Upscale, Downscale, All Around the Town

I thought of a great title for this week’s post. Mentioned it to Judy, who liked it too, and then I said, “But I’ll probably forget it before I turn around.” We were getting out of the car to get to a sale – and sure enough it left my brain almost immediately. I had forgotten my notebook that morning so had nothing to write on even if I’d remembered. But Judy spotted a spiral notebook at the sale for a dime and bought it to keep in my car. Then she proceeded to make notes for me as we went along. Wow, my own private secretary in my convertible! I felt like a tycoon. A woman is rich indeed if she has a friend to garage with who will make notes as you drive!

We were definitely in tycoon territory at one of our first stops on Friday. Very, very posh neighborhood – a real live ‘private drive’ with a dozen very large homes built around a private park. The lady having the sale was downsizing to move to a condo. I hope she’s not claustrophobic, since she’s really going to feel the difference. Nice folks, enjoyed chatting with her and her daughter. It’s always interesting to see what people really consider valuable, based on how they price things. A decent but perfectly ordinary cooking pan was priced at $40.  Yet for a total of $1, I left with a little glass hummingbird ornament (that I haven’t managed to take a decent picture of!), two Danish cut paper Christmas scenes 

and a beautiful vintage table runner hand embroidered with daffodils.

I also left with a case of laundry room envy! We got to go inside the ginormous house for Judy to see a coffee table that was for sale (though not what she was looking for). As we left through the laundry room, I saw the built in sewing corner – handy, well lit, with plenty of storage for supplies and right where you need it to do repairs.

Next stop was pretty much the opposite – an old farmhouse with pretty much just junk scattered around the front yard. Very nice lady though, with a lovely cat. This is Meow-Meow, who has a lovely floofy tail.

  And for fifty cents I picked up a couple of boxes to hold all that thread I found last week.

We kept going to a couple more sales, commenting that we’d seen the upscale and downscale and now were back in the middle. The middle-scale made us laugh with this – a toy beaver with a different pricing structure depending on which Oregon football team you favor:

I picked up a DVD of one of my favorite movies

and some more cloth napkins (Zoe has already taken the corner off one of my lovely large white napkins from a couple of weeks ago – bad dog!). I thought this bird feeder was fun

  and I love the color of this insulated travel mug.

Just this week I put ‘wire basket’ on my list of items to watch for, to corral the computer plug thingies under my desk, and there it was. Brand new, one dollar.

Hoping that this book will give me some fresh inspiration for the flowering containers on my upper deck. They’ve been gorgeous this year, and I have to admit the main inspiration was seeing what was available for half-price at the local garden center on any given day!My last buy on Friday was…a house. Yes, I went out and bought a house.It’s a little smaller than my other house, being all of 2 1/2 inches highbut it came fully furnished (and populated with a spider web in the attic!)

and the pipes underneath seem to be in good condition.Best of all, it only cost a dime!

On Saturday I went out alone. It was supposed to be sunny and very hot (like in the 90s). I’m not sure where the mist and 67 degree temperature came from. Just went to a few sales, but found a better $5 desk chair than my last $5 desk chair

and a brand-new vacuvin thingie. What I really need are the corks, but for fifty cents I can hang onto the pump in case mine breaks.My feet are looking forward to becoming Happy Feet.

And I succumbed to the charms of this lovely vintage linen bag with beautiful embroidery. How could I resist for fifty cents?    At the same sale I scored a sprig of yet another coleus. 

That’s the 5th one in the past three weeks, all different. The ones I put in last week’s 25 cent planter are doing well.It was definitely a kitty-centric weekend. Besides Meow-Meow, we admired this fellow, who belonged to a neighbor of the people having the sale. Supposedly he is a highly-bred specimen who cost quite a pretty penny, but he wasn’t above shopping on driveways.When we first saw this happy guy, he was arching his back to better enjoy his grooming, then by the time I got the camera out he had swooned from delight.When I reached home and was showing my goodies to my husband, our Noll Baxter did his best to convince me I had forgotten to feed him (not true!) and he was STARVING!I didn’t fall for his lies, but he was gracious enough to help me photograph my finds anyway. What a guy.

Playing Catch Up

I didn't run away or fall off the face of the earth – but my computer might has well have. It’s been on the fritz for at least a week. Something about the operating system, which of course takes a lot of time to figure out even that much. My long-suffering husband spent ALL DAY Saturday on the phone with a technician, and late in the afternoon, after we thought we were on the road to Wellville, he restarted the computer and got the “operating system not found” message. And the technician went home for the weekend.

I live in hope it will be fixed today, at which point I’ll find out if I have any files left. I had some stuff saved ‘in the cloud’ but not everything. And not the latest sections of my  new book. Grrrrr. But that’s my fault for not backing up stuff more often. My fingers are still crossed.

It’s been frustrating at least partly because the past two weekends have just been so much fun for garaging. I finally said I have GOT to blog. Which entailed installing software on two other computers in the house for getting the pictures off my two cameras. I tell  ya, this blogging thing is SO HARD! (You have to read that last bit in a whiney voice.) And of course all the funny conversations I had on driveways fade from my aging brain as time passes. Like two minutes time. As my friend Marcia says, “I can remember anything until I take a step. So, it’s not my brain that’s at fault – it’s my feet!” At least I can show you the stuff I found, ranging from the practical to the unique. Let’s start with a couple of things I didn’t buy. These were both at the same sale, supposed to be an estate sale. When we walked into the house, the first thing I spied on a luridly gold chest in the front hall was this:

Yes. A bag o’ bones. I’m still scratching my head over this. They collected them? Saved them for the dog? Do you suppose anyone bought them? Then, when we headed into the bedroom, I stopped in my tracks at the sight of The World’s Ugliest Bed. Do not doubt your eyes. That is a bookcase headboard and a footboard with tall posters topped by chrome finials. I had actually seen a picture of it in their Craigslist ad and sent it to my hubs because it was so strange. Turns out…someone did it on purpose. They glued the posts onto the footboard!

Nope. Didn’t buy anything there!

Got some great practical stuff though. A sturdy trowel and a bulb planter (I’ll be adding allium bulbs to the front yard this fall)

 

and for inspiration:

Though we’ve already reinvented our yard. I’ll show pics soon. It’s turned out so well that we like sitting on the front deck to enjoy it. Already had a small table and one chair, and at my neighbors sale I picked up two more of these ($3 each!).

For a little indoor gardening this winter, I got this nice little planter and saucer (for a quarter!)

and some free coleus sprigs from a couple of folks to put in it.

 

At another estate sale there were no bags o’ bones, but I did score a bag o’ threads for a buck.

When I counted them, I found 51 spools, many brand new, in a variety of colors. I was about to go buy white thread at a fabric store, and now I’m set for years!

 

They threw in this cool vintage needle folder with a variety of needles

which I’ll soon be using to turn this pair of brand new double flat sheets ($1 each) into a fitted twin set.

   

My other sewing project involves this faux fur vest, quite nice quality, looks new.

I’m going to remodel it into a coat for our Zoe. Can’t wait to show you how it turns out. She’s going to look like the Flintstone’s dog!

Other useful finds included a bunny cookie cutter (perfect for dog biscuits)

a colorful wine bottle stopper

small crockpot so I can try doing hot wax treatments on my hands (found a how-to on Youtube that of course I can’t locate now to share with you)

some cute votive candles in ‘eggshells’ a couple of nice wine glasses (twenty-five cents each).Found some ‘crossover’ items – useful and decorative. Like these gorgeous etched drinking glasses

that throw a lovely shadow in the morning sun.

I just love these vintage thread clippers in their little silk-covered hand decorated case 

and I swooned over this lovely wooden acorn

that turned out to be a little box – probably quite an old thimble case.

 

Of course what could be more practical than a midcentury candy dish for the holidays? I have to admit that, stirred by that holiday feeling last weekend, I also succumbed to the lure of some purely decorative items. Like more acorns (I guess I now officially have an acorn collection) – don’t these metal ornaments look real?

I find these laser-carved cubes just fascinating, and for fifty cents this cool frog and dragonfly scene came with a lighted stand  

that changes color!

At the same sale I bought an antique teddy bear. Very antique.

He’s in quite sad condition, but I used to make teddy bears so I’m going to have a go at some restoration. I’d probably never dare if he’d cost more than a quarter! He’s spending a few days in the freezer to take care of any, um, unwanted visitors (wrapped safely in a sealed plastic bag!). I’ll keep you posted.

Finally, found two things I just absolutely love at a sale a couple of doors down from our house. Isn’t this little guy the cutest? But the doghouse roof is in sections, and it took us a minute to figure out his vintage purpose.

He’s designed to hold cigarettes, and the roof sections are little individual ashtrays! Trust me, he’ll never be used for this purpose at our house

but he’ll be right at home with my other vintage dogs.At the same sale, about three seconds after I walked in the house, I spotted this guy and grabbed him.

It was love at first sight, and it hasn’t faded yet.

Yes, he actually pedals his bike as it rolls. The bottom is stamped Czech and there’s an artist’s signature but it’s unreadable. But I got lucky. Did a Google image search and found another wooden toy with a very similar face, and was able to find the artist! He was made by Miroslav Trejtnar, a master puppet carver and puppeteer. You can see more of his art here. I’ll never know what road my riding jester took from Czechoslovakia to Salem, but from now on, we’re riding together!