flea market friday

here's some yummy eye candy of the treasures i procured from the flea market

love these Dresden ballerinas. i have 5 of them now.
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i think this little book was handmade for a dollhouse. it is really cool!
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these are curtains and i just love them. think i'll put them up in my bedroom
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nice linen haul today. i got this lovely curtain panel (left side sort of a faded torquoise/aqua color. it is very pretty and high quality material. also got a couple of really old table runners with exquisite patterns on them.

vinette by the front door

here's a little vinette i created and it is really easy to do, so if you feel inspired to create your own, it took me about 15 minutes. of course, i have the resources in my own backyard to go cut holly, berries, pinecones and evergreens. we took the dogs and made a little trip to the back field and snip these items, collected pine cones, yelled at Gracie for running off, oh and looked for birds nests. we found one which jeff wrangled out of some sticker burrs and then i took all the findings and starting laying them out around this old farm table (bought for $5 years ago!). the wreath you see in the back of the picture, we got at the flea market this morning and the same with the rusty old truck (which had been in a fire). i fell i love with the truck the second i saw it. it reminded me of jeff telling me how when he was little, he use to bury his toys in his backyard. so i told him, we are going to tell people that you buried this truck when you were little and we recently dug it up! in the first picture, you can see the darling little bird nest in the cab of the truck. in the second picture, i decided to add some vintage ornaments also purchased at the flea market this morning.

don't have these kind of items? well, let's get creative and see what else you have to substitute!

here's a picture of sweet Kirby on our walk today. she was very helpful.

My friend, Abbie, created my new avatar, featuring one of my icons. isn't it great? i just love having a handy computer friends!

here are a few grungey, shabby chic items we picked up at a garage sale and flea market. under the plants and birdhouses in the picture below sits a gorgeous blue wrought iron bench, some cool old screens & shutters and a fabulous old shabby chic shelf which immediately found a home on my front porch. the smaller old metal screens i would like to use in a jewerly display somehow.

getting away - part one

this was our first flea market stop at Renninger's. apparently people like to get there at 5am as we were told to bring flashlights. we opted to get up at 6am and get there after our coffee stop. it was a true antique market, not a flea market with lots of junk for cheap. we made a few purchases there, but not many. this little doggie, Wolfgang, was strapped around his owner in a sheet. Wolfgang is 14 years old and loves the attention he receives when he is out. later at another antique store, we had the pleasure of bumping into Wolfgang again. you should see the ride he gets to cruise around in!

This was the best place we stopped, Schupp's flea market. i think it was an old campground at one time. very cute and quaint.

well after much coordinating and arranging for extra help for Tucker, we managed to get away for an overnight away from home. jeff and i haven't been away together in over a year and a half. it's just too hard too coordinate with help and if dillon has things going on, etc. so this time, i put it on the calendar, arranged the help (telling them no one could have the day off) and telling dillon that he had to be here with no plans to tend to the animals. we drove 2 hours away to Adamstown, Pennsylvania, "antique captiol of the world" - so they boast! there were so many antique stores, they weren't kidding! some of them i found very pricey and others were reasonable and willing to work with you a little bit. we also went to a couple of flea markets. but they were true antiques and very expensive. accidently we found this other flea market that was more our style and the prices were great. we ended up buying a couple of birdhouses made by a Mennonite couple that the seller was proud to tell us that the houses had a roof made from "german siding". we weren't sure what exactly that meant, but the roofs are tin and this gorgeous green color. good enough! we also got this really cool mini saw horse/bench thingy that i will most likely be using in my shows for display. there was another vendor who had these awesome display things, but rudely told me "they aren't for sale" (like he had to tell people that all day - okay, so put NFS on them and be done with it!) this morning we got up really early and hit Renninger's flea market. it was cool, but very pricey and lots of dishes and glassware - not my favorite thing to look at. at Renninger's i bought 2 boxes of vintage valentine's day cards that i thought i would use next year. i also got 2 bigger frozen charlotte heads and an awesome old "doll purse". i got a box of vintage fabric squares (think "inchie-ish") that someone started for some project, but never finished. i thought they'd be great charms for some project. we also got an awesome box full of very old children's blocks. i like to use them with my cworky dolls. the next flea market we hit was "Stoudt's". It was not very exciting at all. hardly any vendors and was very expensive. i did find a few little bisque dolls (with movable arms) and i did manage to get a pretty fair price on them. i will use them in jewelry pieces. next we hit another flea market called, Shupp's. i really liked this one. the location looked like an old campground. it had tents everywhere where the vendors set up. it was deeply wooded and quite charming to walk around in. although here and there it had these random wooden carvings that i couldn't quite figure out (like 3 dogs, a dragon, a friar, John Lennon in a "sgt. pepper's costume" (Huh?). here i got some cool old drawers, 25 tins type photos for next to nothing and some great keys. also (and this is so unlike me) - my friend, Kim, will be pleased, i bought some deer antlers. i thought i would hang my vintage hats on them, but then jeff had the suggestion of using them in my show booth to hang jewerly. like that i dea! finally we hit a few more antique stores where i found 4 awesome green crackley shutters and a beautiful old green wooden highchair. enjoy the pics!

this is what our car looked like when we were on our way home!

flea market friday

today Mary Ellen and i headed off to the flea market. we got there around 9:00am and it was already cooking (as in hot!) the sun was beating down on our necks. the flea market was okay today. no major scores. picked up a few odds and ends, nothing picture worthy though! i did pick up this painting that jeff and i had seen a few weeks ago,but when we asked about it the lady said, she decided not to sell it since her sister painted it. so then i saw it again today and said, "hey what's the deal, you selling this painting or what?" the lady just kind of looked at me so i continued and said, " well, the last time i was here i wanted to buy this painting and you said no". so she said, she had decided to go ahead and sell it. so i bought it. Her sister, Linda, now deceased, painted it in the 70's some time. i just think it is really sweet and love the colors. it is hard to tell from the picture, but it has some nice crackle/aging to it. it's a good size painting too, measuring 3 feet by 2 feet.