My garage sale hauls started out with a bang (and ended with a bit of a bust) last weekend. On Friday I went to my friend Lisa’s occasional sale, and then stopped off at Lowe’s on the way home.

OK, to be fair, Lisa’s sale is way too nice to be called a garage sale, and Lowe’s doesn’t really count at all.  But I did come home with some fantastic things at prices halfway between ‘garage sale’ and ‘fancy boutique’ at Lisa’s, and also some fun plants from Lowe’s that I wanted to share with you guys.

First up, I purchased a couple of plastic urn planters, a concrete pillar and an oval shaped galvanized bucket at Lisa’s sale.  I’ve already used the Dixie Belle patina paint on both of the urn planters to give them a rusty look.  I’m listing one for sale here on the blog, while making space for the other in my own garden.

Lately I’ve gotten really fond of placing planters like this right in the garden bed.

They are great for adding instant height where needed.  They also can be moved around to fill in a hole where a perennial has died back, where you’re waiting for a slower growing plant to fill in, or where you want a pop of color from annuals but don’t want to plant them in the ground.  The nice thing about these plastic pots is that they are lightweight and pretty easy to move around, even when filled with soil and plants.  And in my opinion, they totally pass for the real thing with the patina paint.

I use the Iron patina paint with the green spray to get my rusty results (the full process can be found in this post).  One thing to keep in mind is that the rust takes some time to develop, it’s not instantaneous.  I just finished rustifying these pots yesterday, so keep in mind that they will continue to get rustier.  But I thought you’d still like to see my results.

Here’s the first pot, before.

I have to say, it looks like legit concrete in the photo, but it’s plastic and had a lot of flaking paint.  You’ll have to trust me on that.

And here it is after …

It’s starting to show some good rust.

Here is pot number two, ‘before’ …

And here it is with it’s new rusty finish.

If any of you locals are interested, be sure to check my ‘available for local sale‘ page for that one.

  I’m also planning a paint treatment for the galvanized bucket that came from Lisa’s sale, stay tuned for that.

As for the pillar in the back of my ‘haul’ photo, I left that ‘as is’ and put it in the garden.

You might recognize that spot right behind my Chelsea chopped sedum.

As for Lowe’s, well, although it’s obviously not a garage sale of any kind, I just had to share the gorgeous plants that I found there.  First up is an astilbe from Proven Winners called Dark Side of the Moon.

Isn’t that dark foliage fantastic?  I have to admit, I don’t even know what the flowers on this one are supposed to look like.  I’m planting it just for the foliage color.  I’m hoping to have more success with this plant than I did with the heuchera that I planted for its foliage.  Fingers crossed.

I also picked up three of the Proven Winners Heart to Heart caladium in Tickle me Pink.

You know I just can’t seem to resist caladium, even though we really don’t have the best climate for it.  They perform best if the nighttime temps don’t fall below 60°.  A week or so ago we were still having temps in the 50’s at night, and even got down to the 40’s a couple of times.  It’s great for sleeping with the windows open, but not so great for caladium.

Also, caladium are rather pricey annuals.  I purchased a couple of them earlier in the year for just under $20 each, but these from Lowe’s were only $10.98.  A bargain for a caladium!  I made an unsuccessful attempt to overwinter caladium bulbs last year, so I was happy to find some selling at a reasonable price.  I have to say that I was really impressed with both the quality and the price of the perennials at the Stillwater Lowe’s.

And here are those caladium in my new rusty urn, plus another shorter one that I rusty-ed up last year.

On Saturday, my sister, niece and I headed out to check out a neighborhood sale that was new to me, the NEighbors Sale Days in Northeast Minneapolis.  There were several neighborhoods participating, so it looked like it could be promising.

I have to admit, that part of Minneapolis can be a bit of a mixed bag.  There are areas that are filled with fabulous mid-century modern homes with lovely gardens, and areas that are a bit sketchy to be honest.  It also includes the Arts District, which is filled with artist studios and lots of trendy eateries.

The garage sales were really hit or miss … but mostly a miss.  My sister purchased some plants, and my sole purchase was this …

Yep, just one simple wooden recipe box.  It will go in the stash and be good for a winter project.

We called it quits early after not finding much and decided to drown our sorrows in a pitcher of mimosa’s.

We did a bit of googling and ended up finding a place called Half Fancy that was only a few blocks away from where we were.

Somehow, Half Fancy seemed like the perfect way to describe the neighborhood … and maybe us.  Although to be honest, we might be more like only 1/4 fancy.

I ordered the purple hash which was made from red potatoes, braised red cabbage, onions and carrots and I added a scrambled egg on top.

Delicious!

As we were finishing up with our brunch I got a text from my friend Sue who suggested we head to some sales in White Bear Lake.  So on the way home we stopped there and I picked up another piece of furniture.

Seriously, I need to get going on some of this furniture I’m bringing home.  The summer is getting away from me!

Last, but not least, I also brought home this child sized vintage wicker chair.

You know I can’t resist smaller than normal sized anything.  It seemed like the best option for find of the day, but really, that status should probably go to the mimosas!  Or maybe those rusty pots!  Or even the plants.  I don’t know, what do you think?