Labor Day Labors

I may have to adjust my opinion about holiday weekends. I rarely participate in them because I'm retired and don't have the same need for a long weekend as working folks. I also avoid crowds and traffic. For a long time I've considered them useless for garaging as well, just not enough sales to bother with. Yet it was over the Memorial Day weekend I found my wonderful bunny weathervane, 

and I'm very happy with my Labor Day finds!

First stop was only four blocks from home, and the first thing I saw was a section of metal deck railing, just like what I took off the old deck I had removed this summer. I'm hanging onto it for eventual use as a fence along my creek side, but I still need several more panels. I crossed my fingers that this one would be affordable, and it was. Very. As in…free! And they’re even delivering it since it was too long for my SUV. Definitely a score.

The next two sales on my list ended up being drive-bys. I couldn’t even see if there was actually a sale for all the crappy old cars sitting around at the first, and the next looked skimpy and tired. Maybe there was treasure there, but I doubt it!

Onward to one near Bush’s Pasture Park, a beautiful large park in a lovely old neighborhood. Very popular with walkers, and dogs. The car parked in front of the sale was occupied by a large golden-doodle whose owners had stopped to browse. He was very happy when they returned to the car so he could go visit the squirrels. This was the sale where I picked up a cool piece of art. Thought at first it was a watercolor print, but it's actually a photograph. 

Signed and numbered by the artist and very nicely framed, and all of two bucks. I love it with the other two original watercolors I've found recently.

I also picked up a wineglass here (broke one recently). It was priced at fifty cents. When I went to pay I handed her the two singles for the picture and checked my coins, which amounted to five pennies. Hmmm, I said, we can either break another one or I can give you five cents for the wineglass. Which was fine with her! Not sure when I last got anything for a nickel, let alone a very nice wineglass with a beautiful tone when tapped. (I always buy wineglasses by their sound.)

Another quick stop netted a counted cross stitch with one of my favorite sayings, which I have now learned dates to World War 2 and the efforts on the home front to support the war.

One more stop before heading home, where the first thing I saw was a bunch of free stuff. Good free stuff! I picked up 5 trough planters, used but in perfect condition. 

Then I saw canning jars, and grabbed two quart size I know my friend Toni is looking for. Among them was a quart jar of buttons, so I snagged that as well. You know I love me some buttons! I'll go through these soon and sort out the ones I want to add to my stash, and find a new home for the rest. It did my heart good to see them, because all the button jars I've seen recently (usually at estate sales) were quite pricey.

I also picked up a vintage hanky (yes, I sometimes use hankies!) 

and a pink bath towel with an entertaining border. 

From the size of the towel and the label I'm guessing it could date back to the 70s! 

I've been looking for a terry towel to cut up for dish cloths (I put out a fresh one every morning and toss yesterday’s into the laundry) and this will be perfect.

I think they may have had more stuff in their free pile than actually for sale, but my eyes lit up when I saw something I recognized. Several years ago I bought a carved wood jester riding a trike that was made by a Czech master puppet maker, Miroslav Trejtnar. (Alas, the photos of it have disappeared from my blog, dang it, possibly a victim of a hard drive crash a few years ago.) I was absolutely amazed to see another piece by the same artist sitting among a variety of items priced at a dollar. As a rule I don't care much for clown images, but this one I like. 

He rocks from side to side and his beads slide around; perhaps he’s supposed to be a juggler. In any case he is now mine and looks quite at home among some other wooden toys, including a French clown who was originally part of a skittles set (the game, not the candy!)

I came home happy for sure, and am looking forward to future holiday weekends !

 

That’ll Be $5.50 Please

When you do the same activity over and over, it’s always interesting when a new detail appears in all the sameness. I've gone to a gazillion sales over the years, and in the time I've been blogging, some standout moments were the day I bought and sold King Kong, the time young Maggie danced for me, the Saturday morning I brought home an eight foot long sofa in a Honda Civic. Or this past Friday, when Lysa and I encountered the first campfire-in-a-garage I've ever seen. 

Which, while charming (as flickering flames generally are) struck careful old me as possibly a bit rash – with the bowl standing on a wooden stool, and - before I gently commented on it - a box full of various aerosol cans and a roll of paper towels right beside.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to three sales and when I got home and totted up my buys, I realized I had spent the same amount at each sale: $5.50. I'm pretty sure that has never happened before. My friend Marcia’s reaction to this news was an incredulous, “You spent $16.50  in one weekend?” (She’s known me a long time!) Well, yes, but I got some good stuff!

One sale netted 5 movies – 3 Blu-ray and 2 DVDs. (Have you ever seen G-Force? Superhero guinea pigs…hilarious.) 

Another had something I was just about to resort to buying new: a wheelbarrow to replace the one I've about worn out. 

The fifty cents went for a white long-sleeve t-shirt (I know you can provide your own image!), always a useful item.

And the third sale provided a pair of minty green crop pants, 

another t-shirt, 

a festive boiled wool vest, 

and three pairs of adorably cute shoes.

I was going to be semi sensible and only get the red and blue shoes (two bucks a pair) but then the nice lady threw in the black ones for free. How could I say no?

Segue to this weekend. I didn’t buy a lot, but I was amused to realize when I got home that I had spent…that’s right, $5.50. The fifty cents this time went for a lovely plate that I suspect is pretty old. 

And the $5 went for a treasure.

I've been watching for linen tablecloths, because I have a yen to try out linen sheets and I figure I can easily repurpose tablecloths. (Actual linen sheets are hideously expensive.) I was planning to sew two or three together with flat overlapped seams, but it's been ages since I've found even smaller ones for a decent price. Or at all.  I'd started to wonder if I've already bought every piece of linen in Salem.

Lysa and I had almost finished perusing a sale with a lot of vintage ‘collectibles’ when I walked by a couple of young women pulling things out of a box and exclaiming over them. When I realized it was vintage textiles they were looking at, I moved closer. We all admired the lace curtain panels, and the long dresser scarf of tatted lace. None of them had ever heard of tatting (sheesh, I am getting old!) so I explained about the tatting shuttle and fine thread and how when your grandma tries to teach you to tat you get all tangled up in that thread and cut off the circulation to all your fingers. (Maybe that’s just me.) Then one of them picked up something white in a plastic case, glanced at it, said, “Oh, Irish linen,” and put it back in the box.

My trembling hand reached out for it, trying not to appear too eager. A new-in-package Irish linen tablecloth, a big one, and when I asked, the price was five bucks. Mine, mine, mine! 

This has to be one of the best things I'll find this summer. Besides the price and the fact that it's 100% linen, it's the largest size the company made for the consumer market, 144 x 72 inches. Actually bigger than a king size sheet (though not quite as wide). When I looked up the company name of the maker, I found it has a long and interesting history behind it. The William Ewart linen company started in 1814, and the William Liddell company in 1866; the two companies merged in 1973. Their linens were sold all over the world, I think mainly to hotels and other commercial venues. The Liddell factory provided the linens for the Titanic! Liddell still exists, but it appears that now they weave cotton, not linen, and focus on the luxury hotel market (not my usual home away from home!).

So my tablecloth was made sometime since 1973, and given the feel and appearance of its plastic wrapper, I'm guessing mid-70s to early 80s. I haven’t yet taken my treasure out of the plastic cocoon. Feels like it should be done ceremonially, and I'm working out the proper rites for its emergence into light and air.

I looked on eBay to see if it has any resale value, and it sure does. A similar one (same packaging etc.), also unused but smaller, recently sold for almost $120. Others are listed but unsold yet at closer to $200, and none are as big as mine. But I'm going to stick to my sheet plan. I will really enjoy knowing I'm sleeping on a $200 sheet. It will make me feel like I'm staying at one of those luxury hotels!

 

It's Not Just Socks!

The garaging momentum is really building. Last week, spent a buck and a half. This week we were up to $3.25! One way and another, All This has probably saved me quite a bit of money. I didn’t buy gas for two months, or go out to eat (still haven’t had any restaurant meals that cost more than four bucks…yay, Taco Bell takeout), and so far this year I've only spent $72 garaging. Last year this time that figure was $183, and two years ago it was over $550!

I was definitely on the prowl for some heavy cotton t-shirts to use for making masks; I've read they make a pretty good filter. So I was pleased to pull a bright green one out of a free box, and found a dark gray 50₵ one further down the road.

Green and gray turned out to be the day’s color scheme. For a quarter, I brought home a fun wine bottle stopper.

And maybe it can do double duty as a Christmas ornament?

Another free box yielded two quite nice potholders. I can always use another decent potholder.

It was a good day for free stuff. Found a favorite childhood book at my first stop.

 Had a nice chat with the lady there. I remembered being there at a previous sale, and even what I bought, and was able to tell her how much I've liked this little bowl.

Splurged a couple of bucks on a bunch o’ magazines, some gardening and sewing, and all of last year’s Martha Stewarts.

My last stop was another 25₵ buy – a dog shedding tool I decided to try. For that price, why not? Apparently the resident Australian shepherd had disliked it. Fannie was okay with it, and clearly it did some de-shedding.

But I still like my Furminator better. If you need a really good, sturdy dog grooming tool, it’s the one I’d recommend. But they don't end up on driveways – at driveway prices – very often. It's actually something I bought in a store, but only after a lady at a garage sale was telling me what a great tool it is. So it has garaging roots! I’ll be donating this new one to the humane society thrift store, so I’m sure it will get a good home.

As I left the sale, one of the ladies in charge was crossing the street to her house, and I admired some of her flowers, She asked if I knew the name of them, which I did (echinops, or globe thistle) and she was so happy to finally be able to recall the name that she cut some for me to bring home!

When I got home, I started a load of laundry that included the t-shirts and the potholders. And somewhere between the laundry basket of dirty clothes and the folding of clean things out of the dryer – the gray potholder disappeared! In the two–plus years I've been in this house, I don't think my dryer has eaten anything. Not a single sock has disappeared. And now it seems to have gobbled up a potholder. And dang it, I used the green one this morning, and it's a really good potholder! 

I'm still hopeful it will reappear as mysteriously as it left. Perhaps in the company of socks I never noticed were gone.

The Queen of Fifty…Crepes!

The “huge moving sale, everything goes!” on the west side of town this morning…wasn’t. Oh, I'm not disputing that the guy is moving. And what I saw might actually have been his idea of “everything.”

Huge, it was not.

Oh well.

But the estate sale not far from my house was much better. (Whew.) The lady the sale was for is 93 and moving in with her daughter. She was a wood carver and also did that Norwegian style of painting called rosemåling, which I admire but have never wanted to collect. There was a large free standing wooden cabinet with painted doors that I could have fallen in love with though, if 1) I had room for it and b) it had not been $150. 

Fortunately there were some things more in my price range.

It seemed that she had a special love for carving wooden Santas, and they were flying out the door. One lady showed me the adorable one she was getting of Santa carrying a little Noah’s ark and holding up a red umbrella. We stood there and chuckled at it. I didn’t get a Santa, but I did select this fun snowman.

I love his twig arms, though they may need replacing from time to time. But twigs should not be that hard to come by.

I picked up some tomato cages (which look exactly like every other metal tomato cage you’ve ever seen). This time of year I need something to remind me that winter will not last forever. I also got this piece of yard art,

and a little metal chickadee like the ones I always admire at garden shows.

This kitty plate is tiny, but I think it will be just right to hold a tea bag. On the bottom it says it was made in Thailand, so even though it's a black kitty, it must be a Siamese cat, right?

So, a fun morning though a short outing. But last Saturday Judy and KK and I went to a couple of sales, and I had one really great score.

The backstory starts about 4 years ago, when KK found a large round electric griddle at an estate sale. She gambled four bucks on it, hoping it still worked, and when she got it home and researched found it's actually a crepe griddle. For making the big crepes like you get in a crepe restaurant. I was suitably jealous (especially when she would tell me of some fabulous crepes they had for dinner) and told her the next one we saw had to be mine.

So imagine the thrill when she emerged from the basement of the house we were in clutching an identical crepe griddle! She handed it over with a grin as I wept in delight. (Well, almost.) I did have the presence of mind to plug the thing in to make sure it would heat up. My heart would have been broken if it hadn’t worked, but hooray, it did.

Ironically, both griddles came from estate sales run by the same company.

I have been in crepe making heaven! Lunches, dinners, desserts. Okay, yes, breakfast too. I keep a container of crepe batter in the fridge and have been playing French chef with practically every ingredient in my house. So far they’ve all been good. I don't usually pause to take a picture, but this dessert crepe that included chocolate ganache, lemon curd, brandied cherry sauce and some whipped cream was the bomb.

My posse is joining me tomorrow night for a crepe party.

Yum!