Happy New Year

Jill of beanlennon has rung in the New Year with this Etsy treasury that she titled, "happy.new.years.day!". She included my brass stencil letter Y. (mine is the Y in the word year) Jill lives in Mississippi and her shop is full of necklaces, earrings, and other items. You should check it out.

For some reason, I'm not quite ready to be done with 2010. It doesn't seem like we've had 2010 for a whole year yet. I guess that is what happens when you get older. The years start zipping by like you are standing next to the highway as the cars zoom past. My calendar is already starting to fill up.

I am wishing each one of you a wonderful 2011. You mean a lot to me. God bless!

American Pickers on Etsy

When I found out that Danielle from American Pickers had her own Etsy shop, I checked it out right away. She loves textiles and makes some great bags from reclaimed fabric items. This is one of her Pickin' Bags. A few hours after I bought mine, she was completely sold out.
When I shop the estate sales, I make a quick run-through like a rabbit to scope it out, then go like a turtle, digging through the random boxes in garages and outbuildings. Of course, I couldn't do that without my anti-bac wipes!
After I bought it, I decided that it would be nice to have her sign her handiwork. She granted my request. I like the way Danielle chose to sign it. Since it was an after-the-fact plea request, she added it using a huge eyelet.

What kind of items do you think I will score with it?

Open House on Alameda

Last night was our Open House. Once a year, all the antique shops on Alameda stay open until 9:00. There is lots of food, music, and FUN.

A couple of the shops have a universal percentage off, but at Betty's it is up to each vendor to have a sale . . . or not. Joan and I opted for not. We ran into Judy and Betty and had fun checking out the shops together.

Betty is one of the hardest-working people I know. She has three (count them, 3) antique malls in Corpus Christi. I have booths in 2 of them. Frankly, I don't know where she gets the energy. I'm pretty high energy, but Betty could run circles around me.

The food went fast. There were tons of people enjoying the huge shopping party. The brownies did not last long. They were absolutely delicious! Did someone say, "chocolate"?

Jean is owner of the Renaissance Shop. She is another with boundless energy.

This is the window that Jean did at Betty's Trash to Treasures. Even though she has Renaissance, she also has a booth at Betty's. Our booth is just to the left of this wonderful window.

Jean has started a Junk display at her counter at Renaissance and has included one of my Junk Queens to be a part of it. I feel quite honored.

This guy was awesome. He played Christmas music on his sax all evening. He really added to the festivities and could be heard all over.

Cricket stopped by our booth and we had a lovely chat. It's fun to meet your customers one-on-one. She has a shop just down the street and I plan to go check it out the next time I am in town. By the way, she got an awesome deal on those bowls. I wish that I had seen them first. LOL

Even Duggers Flower Villa on Antique Row got in on the fun. She served lumpia and jello shots. Quite a combination.

Perfect solution

I loved the gas heater when I first laid eyes on it, but it was missing one of its ceramic bricks. The chances of actually finding a replacement were slim to none. Inspiration hit me upside my head this morning when I was looking at my bird nests. Instead of filling the space with an impossible-to-find brick, why not fill it with a sweet little bird nest?

I didn't permanently attach it if someone wants the heater in its natural condition. It would be so cute for Christmas. I am planning to place this in my booth at Betty's for the Open House on Saturday.

Now for the big question: what am I going to wear??

Lighted hall tree

Yesterday, while I was standing in line at the bank, Betty from the Alameda store called me and told me that she had just sold the hall tree that I had in my booth. That makes at least 3 pieces of furniture this month. Woo Hoo!!

So what' s a girl to do? I trotted out to the workshop and made a new one this afternoon. It's made using a shutter that came from Galveston after hurricane Ike. These are kinda fun to build. I make a cornice for the top so that I can put a light in it. I am down to my last shutter. This next one will be a little harder to use. I will remove get my husband to remove the hardware off of it before I will be able to use it.

All settled

Now you see it . . .

. . . now you don't.

Yesterday, Joan and I moved out of Third Coast Antiques and into Betty's Trash to Treasures Too. This is a nice space. We were able to get an entire wall so it gives us some "presence" in the room. It has great light, electricity, and it even has a door that can be opened for bring in larger pieces or for moving in like we did yesterday.

We will be tweaking it as we go, but we were running out of time. We tried to utilize the screens that we had over at Third Coast, but they didn't work as well in this space unless we take them apart.

Since it has less square feet than the booth we had at Third Coast, we had to bring a lot of it back home. As things sell, we will be able bring it back. I enjoy doing the buying part, but probably should stop for awhile . . . if I can! That is asking an awful lot!

Big changes

It seems that when there are big changes to be made, they are rarely done when it would be the most convenient. This is certainly not the time of year for big projects, but something's got to give.

Next week, I will be moving my booth spaces around - closing one and expanding the other. It should prove to be a great thing, just difficult timing. I will get an entire wall in one of the front rooms at Betty's on Alameda. It has great natural light. I will even have outside access for moving larger items. Well, I need to gather some moving boxes . . .

Austin City-wide

This weekend, I drove up to Austin to check out the City-wide Garage sale. It's called a garage sale, but it is actually a vintage and antiques show. Since I was driving that far, I decided to go early and get an Early Shopper pass. Thing is, it was VERY difficult to get there. I was within a block of the place and they had it totally blocked off. Apparently, there was a foot race taking place at the same time.

I am so glad that I had my Garmin because I am only vaguely familiar with Austin. I headed east to MoPac and then went down Barton Springs Road from the other direction. I was able to get in just a little past 8:30 so I didn't miss too many good deals. LOL
My plan of attack was to head to the back corner, then work my way back to the front. The crowd was very light so it wasn't a big deal anyway. Many vendors were quite proud of their merchandise which is fine if you are a collector, but I buy for resale. I was to meet up with my friends Herb and Diane, but they didn't arrive as early as I did. I needed to get started.
These guys were a hoot. At least the one guy was safety conscience. The other was a bit stand-offish.
It was nice to see Cindy Messer again. We had met when I went to Canton back in July. She may have saved me from an ambulance ride. I had become over-heated and when I walked into her booth, I kind of scared her with the way I looked. She made me sit down and gave me a cold water. I had been drinking water outside, but it wasn't enough and it wasn't all that cold. She had a cool breeze going through her booth which helped a lot. She has such a dear, sweet spirit. If you are ever up at Canton, look for her in Arbor III. You will love her items.
One of the booths had lots and lots of baby dolls . . .
. . . and this was my favorite. It looked like she was saying, "Oh no, you didn't"!
Oh, but I did. I bought all of these goodies!

bald

While I was having lunch with my friend, Shirley, the downtown shop called me and told me that my booth looked kinda bald. I thought that was a cute description and definitely music to my ears. Linda said that a dealer had come in and cleaned me out. She bought my chandelier and most of my framed pieces. What an awesome birthday present! Thanks for letting me brag a bit. I'm really jazzed about it.
After my delightful birthday lunch, I scrambled to put together some items to replenish the booth. I am going to have to take my drill and masonry bit the next time I visit my shop so that I can hang my pieces better. I can't take a chance on using the Command hangers. Even with the screws, one of my items fell off in the middle of the night, setting off the alarm. Ooops!!

Blogging friends

You meet a lot of nice people while blogging and that is where I met Jan Thomason. We are both Texans, but you know how big Texas is. She lives hours away from me so we hadn't actually met until we made plans for lunch at Warrenton last week.

We have commented on each other's blogs and have kept up with each other that way. We both have sons named Clay and I told her a story about mine. When my clay was in junior high, our neighbor was having a swimming pool dug and Clayton thought that all those truckloads of dirt would make a great dirtbike jump in our backyard. I was busy in the kitchen cooking dinner when I saw this huge truck dumping a massive amount of yucky old clay on our lawn. I told Clayton we didn't need that kind of dirt in our yard. It was clay; worthless dirt. He said, "Mom? You named me after worthless dirt?" After she read that story, she signed her note to me, "Jan, Mother of Worthless Dirt". She has a great sense of humor.

We thoroughly enjoyed our IRL (in real life) meeting. Jan was out shopping with her friends Julie and Annette. It was a pleasure to meet them and share our Warrenton shopping stories with each other.

Theresa Cano hosts a wonderful blog party each season near her booth just outside of Zapp Hall. We get to meet our fellow bloggers in a face-to-face. I didn't get to make it to this last one. I had some orders that I had to rush back home to fill. Such is life.

Chatting with Carolyn and Debbie

It was a very brief chat since I was limited on time this trip. I had to get my shopping done and then zoom back home to get some special requests completed for one of my booths in Corpus Christi. I had furniture to paint and Halloween items to create.
I got to meet Carolyn Westbrook. She has a lovely book called The French Inspired Home. She did a book signing at Theresa's blog party. Her and Debbie were visiting at a cozy little table near Zapp Hall. I got to sit down with them for a brief chat and a couple of pictures.

Debbie is such a hoot. If we lived closer, we would definitely "hang out". You can visit her blog here.

Zapp Hall is Party Central

COURTESY OF PENT-UP PHOTOS

I agree with Malissa. Zapp Hall is definitely Party Central.

Malissa makes darling photos and postcards with a definite vintage feel. She was set up near Zapp Hall, too. My favorite haunt. It was very nice to meet her. It was also nice to meet her right-hand angel, Rhonda. You should stop by her blog and see what she has been up to.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID THE SNAKE LOVER

Malissa had quite a time leading up to the show. She is a real trooper. Her husband took her sick dog to the vet and ended up going into a diabetic coma. He is doing fine now, but it was a very, scary time for them.