because they most certainly weren't improvements! I almost never go to the local Savers anymore because the prices are high and the selection is poor, and I'm bummed that my favorite store looks to be headed that direction if the Savers corporate offices have anything to do with it. :(

Making stuff with junk: The Yardstick Table

My garage is somewhat of a furniture project graveyard. Well, not so much a graveyard as a waiting room, really.

My plans are big, but my motivation? Not so big. I am happy to report that I finally finished one of the projects waiting for me. And it only took about 3 years!

I found this little table at the thrift store many moons ago. I knew immediately what I wanted to do with it: the top is recessed just about the same thickness as a yardstick. I knew that I wanted to use some of my yardstick collection to inlay the top of the table.

And would you look at the price!

I brought it home and put it in the garage, where it sat. And sat. And sat. See, where I get hung up on my refinishing projects is always the sanding phase. I HATE sanding furniture. I hate it oh SO very, very much. I am also somehow completely inept when it comes to using furniture stripper, so I usually just lose my motivation before I really get started.

Not long ago on some blog I read about a product called Howard Restor-A-Finish that piqued my interest. I happened upon a big display of the Howard products at a store that opened recently, and I remembered my little table waiting so patiently in the garage.

The Restor-A-Finish couldn't be easier to use--you simply wipe it onto the wood using 0000-grade steel wool, and then wipe off the excess with a clean rag. Here's what the company says about the product:

"Restor-A-Finish is a unique finish-penetrating formula that restores the original color and luster to your finish while blending out the blemishes and minor scratches. Restor-A-Finish restores the finish in one step - without removing any of the existing finish."

The Restor-A-Finish worked great on my table! Previously, there were some minor scratches and the finish was faded and the wood looked very dry.

I only used one coat of the Restor-A-Finish. There are still a few scratches and marks that aren't completely covered up but they don't bother me. I have two kids and a dog so the idea of having a perfect finish on anything in this house is just silly.

The brass casters also needed some attention. I used some of The Mister's Brasso and more of the steel wool and managed to remove some of the tarnish.

After that, the yardstick inlay was easy! I used a Dremel tool with a saw blade to cut each yardstick to the correct length. I got lucky and the space was a perfect fit for 11 yardsticks so I didn't have to cut any of the sticks in half lengthwise.

I used Gorilla Glue to adhere the yardsticks to the top of the table, then covered the top with foil and weighted the whole thing down with cinderblocks to make sure it all stayed flat while the glue dried. The yardsticks truly are the exact thickness as the table inset so the top of the table is flush--it's like it was meant to be!

I love everything about this project: I love that I was able to use some of my yardstick stash and now I don't feel like such a hoarder. I love that I have some extra storage space because of the shelf on the bottom. I love that it adds an interesting element to my living room. I love that the Restor-A-Finish was such an EASY, instantly gratifying product to use. I love that the top of my table is a fun background for junk photos like these. And most of all, I love that I was finally able to finish a project from the garage!

(PS--Howard Restor-A-Finish did not pay me to say any of these things or provide me with product. Ijust want to share a product of which I'm now a big fan!) 

I'm linking up with The Nifty Thrifty at A Living Space and Thrift Share Monday at Apron Thrift Girl.