It’s finally here!  Garage sale season!

I’m so excited to get out there and see what I can find this year.

For those of you who may be new here, I live in a suburb of the Twin Cities (that’s Minnesota, in case you didn’t know).  Our garage sale season probably starts a bit later than most.

And definitely quite a bit later than at my mom’s house in the Vegas area.  While my sister and I were out visiting her a couple of weeks back we stopped off at a handful of garage sales.  I have to say, they were pretty bad.  For one thing, apparently people don’t bother to price stuff at garage sales out there (one of my pet peeves, I hate having to ask for a price on every item I look at).  For another, apparently they have a lot of outdated electronics and office supplies that they think people will buy at a garage sale.

I’ll admit, sometimes the garage sales around here are just as bad, but sometimes they can be pretty fab.

Here’s an example from last week …

Now, I have to admit, I didn’t actually purchase any of the items shown above because they were just a little out of my re-sale price range.  If I personally collected vintage thermoses or buffalo check items I would have been all over them.

My friend opK and I spotted those fun vintage camp items when we went to a handful of sales last week just across the border in Wisconsin.  Although I didn’t buy any of those, I did come home with a handful of goodies.

I was initially thinking I’d leave the galvanized scoops ‘as is’ …

but in the end I decided to dress them up just a little bit.

I simply added some wording from the old I.O.D. Label Ephemera transfer.

I purchased the big bouquet of faux lavender because I’m always on the hunt for good florals for staging pieces like french floral buckets, or vases.

At $5 for the whole bunch, they seemed like a pretty good deal.

opK spotted the little toolbox for me.

Its petite size made it perfect for the daisy transfer that I used on a lockbox a month or two ago.  I liked that one so much that I wanted to do something similar again.

I think it turned out rather sweet.

As for the shiny bucket, I gave it the same treatment as a bucket I painted a month or two ago.  After giving it a good washing, I stippled on a coat of Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage paint mixed with their Sea Spray texture additive.  Once dry, I sanded it back a little to take some of the peaks down then added two coats of Drop Cloth.  Once that was dry, I sanded it a bit as well to allow some of the Dried Sage layer to show.

I painted the interior of the bucket in Dixie Belle’s Deep Sea just to clean it up a bit.

Plus, the deep dark blue worked beautifully with the dark blue of the re.design with prima transfer I then applied to the front of the bucket.

I did also pick up this small wooden box while out garage saling in North Hudson.

I’ll be honest, I only grabbed it because it was only $1 and I thought I could give it a quick makeover for my sale.

I gave it two coats of Bonding Boss to block any stains from that orange-y wood, then gave it two quick coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Once dry, I decorated it with some scraps from I.O.D.’s Redoute II transfer.

I followed it all up with some clear wax to finish.  It would be perfect for a small jewelry or trinket box.

This coming weekend we are spoilt for choice as the garage sale season kicks off with a bang in my area.  The cities immediately surrounding me of Oakdale, Maplewood and North St. Paul are all having their city-wide sales this weekend.  In addition, a couple of my favorite neighborhood sales are this weekend; Bryn Mawr and Tangletown.  Finally, there is also the 100-mile garage sale that runs along the Great River Road from Hastings to Winona.

So many options!  We can’t possibly get to them all, but here’s hoping I find lots of great stuff no matter where we end up.