Category: garage sales.

As I’ve mentioned (possibly too many times), the whole COVID thing, followed by the social unrest thing, has totally messed with the neighborhood garage sale scene in the Twin Cities.  In 2020 most of my favorite neighborhood sales were canceled.  I say most, but not all, because the Lowry Hill & East Isles sale was held in September and I picked up a few things there.

I was really hoping that some of my other favorite Minneapolis neighborhood sales would be back this spring, but was disappointed to find that many of them were canceled once again in 2021.

So I was super excited when my picker, Sue, shared some info with me regarding a combined neighborhood sale.  Usually these neighborhoods have their own sales, but this year Nokomis, Standish-Ericsson, Longfellow & Corcoran banded together to have one giant neighborhood sale this past Saturday.

It wasn’t until I was able to download the map at precisely 7 a.m. on Saturday morning (they withhold the map until then, I assume to prevent people from showing up the day before looking to score all of the good stuff) that I saw just how many sales there were … 139 to be precise.  Eureka!

My sister picked me up bright and early and we headed out, armed with the map and lots of bottled water.  You see, even though the prior weekend I had to bring my potted plants inside because we had temps in the 30’s at night, this past Saturday we had a high of 97.

What the what?

Can you say ‘not acclimated yet!’?  I thought 75 was a little on the warm side earlier in the week.  I certainly wasn’t ready for 97.  Well, let’s be honest, I’m never ready for 97.  And some of those Minneapolis alleys just bake in that hot sun.

All of this to say that my sister and I did not hold up well against the heat.  We only managed to last until about 11 a.m.  We made it to a mere fraction of the sales, and this is my slightly pathetic little haul.

Hmmm.  Not exactly noteworthy is it?

Let’s mention the ‘toolbox’ first.

I put that in quotes because it’s actually a tackle box, not a toolbox.

And for that reason I almost walked away from it because I wasn’t sure I wanted to tackle it (sorry, couldn’t resist that terrible pun).  But it was only $3.  How could I pass it by?

Especially since we’d just come from a sale with this toolbox …

Your eyes do not deceive you, that is a $40 price tag!  WTH?  To be fair, I did not open it up to see if it was filled with gold ingots.  There was a second toolbox right next to this one that was priced at $60!!  Perhaps they both were filled with high quality vintage tools of some kind?  I really don’t know.  I was so stunned by the sticker shock that I was afraid to even touch them.

After the shock of those price tags, the $3 on the tackle box at a different sale seemed like a no-brainer, so I grabbed it.

I also picked up this chicken feeder at a fairly decent price.

I’m planning to turn it into a flower planter that can be hung on the wall.  I’ll keep you posted on that one.

I hemmed and hawed about purchasing this pair of chairs.

I thought they might be fun to paint up for Christmas, like the smaller kid sized chairs I’ve done …

I’m totally not sure if they will sell as well as the smaller ones, but it’s worth a shot.  If this idea is a bust, I’m only out $20.

I also picked up a few smaller items …

The scale isn’t in the greatest shape, but I remembered my friend Jackie’s scale in her garden and thought this one could be used in a similar way …

The galvanized containers have already gotten some transfers added to them.

Those are IOD transfers from their Classic Pots set.  Just a quick heads up on these.  These are the new IOD version of these transfers and they are black.  You can still find some of the old versions of these that were marketed by Prima Marketing (called French Pots 3 and 4) and although they are the same design, those old ones are a dark grey color and don’t show up nearly as well on galvanized metal, FYI.

As you can see, the black ones looks great on galvanized metal.  In addition, they were actually quite easy to apply over that ribbed surface as well.  I wasn’t sure how that would work out, but it was no problem at all.

These would be quite fabulous with some small standards planted in them, or maybe even just a small lemon cypress.

I couldn’t resist the little mustard jars.  They make sweet little vases.

Now, not to worry, even though I didn’t have an amazing haul on Saturday, I did come in to work on Monday to find a few goodies waiting for me that my picker had found (we also work together at the day job, fyi).  I didn’t photograph them all, but here’s a cute little kid sized chair that I’ll also probably hang onto until it gets a Christmas makeover.

One of the items in Sue’s box was this massive vintage screw driver.

This thing is about a foot long.  And it has such a gorgeous patina.  Sue has an eye for patina, and an eye for a bargain.  It was only 25 cents.  She’s thinking I can do something with it.  I’m thinking it would make an amazing handle for a cabinet of some kind.  I wonder if Ken could figure that out?  Do you have any ideas for it?

I also stopped at a couple of sales on my lunch hour yesterday, which totally proves that I am a glutton for punishment since it was once again in the upper 90’s and even more humid than last Saturday.  But I did find a few more goodies including a sled that will also go in the ‘stuff to paint for Christmas’ pile.

I also nabbed another toolbox.

In keeping with my ‘sticker shock’ theme though, at the very same sale they had another vintage toolbox that I saw first and it was priced at $25.  Far too high for me.  But then I walked into the garage a bit further and found this one for $2.  Isn’t that odd?  Two vintage toolboxes at the same sale, one is $2 and the other $25.  What gives?  I even went back and checked again, yep, that first tag definitely said $25.  So then I opened up that toolbox to look for the gold ingots, but nope, it was empty.  Go figure.

Finally, I also made a bit of an impulse buy at the lunchtime sale.

It would be totally fair if you’re thinking ‘uh, what in world is that, and why in the world did you buy it?’

Well, because I’ve been watching so much of Monty Don on Gardener’s World lately, I’m fairly sure that this is a seed tray tamper.  Here’s the only picture I could find of Monty  with his seed tray tamper …

See it there to his right?  Basically it’s just a flat bit of wood with a handle that you use to tamp down the soil after you put it into your seed tray.

I plan to give it the quandie treatment, and then who knows?  I may keep it as potting bench décor, or I may just try to sell it on.  I’ll never actually use it.  Minnesota’s growing season is just way too short to grown things from seed.

So, I’m curious, do any of you own a seed tray tamper?  Or do you think this object is something else?  Leave me a comment and let me know.

 

My sister and I were out the other day and just happened to be driving past the Goodwill, so we decided to pop in and see what they had.  We had actually been in the same Goodwill store about a week earlier and didn’t find a single thing.  But this time I managed to fill up a shopping cart with goodies.

Nothing earth shattering, but I did find some simple things that made for fun small projects that I’m going to share with you today.

First up, the chicken box.

You’re probably wondering why in the world I picked that up, but what you can’t see in that photo is that it’s really just a simple box made out of old barn wood with an ugly chicken on the front.

I cut off the broken rafia handle, sanded down the chicken and re-painted just the front of the box in Dixie Belle’s French Linen.

Then I added just part of the Farm Fresh Honey Bee stencil that I purchased from Wallcutz.

My q tip for today is to always remember that you don’t have to use a stencil in its entirety.  You can tape off sections to fit on a smaller item like this little box.  Stencils have tons of versatility!

Once the paint was fully dry, I sanded to distress and added a clear wax finish.  Then I used some decorative cording to replace the handle.

And as I was writing up this post I realized that you still couldn’t see the barn wood that makes up the rest of the box, so here’s a shot that shows it off a little bit better.  Sort of.

Next up is the blue box.

The very flat finish on this box makes me think it was painted in either chalk paint or milk paint.  The color reminds me quite a bit of Miss Mustard Seed’s Flow Blue, or maybe Dixie Belle’s Antebellum Blue or Annie Sloan’s Aubusson.  Although I really like all of those colors, I felt that the color wasn’t really working on this box.  However, the real problem for me was the hideous black wrought iron handle more than the color.

OK, maybe ‘hideous’ is too strong a word, but I really didn’t like that handle.  So much so that I tossed it in the trash as soon as I removed it and I never really got a good photo of it.

Anyway, after removing that handle, I painted the entire box, inside and out, in Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy.  Once dry I added one of the Classic Vintage Label transfers from re.design with prima to the front.

To jazz up the inside of the box, I added some of prima’s decoupage décor tissue papers to the inside of the lid.  This one is called Floral Wallpaper.

I luckily just happened to have a scrap of this tissue that was the perfect size leftover from another project .  It’s always good to hang onto those scraps!

By the way, I really do love these decoupage tissue papers.

They go on beautifully using Dixie Belle’s Gator Hide (check out this post for more details on that).  They don’t wrinkle or get bubbles because they are made out of a porous material, and at the same time they are really strong and don’t tear when wet.  Now that I’m no longer a brand ambassador for re.design with prima, I am totally out of the loop on new designs that come out.  However, I happened to do a little googling, and I found some new ones to purchase online.  I’ll keep you posted on those when they arrive and I find something to use them on.

Finally, I pulled out this pretty distressed mirror knob that I had in my stash of singles and added it to the top of the box.

I have a whole jar of single knobs.  I used to buy a lot of knobs when they were on sale at Hobby Lobby.  You know, sort of on speculation.  I figured I’d eventually have a piece to use them on.  But what I discovered was that nine times out of ten I would need 8 knobs for a piece, but I’d only have 6.  Or I’d need 6 and have 8, so now I had two left over.  It rarely seemed to work out perfectly, and as  I result I have a whole pile of single (or maybe a pair of) knobs.  Now I’ve sworn to only buy the knobs when I need them, and when I know exactly how many I need.

Still, it’s always a good feeling when I find a use for one of those singles!

You can see that a little of that original blue color is peeking through my distressed edges.

OK, the next makeover was the cold, black heart of love sign.

I really shouldn’t make fun.  The person who created this could very possibly be a reader of my blog, in which case, I apologize.  The bones of this sign were fantastic, but I’m just not sure about that big black heart.

Not that I have anything against black, because in the end I repainted the entire sign black.  Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky to be exact.

I added a stencil using Dixie Belle’s Putty and then sanded to distress.  Unfortunately I can’t share a source for this stencil because I purchased it on Etsy from a seller that isn’t out there anymore.

It looks pretty good hanging in my piano room, but I won’t be keeping it.  It’s going in the pile of stuff to sell.

Next up, I always debate picking up these reproduction-ish decorative watering cans.  To me they always look just a bit too faux.

This one has an antiqued copper paint job that I didn’t particularly care for, but I liked the shape of it and the  style of the spout.  Plus the price was right, so I grabbed it.

Paint doesn’t always want to stick to a surface like this metal, so I usually spray paint something like this.  That was the plan here, except I didn’t have enough spray paint on hand.  So instead I gave it a quick base coat of spray paint, and then topped that off with some of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  I really prefer to make do with supplies that I already have rather than buy something more.

If you’re wondering how I spray paint in the winter in Minnesota even though I don’t have a heated workshop space, here’s my trick.  I take the item outside in a big cardboard box lid with low sides, spray it quick, and then bring it all back in.  It’s probably not ideal, but it does seem to work and my house doesn’t end up filled with spray paint fumes.

Once the paint was dry, I sanded to distress and added another Classic Vintage Label.

Then I added clear wax as a finish.

A bit of an improvement I think.

Alright, so out of the six items I picked up at the Goodwill, I’ve made over four of them.

That leaves the little rocking chair, which I’m going to save for another day.  I purchased that chair because it has awesome, authentic, chippy green paint.  However, it’s filthy dirty.  Rather than try to clean it up in the house, I’m going to wait until I can give it a good bath with the hose out in the yard.  That’s gonna be a while.

And last up is the little wooden recipe box.

I purchased it fully intending to paint it up (like this one or this one), but after I got it home I started to second guess that.  It has that fab vintage decal on the front, and although it’s a little beat up, the patina on the wood is quite lovely.

So now I’m torn.  Should I paint it up, or should I just clean it up and otherwise leave it alone?  Let’s take a poll, what do you think?

And what do you think of the rest of my thrifted item makeovers?

Last weekend my friend/picker/garage sale spotter Sue texted early in the morning to give me a heads up on a garage sale that was only two blocks away from my house.

So I ran a comb through my hair, brushed my teeth, threw on a particular undergarment that was necessary for appearing in public, made sure I had some cash in my pocket and headed out.

It was one of those sales where nothing was marked, but the proprietor said ‘everything is for sale, even if it’s nailed down’.  So one of the first things I grabbed was this little wooden box that was hanging above a workbench and had some old plastic shopping bags in it.

I can’t even really say how much I paid for it because I paid a blanket price of $20 for everything I purchased from the sale.  That included this item, a small cheese box that I’ll share in a minute, a dozen floral plates (that I’ll add words to for summer), a vintage nativity set, a wooden bucket, a gingham tray, and a small homemade bench.

So let me show you what I did with this one first.

I painted it in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth, and then added part of a Classic Vintage Label transfer to the front.

Easy peasy.

I lined it with some polka dot scrapbook paper too.

Now it’s perfect for containing a non-collection (because I’m in denial when it comes to whether or not I collect things) of old salt & pepper shakers.

I won’t be keeping it though, it will go to the shop to be sold.

Next up is the little cheese box, which started out like this …

If you look closely, you can see just how grungy it was!  So step one was to give it a good cleaning.

I didn’t want to lose the Land O’Lakes label on the sides of the box …

so after cleaning the box, I decided to just spruce up the end that had already been painted black with a fresh coat of Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky.

After sanding that to distress it a bit, I glued on that Design Studio tag from Tim Holtz with some E6000 glue.  It’s from his Factory Tags set and I found it at Hobby Lobby.

After waxing the whole box with some clear wax, I lined it with some more of the polka dot paper.

The box isn’t quite big enough to accommodate some old silver knives, but it would make a sweet little container for something.

I’ll be taking both of these little items in to Reclaiming Beautiful, the shop where I sell on consignment in Stillwater, MN sometime soon.  Hopefully they’ll find a home with someone who loves them!

Thanks to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing the paint used on these projects.

As my sister and I headed to Excelsior last Friday, I had to put blinders on in order to ignore all of the garage sale signs I passed along the way.

I know exactly what was happening.  People were looking at the weather forecast (sunny and a high of 83), and then looking at the calendar (the last weekend in September) and thinking ‘crap, this might be my last chance to have that garage sale I was planning for this summer’.

I can relate, can you?  I have a long list of things I meant to get to this summer.  Like washing the windows.  Still haven’t checked that one off the list, and here it is October already.

There was no time to stop on Friday though, so I ignored all of the signs.  But when I woke up early on Saturday, I texted my sister on an impulse and asked if she wanted to check out some random sales.  Luckily my sister is pretty much game for anything, even when I wake her up with a text a 7 a.m. on a Saturday.

So we headed out.  And I managed to fill up her SUV not just once, but twice.  The first couple of sales were just a block or two away from my house, so it was easy to come back and unload.

It was lucky we’d made space in the car, because when we headed back out again I found this fabulous mid-century dresser …

Honestly, I think it’s rather ugly right now, but it’s going to look great with a paint job.

I also found this fun bar cart …

and these two never would have fit in the car with all of that other stuff.

I’ve already done a makeover on the bucket I purchased in that first load.

That just involved giving it a good cleaning, and then adding a portion of the IOD Label Ephemera transfer.

And while I was at it, I had a couple other buckets I picked up recently, so they got the same treatment.

I’ve also made over the little egg crate …

Somehow I just wasn’t digging the color combo of the original red and black design, so I taped it off and painted it solid black using Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky.

Then I pulled out some mini-stencils I ordered recently from Jami Ray Vintage.

I thought these would be fun to use on a variety of smaller projects.  I used Dixie Belle’s Putty to stencil just part of the Kroger stencil over the Midnight Sky.

These stencils are pretty adorable.  My only complaint is that they are a little thick at 15 ml.  I know it seems like thicker = better quality, but I find it easier to get a crisp finish with a thinner stencil.  Especially when the design itself is really small, like on the line that says ’98 lbs. when packed’.  It was hard to get paint in there without it getting blotchy.  The stencils from Maison de Stencils are 10 ml and I prefer working with that thickness.

That being said, I’m still sure I’ll get a lot of use out of these mini-stencils!

I also painted the handle on the box in Midnight Sky.  Isn’t it funny how such a simple change can make such a big difference?

And lastly, I lined the inside of the box with re.design with prima decoupage tissue in a pattern called Grid.

The black and white grid pattern worked perfectly.

Next week I’ll be sharing the makeovers on the bird cage, the bar cart and the mid-mod dresser, so be sure to stay tuned.  And in the meantime, have a great weekend!

It has been a weird summer, right?  No pool days at my bff’s (she lives in an apartment complex that didn’t allow residents to invite guests to the pool this summer due to COVID).  No concerts in the bandshell at my local park.  No trips to the zoo.  No state fair. But I think the biggest change for me this summer was no neighborhood garage sales.

Usually my calendar is filled with neighborhood sales from early May through the end of June, and then again for most of August and September.

But COVID put an end to large gatherings this summer, and that meant most neighborhoods didn’t have their organized sales.

Sure, I found a few random sales, like the back to back barn sales we stumbled across back at the end of May.

But I’ve really missed my neighborhood sales, especially those in Minneapolis.  My sister and I just love going to those neighborhoods and having an excuse to wander around and admire the houses.

So when my picker first mentioned to me that the East Isles & Lowry Hill sales were taking place this past Saturday I was super excited.  But then the temperature took a nose dive and rain was in the forecast for Saturday morning.  I have to admit, I was ready to just skip it.  But my sister was more than willing to give it a go and her enthusiasm was contagious.  So she picked me up at 8:30 and we headed out.

As we were driving in to the city, there were low hanging clouds obscuring the tops of the high rise buildings, but it wasn’t raining so that was a plus.  As we headed towards the Hennepin Ave exit, my sister and I both remarked on how much we’ve missed going in to the city this year.  Between COVID and social unrest, this has been a rough summer for Minneapolis and we have pretty much avoided going there.

But it felt so good to be back, even if the sky was a bit cloudy.

There were plenty of people out and about enjoying the sales, the only obvious difference this time was that almost all of them were wearing masks.

Once again my sister and I had fun picking out our favorite houses, you know, the ones we would buy if we won the lottery.

I love the cottage appeal of this one.

My sister would love to have the amazing lake views from this one.

But, the reality is that neither of us is likely to ever win the lottery (especially me since I don’t even buy lottery tickets), so we just have to admire these gorgeous houses from the sidewalk and then buy their cast off items at their garage sales.

I came home from the sales with a few goodies.

There seems to be a seating theme.

All four of the wooden options (firehouse captains chair, bench, piano stool and small oak chair) are going to be transformed with paint.  I’ve already cleaned up the kid-size white metal chair and added a little something to the back …

How cute is that?  And it would work inside the house, or outside in the garden.

I’ll be taking this in to Reclaiming Beautiful, unless one of you locals want to snatch it up first ($28).

I’m starting to think ahead to Christmas (I know, it’s too early, but I have to plan ahead if I’m going to have things ready).  The smaller wooden chair is probably going to get a Christmas look similar to the chairs I did last year …

I also purchased this brass horn …

with the intention of adding it to the pile of similar pieces I purchased last year and used to decorate my Christmas tree.

And isn’t this tiny wooden sock stretcher totally adorable?

I’m trying to decide whether or not to paint and stencil it like the larger ones I did last year …

Coincidentally I just ordered some mini-stencils that would be perfect for the job.

Buying the footed ironstone bowl was a no brainer.

It’s the perfect size to use for fruit on my kitchen counter.

I also snagged a few old buckets, two enameled and one galvanized.

I’m not sure if these will be saved for next spring to be marketed as planters, or if I’ll come up with something for the holiday season.  They would be great for containing small evergreen trees like this example from pinterest, wouldn’t they?

So maybe they’ll make their way into the shop before the holidays.

I’ve saved find of the day status for a pair of light fixtures (just one of them is pictured below, but there is another).

The funny thing is that I almost didn’t even buy them.  Reclaiming Beautiful recently decided to no longer carry vintage electrical fixtures, so even though I thought these fixtures were too good to pass up at $5 each, I knew I wouldn’t really have a way to sell them on.  I was literally getting back in the car when I decided I just couldn’t leave them behind.  So I went back and purchased them.

I think I’ll keep them for my three season porch.  We need some reading lights out there and these will be perfect.  I’m also contemplating making over my home office (a.k.a. the Q Branch) this winter, and these lights might be perfect for the look I’m envisioning for that space.

Unfortunately, I think this might be my one and only neighborhood garage sale post for 2020.  Next weekend I’m heading up to my bff’s family cabin, and then the next thing you know, it will be the end of September already.  Let’s hope that the 2021 garage sale season is back to normal … or at least the ‘new normal’ that everyone keeps talking about!