Category: just stuff.

A few years back I started a little collection of vintage alarm clocks.  I display them all together on my yardstick shelves.

 None of them are actually set to the current time.  I saw a clever idea once, can’t remember where, but it was to set them to numbers that are meaningful to you.  Birthdays?  Anniversaries?  You know, like 6:24 (my anniversary and my granddaughter’s birthday).  I haven’t done this, but I like the idea.

They come in handy for furniture photo shoots.  I tend to use my favorite square Gilbert clock for this most often.  I just love his art deco look.  I love most design from that era, but thank goodness I wasn’t around then.  The flapper look would not have worked on a curvy gal like me.

I have a slew of Big Ben’s.  I try not to add duplicates to my collection, and these are all different.  White with white face, black with white face, white with black face … you get the idea.

Funny story.  Before I started collecting vintage clocks, I came across an entire box filled with them at a garage sale.  Asking price:  $3 each.  Did I buy them?  No!  Can you imagine?  To this day I can’t imagine what I was thinking!  I die a little inside each time I remember this.

I would love to find more clocks that have some color.  All of mine are black or white except for the one I picked up out in Las Vegas.  Hmmm, more art deco style … I’m sensing a trend.

I would love to find an aqua clock.  Bees Knees has a fantastic black clock with an aqua face!  See is below?  2nd from left.  I tried to steal it once when she wasn’t looking, but no success.  And FYI, she got the yardstick shelf from me.  I had Ken make several of them with a stash of vintage yardsticks I found.  They took an inordinately long time to sell.  I thought they would get snatched up uber quickly, but no.  I finally sold the last one I had at Junk Bonanza for $12.

Now that my yardstick shelves are full, a clock will have to be extra special to make it into my collection.  But, if I spot any vintage clocks at garage sales this summer, I will scoop them up for the Carriage House Sale.  I may have to knock Bees Knees down to get to it first though.  As you can see, she loves them too!

 This coming Saturday kicks off neighborhood garage sale season here in Minnesota.  Bees Knees, the Sherpa, Kit Kat and I are raring to go!  I’m not quite sure how we will contain ourselves until then.   I will report back with our finds.  Stay tuned!

I saw this a while back on pinterest.

q is for …

Why yes!  I like it.  Sounds about right to me.

If you don’t know where the name of my blog came from, you have to go all the way back to my first post to find out!

And ever since I chose the name, I have embraced the Q.

So when I saw this bracelet consisting of all Q’s at Farmhouse Inspired in Hudson, Wisconsin, I knew it was meant to be mine.  It even has a little coffee cup charm on it, could it be more perfect for me?

Unfortunately the very first time I wore it, I lost a Q.  I kept wearing it anyway.  I figured it was only a matter of time before I found another typewriter Q to replace the lost one.

I thought for sure I would find one at Junk Bonanza, but I actually found something even better!  I found the woman who made it, Lisa from Old Anew.  She wasn’t selling, she was shopping.  But I showed her my missing Q and she immediately volunteered to take the bracelet back and fix it.  I told her I could fix it myself if I only had a Q and that I was going to look for one, but she said no problem, she would just pop one in the mail for me!

And furthermore, she did just that!  How fab.

So now I have my Q, and I just need to get out my E6000 and glue it on.

Thanks Lisa!

Junk Bonanza was a whirlwind 4 day marathon.  Day one was driving to Shakopee, unloading the truck and setting up our booth.  I was already exhausted.  The next 3 days we had a constant flow of people.  I’m pretty sure we never even sat down on the first day.  The next two weren’t quite as crazy, but still very few breaks in the crowd.  I am completely and utterly worn out.  My hat goes off to those who do this sort of thing all the time.

One of the coolest things about being a vendor at Junk Bonanza was walking in each morning before the shoppers were allowed in.   All was quiet.  It was just me, surrounded by the most incredible collection of vintage junk on the planet.  It was a lot like being allowed into Disneyland early!  I should have thought to take more pictures at that moment, but I didn’t.  Drat.

First off though, are you wondering what I brought home from Junk Bonanza?  Well … not much.  I didn’t have much time to shop at all.  Here is my sweet little haul.

Yep, that’s it!

Yes, I did buy another can of the Annie Sloan chalk paint.  Can you believe this stuff is going for $42 a quart!  But I really wanted to try this particular color, Duck Egg.  In hindsight, I wish I had splurged on a couple more.  I’d also like to try her Old White to see how well it covers, and the French Linen looks really nice too.  But spending $126 on 3 quarts of paint?  Not sure I could do it.

The Annie Sloan rep was Heidi from Broken Broom and she purchased my black writing desk (painted in Miss Mustard Seed milk paint, but shhhh, don’t tell anyone)!

I love my Union Jack necklace.  That came from Lisa Souers Designs.  And the black toy phone came from my own booth!  Lori brought it, and I bought it before we even opened.  Lori picked up the little baby aqua phone for me at another booth, wasn’t that nice of her!  Thanks Lori!  And I grabbed the aqua flower frogs on my way in the very first morning.  I’d been eyeing them and realized I should just nab them before they sold to someone else.  After all, they are in ‘my color’.

The rolls of vintage wallpaper underneath everything are from Rose Mille.  Their booth was across the way from ours, and the owner Michelle was a really lovely person.  Her booth was gorgeous.  I wish I had some good pictures of it, but I just didn’t have time for photography.  These just don’t do justice to her beautiful booth at all.

I’m hoping to use the wallpaper on the drawer fronts of a dresser.  I’ve seen it done online and if done right, it can be gorgeous.  I hope I can pull it off.  I purchased 4 small rolls and I hope I can find just the right piece to put them on.

As for the stuff I was selling, I did fairly well.  I came home with only a handful of smaller items that didn’t sell.  All of my suitcases sold, and about half of my painted books.  I sold 7 big pieces of furniture, but I brought home 3 dressers and the french cane back chair.  If anyone is interested, these 3 dressers remain available:

Chateau Marmont dresser, SOLD.

Petite Paris dresser, SOLD!

Mind the Gap dresser, sale pending.

In addition, although I had many shoppers who said they would check back about the radio cabinet on Saturday, no one has followed through so far.  I would be happy to sell it now if anyone is interested.

Radio Cabinet, $168.

In the end the question is, “would I do it again?” and the answer is, probably not.  It was fun to be a part of it once, but it was a ton of work.  I did make a little more money than I make at my occasional sale, but that was ultimately eaten up by the overhead expenses of renting a truck, paying for half the booth rental, and gas to drive to Shakopee for 4 days.  In addition, there were a lot of ‘rules’!  No merchandise newer than 40 years old, no leaving early even if sales are so low that you are sitting there for nothing, you are supposed to wear official Junk Bonanza shirts, etc, etc.  I have to follow enough rules at my day job, I didn’t need them added to my fun hobby job.  And although it probably wasn’t really that much more work, it was concentrated into 4 days so it seemed like more.  When I have my occasional sale I can spend weeks getting it all set up, and then we are only open for a short six hours.  When it’s done, I can shut the doors to the Carriage House, walk inside and take a nap!  Much better than having to pack up everything that didn’t sell, load it back into a truck, drive 45 minutes home, and then unload it all.  Phew!  Yep, I think I’m going to stick with the Carriage House sale!  Hope to see you there in June!

 

At least that is my plan for Junk Bonanza.

I only have a couple of boxes of small stuff.  I’m counting on my furniture sales to carry me.

But, I think the bit of small stuff I have is pretty fab.  Like the vintage set of cocktail glasses above.  There is a glass for Paris, Havana, Rome & Bombay.  I was going to keep these, but I have to occasionally remind myself that I can’t keep it all!

I wish I had more ironstone to bring, but since I collect it myself and because I love using it as props for my photos, I only have a few pieces to part with.

 And who doesn’t love some vintage silver and maybe a crystal door knob or two?

And just because you know I love me a little shabby vintage green stuff.

I also have another painted suitcase ready to go.

So I will definitely have some treasures to share.  Hope you stop by!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was in search of a fabulous vintage shop to visit in Las Vegas.  I tried a google search and ended up finding a handful of vintage clothing stores, but that was about it.  I also tried fleaquest and they had nothing listed in the Vegas area.  I then looked for a Miss Mustard Seed retailer in the area.  No dice (Vegas pun, get it?).  Finally I resorted to searching for an Annie Sloan chalk paint stockist.  And Bingo! (another Vegas pun, I crack myself up)

I found Bloom.

This is their location in Boulder City.  If you are heading out to the Hoover Dam (as many tourists are inclined to do), I strongly suggest that you build in a little extra time and stop off in Boulder City.  Not only will you find Bloom, but you will also find Goat Feathers Emporium, which is a really fun antique mall with a little bit of everything.  Not every booth met my exacting standards, ;-), but there were some fun ones, like the Rusty Bucket’s booth.

 Boulder City is very charming.  They are obviously working to market the town as an antiquing destination.  The are some very hip, retro drive in motels along the main drag, and quite a few more traditional antique shops in addition to Bloom and Goat Feathers.

I have to confess that the only thing I purchased in the antique shops was a handful of furniture keys.  I try to grab a few of these whenever I see them.  Oftentimes they will work on a piece of vintage furniture with locks on the drawers.  Aside from the keys, I found the prices to be much higher than what I am used to in the Midwest.  For instance, I saw several large vintage blue canning jars priced over $20!  Yikes!

I did buy a few things at Bloom, some fab stencils to use on future furniture projects, some samples of Annie Sloan paint so I can see first hand what all the fuss is about, some fun Cavallini paper and a vintage alarm clock because I couldn’t resist the color.  I bought the clock despite its cracked face.  I was feeling a bit silly about buying a clock with a broken face, and then, ironically, that same evening I read a recent Miss Mustard Seed post where she did the same thing!  So there.  Not silly at all.  If Miss Mustard Seed can do it, so can I, right?

It was fun to bop around the town on a gorgeous sunny afternoon with my sister.

Now that I know about Boulder City, you can be sure I will make it a point to spend an afternoon there the next time I visit mom.

One last little sidebar story.  I’ve mentioned before that I come from a long line of scrapbooking women.  My grandmother was an avid maker of scrapbooks.  Way back in 1953 my mom, her parents and an aunt & uncle took the quintessential road trip.  They were gone 21 days and they drove across the country from Minnesota to California.  They hit all the highlights, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and so on.   They even went to Tijuana, Mexico for a day.  My grandmother chronicled the entire trip in a scrapbook, including information on how much money they spent.  $123 in gas, $38 in hotels (yep, no kidding, for the entire trip, although they did stay with relatives some of the time).   My mom was 12 at the time.  I asked her if she enjoyed the trip, and she admitted that it wasn’t exactly fun sitting between her aunt and uncle in the back seat of a car with no a/c for 21 days! Imagine driving through the desert in the middle of summer this way!  While reading the scrapbook at mom’s house, I found a blurb about their visit to Boulder City!  Of course they visited the dam, which was built in the 1930’s.  My grandmother had included a brochure from their visit that talked about the “modern” city of Boulder and how all of the buildings were “artificially cooled”.  I had to laugh at seeing the city being promoted as modern in 1953, and now it is clearly being promoted as vintage in 2014.  How times change.

I collect vintage pottery.  You may have already noticed that from the pictures of my living room.  I used to collect any I could find, but now I have limited myself to white and aqua vases.  But sometimes I can’t resist a planter too, if it’s the right color.

I like the ones that have a definite art deco feel to them.

And I love the ones that have a little texture to them.

McCoy, Haeger, doesn’t matter to me.

Most of mine have come from garage sales.  Occasionally I find them at antique shops, but they are usually priced too high for me there.  Sometimes I even get my friends to dig them out of the neighbor’s yard (right nnK?).  My friend Sue has an eagle eye for these things.  She collects white, but she’ll pass the aqua ones on to me.

The tall aqua vase here is a Haeger.

I don’t care about a few chips and dings.  I’ll face that side to the back.

I’m looking forward to summer when I can actually put some flowers in these.  Pink peonies look especially nice in them.  Maybe I’ll have enough tulips this spring to fill a large vase.  Spring will be here soon, right?

 

As I mentioned in a previous post, my friend Lori has asked me to help teach Miss Mustard Seed milk paint workshops at her shop, The Round Barn.  That also meant accompanying her to retailer training at The Ironstone Nest in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin earlier this week.  Sun Prairie is the quintessential American Midwest small town complete with a darling main street …

And a fabulous diner ….

Here is Lori when we arrived at The Ironstone Nest and were greeted by this fabulous vintage door with a chalkboard message.  Aren’t her coat and bag to die for?  and so is that door!

Laura of The Ironstone Nest has the most fantastic studio space.  Everything about it was totally inspiring from her wall papered in vintage book pages to her stacks of furniture waiting to be transformed, and the many fabulously chippy pieces scattered about.

Clearly I should have expected a group of amazingly creative fellow trainees.  Naturally these were all people who appreciate a fabulous piece of vintage furniture with some chippy paint.  As they say, brilliant minds think alike.

We spent two days together learning all about the milk paint and experimenting with different techniques for using it.  As well as laughing and just being silly.

The highlight of the trip for me was when we skyped with Miss Mustard Seed herself and I discovered that she knew of my blog and was a fan of my furniture pieces!  How amazing is that?  Little ol’ me?  I’m practically famous now, but I’ll try to remain humble and loyal to those of you who knew me when.  LOL.

But seriously, I hope some of you that are in the Twin Cities will consider signing up for a workshop with me at The Round Barn.  I truly think this product is amazing.  I would not be able to get the results I do without it.  It is  definitely different from your typical latex paint, but once you learn the basics I think you’ll find that you love it too.

In case you are wondering why I seemed absent for the past several days, it’s because I was!  I spent the weekend with my sister and some friends at a scrapbook retreat.  For those of you who haven’t heard the news, the art of ‘scrapbooking’ seems to be on the way out.  At least the old fashioned way of scrapbooking with photos, paper, scissors and glue.  I know that there are digital versions of scrapbooks … in fact, I consider this blog to be a digital version of a scrapbook.  But,  I can’t see myself giving up the paper, glue and scissors.  And after all, it is in my blood.

My paternal grandfather put together scrapbooks.

My maternal grandmother did amazing scrapbooks, and she journaled like mad.  It’s fascinating to read about the polio epidemic in Minneapolis in the 1940’s, or the rationing during WWII.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of her work to share with you.  My mom still has all of those scrapbooks at her house in Las Vegas.

My mom carried on the tradition with scrapbooks for each of us kids.

And now both my sister and I create scrapbooks.  This weekend we both worked on pictures from our recent trip to Disney World.

Creating color schemes and layouts for pages uses the same skills needed for decorating.  I totally love the way the aqua, orange and a touch of black worked on this page.

I try to add vintage elements to my scrapbooks when I can.  The red & white cardboard letter squares on this page were purchased at Oronoco Gold Rush.  I think they were former game pieces.

The red, white and blue theme on this page works for both fake England and fake America in Epcot.

Over the course of a weekend, I created 42 pages!  I didn’t quite get the whole trip done, but I came close.  I’d like to say that I will continue to work on the remaining pictures at home, but don’t count on it.  There is unpainted furniture calling my name!