Thrift Share Monday - July 30

Am I being ungrateful, by this weeks finds?  I did find some good stuff, but my estate sale week started early,  AND I ventured slightly out of town therefore had high hopes of scoring things outside from my usual haunts, but I did not end up with a car full of junk with as many places I went to.

Here's what I scored.

Tuesday I went to the rare, odd mid-week estate sale (not ran by a company).  It was a small duplex that was needing to be cleared by the end of the week.  I got got some really cool vintage 1970s Marvel Comic, Pepsi glasses.  These are currently listed individually on Etsy.

And some milk glass Fire King Custard cups, 12.  I already have 10 that I've had a hard time telling myself to list on Etsy.

Wednesday was another home ran estate sale.  Not a ton of stuff here, since they were slowing bringing things out throughout the week.  However, I did get these great red patio chairs.

No, they are not vintage, they are new, and I was not gonna ask how much they were, but did anyway.  $50 for the pair.  Hmmm, even though that's a good price for the pair, that was still too rich for my blood.  So I offered $35, and it was accepted.  Score!!  I knew these were way more pricey than what I got them for, and this weekend I saw them for $58 each at a store. These are mine!

Here is an unusual occurrence.  The weekend before at an estate sale I saw a glass head for $25, but didn't want to pay that much, so the next day I went back in hopes it was still there so I could buy it half off, but it was gone.  Then at this Wednesday sale what do I see?  Yup, a glass head, $10.  Uh yeah I want it.

What would I do with a glass head you might ask...well display my new fabric headbands of course.  :-)  They could be worn narrow, scrunched up, or wide.  I'll be adding some soon to Etsy.

Fridays, estate sale was a dud, we went to lunch and spent 1 3/4 hours sitting in my car in traffic on our way home.  A drive that would usually take 25 minutes with no traffic, and maybe 45 with traffic.  Holy Cow!!!  It was horrific!   

Saturday my mom suggested we venture out of town for sales, since I didn't have the kids.  So we went a whopping 45 miles out of town to the cute town of New Braunfels, TX.  I'll admit it was nice driving around the town, through some of the neighborhoods.  However, I had really high hopes though to get a ton of vintage goods from an area I don't venture out to, but was really disappointed.  Two estate sales, and 5 thrift stores, and this is what I got.

Pyrex mugs
 
These long vintage vases.  Any one know what these are officially called?  I'm seeing different descriptions of them online.  There are no markings on them.

 

 Pfaltzgraph 3 quart casserole

 

 And some vintage coffee pots, Pyrex and Corning Ware

 

How was your week thrifting?

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My Craft Space. Part 2

Last week I shared with you a portion of my craft space, Part 1.  It was terribly disarrayed, but eventually it got neatly organized.  Yay me!

My next space I was to tackle was my dresser, a catch all space, that really needed clearing.  At one point it held fabric on it, but that eventually all got moved to my desk.  Then the dresser got lost under interfacing, thrifted goods, unfolded sheets, and miscellaneous items (I thought I took a picture, but couldn't find it.).

Here is what it looked like earlier this year, piled with fabric.  Fabric that now has been neatly organized as seen in Part 1.

After organizing the dresser I've managed to get it down to this.

The small shelf in the center holds some finished zippered pouches, and bunting.  Along with cups holding little odds and ends.

Shelf holding zippered pouches, and fabric headbands lying in the front. 

To the left I have three wooden, chalkboard bins containing vintage sheet scraps by size.  One bin has pieces that are a few inches under a fat quarter, another with pieces around the size of a fat eighth, and the third pieces smaller than the two others.  I did this with the intentions of bagging these pieces for scrap pack bundles, one day I'll get to that, at least I'm one step closer in that direction.


Then to the right I have a wooden tool box(?)/shoe shine box with my rolled up chalkboard mats, and finished folded market bags, purses and aprons.

Rolled up chalkboard mats in the back, and purse and aprons folded.

I have way more things than I have surfaces for, so it's a more cluttered than I would like, but for now it will have to do.  At least it's an improvement.

My next area to get put together is my sewing table.  It has seen some really bad times (like the image below).

See the light in the back?  It wants to be the Tin Man, wearing a funnel instead of a lamp shade.  Silly lamp.

Yikes!  Did that frighten you?  Sorry I should have given you a warning (something along the lines of "if you are a neat freak do not continue"), but it really has seen worst times then that (yeah...much worst).  I currently have access to it, and it's much better usable.  I know I wont accomplish craft magazine worthiness, but I can at least get it to where it makes me happy(momentarily, because we all know organized, or somewhat organized, areas don't last).  :-)

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Do you want to trade, my vintage sheet FQs for your solids?

 Ok, I'm being lazy or cheap, maybe both.  It's also that I'm indecisive on making decisions and I get stuck on just what I like, but I do know one thing.  I need solid colored fabrics, and a variety of colors at that.  So I'm wondering if there are any fabric hoarders lovers out there that would like to add something different to their stash.  Would anyone like to trade with me?  Fat quarters from my vintage sheet stash for some of your solid fabric stash?

Like I mentioned I would like a variety of colors but I'm a bit picky, I'm not too fond of pastels (like baby blue/pink) and I don't need yellows.  I'm even open to  fabrics with small patterns (dot's, spots, stripes, chevrons).

I don't want to see what you have (I don't want to have to make decisions), it'll be a blind swap for me, but here is what I have to offer you.

Here are three fat quarter bundles, each with six fat quarters.  We'll do an even trade worth of fabric.  You could mix it up how you want, return six fat quarters, three half yards, or two fat quarters and two half yards. Does that make sense?

Bundle #1

Bundle #2

Bundle #3

If you're game for a trade it's first come first serve.  Just leave a comment telling me which bundle you want and your email address.  From there I'll email you to get your mailing address for the trade, and I'll leave it up to you on if you want to wait to receive the bundle from me before you mail your bundle out, or you could mail it before (we each pay our own postage).

Oh and please make sure you check the comments to see if the bundle you want hasn't already been picked by a previous commenter.

Lets trade.  :-)

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Thrift Share Monday - July 23

Dang!  I got some extremely fab vintage items this weekend, and probably my most unusual find/purchase(doubt I'll ever top it).

I really hate it when I find super cute stuff because I tend to not want to part with it, however, 75% of the reason why I thrift is in hopes to turn my finds around into a profit.  Ugh!

Look, how can I part with these?  They are milk glass spice jars, and so fantastically fantastic (yup I just said fantastically fantastic.) I got them for a great deal, and who knows if or when I'll ever bump into something like this in the wild again.

Most of them still have the shaker lid.

I got these sets of vintage canister awesomeness.

Then there is this little find.  My mom dug this out from who knows where at this estate sale, it wasn't priced so that was even a better chance to get a great deal.  It was $3.  We were getting ready to check out and mom was debating on this little vase, she was talking about putting it back.  It was really cute, and something about it was appealing so I grabbed it from her since she decided she didn't want it (her Jedi mind trick way to get me to buy things).

When we got home I looked it up and the artist of this little folded vase sells these on Etsy for $64.  Yup, mom has an eye for ceramic and cement pieces.  Remember the bench she got a few months back?  It was a $395 bench that she bought for $20.  Man I love garage/estate sales.

This estate sale was one of the highest priced sales I've been to when it comes to smalls, in my opinion.  They had glass lidded mason jars for $5-$8, that I've bought full price at other estate sales for $1.75.  This was the second day of the sale and even though items weren't 25% off, they were accepting offers.  So that made things a bit easier, pocket book wise, and I went back on Sunday for 50% off, and got a few more random small items.

This Everlast hammered aluminum ice bucket.

And all these smalls.  Yes I broke down and grabbed a couple of the mason jars at half price.

 They had several old sewing machines the first day I went to this sale, and they were all gone the following day.  I'm surprised someone didn't grab this sewing machine accessories tin since it was filled with sewing machine feet.  I bought the tin because I thought it was cute, but now I don't know what to do with all the feet.  Oh, and I got that super cute, silver, loose tea spoon. 

I was really eying an item that was way too big and still not in my price range even at half off ($80 full price).  So when I was checking out I offered $20 for the item if it was still around at the end of the day (I was counter offered $25).  So when the end of the estate day arrived I was debating about the item with my mom.  Do I call to see if they still have it?  What would I do with it?  If anything I would turn around and resell it on Craigslist.  I opted not to call....but then decided to call.  What if it had sold, but I would never know and it would be on my mind for who knows how long.  So if it sold then that's off my mind, right? 

Hell!!!  They still had it, so I made a rushed call to my brother-in-law to borrow his brand new truck to pick it up, and here it is.  My most off the wall, what the hell purchase.  At first I thought it was a bell hop, hotel luggage cart, but there is some pharmacy supply company label on it...so I'm guessing it's a hospital supply cart or something of that nature.  Do you know what it is?  It's big too, about 5'x 5 1/2'.


So what do you think?  Is this a what the hell purchase?  In my perfect world this would have fit perfectly inside my car, and I'd use it to cart my craft fair bins at shows and use it as part of my display, but since it's wider than my car I can't so I'll just hoard store it in my garage.  I did put all my bins and some other items on it.  Which will make moving things around in the garage much easier since I have soo much stuff in there, I'm frequently having to move things to get to things behind other things, now all I have to do is just roll the front row of things to the side.

Ugh! I need to start moving(selling) my vintage stuff, I'm doing a lot of buying and not listing.

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Do you want to test/try a headband? Free

So, I've whipped up some headbands that I'm thinking about selling at next months Austin Craft Riots Summer Show(yeah I know, I like crunch time).  I got the design from a head band I bought at the mall, and even though  they seem to fit like the one I bought I want some other opinions on the fit.

I love the way headbands look on other people, but I don't wear them, on me it doesn't seem to have the same effect.  Maybe it's my hair, if it was fuller then it might have the effect I'm looking for.  Some people have that great full, curly, out of control hair (which if you do I know you probably hate it), that holds well with headbands.  A cloth headband like these on my flat, limp hair just slides right off.   Also I don't have a home hair stylist to fix my hair daily like Flo, from Progressive. 

Anyways, here is where I need you.  I would like some testers to tell me how the headband feels/fit.  I know everyones head is different so they won't fit the same on everyone.  Just tell me what you think.  

I got 4 I'm giving away.  They are all made from upcycled, vintage sheets.  If you are interested just leave a comment with your email address so I can contact you to get your mailing address.  Also leave in the comments which one you want.  It's first come first serve so look in the comments to see which one has been taken so that I don't have more than one person requesting the same headband.

Elastic/back side of headband.

The headbands measure approx. 20", not stretched, and the fabric is 8" wide.  When the headband is stretched the fabric gets pulled taught and it has a scrunched up look, but it could also be spread out for wider
coverage, which might work really well for those of you with really full hair. 

Right now I have two tacked down, #2 & 4, at a section of the head band to prevent the headband from being completely spread out, but it could be quickly removed with seam ripper if you want the wider coverage.  I'm torn right now if I should even bother with tacking it down.  

If you are a tester it would be greatly appreciated if you could give me a quick turnaround on your opinion of the headband once it is received, you could leave your review/opinion here on the blog or email me.  

OK, then who wants one?

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My Craft Space. Who's the Messiest? - Part 1

Ok.  I'm hoping if I talk about this on the web, then maybe...just maybe I'll accomplish my organizing goal.

15 piece puzzle

I've been battling with my craft space/bed room for months(ok maybe years).  From the hard long task of rearranging furniture in my room, like a 15 piece puzzle, to moving furniture in and out of my room.  This might sound easier than it is, but it's not.  My room is a loft with a spiral staircase.  So rearranging a room in other cases could be slightly easier by moving a piece of furniture into a hallway, but, in my case removing a piece of furniture consist of removing a balcony railing and lowering furniture off a ledge(or holding/balancing it on my head to walk up/down the stairs).  In this case removing a couch, it was s a nerve racking event, even though my ex-husband made it look easy.  However, the thoughts alone of all the things that could have gone wrong were enough to not want to proceed.

Anyways.  The couch has been out of my room for a months now and it's been replaced with a 6 foot table.  It's so nice to have a table to cut fabric on, and not on the floor....that is of course if the table is not underneath a pile of vintage sheets and thrifted goods (as seen here).

My room is jam packed with furniture, covered in sewing, crafting, and thrifted items.  Let's break down what I have in one room.

• 6 ft folding table - For cutting fabric and gathering some necessary sewing tools, which at times has piles of vintage sheets, fabric and thrifted goods on it.
• Extend-able antique table (painted black) - For my sewing machine, serger and sewing notions.  Currently topped with UFOs, some fabric, and thrifted goods. 
• Tall boy - aka printer stand
• Dresser - catch all (fabric, thrifted goods, craft supplies).  I have hopes to have this area to place my finished sewn products for Etsy, and markets.
• Bed - to sleep on.  Usually half of it is covered with clothes I need to fold and put away, or fabric/thrifted goods.
• Computer desk- to house my fabric and vintage sheet stash.   This has done well for this purpose, but the task to refold and put back fabric once used doesn't always happen.  So this desk does get horrific  untidy at times.  
• The floor-  Oh!  Let's not go there.  Just use your imagination.

Do you see the trend?  Fabric, vintage sheets, and thrifted goods have taken over my room.  A little over a week ago I started really focused on trying to get things more organized (HA!).  My mom was so kind to put up a large set of shelves in the garage for my thrifted goods.  So with that set up I was able to make a slight dent in my room, by removing a good amount of stuff off the floor and other areas.  

After I got most thrifted goods out I focused on one area, which seemed like should be the most obvious starting point.  The computer desk, since I have fabric and vintage sheets over all surfaces it was imperative that I organize this area first.

As I mentioned I've been trying to get this area organized for months, so I have two before pictures of this desk.  Originally this is where I sewed, but eventually came to realized it didn't work so well with larger projects since the desk was so narrow, and some sewing projects would hit the back of the desk.   So one before picture is with my sewing machine, and one before picture from just prior to organizing all my fabric.

Before picture from the beginning of the year.

Before picture from March/April-ish..

Yikes, right?  Well here is what it looks like now.

This is an illusion, being that it's the one organized spot in my room... as of right now.

So whatcha think?  My regular fabric is at the top right, rolled inside small storage boxes.  Right  next to that I have milk glass nesting bowls that contain fat quarters, some fabric scraps, charm packs, and jelly roll strips. 

The desk portion holds all my vintage sheets, with larger scraps to the right, behind my large agua fresca, juice jar that is filled with small vintage sheet scraps.  In the two cubbies are vintage sheet pillow cases and fat quarters.

Underneath are my other fabrics, vintage, apparel, and home decor fabrics (A few years back I was really into home decor fabric with the intentions of making a whole bunch of purses out of it, but as you can tell not much has happened there.) 

The keyboard tray is where I'm storing my packing paper (for Etsy breakable orders). 

Now brace yourself.  I'm going to show you  another before pictures from months ago when I started this process.  This dresser had to be moved in order to get a couch out of my room.  That meant all the drawers had to be removed, and ALL that fabric and junk had to be placed somewhere else (bed, floor, computer desk).  Ugh!

The red things in the top right are dragon fly wings.  I made them for  myself a few years back for Halloween.  I also wore them to Fairy day at the Texas Renaissance Festival.

Look,  there's the couch at the edge of the loft ledge waiting to be lowered.  Yikes!

I don't normally see those "ghost" photo spheres in my pictures, maybe a friendly spirit was around to make sure everything went well with the couch.  

My cutting table (seen above) did get some relief when I moved my thrifted goods to the garage and organized the fabric in the computer desk.  I still have some organizing I need to do on it, but for now I'm gonna focus on the above dresser since I want to put my finished items on it.

Oh, and you think that dresser is for clothes don't ya?  Silly.  Only one drawer has clothes in it.  The others?  Well, one drawer is a designated junk drawer, one has beading supplies from when I went into my jewelry making phase, one has craft supplies, and two have fabric....mostly home decor fabric from above mentioned home- decor purse phase.)

So are you shocked, disgusted, or both?  Maybe this doesn't even phase you.  Can you beat me at who's the messiest?  I'll be unveiling the other disaster zones other the next two weeks (keeping my fingers crossed).

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Thrift Share Monday- July 16

Don't you love buying an item at a thrift store, estate, or garage sale, and later find it's mate, or what makes your item complete?  I've come to the conclusion that when it comes to thrifting don't not buy something because it's not a complete item, or set, or just one wouldn't work for you.  I've had done this plenty of times and days, weeks or months later bump into it's set or mate, then regret that I didn't buy the other item I saw previously. 

I'll get back to the mate(s) I found later in this post,  I want to jump right in to the other items I scored this weekend.

Garage and estate sales filled my Friday morning and afternoon, and I got

A single vintage sheet,

Vintage fabric,


A bird cage,

and a slew of Vintage Avon perfume/cologne.

At this garage sale it was marketed as being a collection of items from a former Avon rep.  Now, I haven't got into collecting Avon or haven't done  the buying and selling of vintage cologne, yet, but you know what curiosity does.  Right?

Well, yeah aside from curiosity killing the cat, it also gets you into buying items you normally don't buy.  When I stopped by this sale they were in the process of emptying out boxes still, so I grabbed a few items and went back later with my mom, since they said they had 47 banker boxes they still had to unload. 

So.... I've learned the hard way....and obviously haven't learned throughly that bringing my mom with me to estate/garage sales can be dangerous.  Many times I see things and pass them by, or pass them by because I didn't see them, and my mom brings them to my attention and talks them up and becomes a huge enabler talks me into buying stuff I may have otherwise left behind.  This was one of those classic cases.  As I'm going through the Avon stuff I grab a few things, and head to pay.  "What you're done?  I'm still looking.  Look this is really cute, and this, and this and this."  All of course "cute" meaning for me to buy, not for herself.  So 14 Avon bottles later, on top of what I bought earlier, I'm paying for my loot.



These are all vintage Avon products.  From what I can tell, so far most are from the 70s. Combining my two purchases I have a total of 20 items, with 16 out of 20 being still full and in it's original box.  Now,  I wouldn't recommend these vintage scents to be used or smelled, but try convincing a 12 year old out of wanting to smell all of them, which my daughter did.  Which translates to them being shoved under my noise for me to smell as well.  Ew!

What was interesting to see was what came in one of the jars.  I've bought and sold these aqua Avon jars twice.  Last weekend when I sold one my mom asked me, confused, if I was sure it was an Avon jar.  "Well yeah Avon was embossed on the glass".  She then asked what would have been in it.  "Um, I have no idea."  And what do you know we find one filled with peach shape soaps (that were stinky...you know how old soap smells.) in it's original box.  Well, that answers that mystery (we can now sleep well at night).

Ok, onward.  We headed out to two estate sales, and I grabbed a few items.

Got these vintage mugs with tree stand, new in box,

I've seen these mugs sprawled out all over here and there, but the Japan mark usually steers me away since I have no way to date it aside from them "looking" vintage (yeah I know, search Ebay and Etsy).  Don't get me wrong I have bought and sold Japan marked ceramic mugs before, but I like to have some sort of info for the items I sell.  Now I have documentation for use on these mug (and others in the future) since these were still in their box.  Awesome!  These cups were made in Japan for Kmart, and if I'm reading their code right they are from 1978.

 
Now at this same sale I saw three milk glass vases that I already have.  I made a point to give my mom a little tidbit of info on these vases.  The ones I have were all purchased at different locations, and I spent $2 for each.  At this sale they were marked $8 each, I left those behind.  Onto the next estate sale I see one of these vases, and ask my mom to reiterate the info I gave her at the previous sale.  She remember I paid $2, and this vase was $2, so I bought it. This purchase was one of my mate/set purchases.  When I bought my first vase, yes I liked it, but thought a pair would be nice, and when I had two, I thought three would be even better.  Now I have four.  Let's see how out of hand this gets. 



I got this red plastic bread box.

and a Jadite mug.


Here is my super match/mate find.  A few months ago I scored this very nice red utility cart, at a steal of a price, $5 (I contributed that price to it missing a wheel).  Well, I wasn't gonna let that deter me from buying it, especially when I see these carts go for $20-$60.

Once I got the cart home I pulled off one of its wheels and threw it in my purse.   The waiting game then started.  I wanted the wheel in my purse for the pure fact of you never know.  You never know what you're gonna find at a sale and you might as well take the guess work out of things and have the wheel available for comparison, and that's happened at the second estate sale Friday.

The backyard had tables of bins filled with nails, nut, bolts, odd and end.  Once we stepped into the backyard I jokingly tell my mom that she was officially put on a mission to find my 4th wheel (I think she blew me off).  We went in and out of the house several times.  My third time around the backyard I dig through the bins some more and find three wheels almost identical to the one I had, they are missing a widening/fitting piece, but I think this will be the closest I'll get and at 25 cents each I bought all three. 

Left wheel is the original, the right one is one of the finds.

I did get a strange look and comment as to why I would only want three wheels.  Oh and I also "jokingly" scolded my mom for being put on a mission to find the wheel and failed her mission.  But seriously, would you have thought you'd find a lone wheel for a vintage cart that was missing its wheel?

Just remember you never know what you're going to find... so look with the thought in mind that you WILL find "it". 

 

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