Time for another SALE @ STARS!!

Just what you need to fend off those winter blahs!!  Shopping therapy!

STARS 5-day sale

Thursday, February 28th – Monday, March 4th

11am – 6pm ~  Both stores.

I just took in TEN BOXES of fresh product this week to ready my booths for the sales.

I brought in my beach cottage decor.

 Mermaid crowns, shell topped bottles, beachy lanterns and candles.

How fabulous is this shabby white wood trough?!?  I’ve used it to display some beach decor in, (floating starfish frames, white glittered sugar starfish and some metal bowl fillers) but you could use it for dozens of other things.  Perfect piece for the center of your farmhouse table.

I made these sweet little beach lamps.  Found the lamps at an estate sale, and filled the clear glass bases with an assortment of shells and beach glass.

These one of a kind lamps are $49.00 each.  OR $49.00 for BOTH during the sale!

The shabby beachy crates UNDER the table are for sale too!

These fishbowl beachscapes are so much fun to make.

These little ‘six section crates’ make handy little display shelves for smaller items.

Small sea glass wreaths, framed pictures and framed shells.  Beverage bottles and shell topped bottles.

Beachy wreaths and framed shells are hung on the side of my other booth.

***Helpful hint:  If you have some starfish or shells that you want to mount and frame, use a piece of sandpaper for the backing. 

Vintage ironstone creamers, sugar bowls, soup/cereal bowls and butter bells.  Vintage glass snack sets and apple shaped snack plates.

Lots more Ironstone dishes and cake stands.

I’ve added lots of newly procured vintage milk glass pieces too.

Two little pink chairs and a little pink scalloped edge shelf, perfect for a little girl’s room.  Upcycled male and female mannequins are great decor pieces.

Regular price on the male is $129.00 ($64.50 at half off during the sale)  Female mannequin is $155.00 ( $77.50 at half off during the five-day sale only)

My wall booth is stocked plentifully for the sale too!

Pretty white frames, gold glitter metal crown, big vintage jar filled with dried Hydrangea (from my very own garden!) sweet little crystal accent lamp.

Another little accent lamp, this one is an upcycled vintage Ball Mason jar, next to an upcycled vanity mirror tray.   Unique shape, narrow bird cage.  Gold cherub jewelry box and gold metal cake stand.

Little brown glass jars and itty bitty glass vials with plastic lids.  I’m really not sure what people use these little jars and vials for, but they always seem to sell well.

Vintage lamp tables.

Heavy duty set of wicker nesting tables with cast iron legs.  Priced individually at $29.00, $39.00 and $49.00; because if I priced them as a set ‘someone’ will want to buy just one of them.  Pricing them individually just makes it easier.  Of course you can buy the entire set still; you just don’t HAVE to.

50% OFF SALE PRICE FOR THE SET OF 3 IS $58.50.

There are three graduated sizes of these metal tables too, but they don’t ‘nest’.  They will ‘stack inside each other’ for transporting, but they have to be displayed individually.  (It’s kind of difficult to explain without being able to show you!)  They make nice little plant of lamp stands and are light weight enough to hang on the wall.

It’s difficult to see the second one in the picture on the left.  It’s just below the other one, and I used the third one under one of the beach lamps.

A new batch of hand crafted paper feathers, made from vintage book pages and sheet music.  I made this batch of the differently than I did the first ones.  Tutorial to follow soon.  Upcycled gold metal cloche on upcycled metal dessert stand.  Vintage cherub statues.

Get out and get yourself some BARGAIN SHOPPING THERAPY at Stars!

Time for Valentine Decor . . .

Yes, it’s still a little early to decorate for Valentine’s Day, but I hate that ’empty decor feeling’ between Christmas and Valentine’s Day.  So I stock my Valentine goods in my booth right after I take down all the Christmas.

Here’s a peek of what I’ve added to my booths at Stars so far.

I haven’t done PINK for some years, and admittedly I went a little overboard on the pink.  Pink felt hearts.  Little pink chairs.  Pink LOVE banners.  Pink mini mannequin.  Pink Love potion bottles . . .

These aqua hearts were hand made using a vintage chenille bedspread.

  Tea stained muslin cudid dolls with vintage sheet music wings.

Rustic wood hinged hearts and shutters.  Grubby ‘nekkid’ dolls.

Hand stitched red felt hearts with muslin ‘words of love’.

Lots of ‘smalls’; heart ornaments and Valentine cards made using vintage images.

~::~

Stars is open 7 days a week.

11am – 6pm.

Stocked and spruced up and ready for the Summer Sidewalk SALE at STARS!!

Stars BIG ‘Summer Sidewalk Sale’ starts Friday, August 31st and runs through Monday, September 3rd; Labor Day.

This is really one of the BEST sales of the year at Stars.  LOTS of vendors bring in ADDITIONAL inventory to set up on the sidewalk outside.  Don’t miss this sale!!

BOTH of my booths are stocked to the hilt; and as always, everything in my booths is 50% off during the sale.  Last chance to purchase my beach decor items from my wall space.  After the sale I will be converting the space to Fall decor.

I have added a few little ‘hints of fall’ to both booths . . .  just to get you in the mood for fall.  (Not that anyone needs to be enticed to ‘think fall’ after the record HOT summer we’ve had!)

Lots of vintage hobnail milk glass vases and dishes added recently; as well as regular and gold rimmed milk glass.

Vintage and upcycled beach decor.  Big surag starfish, painted white and glittered.  Little jars filled with tiny seashells or pretty beach glass.  Shells mounted on wood posts and jars.  Candle lanterns and lamps.  And of course, Mermaid crowns!!

Vintage picnic baskets, bar stool, ‘breakfast in bed’ tray, wreaths, cubby shelves, trugs and wall decor.

And that is just my little wall space!  On to my 10’x10′ booth!

No such thing as ‘too much’ when it comes to my booth!!
Vintage Fire King gold rimmed milk glass dishes and vintage Ironstone dishes are restocked and always plentiful.

Both Stars Mall are open 7 days a week, 11am – 6pm.

Timing is everything.

Remember this cute little grey chest of drawers?  It’s been forever since I had any chests to put in my booth at Stars, so I was anxious to get this one painted and taken in.

Just DAYS after I had put it in my booth, I came across this adorable little SOLID OAK  hutch top /  cubby shelf, that looked like it would be a perfect fit to set atop the grey dresser.

I went to work on it as fast as I could.  Painting it in the same grey that I had used for the chest, and distressing it.  I was SO looking forward to pairing it with that grey chest!  Alas, when I went in the following week with the grey hutch top and some additional stock for my booths, the chest had SOLD!! Bitter sweet.  Happy for the sale, of course; but disappointed that I wasn’t able to display the two pieces together.  Lousy timing!

Here are a few other pieces that I’ve recently completed:

Off white oval three tiered night stand; painted pink and distressed.  This piece is available for purchase at Pink Door in Aurora, Oregon.

I had two of these child size chairs.  The seats were made of that white ‘dry erase board’ kind of wood, which as as you can see in the before photo, was slightly damaged.  While the damage did not affect the structural integrity of the chairs; my attempts to cosmetically repair them failed.  Pretty wrapping paper and Mod Podge to the rescue!  These have not yet been taken to either of my sales venues.

  The drawers to this cubby didn’t slide very well once I had re-painted it; so I set them aside for some other project.  Cubbies with the backing already on them are extremely time consuming to paint; hence, spray paint is my go to solution for such pieces.  A little hand sanding along the edges shabby it up a bit.  available to purchase in my booth at Stars.

Continuing with the grey color scheme on this small shelf and DVD rack.  available to purchase in my booth at Stars.

 This bar stool is BIG and sturdy.  It had a glossy finish on it to begin with, so I had to either prime it or sand it before re-painting it.  I opted for primer, which gave it an added dimension when I distressed it.  Some of the distressed areas show the white primer layer and others the original dark color.  I was very tempted to stencil something on the back, but I couldn’t quite decide what, and I really NEEDED furniture in my space, so I left it plain for now.   Available to purchase in my booth at Stars.

With two of the wicker drawers missing, I opted to just remove them all.  The cubby was in fairly rough shape, and since I had just painted the other cubby white, I decided to leave this one it’s original wood; just distressed it a bit.  It’s available to purchase in my booth at Stars.

The leopard print mannequin torso needed some ‘legs’.  I had a black wrought iron base and a tall curvy plant/candle stand.  Opted for the wrought iron base as the weight of it would make her stand steadier; and besides, her skirt pretty much covers the base.  I used nearly 100 yards of tulle to hand make her fluffy black skirt.  She is available for purchase at Pink Door in Aurora, Oregon.

A couple of smaller upcycled mannequins with fluffy tulle skirts; also available for purchase at Pink Door in Aurora, Oregon.

I’m ALWAYS on the lookout for vintage gumball machines to make over and fill with ‘fun stuff’ like seashells, spools of thread, jingle bells . . . . etc.  NEVER imagined that I’d come across a silver plated one!?!?!  It really wasn’t even very tarnished and required minimal polishing.  Such a fancy gumball machine needed some fancy filling.  Acrylic gemstones to the rescue.  They look prettier in person.   Available for purchase at Pink Door in Aurora, Oregon.

Somehow I missed getting a ‘before’ picture of this one.  It was dark brown wood, that I sanded painted and sanded again to distress.  LOVE the little drawer and the ceramic rose drawer pull that I put on it.  This piece can be purchased at Stars in Portland.

Could hardly believe my good luck when I found this set of three suitcases . . . ALL of them had beautifully CLEAN innards!!  The color is difficult to tell in the photos, but it’s a very, very pale pink.  Each is priced individually; and available for purchase at Pink Door in Aurora, Oregon.

Just waiting for the weather to cool down a bit and the outside air to be ‘breathable’ so I can get LOTS more painting done.

Beach Cottage Decor now at Stars

I rearranged my wall space at Stars and put out all the beach cottage decor.

I brought in my shabby white crates to create shelves for the booth.

A couple of shabby blue nightstands tucked in there, and a white wall shelf.

A sweet vintage shabby white child’s chair and a little three legged foot stool.

Shell topped jars, shell filled jars and shell candle jars.  A little round table with a shabby white trug on top.

Distressed turquoise frames with ‘floating’ white fingerling starfish.  Some BIG sugar starfish, painted white and glittered.

A shabby vintage spice rack filled with little jars of shells and sea glass.  Some small mermaid crowns and a sugar starfish mounted atop a shabby white candle holder.

I did some rearranging and stocking of my big booth too.

Lots of stacks of old books, as always.

This giant turquoise cubby shelf is filled with vintage milk glass and Ironstone pieces.

Some additional, and smaller, cubby shelves.

LOVE this vintage chicken tureen!

I’ve added lots of this style of vintage Ironstone with the scalloped edges.

Beautiful hand painted vintage milk glass vase with gold accents and ruffled edge.  Gold glitter Eiffel Tower tags.  Little vintage vanity jars.  Old bottles and upcycled bottles with repro labels.

Vintage metal chair with new gold paint and pretty soft blue and gold Toile covered seat.

Come on by and check it all out.  The construction on the next block continues; BUT, they have not been blocking off the side street parking as much lately.

 

 

 

 

 

Nesting tables

Bought this set of wood nesting tables at an estate sale a while back.

At first I didn’t think they all actually went together, because of the different shapes; but they are indeed a ‘set’.  When the smaller tables are ‘nested’ they slide on runners that actually lift the legs slightly off the floor.  A unique feature.

I sanded off all the ‘sheen’; painted them aqua and sanded again to distress.  (I was able to do most of the distressing with an orbital sander.  Then added some stenciled designs.  Since I never actually sell a set of tables ‘as a set’

A set of ANYthing that a customer MIGHT want to buy ‘just one of’; it’s always best to price individually.  For several reasons:  a) Someone WILL ask “How much for just one of them?” whether they are actually interested in buying just one of not.  b) They can STILL buy the set for the combined price; but the store doesn’t have to waste time calling you to ask.  c) If the set gets ‘separated’ by shoppers in your booth you have items that don’t have tags and they end up in another booth!  It’s just easier to price them individually and be done with it!

I didn’t want to completely cover the tables with a design, and I didn’t have any stencils that ‘worked’ with both shapes.  Settled on these simple edge designs.

Nesting tables are GREAT to work with in your displays!  You can ‘nest’ them id space is tight.  Stack and use them like a shelf, or spread them around.

I actually only had room for the large oval one when I took then in last week.  Stacked it atop a little night stand at the front of my booth.

In the meantime, I got this other oval table put together and painted, and took it in along with the two smaller nesting tables on my next trip.

This third oval table has been in my booth for a while.  I was HOPING the newer oval pedestal table was a slightly lower height than the one already in my booth; and I knew the oval from the nesting set was shorter.  I putting them at the front of my booth, cascading from taller to shortest; with the matching upholstered chair and overstuffed foot stool sitting on top of them; along with some stacks of my grubby books.

Yippee Skippee!!!  The heights are just right!

Alas, the chair legs were a tad too wide to fit on the biggest table.  (well, the just perfectly fit . . . but could have easily been knocked off with the slightest touch.  A gamble I was not willing to take.  So the three tables ended up like this.

You can still see part of them from the front of my booth; tucked behind a couple of night stands.  As soon as something sells and I have a little more room to work with; I’ll bring the three tabled forward.

Did you notice the two smaller nesting tables on top of the tallest oval?  Once I have more room, I’ll spread those out or stack them for better visibility.

I wanted to be sure it was really well stocked going into this weekend because  . . .

I am occupied taking care of this little ball of energy this weekend while her mommy  and daddy (My son and his wife) are out of town for a friend’s wedding.

Yep!  She follows my every move.  Sleeps at my feet when I am sitting down (she’s ON my feet, under the computer desk right now!) And keeps me very entertained.

And before you ask . . .  she is a ‘Bernedoodle’.

The right place at the right time

For all those times you are disappointed because ‘just missed’ that perfect piece or missed out on a great deal . . . .

 . . . . something like THIS happens and you do your happy dance!

I don’t usually buy chairs with upholstered parts due to the high cost of new padding and fabric.  But at that great price, I could afford to make over this vintage chair.

This is pretty typical of what I’ve found on covered seats; someone has just re-covered the original tattered ugly fabric and and the worn out foam with new fabric and called it good.  ICK!!  The wood is usually fine to re-use; but if it’s in bad shape, it’s easy to use the old one as a template to cut a new one.  The hardest part of making over a padded seat is removing all the staples that are holding on the old fabric!

I had this pretty brown and blue fabric in my stash and decided to use it so I could leave the chair brown, as found.  I just gave the chair frame a good sanding to distress it though.

The new foam seat cushions usually run around $20.00; and I like to add a couple of layers of batting over the foam to protect the fabric and to add some extra ‘cush’.  I wrap the fabric over the batting and foam cushion, use a staple gun to attach the new fabric to the wood base.

By the time I’ve added up the cost of the foam cushion, batting and fabric; I’ve got about $30.00 just in materials invested in the chair.  Which is difficult to factor into the selling price if you’ve paid a lot for the chair.

I also had this little foot stool and decided to paint and cover it to match the chair.

I did NOT distress the wood base on the footstool though; because the undercoat was too dark to really show.  I used a small pillow instead of a foam pad on the footstool for a really ‘OVER-stuffed’ look.  I love over stuffed stools and chairs!

Both have gone to my booth at Stars.

BIG SALE AT ALL THREE STARS MALLS THIS THURSDAY – MONDAY, July 14 – 18.

As always during the sales, EVERYTHING in my booth is 50% off!!

The big 8 drawer blue dresser has already sold.

But my booth is still jam-packed with goodies!!

More of the ‘new blue’

Well, I guess the customers at Stars prefer the ‘new blue’ too!  Everything I painted that color has already sold!  Here’s the rundown:

You’ve already seen this piece in the previous post, but here are the details of it.  It was originally a plain dark pine stain with round wood knobs and sat flat on the ground.

I added some wood feet, because . . . . . I like stuff with feet!

Just sanded off the original varnish, painted it my new blue and sanded again to distress.  The plain wood knobs HAD to go! (although if you MUST re-use the original knobs, you CAN paint them)

I found these gorgeous bubble glass knobs at Home Goods a while ago.  I NEVER go out and buy specific knobs for a specific project.  I buy them when I find them at the right price and always have a stash of them to select from.  The old original knobs get added to the stash as well.  These just happened to have one knob missing; so only five instead of a set of 6 . . . and consequently at a reduced price!

I lined the drawer with some vintage post card wrapping paper.

And decided to line the shelves too.

I must have made the ‘right choices’ because it sold from my space at Stars in just over a week!

I also painted this old wood chair my ‘new blue’ and distressed it.

Here’s what it looked like when I bought it.  Gotta LOVE it when you find pieces that don’t need a lot of prep-work’!

The chair sold right away also.

Painted this pair of end tables with the new blue as well.

The tops were pretty badly chipped and scratched, so I did have to sand them quite a bit before I could paint; but the legs were pristine!

Love this little cut out detail on the fronts of them.

And the ‘shapely’ legs.

No two pieces will ever distress exactly the same, so don’t even bother trying to get them to perfectly match.

As long as each has a comparable AMOUNT of distressing; they will still look like a ‘matched pair’.

 I almost always price everything ‘individually’, makes the clerks job much easier and saves them and ME time.  Because IF you price items as a ‘set’ you can BET that half the people who look at it will want to know if they can buy just ONE!!  Then the clerk has to take time to call me and ask IF I will break up the set and what would the individual prices be . . . . and 9 times out of 10, the customer will NOT buy even one of them!!

So, save everyone involved a lot of time and trouble and price items separately.  UNLESS you absolutely insist that they be sold as a set.  In which case, BE SURE to make a note of that on the price tag.

For example I found a pair of matching twin size chenille bed spreads.  Chenille is always hard to find and I have NEVER found two that match.  So, since this is such a rear find, I want them to be sold together, so the new owners can really enjoy their ‘rare’ vintage find.

So, all of these items sold within WEEKS of putting them in my booth.  Now I need to find more stuff to paint.  And that ‘might’ involve bringing some of the ‘white stuff’ currently in my booth home to RE-paint!   Haven’t been finding much furniture lately on my thrifting adventures.

Recent thrifting finds

It’s nearly impossible to photograph velvet without glare!

 

Can’t quite figure out WHAT this is supposed to be?!?!

And I’m actually surprised that I liked it well enough to buy it.  I’m usually pretty anal about the ‘odd number decorating rule’ ; but the fact that this piece has four ‘towers’ doesn’t seem to bother me.

Maybe my eyes are more focused on the ‘neutral space’ (THREE!) between the towers, and that is why the four points seem to ‘work’.  I’m not even sure if it’s supposed to BE ‘something’, or if it’s just an abstract wire sculpture.  I just thought it was kinda cool looking.  Any thoughts as to what I could DO with it are welcome.  Of course I can always just sell it ‘as found’.  Was thinking of maybe painting it a matte industrial grey??

VERY water stained little oak table that was obviously used as a plant stand by someone who habitually over watered their plants!  Nothing a good sanding and some paint can’t cure though.

Wood foot stool with handle hole.  Someone had carved their name into it, so it’s going to take a really GOOD sanding before I can repaint it.

Another very grubby little table.  Little tables like these are always good sellers, so I buy them whenever I find them ‘at the right price’.

Soooooooooooooooooo generic!!  And quite a bit of sanding to be done before I can repaint it since it has a shiney finish; but the price was right.  Little night stands sell even better than little tables.   New paint and replacing the wood knob with something unique will make this a whole new piece.

Vintage wire newspaper/magazine rack.  A good cleaning and some spray paint is all this will need.

PAIR of night stands made from taking apart a big desk that had drawers on both sides.

Remember these?  Originally the two sides of a big desk, that Michael took the top off of for me.  Added new tops and new pulls to create a pair of night stands.  NOW, what to do with the desk top?!?!

Rusty old legs from an enamel top table. The top is too messed up to fix, but the base is still very sturdy.

And it’s the perfect size for attaching that orphaned desk top to!!  I wanted to KEEP the legs rusty, but not too many people wall rust shedding all over their floors or carpet.  The fix?  Clean spray paint!  Wipe off any loose rust then give it a couple of good coats of a clear matte spray varnish.  The varnish will ‘darken’ the rust color a bit.  And it prevents the rust from shedding and hinders the corrosive process.  Left untreated and the corrosion will continue to progress.

Sweet vintage vanity chair will just need to be spray painted.

Little metal mesh table looks like it was part of a nesting set as it’s ‘open’ on one side of the leg structure.  Another quick spray paint project.

Rusty, shabby  . . . perfect as is!  And my ‘inspiration piece’ to kick-start a new spring collection in WHITE!

BIG old Lazy Susan!  Do people still use these things?  This one is SO big that I figure if it doesn’t sell for it’s intended purpose, that I can always use the top and add legs to make a little round table.

Ornate gold frames.

HUGE roll top bread box!  Might try turning it into a mini roll top DESK!!

Sooooooooooooo, this should keep me busy for a while!

Latest Estate sale finds

We don’t get out to estate sales very often anymore.  It’s just too ‘hit or miss’ as to whether or not it’s worth the trip with the price of gas these days.  This is why I love estate sale companies that offer email notifications WITH pictures to preview!  Kathy’s Estate Sales  is one such company, and actually the ONLY one we ‘bother with’.  They are very nice people.  Price things very reasonably and always have GOOD STUFF!  Here’s what I found at their last sale:

Little PINK storage chest.

I had actually only opened up the TOP couple of drawers before I grabbed it to buy it.

Look what I found in the bottom drawer when I got home!!!

Ooooohhhhhhh  . . . . I am so very tempted to KEEP this one to store my craft supplies in!!

Such pretty wood grain patterns on this piece!!  The door will have to be worked on (it doesn’t close)

And there is a pretty big gouge in the veneer on the top AND it’s warped quite a bit.  (but we CAN always take the old top off and replace it)

And such pretty FEET.  You know how I love feet on furniture!

Pretty crystal drawer pull, but the pull for the door is missing.  This might be a good candidate for some of those other old pulls I got recently.

The inside of the door is pretty chewed up too.  STILL was worth it for the price we paid.  Another great thing about Kathy’s estate sales is that on the last day of the sale (usually Sunday) everything under $50.00 is half price!  And they will take bids on the higher priced stuff.

This is probably the most expensive item I have ever bought at an estate sale.  Bear in mind that I am ALWAYS shopping for items to re-sell at the antique malls; so MY top price has to be LOW enough to ‘up’ to cover rent, commission, gas and a bit of profit.

OOPS!!  A little too close on that picture, but the claws have actual GLASS balls under them.

At least THREE of them have glass balls!  This one has a wood replacement.  sigh.  Didn’t notice it at ALL until I turned it upside down at home.

Very intricate carved details on the center support post.

And legs!

And the seat rim.  It ‘used to’ be a piano seat that you could raise and lower, but it’s been changed to a fixed height.  Not sure if I should LEAVE this one as is, or paint it white or aqua??  It’s probably not a ‘collectible’ piece due to the flaws; but it’s still pretty cool looking ‘as is’.  But all those intricate carved parts would really POP if painted a light color then distressed!  To alter or not to alter?!?

Grubby little foot stool with cute feet!

Looks like it was ‘meant to be upholstered’ but just never got covered and was used for years ‘as is’.  Again, I can’t decided if I should leave it as is to sell, or upholster it?  Maybe with burlap?

LOTS of neat old frames at this sale too!

Round frame.

Oval frame.

BIG old gold frame.

In incredibly good shape for as old as it is.

Can’t really even TELL how old it is until you look at the back.

And one last frame.    I’m probably going to take these frames to the antique malls ‘as is’; since I have been finding quite a few at thrift stores lately to re-paint.