One Horse Open Sleigh Sign

Someone had already done me the favor of stenciling "ONE HORSE SLEIGH" on this board and selling it at their garage sale for $1.  Thank you very much, I'll take it from here.

Every time I looked at the sign, my brain wanted to add the word "open", just like the song.  So, the first thing I did was have my artsy husband add it to the sign.

Next I scrounged up a scrap of wood from a previous project to make it into more of an arrow.  I always have scrappy hardware on hand, so that was a no-brainer addition.

Finish it off with a rusty wire hanger, and WALAA.

Ready for the snow to fly.

Vintage Christmas Time On Ebay

I love vintage Christmas items.  And this year I was fortunate to find some really fun pieces.  I have several aluminum trees, normally I would be thrilled to have just one to sell.  I am putting quite a few items on ebay in November, that way if they don't sell for the price that I want, I can put them in my vintage decorating booth. Here are a few of the nicer items that I will be listing soon:

I actually have THREE bottlebrush wreaths,

this is my favorite.

Too cool, with original box.

Star tree topper, I am a sucker for anything covered in mica.

 

A tinsel star tree topper.

 

Do you think it was a good idea to pair

electricity and water?

This beauty was originally had bubble lights,

made by Noma.

Bought for $20, sold for $158.

Kitschy.

One of several hard plastic angel

tree toppers I'm selling this year.

A little creepy.

Sold for $15.

I have an abundance of reindeer this year.

It is raining reindeer.

Candy cornucopias.

Bought for $2, sold for $7.

I don't normally put shiny brites on ebay

(hard to ship) but these had such great graphics.

Large putz house.

 

TWO of these cute little Rudolphs.

Sold for $11.

 

More reindeer.

Rusty Baubles Christmas Tree

This little tree started life as a turquoise scarf holder. Fast forward to a garage sale this spring, it looked pretty pitiful and needed some help. 


Before I stored it away I gave it a coat of black spraypaint, to cut the turquoise glare.  And added rusty baubles that a person could hang Christmas pretties from. 

So this week it was time to bring it out of the shed,

and do some tweaking to that black & turquoise paint job.

(don't you love how my cat photo-bombed this picture?)

I painted it two shades of green,

for kind of a camo-effect.

The greens really set off the rusty bits...

and the shiny brite ornaments.

Kind of love the mirror vibe.

It is heading to my booth as soon as I can find room for it.

Vintage Bubble Light Christmas Tree

This is probably my favorite Christmas item I picked up this year.  Which is saying a lot because there were a lot of Christmas items!

I am getting a little nostalgic because I have put it on ebay

and I will be saying goodbye to it on Saturday.

It was made by Noma company, probably in the 1950s.

Noma opened a manufacturing plant at St Joseph, MO in 1953,

so it probably never travelled very far from home.

All 17 of it's still sockets work great,

and it is easy to imagine how cool it would have looked

with bubble lights.  I hope it's next owner will

appreciate it as much as I do.

Sold for $158.

Friday's Vintage Estate Sale Finds 10.30.15

The weather is turning cold, and it is getting harder to wake up early and face the chilly fall air -- but I am totally happy that I made myself get up last Friday for a local estate sale.  I warmed up pretty fast by hoofing it back and forth from the back yard to the front yard to drop off booty in my pile.

The sale drew big crowds, I was surprised to run into my friend Marcia.

Her "man friend" was strapped by the road to direct people to the estate sale. 

 

Nothing was priced, which was a little scary.  But it was evident that the family was anxious to get the house emptied out.  And there was ALOT OF STUFF TO GET OUT.  I did my part, here are some of the things I purchased to lighten their load:

 

THREE red wagons....

more pink flamingos....

three types of lanterns...

A great old bike and metal lawn chair.

 

It is so sad that garage saling season is almost over!

Saturday's Fall Auction Vintage Finds 10.24.15

So I told you about the auction that I went to on Saturday (click HERE for post).  And wrote about the buffet that I purchased there and refurbished in two days (click  HERE  for that post.)   Here are some other items that I came home with:

hand held knife sharpener

Paid $20, sold for $50.

plaster pink flamingos

gorgeous German plates

old bike seat

wood stove finial

 

Paid $35, sold on ebay for $151.

porcelain gas sign

 

keeper green & brown spatter bowl

"Francis" Buffet Furniture Redo

When I attended last Saturday's auction (click  HERE  for post on auction) I repeatedly told myself I should not buy furniture.  Do NOT buy furniture.  DO NOT BUY FURNITURE.

Then this buffet came up for sale.  Poor timing, at the very end of the auction.  The van was already packed.  But my husband managed to put it up on top of the van.  And off the Beverly Hillbillies went once again.

I squirreled it away in the shed for the winter, like a big nut.  A "to do" project for next spring.  Then I received a phone call on Sunday saying that I had sold an unheard-of three pieces of furniture from my booth.  So, the big nut was schlepped out of the shed after less than 24 hours.

I got a great deal on it because the dark brown paint (sorry, did not get a photo of it in this condition) disguised the nice lines of the piece.  Thankfully, it was a nice solid piece that only needed cosmetic help.  I painted it a light avocado green on the exterior as the "base" color (first two photos) (as always, the paint is all chalk paint so that I didn't have to do much prep work).  I really wanted to leave the interior the dark brown, just to get the piece done faster...but I couldn't make myself do it.  The interior was painted a darker avo green.

Then I painted a light coat of a creamy white paint on top of the base light green.  That way I could do some sanding and have a good amount of the green peeking through, with a bit of the dark brown bottom layer.  And did I mention that I added the decorative backsplash all by myself?  I was lucky to have it stashed away for just such an occasion.

So, on Monday all I had left to do was the hardware (the original was SO ugly).  I had a couple nice handles, but they were slightly smaller than the originals.  So I had to drill new holes, and I bought cheapo ordinary washers to hide the holes on the outside.  The washers were too shiny for the brushed nickel handles so I gave the handles, knobs and washers a spray of hammered nickel.  Really am liking the results.

I named her Francis, because she looks a little old-fashioned and hard working.

Saturday Fall Farm Auction 10.24.15

Saturday dawned cool and clear.  Perfect fall weather and we didn't have a thing on the calendar....auction time!

It was a little hard to tell from the ad (no photos)

what type of auction to expect.

I was delighted to find a variety of animals on the farm.

A variety of junk.

(Yes, I did snap up the tulip pitcher)

It attracted a small, rural crowd.

Not to appear greedy,

but I also took home the light blue Pepsi cooler.

I was very sad to find out none of these beauties were in the sale.

You'll have to tune in at a later date to see what else I scored..