I Am Consumed With My Treasures

After Estate Sailing and Tag Sailing, I am totally consumed with the new found treasures.  From research to shipping, I love it all, but it ends up taking time from the other things I love - Blogging!  

Here are some more of our finds from a few weekends ago:  This trip was extra special because my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter came on the adventure too!

Vintage Religious Items - One of our specialties

Arched Mirror With Gesso or Carved Flowers

Stuben-Like Tear Drop Glasses - Can you see the tear drop in the stem?

Etched Quadruple Silverplate Creamer

Etched Quadruple Silver Plate Sugar Bowl

There are a few more things, but a little bit of clean up is needed before the pictures.  

Stay Tuned For My Guest Blogger - Coming Soon!

I Went On A Treasure Hunt ~ Look What I Found!

As I've said before, this Blog was originally started to be All About Vintage in my Pink Victorian Dream Home, and I got sidetracked.  As promised, here is more of the VINTAGE.


I LOVE VINTAGE anything, and I love to use some of my vintage finds in everyday life.  There is a timeless beauty to the pieces; even the simplest item or design holds a piece of magic.



So here are some of the Vintage Finds that I've kept to use in my home, and to give YOU some ideas on what you can do with these easy to find, inexpensive items.

These are white pieces (milk glass or not), that are being collected for #1.  You can use any piece as a planter, or put a plant on the plate as a water catcher.  You could also add some pebbles or buttons to the planters and place votive candles on top.

           Vintage Aunt Jemimah Syrup Bottles and 

an old Toaster

Just pieces I liked, and placed on top of our cabinets.

 A clear glass compote leftover

from when we sold at the flea market

(same as Aunt Jemimah and the Toaster), that we use as a fruit bowl, or trifle bowl; we have others that we place plants in.  The saucers were priced anywhere from .25 cents to $1.00.  I use these as dishes

to feed Molly (the Chihuahua), to hold potted plants, paint palletes when I'm crafting, or to make some tiered platters.

Little Miss Molly

Remember Lazy Suzanne's?  We never had one at our house when I was growing up, but some friends did, and I thought it was the neatest thing.  Picked this up for $2.  The napkin holder is adorable, a pain in the neck to put the napkins in, but I Love it anywhere.  I think I got that at a rummage sale.

Shrek's Stein Collection

Vintage Decanter, Cocktail Mixer and Mini Binoculars
(These are some of Shrek's favorites, and I'm not
allowed to sell them)

Well I was hoping to include pic's of the puppy(ies), and more stuff, but afternoon got away from me and some of the pic's posted sideways :(.  But that makes for another post coming soon!  Next on the list - Checking out Estate Sales for this weekend!

Welcome to FibroFog

This morning, I was talking to my Bestie "Queen Colleen" (my granddaugter when she said Aunt Colleen, it sounded like Queen Colleen, and it stuck...it is also quite befitting) while I was trying to help my granddaughter get ready for school.  "go brush your hair, pancakes or chocolate chip waffles (frozen), all while the Queen was on speaker, AND I was the one trying to talk to her.  Wasn't working out too good.  My mind was so confused, I couldn't get out what I wanted to say, couldn't get the pancakes in the toaster.  I was DAZED and CONFUSED.  Thank goodness I can laugh about it now, but in the beginning days of my Fibromyalgia, I didn't laugh too often at this stuff.  Of course my bestie said "Annie, you can call me back...we don't have to talk right now, as she laughed".  She could definitely tell I was in a "STATE" of "MIND".

Anyway, grandaughter walked to school in the nice cool (cold) fresh New England Air and a trip to the basement to unearth some of the things I have left over from my flea market booth so I can sell on ebay.  That meant three flights of stairs to  get to my haven.  My brain litterally feels fuzzy and spongy and my hands and legs are shaky.

Can Anyone Relate?

So it's bed, heating pad on the feet, laptop on the lap, and switching between Auction Hunters and AMC Movie Desperate Measures.

I'll shut up in a minute.  I tend to digress (thanks to my ADD) and I love to think and get things off my mind, so...here's my last bit:  One of My Pet Peaves

When friends and acquaintances, who don't really "GET" Fibromyalgia, say, "I wish I could stay in bed and watch TV all day."

Not sure about my other Spoonies, but seriously, 'NO YOU DON'T.  Not when you don't have a choice of whether you do it or not.

FINALLY BACK IN THE EBAY GAME!

     A long, long time ago (when I can still remember...) when I was about 18 my love of vintage things came back to the surface. A woman I babysat for had old, colored bottles that glistened beautiful colors as they sat on the window sills in her farm house. (This was the original farm house, The Jones Farm, that our 7 acres were on) She would walk the stone wall to find the “dumping place” and there she would find these bottles. How exciting – treasure hunting for things from the past. So I found books on collecting old bottles learned a lot, started going to the local flea market, and mentioned to my mom how I'd like to sell antiques. She told me that there are people that have done that for years, and their families have been selling for years, so they have much more experience and knowledge than I do. I love my mom dearly, but my parents were definitely the realistic type. So I went to community college and became a secretary.

     Being a secretary did serve me well. I had a lot of great jobs, and built half a career in credit and collections for a large company until I became a stay at home mom when #3 arrived. I digress a lot...oooppss....anyways

     Somewhere along the line I got the bug to run a small business. Tried MLM's, direct sales, etc. and somehow I decided to sell vintage and collectible items on ebay and the flea market that just opened up in town. This led to doing a few house clean outs and going to auctions to find “stuff” to sell. That was it! I Had The Bug! I fell in love with being able to buy something at auction, or obtain it doing a house clean out and then selling it at a profit. I got to buy old “stuff”, admire it, hold it, wonder who it came from, and then make some money when I sold it. Could it get any better than that?

     We had an eclectic array of vintage items which our customers loved and each week they looked forward to seeing what new items we would bring in. Some things just had to be sold on ebay to get a better price. Along the way we met other seller's; some who were nice and taught me so much, others who were more leery in sharing their knowledge. I could spend hours going through books and researching items on line, without tiring from it (except my eyes!) Getting up each morning and being excited to get to work on my stuff was a great feeling. After three years, I found the balance of what to buy to sell, what expenses weren't needed, what Items to sell at the flea market, and which ones to sell on ebay; I had just broke even. At that time, “realistically”, I had to go back to work. Booooo!

     I never lost the yearning to go back, but with 5 kiddos, 2 grandkiddos (a husband) and working, it just wouldn't work. Now that I'm home with the Fibro, and missing my job, I'm just getting back into it. This is something that I absolutely LOVE and can do at my own pace. Even when the FM is kicking my butt, the fact that I love my “stuff”, I can push a bit to work on it, can do it at my own pace without letting anyone down, and it gives me great enjoyment and a feeling of accomplishment. Important things to a spoonie.

I Collect Mary's - She's a little chipped, but I love her colors

Blue Hamper to re-purpose

Pink Can to re-purpose

     So, back in October Shrek and I went to an estate sale. Found soooo much fun stuff! Some things for re-purposing like the vintage blue hamper, and this pink can that I have no idea what it was used for and a whole lota vintage Catholic medals, scapulars, funeral cards, statues and pictures. I Love going through the stuff. I don't usually find a strong desire to keep things; it's relatively easy for me to sell the items that I love. It took me till mid January to start writing the descriptions, and last week to take the pictures, and finally posted them on ebay last Sunday. It helps brighten my day to watch how things are going, and until I sell this stuff, I can't go to any estate sales, so even more incentive to get things rolling! Check out my “stuff” at http://www.ebay.com/sch/carms47/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25&_trksid=p3692 . Ebay ID Carms47

Great Vintage Fabric~

Here's One On the Cuff

A little delayed on getting the pictures of my favorite pieces that I kept from our Flea Market Days taken and uploaded. As I was taking pictures, though, my heart was racing, and butterflies floated in my stomach as I gathered all the pieces to take the pictures....I look at them every day and take them for granted, so it was nice to raise that passion again. Pictures Tonight!

Just started doing research on one of the sections I'll be blogging on - Route 10 / 202 Antique and Collectible Shops (Thinking of a catchy name for it, though!)...there are 5 Shops within a 20 mile stretch right on Route 10/202 (and I've been to 4) ! That's not including another 5 or more less than a mile off the main path. So keep your eyes open to come on a kind of virtual road trip with me .... Coming Mid-April.