I’m getting a rather late start for this year’s garage sale season.  I usually kick it off the first weekend in May with the Bryn Mawr neighborhood’s Festival of Garage Sales in Minneapolis.  But I wasn’t even thinking about garage sales when my sister and I booked our trip to Disney World, so I missed out on that.

But this past Saturday my sister and I managed to get out to the Linden Hills neighborhood for their sales.  It was a beautiful day, if a bit chilly at first.

I didn’t come home with much though.  Certainly not compared to previous years (2022, 2018, 2015).  Still, I thought I’d share what I found with you guys.

My first buy of the day was a pair of owl bookends.

I’m not sure what material they are made out of, but they are very heavy (as bookends tend to be).

The old books were a good find, and I especially liked the crown on the spine of the one shown above.

I also picked up this little wooden shelf thingie.  I think this one will be fun to reimagine somehow.  You’ll have to wait to see what I can come up with for it.

As for those little trees in front, those are the same little Christmas trees that I purchased last year at the same woman’s garage sale (she has a giant box of them).  Once you fluff out the limbs they look like this …

I purchased some last year and put them in vintage flour sifters as holiday décor.  So I grabbed a few more to hang onto until next Christmas.

For some reason I couldn’t resist this vintage lampshade.

Isn’t it fun?  Here’s the other side …

I think it would be perfect for someone’s lake cabin.  I just need to find the right lamp to put it on.

I purchased this small chippy step ladder from a gal who said she bought it at a boutique for ‘lots more’ than she was charging for it because it has such a great patina.

I don’t disagree.  It does have a great patina, but not such a great color scheme.  I’m just not a fan of the orange and pale yellow combo.  I’m planning to give it a new look, while also retaining some of that patina.  Wish me luck on that one.

I did find a few other small things, including some items that I’m gifting to others so I don’t want to spoil the surprise by sharing them here.  But overall, as you can see, I didn’t find much.  In fact, I decided that the find of the day status goes to this …

Homemade macarons!  I love macarons, and these were delicious.

The trend towards neighborhood garage sales only providing an online (and unprintable) map using Google My Maps isn’t working very well for me.  Sure, I can bring it up on my phone, and even get directions to a particular sale from wherever I am.  But a phone is just to darn small to see the entire map, and you can’t put a big ‘X’ through the sales you’ve already been to on your phone.  We end up going in circles, and ending up back at sales we’ve already been too, and eventually having no idea which areas we’ve seen and which we haven’t.  Especially when there are 70+ sales taking place.

So after a fairly frustrating couple of hours trying to make our way around, and not finding much, we called it quits early.  We then went to lunch, followed by a visit to a thrift store where I found some ironstone.

So, all’s well that ends well, right?

Now I’m off to clean out my workshop, pressure wash and seal our deck, and maybe even start painting some things.  But how about you?  Did you find anything amazing at garage sales this past week?  Would the macarons have been your find of the day?  Leave a comment and let me know.