Last week, I found a nearby estate sale that I was able to attend over my lunch hour. (I am loving this estate sale concept!) It was a little out in the country, only accepted cash and I had $19.65 in my wallet.



I eyeballed this tray for a while before I finally decided to snag it. It's HUGE! And red. It's one of my new favorites. I hope I'll be able to find a buyer that likes it as much as I do.



I'm always drawn to stuff with peacocks on it and this tray was just lovely! The frame and handles are quite sturdy. It is backed with velvet which is quite worn, but I can definitely see this hanging on someone's wall.



The last three little things I found were this cute ceramic scissors holder, a cake cutter with a green bakelite handle and a flower frog. When I got it home, I realized the scissors holder had quite a few chips on the back, so I don't feel comfortable selling it. Fortunately, I have a dear friend who is willing to give it a good home, so it will be moving to Wisconsin soon.

I had never even seen a cake cutter (or didn't know what I was looking at) until a couple weeks ago at an auction where they had about 50 of them for sale! I saw this one with its pretty handle and couldn't resist for the price.

So, five nice finds! Not bad work for one lunch hour!

Why I Like Auctions

Roger and I headed up north to a couple of auctions on Saturday. We weren't sure which one we wanted to actually attend, so we arrived in town early so we could preview both of them. The first one was in a motel conference room. It was COLD and a little dark. It was full of all the vintage kitschy stuff that I like - stationery, kitchen stuff, Christmas decorations, that sort of thing. We were tempted, but decided we better check out the other one first.

We drove across town to the second auction. It was held indoors, too, and wasn't as cold! :) It was set up very nicely and there really wasn't any "junk". Everything was neat and clean and tidy. We decided to stay.

Within the first 15 minutes, I was pretty sure we were out of our league. Everything was going for big money and this one dude kept buying ALL the glassware. It was so weird, because he was paying at least retail, so we weren't sure if he was a collector or a dealer who would be happy if he was able to make a dollar profit on each item! After a little bit, it got downright annoying! All morning, we managed to buy about three things, and I felt like I'd overpaid for all of it.

Shortly after noon, I was feeling itchy, so I left Roger there and went back to the motel auction. Most of the good stuff had already been sold. I picked up a few good items and only spent $9.50. Unfortunately, one of my $2 purchases was a clean-up, and I managed to fill the back of the van with a bunch of CRAP! Seriously. I wanted one thing, and got a van load. (That's NOT what I love about auctions!)

I was bored and decided it would be more fun to hang out with Roger. When I got back, the auction was getting better. Crazy dude was still buying a ton of stuff, but other bidders were finally getting in on the action and winning a few things. We came away with a few more bargains. Probably my favorite purchase of the day was the Little Red Spinning Wheel. Cute, huh? (Sorry I don't have more pictures this week. We have company coming this week, so we had to get everything packed away, fast!)

And, this is what I love about auctions. When you go every weekend, you start to see the same people over and over again. You know what they bid on, you chat with them, you joke with them. Next thing you know, you have auction friends! I don't know their names, but I know their faces, and they're a fun group! Our little group on Saturday had a pretty good time watching in shock and bemusement as that guy bought all that glassware. I'm still wondering if his check will clear the bank this morning! One of my buddies said, "That's what you call 'stupid money'."

Oh yeah! And I got hit on. Twice. Once directly and once indirectly. A guy at the motel auction asked me if I'd ever been on tv. No. "Are you a movie star?" No. "Well, you look like one!"

A guy at the second auction told Roger that I have a great smile and that he has a beautiful wife. Okay, so both of these guys were probably in their 60s. So what? I can survive on compliments like those for a week!

I'm linking up with Her Library Adventures.

Family Support

Our 8 year old son is not nearly as enamored with the world of vintage and antiques as we are. He considers garage saling a unique form of child torture and grudgingly attends auctions where he likes to suddenly need attention when we are in the heat of bidding.

He does think it's kind of cool that we have a booth at an antique store, and he likes to help me come up with prices for items, although his criteria are a little questionable. "How old is it? Well, it is really shiny!"

Currently, our house looks like we're the ones trying to get ready for an auction. There is stuff everywhere. Last night I told our son that we needed to get the house cleaned up because we have company coming for the night next week. I was specifically talking about his bedroom and play area.

"It's embarrassing!" I said.

He replied, "What's embarrassing is 5 million antiques."

Supportive little punk, ain't he?

First Estate Sale

I've attended a lot of auctions and gone to plenty of garage/yard sales, but I had never gone to an estate sale. I mean, the kind where you actually go into someone's house and everything is for sale. I found one advertised last week here in town, and decided to go check it out over my lunch hour.

At first, I was a little disappointed, because the dining room table was covered in all kinds of pretty glassware, but it was all more than I wanted to spend. Let's face it. I'm cheap. But then I thought, "Hey! I should go check out the kitchen!" And that's where the fun started! I just started gathering stuff up and taking it to the front table to wait for me!



I got a couple sapphire blue Fire King dishes, a salt and pepper shaker set (I realized later it had been repaired - a lot), a pretty china tray, an old red letter Pyrex liquid measuring cup, four vintage tablecloths, a cute travel alarm clock, a pretty blue plastic jewelry box, an aqua and cream pitcher and tumblers, and I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff! It sounds a little creepy, but I found it pretty stinkin' awesome to walk through someone's house and know that it was all for sale!

I spent a lot of the weekend trying to get some old stains out of the vintage tablecloths, but I think I did a pretty good job! One was already perfect, one will be staying with me, because I discovered a lot of tiny holes in it, and the other two are in fine vintage shape, so I feel comfortable selling them. I can certainly see how easy it would be to get addicted to vintage linens! If I entertained more, I'd probably start collecting them myself!

(Just so you know, the two items pictured above are available in our Etsy shop! :)

I'm linking up with Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday!

One Saturday - Two Auctions

This weekend, Roger and I each took a kid and set out to separate auctions. They were both indoors, but mine was air-conditioned! :) I took Sally with me. I made sure to dress her cute, so if she decided to act monstrous, maybe her cuteness would balance it out. In the end, she was pretty darn good and made lots of new friends! She was the belle of the auction, I would say!

Here's what I came home with:




There were about 30 lady's head vases at this auction. I fell in love with the white and red one, because red is my favorite color. I'll probably be keeping her. The blue one will be going into the shop very soon. She is not only a vase, but can actually hang on the wall, as her back is flat.



There were also a ton of cookie jars. Most of them were in this style but in different colors and patterns. I just loved the bright colors on these two. One may stay with me. Maybe.



The highchair was one of those things that was selling for so cheap, I just snatched it up. It wasn't until much later that I really noticed the decal was of a bear with a sewing machine!

I also bought another Singer treadle machine. I had no intention of bidding on that machine when I got to the auction. It wasn't until I realized it was going to sell for nothing that I knew it needed to come home with me. Roger keeps asking what we're going to do with it. Storage, for now. It's a nice clean machine. It just needs to age for a bit.

Roger's auction was much pricier and not as much fun. The auctioneer was terrible. Just a note to any auctioneers out there who are listening. Don't be a jerk. Don't be rude to your buyers. And don't use your employees to run up the bids. Now, I don't have a problem with auction employees bidding on items when it's now and then and something they truly want to buy. It's when they're bidding on every. single. thing. that it gets annoying. Roger said he managed to drop a few items on them, but wasn't even sure they cared. We'll be avoiding this guy's autions in the future.

So, what did he manage to buy?



These playing card tiles. We're not at all sure how they were used, but he knew I would like them. They might be ivory backed with bamboo, but we're not at all sure. Maybe bone? They don't seem to be bake-lite. I couldn't get any kind of scent when I rubbed them. I'd love to hear from anyone with an idea on these!



He bought a flat of salt dips, because the owner of our antique store had told us that he has a collector who comes in regularly looking for these.



And, these little miniatures. Most of them are about 1 - 1 1/2 inches tall. They're made of brass, and adorable! I've always liked miniatures.

He also brought home a few other treasures, and three gold rings that I need to take to the jeweler to sell for scrap today. He better hope those rings make up for going over budget! And, for a couple of things I like to call "Roger's Follies". That'll be a special feature later on this week!

Today, I'm linking up with Her Library Adventures! Check out the other great finds from last week!

Salt & Peppers

I'm not usually a salt and pepper kind of girl. I just don't get the appeal. They're cute and all, but why in the world would you need hundreds of sets? Then I saw the salt and peppers at this auction! There were a lot of the regular ones you see all the time, but then there were some that were so clever, that I just couldn't resist! I may have gone a little overboard with a few of these. Now, remember, these photos were taken immediately after the auction, so they were still a bit grungy.

How cute is the toaster? You push down the lever and the little slices of toast pop up! White toast for the salt and brown toast for the pepper!

And, why wouldn't you want this on your picnic table?

A mixer salt and pepper shaker! And the beaters are the actual shakers! You just pull them off and add some salt and pepper to your food! (Not a lot of salt and pepper, obviously, but hey! we should all be watching our sodium intake, right?)

This fruit basket was pretty much my favorite. I love that the pineapple and lemon (apple?) are the shakers and the entire top comes off to reveal the sugar bowl underneath!

This one is to use with your tv dinner! (har har) When you turn the knob to "on" the shakers pop up from the top.



This one has a story to go with it. The first night of the auction we bought a flat of miscellaneous and mismatched shakers. We found the little tiny white salt shaker in the box, but no matching pepper. When we went back to the auction the next day, we found this little wringer washer shaker set missing its salt shaker! I immediately realized that I had the missing salt at home. I made sure to keep an eye on this box, so I could bid on it or at least offer to mail the salt shaker to the winning bidder. I won the box for almost nothing and was able to reunite the salt and pepper. I think this one is going to stay with me. It's red, you know, and I love red things.

Curbside Pickin's

I work in the real estate industry, and yesterday, a realtor gave me a tip! She said she'd just left a property that had closed that morning and there was a bunch of stuff marked "free" sitting at the curb! So, after work, I took a little detour to check it out!

I managed to pull a handful of treasures out the pile - The green and brown pot has a Haeger sticker on it. It appears to have been used to hold pens and pencils, because there are a couple hard blobs of ink on the inside. There were the two milk glass pieces. (How do you tell if it's "real" milk glass?)

The pie plate is Pyrex, but when I got home I realized it has the word "microwave" on it, so it's not really vintage. Still, it's a nice pie plate, so I'll either add it to my own kitchen or pass it on to someone who actually makes pie.

There was a matching sugar bowl to go with the creamer, but it was chipped. I snagged the creamer because of the cute pink flower on it. It's marked "Pink-a-Dilly" and Franciscan.

The pinkish soup mug is Frankoma. I'm in love with its color. The white dishes are marked "Calif USA 259". They're part of a chip and dip set, it seems, but I'm missing the middle bowl. I may have to track down the bowl. From what I've seen on-line it comes in different colors.

What I'm not showing you is the stack of vintage fabric I dug out of the 3 or 4 HUGE boxes of fabrics sitting at the curb. I've got about half of them washed.

While I was "picking", the new owner of the property showed up. He's a regular customer of ours, so I sheepishly said, "Hello!" and told him the realtor had sent me. He laughed, "I caught you red-handed, didn't I?" He invited me into the house and showed me a couple desks he wants to get rid of, but I wasn't interested in taking home anything so big!

Anyway, this was a fun little surprise haul, and the price was definitely right!