Category: garage sales.

Mac Grove is always one of my favorite neighborhood sales.  For those of you not from around here, the long name for this area is Macalester Groveland and it is near Macalester College in St. Paul.  Their neighborhood sales were last Saturday and about 40 homes were participating.  I picked my sister up at about 7:30 and we headed off.  Debbie was in charge of navigation and I was the driver.

I found some great vintage books and one of my fave finds was a ziploc bag full of vintage aqua Christmas bulbs.  Debbie spotted these, by the way.  I went right past them without noticing, but she held them up and said “um, hey, isn’t this your color?”  Dang!  Why yes it is!

These don’t qualify as the ‘find of the day’ though.  That honor goes to the pile of vintage luggage.  All from one sale.

Isn’t this little train case incredibly charming?  And it matches my MMS Flow Blue chair perfectly.

As if this matched set wasn’t enough, there were two more pieces that didn’t match including this charming monogrammed piece.

Who remembers Northwest Orient Airlines?  They dropped the “Orient” in 1986, and of course merged with Delta in 2008.

I also found a lovely brown transferware pitcher and some primitive wooden utensils.

My pile of goodies was full of my favorite shades of blue and green.

After taking that photo, I decided to get out my macro lens and play around with some close ups of the little milk truck so you could see the detail.

Seriously, how could I resist this thing?   The color, the patina, the little cow on the door panel.  And it was only 50 cents, so who could pass it by?

I still struggle a bit with the macro lens.  When I bought it I thought I would use it a lot for flower close ups.  Why I thought I needed close up photos of flowers is beyond me now.  The depth of field with a macro lens is very small.  You can see the results of that in this next photo.  Only the exact portion of the plate that I focused on is crisp (sort of?), while everything that is slightly closer or further away is out of focus.  This can be fun to play around with, but it is also rather frustrating.

When I took the closeups of the aqua bottle I could actually read what it said.

So I googled it to see if it was legit.  Turns out Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Prescription was a typical quack medicine from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s that originally contained opium.

A sales pitch for it said, “No one can know the distress of my mind as well as body. Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Prescription was the only medicine that seemed to do me any good. After I had taken the first bottle and part of the second. I could sleep well and all my troubles began to get better. I believe I took eight bottles and then I felt like a different person. I gave birth to another baby and my old complaint came back. I began using the “Favorite Prescription” and was soon relieved and was able to do my work, including the washing.”

Well, thank goodness she could do the washing, right?  She probably really enjoyed doing the washing after slurping down eight bottles of that stuff.

Too bad it was empty when I bought it!

First of all, just wanted to say thanks to everyone who showed up for the Eye Candy opening yesterday.  It was a gorgeous day, the wine kept flowing, the band was awesome and the shop is really darling.  And another big thanks to those of you who supported me in spirit even though you live too far away to show up in person!

Meanwhile, last week one of my regular sale customers emailed me at work to let me know about an estate sale taking place not far from my office.  Close enough for a lunchtime jaunt anyway.  So I invited my co-worker Cathy to join me and we hopped in the convertible and headed over.  I drive a baby blue convertible VW bug, by the way.  Not totally conducive to bringing home furniture, but if conditions are right and the top can be down, you’d be surprised what I can fit in there.

In this case, it was a gloriously sunny day.  Perfect convertible weather.  So off we went.

And I came back with this …

This was another dirty, junky sale.  No dirty Balls (jars, that is) this time though.

What I did find that really made me happy was a pile of crusty old paint brushes.  And actually, they weren’t in a pile, they were scattered about.  It was a lot like an Easter egg hunt.  Here’s one!  Oh, and here’s another one over here!  Here’s a big one!  And here’s a yellow one!

I have a plan for these crusty brushes, you’ll just have to wait and see.

In addition to the paint brushes, there were a couple of shop brushes (at least that’s what I call them) that I couldn’t resist.

Am I nuts for thinking these are kind of cool?  I have a plan in my head for these too, so we’ll see how they turn out.

I bought the green ammo box strictly because of its color.

I mean seriously, wouldn’t you have too?  The bottom was partially rotted away though, I’ve already had Ken make a new bottom using some old wood I had.  Personally, my goal is to make my vintage pieces functional.  So in this case, I wanted the box to provide storage for someone.

I originally planned to paint both of the toolboxes.

But this one has a rather nice patina except for that darn swath of white spray paint down the right side.  So I decided to try sanding that down.  It helped tone it down a bit.  I added a couple of stencils, and I think it turned out rather fab.

This was a fun sale to dig around in.  There was so much stuff!  Unfortunately, we had a limited amount of time.  I’m sure if I’d kept digging I could have found more diamonds in the rough.  Although I was out of cash in addition to time.  So we piled everything into the bug and headed back to work.

Another lunch hour well spent!  Thanks for the heads up on this one Jenny!

 

I was out doing some lunchtime garage saling again last week.  I brought home this little pile of treasures.

Everything pictured will get some sort of a makeover.  I started with the big wood caddy and simply added a stencil.

I believe this carrier was meant for gathering cut flowers.  I filled mine with some stock (that is the name of the flower, in case you are finding that confusing).  I wish I could say that I grew this myself because I think it would be lovely in the garden, but no, I purchased it from a front yard plant cart while garage saling last weekend.

The second wood caddy needed a more serious makeover.  That green tree and fence stencil had to go.

I painted the entire thing with Fusion’s Laurentien.

Then I added a French stencil in white to both sides.

So much better than the tree, am I right?

I used the same beautiful stock to stage this photo, but this time it’s in a blue canning jar.  I love the pale pink in combination with the pale yellow centers.  So pretty.

I’m still working on the basket, the 3 small chairs and the little watering can, so you’ll just have to stay tuned to see those!

Downward through the evening twilight,
In the days that are forgotten,
In the unremembered ages,
From the full moon fell Nokomis …

Yep, that’s the Nokomis that the neighborhood we garage saled in on Saturday is named after.  It’s also the neighborhood where both of my parents grew up.  And last Saturday it was the site of the most fantastic garage sale jackpot this year!

Where do I even start?  The fabulosity was just overflowing!

Our party included myself, my sister and my friend Mary Kate who I have garage saled with since she was just a wee lass.  The forecast called for heavy rain and thunderstorms, but we are not daunted by such things.  We’re practically professionals, wink.  We just went into it assuming we’d end up drenched.  And the day did start out rainy, which makes things a little trickier because everything is tucked away in garages.  You can’t manage the ‘drive by’, where you look from your car and then just keep moving if all you see are bright plastic kid’s toys and piles of baby clothes.  We hadn’t gotten much yet when we came across an alley sale where the proprietors flagged us in.  They had a parking spot all ready for us and no customers, which made us a little nervous.  As I strolled into their garage, I saw Mary already standing over a pile of something with a look of pure disbelief on her face.  This was the find of the day for sure!  A whole pile of vintage cameras.

The story that went with them was priceless.  The seller’s mother had been a camera collector.  When she passed away, the seller had sold two big boxes of cameras to an antiques dealer and she thought that was all of them.  But while cleaning out the closet to get ready for her garage sale, she came across a third box that she didn’t know she had, so she threw them out for the sale.

Holy garbanzo beans batman!  Just look at them!  Clearly it was fate!

So many cool cameras!  Some for Mary’s collection, and some for mine.

The fun did not end there folks!  I had all but given up on finding great furniture at garage sales this year, but this time I came home with this gorgeous bed.

And a fab pink dresser.

I love the green and white on this wooden melon crate, and found an awesome green jar, a green McCoy planter and a pretty little ironstone pitcher.

Mary purchased this fabulous ceramic hand at my urging.  It will make a great place to hang her jewelry once it’s mounted on the wall.  She also picked up some art supplies.

And last of all, I hope you didn’t miss Uncle Leon’s suitcase!

 

Yep, the gals that sold me the suitcase said it belonged to their Uncle Leon and he used to travel with it all the time.

You know it was a good day when a fab suitcase gets barely mentioned at the end!

What can I say?  Garage sales can be very hit or miss, but every once in a while you hit the jackpot!

My sister and I ventured out to the Hale, Page and Diamond Lake neighborhood garage sales on Saturday.  The listing showed nearly 100 sales!

We really had trouble finding them though.  I know that sounds crazy, and we didn’t expect it at all.  But many of the sales were in alleys and they didn’t have any signs!  I’m sure people felt like since they were on the map, they didn’t need a sign.  I’m here to tell you, au contraire people!  A sign at the end of your alley is still super helpful.  Especially if there isn’t a lot of foot traffic.  We peered down so many alleys trying to figure out if there was a sale down there.  We’re sure we didn’t hit even half of the sales.

But we still came home with some fun stuff.  The super tall plant stands are mine.  They are really unique and I liked the height.  I’ve already found homes for them, one on the deck and one in the garden.  The little sleigh is my sister’s.  She plans to paint it red and use it to decorate her apartment balcony at Christmas time.  I suggested she put a small tree full of twinkle lights in it.  The two metal corner shelves are my sister’s as well.  They were $3 each!  For that price, how could you pass them up?  They will tuck into corners in her new apartment and hold plants or books or whatever.

I snagged some french cheese plates and a little glass cloche.

And some vintage jars and kitchen utensils.

I’m calling this lovely vintage radio my find of the day.

I just loved the vintage look of it.  Can’t you just picture a family gathered around this radio listening to news from the front during WWII?  Or maybe a sweet young couple dancing to some Glenn Miller on the porch on a sultry summer evening?

It wasn’t a super bargain at $20 (in garage sale terms), but I had to have it.  I think it will definitely make its way into some future furniture photo shoots.  But in the meantime, I’ve made a home for it in the cupboard on my front porch along with all of my old cameras.

After Debbie and I gave up on trying to find more sales, we popped over to Stillwater to get some more annuals for my planters.  We ended up in Rose Floral which unbeknownst to me has a huge selection of fairy garden supplies.  My fairy garden needed a new look for this year, so I purchased a few new plants and a sweet little pergola.

 After revamping the fairy garden a bit, I remembered that I purchased some fairy lights for it a while back, so I dug them out and strung them in my little tree.  Here is a shot I took a little later in the evening to try and get the lights to show up.

For those of you who are new to my blog, my fairy garden is in a cracked bird bath.  It no longer holds water so I decided it would make an excellent fairy garden container.  You can see what it looked like last year here.

I do have a fairy in residence.  Can you see her there in the very front hiding under the hosta?

The rest of my weekend was spent prepping for my upcoming Carriage House sale!  I worked on a couple of fun projects that I’ll share with you over the next few days, so stay tuned!

The Armitage and Kenny neighborhoods of Minneapolis always have their neighborhood garage sale on Memorial Day weekend.  Crazy, right?  And I usually go.  Even crazier.  This year my sister came along to share the fun.  Since it’s a holiday weekend, it is usually a very laid back, quiet sale.  Minimal traffic, plenty of street parking available, not a lot of shoppers.  It’s a different feel altogether from some of the other neighborhood sales.

That being said, this year the pickin’s were pretty slim indeed.  An hour in and all I’d purchased was a bag of plastic spoons (for mixing paint), and some fake tattoos!

I’m not kidding about the fake tattoos.  I told Debbie she had to get one to show she’s a  Minnesotan now, and she said that I had to get one too then.

So we paid $1 each for faux tattoos.

But just as I was joking about how ‘plastic spoons and fake tattoos’ was going to make for a great blog post title, we pulled up to a house with a lawn full of furniture.  Most of it ended up being fairly unappealing, but Debbie honed in on the large table with chunky legs.  She’s looking for a table for the craft room she’s setting up in her new apartment.  This table was the perfect size, it was quite solid, and if you looked past the shiny orange finish, it could be doctored up to pass for a pretty fab farmhouse style table.  Best of all, the table plus two matching benches was $10!  Yep, you read that right, $10 for all, making it our find of the day!

Aside from that, the only other item of note is the shabby chic chair.  I just love the details on this chair.

Initially I was going to leave the chair as is, but the more I think about it, I might have to paint it.  I may put it in my sale as is, and then if it doesn’t go, I’ll paint it.

That’s all I have for today folks!  Hope you are enjoying your Memorial Day.  Here in Minnesota it is supposed to be another rainy day and I plan to spend it in the Carriage House prepping for my upcoming sale!

Last Saturday was the Linden Hills neighborhood sale in Minneapolis, one of my favorites!  And this year I had my sister riding shotgun.

It was fun to get her fresh perspective on the neighborhood sale concept.  She said it reminded her of Halloween.  Lots of people walking around, many of them carrying bags.  Not filled with candy, but filled with treasures.  Everyone in a festive and friendly mood.

The atlas jar belongs to my sister.  She wants to have a collection of vintage jars on display in her kitchen (I think I’m rubbing off on her, just a little).  I’m not sure about the fate of the postal scale just yet.  I may keep it for future photo shoots.

I’m considering this sweet little vintage set of play china to be my find of the day.  I almost passed it by, but then I realized that it will be the perfect prop for an upcoming photo shoot (just wait until you see it!), and then it will make it’s way into the Carriage House sale.  Aren’t those little windmills just fab?

You can also see just the corner of a metal New York souvenir box (at least that is what I’m calling it).  I found another one of these years ago at a garage sale and I’ve been using it to store photos ever since.  I’m not sure what these originally contained, but they have drawings of places of interest in New York City on them.  Here is a better photo so you can see the details.

And I’m sure it didn’t go unnoticed that I found a gorgeous buffet.  It has some veneer issues.  In addition, it’s obvious that someone already completely removed the veneer from the lower drawer because the wood doesn’t match.

It also came with the most hideous replacement knobs.  Those will definitely be replaced.  But it was a bargain, and also our first purchase of the day.  If you want to find pieces like this at garage sales, you’d better get there right at opening time.

The Eiffel tower clock is another of my sister’s finds.  She’ll be using it in her new kitchen, which is going to have a ‘French Market’ theme.

Finally, you might also have noticed the stack of Fusion paint.  No, I didn’t get that at a garage sale.  After the sale, Debbie and I headed out to Farmhouse Inspired in Hudson so we could stock up on Fusion.  There are a few colors I’ve been wanting to try, the Inglenook, the Buttermilk Cream and the Ash.  My sister chose the Liberty Blue for a project we are working on together, I’m using the Soapstone (you’ll see more about that soon).  So stay tuned!

Every spring I really look forward to the neighborhood garage sale season.  It kicks off with Bryn Mawr, one of my favorite neighborhoods in Minneapolis.  This last Saturday dawned bright and sunny.  It was gorgeous, which sounds like a good thing.  But what that actually meant was that Bryn Mawr was mobbed.  Everyone was out enjoying the fab weather.

I was out there with them and I brought home some goodies.

The best find of the day was the aqua phone.  Isn’t it awesome?  And it cost me a quarter!

I loved the patina on this copper planter.

I’ve decided to add some more vintage books to my photo prop stash and I found some great ones in my colors.

Are you sensing a theme here?  I had more than one person comment on how pretty the colors were in my cart.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with these folding chairs, but they fit in with my color story.

I may try to recover the seats with some pretty vintage fabric.

I also found a couple of awesome metal boxes.  The red one is perfect as is.

And its rusty companion has already gotten a paint job using Fusion’s Laurentien.

I didn’t get photos of all of my buys.  I also brought home a gorgeous sisal rug in perfect condition for $20, and a really cool wrought iron window box.  The home owner who sold it to me said she pulled it off her 1940’s bungalow when they replaced the siding and decided not to put it back up.

So now I’ve gotten my feet wet and I’m sure the spring garage sale season is only going to get better from here!