Magpie Ethel

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!

 

Road Trip Halloween Finds And A Trip To The Curious Sofa

When my mom and I were in Kansas City we took the opportunity to visit the Curious Sofa.  I have read Debbie's blog for ages and seen photo spreads in magazines featuring her house and her shop displays.  I was happy to hit her shop when it was in full Halloween mode.

This is what greeted me when I walked in the door.

I walked around the shop a couple of times just to take it all in...I would love to see it during the Christmas holiday.

I will be collecting gloves this year at estate sales to try my hand at this display.

Really a fun shop and amazing unusual displays.

With Halloween quickly approaching I figured I better show my road trip Halloween finds.

A wonderful Halloween paper hat.

I love the honeycomb detail.

An owl place card made out of bump chenille.

Vintage Halloween stickers.

My favorite Halloween find came from an auction that my mom and I hit (post coming on that).  I was the high bidder on this box of old crackers or "snapping mottoes" as the print on the box indicates.

The box is stamped with the date April 1930 and originally held four dozen crackers for different occasions. They are in somewhat rough shape but they are old!

I will display them with my the rest of my Halloween vintage party goodies.

We will be having a party this weekend to celebrate Kate's 17th birthday. We won't be actually using these vintage party goodies, but they be on display and add to the festive decor.

Love my orange and black Halloween!

 

 

Home Sweet Home

This little gal was one of my finds on my road trip. Her smiling face pretty much sums up the mood of my trip with my mom.

!0 days on the road. Flew into Kansas and then drove home with my mom junking as we went.  Hit a flea market and an awesome auction.  Good food as well.

Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and home to Oregon....a couple of the states I had never been to before.

Happy to be home and lots to share.  Isn't the little pigtail in the back adorable?

Happy Monday!

Road Trip Help

This October my mom and I are doing a little junking road trip.  My parents are driving to Ames, Iowa for my dad's high school reunion. They are then driving to Kansas City (where they used to live) and my dad will fly home. I will be flying out and driving home with my mom.  We have no route at this point. We want to hit good shops, auctions, eats, places of interest and anything else you may suggest. We have the potential to hit these states (depending on what looks interesting) - Kansas, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Idaho, Washington and then home to Oregon. I know in Kansas I want to hit Nell Hill's and Curious Sofa. I want to eat a little frozen custard at Sheridan's.  This is one of those once in a lifetime trips and I want to do it right.  Leave me a comment with any suggestions you may have pertaining to those states I mentioned.  We will be doing this trip in mid October, so if you know of any flea markets to hit let me know as well.  BOMBARD ME WITH IDEAS...make this the best road trip ever!