Magpie Ethel

Alameda Show Finds

As I mentioned in my previous post about Alameda, I did find some fun stuff. I did not buy a huge amount, but found a few things that I had never seen before.

I always seem to gravitate towards smaller items and this trip was no exception.

A pink tinsel tree that is about 10 inches tall.  It needs a bit of help with a new base, but that is an easy fix.

A vintage celluloid party girl complete with tiny hat but missing her arms. She had seen better days.  She was the best of about 10 that were there, and I thought she should have a home in my cabinet of curiosities.

Old paper cups with a good holiday snowman graphic and an air bon tin.

A tiny vintage spun head bunny and some old Dennison type stickers.

An old Halloween cardboard spinner game.

An old Humpty Dumpty style cardboard figure that may have REALLY fallen off a wall as he has seen better days.  He will go live out the rest of his life in my cabinet of curiousities.

Anthropomorphous melon(?) fan with wonderful googly eyes.  He was part of a set that also included a couple of elephants, Minnie and Mickey Mouse and a few other figures.

I bought a good sized box of old paper items. The box had old greeting cards, wrapping paper, ribbon and gift tags. 

Yet more vintage wrapping paper to add to my stash.

And last but not least, my favorite find.  A dice throwing tiny celluloid boy.  I liked the detail and expression on his face and he will live in my cabinet of curiosities.

Fun stuff and a fun show! Wish I lived closer and could hit it every month!

Sunny Day at The Alameda Flea Market

I just got home from 5 days in San Francisco.  I went down with a girlfriend to help "fluff" her college daughter's new apartment.  I agreed to go and help as she dangled the "carrot" of a trip to the monthly Alameda Flea Market.  The "carrot" was well deserved after lots of apartment projects and was a wonderful day.

I spent over 6 sunshine filled hours just browsing the aisles of the show. (view towards the city)

It was good people watching and had a huge variety of stuff to buy.  I did not find anything that was mind blowing, but did enjoy the hunt and found a few goodies.

A glimpse of some of the booths or objects that caught my eye...none of which came home with me.

French posters

Yummy colored crepe paper, which I passed on as I have a huge stash.

A petunia pig head.  I don't think anyone bought this as It was still there near the end of the show.

For those jadeite collectors.

This booth only sold paper items, posters, old advertisements and such.

Watch parts, old keys and other goodies to sift through.

Tons of vendors had a good assortment of vintage clothes.

And speaking of clothes, this was a great spot to people watch.  Some of the outfits that I saw were one of a kind.

Note the stockings, the orange gingham skirt and a tiny straw hat perched on her head.

I liked this dapper sailor outfit as well. Even the shoes were vintage with a little green embellishment.

A giant metal turtle perhaps part of an old play structure. It I had bought this it would have had to have been strapped to the top of our car from San Fran to Portland!

My favorite thing I saw was this old ice cream sign.

Alas, she had a $400 price tag and I did not have a spot that she would have fit in my house.

She sure was sweet tho.  We left the show with a bag of freshly made kettle corn to munch as we started our drive home.  What I found will be in my next post.  Awesome day!

One Of My Favorite Events

I am driving to Spokane this weekend with my mom for one of my favorite events of the year.

I love the Farm Chicks show and this is the fifth year that I have gone.  I will be posting about it when I return...hoping for lots of goodies and eye candy and a meal or two at my favorite spot Chaps.

Yippee!

Road Trip Recap...San Francisco

A week ago I was in San Francisco.  A girlfriend and I drove down to pick up her daughter from college.  I love San Fran.  It really is a city that has its own flavor.  Pull up a chair and see some snippets of my trip...

We had beautiful weather.

I hit my favorite tea room, Crown and Crumpet. I did not have tea there, but did walk around and take in the the adorable shop.

It is decorated with the most whimsical touch.

I walked a ton.  I am not a taxi person and the weather was wonderful.I walked through Chinatown.

I walked to the Ferry Building which is full of fun foodie spots.

I bought some goodies from Miette in the Ferry Building.

While I munched my goodies I gazed out on the bay and did some people watching.

I walked to the downtown Anthropologie. They never like you to take pictures, so I was sneaky and took this shot of the Golden Gate bridge that hung over the staircase.  It was made with rope and boxes of "Rice A Roni"...you know...that San Francisco treat!

We drove over to Berkely one day so I could hit one of my favorite stores Castle in the Air. It is full of wonderful craft supplies and amazing displays.

It was hard to get a picture of this little kewpie in the window.  He is perched in a very ornate carraige and is wearing a golden crown.

I stocked up on my supply of spun mushrooms.

The have lots of glitter, dresden trims, crepe paper and other wonderful supplies.  It really is a slice of crafting heaven.

My other favorite shop in Berkeley is Tail of the Yak.  It is full of unusual finds and the displays are just wonderful. Lots of honeycomb paper and garlands...my kind of spot.

I bought one of these swans. They are filled with trinkets.

I love their garland..so much color and fun.

I spent the last afternoon in San Francisco shopping and walking.  After these stairs I think I could eat whatever I wanted for dinner!

Was really a nice trip.  I had fun with my girlfriend Sally and her daughter.  Nothing like a trip to San Fran to brighten your day!

Road Trip Time

I have plotted out the route I'm driving to San Francisco later this week. A friend invited me to tag along when she goes to pick up her daughter from college.  I get a couple of days to play and shop in the city. I love San Francisco.  I am hoping to hit a few of my favorite spots like Castle in the Air, Tail of the Yak, Bellocchio and Crown and Crumpet. I hit San Fran last year for the Alameda Flea market, so am a little familiar with the city.

If you have a favorite San Fran shop or place to eat that you would like to share, please leave me a comment.  I know there are spots that are just begging to be visited by me!

San Francisco here I come....

Home And A Troop Of Estate Sale Mushrooms

Home sweet home.  We had a wonderful trip to Phoenix and the Grand Canyon.  It really was nice to have some family time in a warmer climate away from the gray, rainy skies of Oregon (although we did have a day of drizzle and encountered snow at the Grand Canyon).

We got home on Friday afternoon and Saturday found me in line for an estate sale. I was #17 to get in the door.  The sale advertised florist supplies and I was hoping for some fun stuff. 

The theme of the day for me was MUSHROOMS!

I spotted these in the garage before the sale opened and made a beeline for them.  There are spun cotton and I got 17 bunches of them.  They sport their original tags that read "Made in Germany East". I can not wait to craft with them!

A bunch of picks that sport tiny red spun cotton mushrooms and a bottle brush stem. 2 vintage floral tins also jumped into my shopping basket.

I found a bag of great glass red mushrooms on clips.  I don't believe these are vintage, but they are super cute.  My brain is already crafting with these mushrooms and some spun head holiday fun. I think they would look darling clipped onto a Christmas tree.

I definitely had some fungi love going on today!  It was the perfect welcome home for me.

Happy Day.

 

Spring Break

Spring break is coming up and my family is headed to Phoenix, Arizona.  We are looking forward to some warm weather and family time.  Phoenix is new territory for us, so if you have any suggestions of place to eat, shops to hit or things to do, please leave me a comment.  We also plan on hitting the Grand Canyon so if you have any tidbits on it, please share.  Looking forward to getting away from the rain of Oregon.

Road Trip Auction

Another dismal day in estate sale world, so am sharing my last highlight of my recent road trip to Kansas.  This is the last of the road trip posts...and was one of my favorite things that we did...the best for last.

After the flea market that I posted about here, my mom and I passed a sign that said "auction today". I LOVE auctions, especially those in the midwest.  I love the banter of the auctioneer and watching the crowd.  It is total entertainment for me. We followed the signs to the local fairgrounds and ventured inside one of the buildings that held all the auction goodies.  This is what met my eyes and my heart started pounding.

It was row after row of long tables full of boxes piled willy nilly with every oddball vintage item under the sun.  The auction house had boxed up the contents of the house and just moved everything here. I wish I got more pictures (am kicking myself) but there was vintage Halloween, Christmas, paper, pottery, games etc.  Everything was here.  It was the estate of Virginia Foree who had passed away at the age of 90.  The family has saved everything and their were 3 generations of items in these boxes.  The woman had been a school teacher for 42 years as well. It was truly fascinating to look thru the boxes at what had been saved. 

I would have bought tons of it, but there were about 5 bidders who basically drove up prices left and right. One woman must have bought about every other box of items. She had one long row of tables FULL of her purchases.  There was not rhyme nor reason to her bidding, she was just buying it all. I raised my number quite a bit, but prices kept rising. I did come out victorious on one box of goodies. It made me happy and is a great souvenir ofthe day.

What is inside made me giddy.

Tons and tons of old greeting cards, bridge tallies and gift tags.

Bridge tally cards.

Old Valentines

An envelope of old postage stamps

What truly made me swoon was what was in the rest of the box...

and in these three envelopes. Virginia had saved all her tags from gifts and put them in these envelopes labeled 1919, 1920 and 1921.  These tags are OLD and the graphics are just charming.

These photos are worth double clicking on them to enlarge.  The illustrations on these cards are really adorable.

I love the little cherub in the boat on the left and the holiday bellhop on the bottom card.

Virginia also had a whole slew of catalogs for old greeting card lines in the 1950 and 1960s.

They are fun to flip through and wish that I could still purchase items like this Christmas Gift Wrap Ensemble for $1.25. Wouldn't that make your day?

This really was an awesome sale and we spent about 5 hours there.  I am happy to have my little box of vintage fun as my little souvenir of the day! (I also wish that ONE WOMAN had not been scooping up so much of the good stuff...darn her and her bidding that just would not stop!)

 

 

Road Trip Flea Market

I have two more posts from my road trip to share and since there were no estates sales today, I decided to do a quick road trip post instead.

One of the highlights of our road trip was hitting a flea market at the Platte City High School.  The halls of the high school were full of vendor tables as well as the gym and the cafeteria.

Here is a shot of the gym full of vendors and shoppers. This school has one of the most awesome mascot paintings I have ever seen in the background.

Look the tattoo on this guy!  It has the initials of the high-school on it.

I bought lots of small things that I have already shared at this flea market.  The one item I have not showed yet was this awesome outdoor chair.

The vendor I bought it from said it had been stored in an outbuilding in Missouri.  He did not think it had ever been used.  The paint is totally pristine on it and I love the cutout details.  It is also a rocker.

I paid $24 for it which I thought was a good deal.

My mom took advantage of my purchase after the sale when I ran back inside.

Happy Weekend!

Road Trip Finds

Estate sales are nill today, so I am sharing road trip finds instead. I have shared a couple of finds and have a couple more finds that I will post about soon.  Here are some of the goodies that found their way into our truck.

Penny Pineapple. She is a chalkware advertising figure that dates from 1942. I don't know much about her. I do love her facial expression.

The reason she caught my eye is that I already had this little wooden plaque that mentioned her. "Penny Pineapple is very sweet. She lives in the sun and likes the heat."

She has a friend named Lee Lemon. I think there is more to this series, but I only have the two plaques and now my little chalkware figure.

I found some vintage Easter.  I think the plastic rabbits originally held a small shovel in their hands. I thought perhaps they could hold a small lollipop instead.  A metal easter basket and some pink plastic doilies round out this holiday.

An assortment of crafty stuff. Old striped pipe cleaners, cake decorations, old owls and a wooden box of cardboard numbers.

My spun head magnet was on target on this trip.

5 boxes of unused Dennison like seals. These are of the foiled variety.

I especially like the pink elephant in overalls and the good luck bird.

An assortment of vintage Christmas...reindeer, reflectors and glass garland.

 
Some old foil light covers and some great tiny bottle brush trees on toothpicks.

I love to find old Santa photos in the original cardboard sleeves.

Even if the child looks a little apprehensive.

A box of old cardboard house ornaments in original box. I paid $5 for the box of 5 houses. I later saw ONE of the same houses for sale for $15.

And last but not least, one of my favorite holiday finds.  An old Christmas card list metal box.  I have a collection of these and I had never seen this particular box.  If you ask nicely I may share this collection in a future collection challenge.

I was happy with what I found. I would have loved to have found more, but it was fun to poke around in unfamiliar shops.  I have a couple more stories and finds to a share...

Happy weekend and may your Halloween be spooktacular!