MORE Christmas in my booth at Stars

Took the rest of my Christmas goods to Stars this week.

Both of my spaces are fuller than full!

Plenty of vintage white Ironstone dishes in my wall space.

 Unique hand crafted gift boxes, perfect for that ‘little gift’ or gift cards.

Hand painted Christmas signs, red glass jar lanterns come with a battery votive and SO CUTE little vintage style car with tree on top ornaments.

Trees.  Trees and MORE trees!  Bottle brush trees in just about every size and color; mounted on unique vintage bases: candle holders, tart tins, glass vials filled with ‘snow’, spools of thread and cherub candle holders!

‘Snowfolk’ made from vintage salt and pepper shakers are making an encore appearance this year; but it will be their final year.  Get them while you can.  Bottle brush trees and snowmen are the perfect winter decorations to leave out after Christmas and before you decorate for Valentine’s Day.

Vintage crepe paper rosette ornaments also make wonderful package toppers.

Vintage sheet music rosette ornaments with classic Christmas color adornments of red, gold and silver.

Both Stars malls are open 7 days a week; 11am – 6pm.

Give unique vintage and upcycled gifts this Christmas.

Quick Change

Well, not really all THAT quick (it took me three hours), but a considerable change in my booth layouts.

My original ‘plan’ to put in a completely new vignette in my little wall booth has been abandoned.  I’m not abandoning the space, just the idea for changing it out.  Why?

My thought process in deciding to change it up monthly was that it was a small enough space and it would be fairly easy to do so.  It was a LOT more work than I had anticipated.    Not that I necessarily eschew hard work, but it was getting to be too much for my ‘bad back’ to handle.

AND the aisle along the back is much narrower than the central aisles.   It was next to impossible to move stuff around without blocking the aisle for shoppers to traverse.  So I decided to put mostly small items in my wall booth.  Small stuff is easier to stock without getting in the way of shoppers.

Fortunately for me, the owner scheduled a ‘dealer work shift’ Saturday, which gave dealers 3 hours to work without any customers.  I took advantage of that time to move the big metal rack from my big boot to the wall space.  Which sounds fairly simple, but it was a pretty big undertaking.

First I had to empty and move four shelves on the back aisle side of my big booth in order to access the big metal shelf.  Then I had to empty the metal shelf.  Move the stuff that was in the area of the wall booth where I was going to put the metal shelf; then move that big heavy shelf to the wall space.  Put all the product back on the metal shelf.  Figure out where I wanted to put the four shelves I had moved out of the way.  Then figure out where to put the stuff I had taken from the wall space!  Believe me, I needed every MINUTE of the three hours allotted for us to work without any interference.

Normally I have what I am going to do with my booths pretty well thought out ahead of time.  As soon as I decide to take a new piece of furniture in, I start thinking about where I will put it and how I will move things around.  So I had measured ahead of time and knew where I was going to move the big metal shelf to, but beyond that I just drew a blank.  Had to ‘wing it’ this time.  I’ll be changing this up again next week when I take the leftover Christmas product from the show in, and pull the last little bit of fall left.

It feels SO much bigger without that metal shelf in the middle!

Took these two cute little upcycled tables in last week.

The bottom photo here is the space where the big metal shelf used to be.  Haven’t quite decided what I want to do there.  This will do for fine for now though.

Some pretty vintage liqueur bottles.  Perfect for putting homemade liqueurs for gift giving in.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Time for another great SALE at Stars Antique Mall!

They call this one their ‘Haggle Sale’.  Many dealers are on site during the sale dates, and welcome haggling for better prices on the items in their booth.  I am not personally able to be there during the sale, so I just offer 50% off EVERYTHING IN MY BOOTH during the sale.  It’s a great time to grab that piece you’ve had your eye on for a while now!

THE SALE RUNS FRIDAY, 1/12 – MONDAY, 1/15, 2017.  HOURS 11AM – 6PM

I just stocked lots of new inventory, including Valentine gifts and decor.  

LOTS of different colors and styles of hand stitched felt hearts, in various sizes.  Prices start at $3.00 and go up to $29.00, with a median price of $5.00.  Most of them with little ‘words of love’ added to them; but also some ‘not Valentine specific’ hearts that could be used year round with vintage buttons or just simple embroidered designs.

Other vintage and upcycled Valentine items too.  ALL 50% off during the sale.

LOTS of furniture too; mostly white and aqua / turquoise.  ALL 50% 0FF during the sale.

And, as always; lots of vintage Ironstone dishes, vintage Milk glass dishes and vases and frames.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HAPPY SHOPPING!

HAPPY SAVINGS!

My NEW Baby!!!

Isn’t she absolutely adorable?!?!?!

This is a picture I found on-line since I am still cleaning mine up.  But I found this EXACT mixer with the two matching bowls at the thrift store today.  The biggest bowl has a chip in it though.

I have wanted a ‘pretty’ stand mixer; pretty enough to leave sitting out on the counter, for as long as I can remember.  And it works!!  But I can’t get the beaters out?!?!?  Even Michael tried to no avail.  I looked around on-line for old instruction manuals (it’s a 1950’s version) to see if there was a secret to getting the beaters out.  No luck there either.

Finally cam across a you-tube video of how to use the juicer attachment (which I do not have).  Decided to watch and see if maybe they showed how to remove the beaters.  They just pulled them out!  But they were hard to get out in the video too.  So, maybe I’ll be able to get them out after I get it all cleaned up.  Lots of ‘grease marks’ all over it to clean.

I’M SO EXCITED ABOUT MY PRETTY NEW MIXER . . . . . . AND MY NEW HOME THAT I WILL BE TAKING IT TO IN LESS THAN A MONTH!!

Yep!  I finally found a place. . . . AND it has an attached garage!  Hallelujah for that garage!!  So, now it’s full steam ahead on the packing.

Seems like I have been ‘packing and purging’ for forEVER already.  feels so good to finally have an end in sight.  And I can’t wait to make the new place ‘my own’ and share the pictures and progress with you all here in my blog.

I’ve been heavily stocking my space at Stars in anticipation of my upcoming move.

I’ve got it full enough right now that I shouldn’t need to take in any more inventory until after I get moved.  All the furniture in my booth is stacked 2-3 pieces high, so I’ll just lower the stacks as things sell, and rearrange and tidy up every week as needed.

Took in a HUGE stack of frames last week!

Some really BIG gold frames, behind the big distressed framed chalk boards.

A few ‘word cloud’ chalk boards; but the more popular name for these seems to be ‘speech bubbles’.  Great fun to use for photos at parties.

A couple of vintage styled dry erase boards.

And still MORE frames!

Here is a better look at a grouping of white and gold distressed frames that are a bit hidden in the above pictures.

It’s been ages since I’ve had a lot of frames in stick so they are bound to sell quickly!

How cute is this vintage pair of suede shoes!?!?

One of a kind teddy bear lamp that I made.

Over-stuffed ‘granny’ foot stool.

And a couple more vintage foot stools; newly reupholstered.

I’ve built up quite the collection of vintage cream pitchers and sugar bowls.

And plenty of ‘butter bells’.  I LOVE my butter bell.  Keeps the butter nice and soft and FRESH without refrigeration.

And look at this CUTIE PATOOTIE mini butter bell with it’s mama!!!

Replenished the vintage Milk Glass dishes.  The gold rimmed ones are SO pretty!

Milk glass bowls and custard cups.

Pretty scalloped Milk Glass fruit cups and a creamer.

Gold rimmed serving bowl and a lace edge Milk Glass candy dish.  I’ve got several of the candy dished in this small size and a larger size.  Perfect for your party candy buffet!

Adorable Milk Glass egg cups.

LOTS of vintage Ironstone in stock too.

Dessert / Hors d’ourves size stoneware plates for your next party.  So much nicer to use than paper plates.

And of course Ironstone BOWLS.  Bowls always seem to sell the fastest.

And I’m well stocked on several sizes and styles of stoneware bowls and ramekins.

Including these extra BIG Ironstone soup/cereal bowls.

Plenty of white Ironstone canisters, utensil crocks and covered casserole dishes too.

Several sets of white stoneware napkin rings too!  Chickens, bunnies, kittens and plain ones.

And for those warm summer nights when you want to languish on the patio . . . this big rusty rooster is a candle lantern! One wing lifts up to place a candle inside.

So, fret not if you don’t hear much from me for the next month or so.  I’ve got a few posts ‘written and ready to publish’ saved up so I’ll have SOME new content to add.  But I’m going to be pretty much buried in bubble wrap and boxes for the next month.  Wish me luck!

HOW hot is it?!?!?

It’s so HOT that I just burned my hand opening the car door!!  And it’s not even the ‘hottest part of the day’ YET?!?!  Ack!!!  I though I was going to work outside, painting sign boards today.  101 degrees is just too much for me to work in, even in the shade!

Not only is it early in the day to be getting this hot already, it’s quite early in the SUMMER for us to get this hot here in the Pacific Northwest.  We had a string of 90-100 degree days the end of June; then it cooled off a bit for 4th of July week.  Used to be that it never got this hot until August, and only for maybe 3 days.  sigh.  If I wanted this kind of heat, I’d move back to California!  Thank God for air conditioning and popsicles!

I am finally getting more display shelves painted and in place in my booth at Curiosities.

Took these 2 shelf units in a couple of weeks ago.  The bases are from an old display at Stars; an end table cut in half.  Michael added some 2×2’s for back legs and I painted them to match the shelves.  Raising the ‘plain ole box shelves’ up one legs really dresses them up nicely, AND is quite practical.

You  want to get your displayed items as close to eye level as possible.  Stuff that you put on the bottom shelves typically does not sell very well. (so be sure to ROTATE it to higher shelves!)   With the pretty curved legs of these shelf bases, the product under the shelves is nicely ‘framed’ and more noticeable than if it was just a bottom shelf.

By putting the taller shelves on the outer corners, and lower items beside helps draw the eye to the center . . . welcoming shoppers to ‘come inside’.

You also want to ‘be aware’ of what your booth entry is ‘framing’.  What items it draws your eye to at the back of your booth.  I don’t ALWAYS remember to display with that in mind.  Looking at pictures helps me notice things like that which may go unnoticed when I ma there in person.  It’s a continual process!  As soon as something sells, everything has to be rearranged!

THIS inward facing display is my nest ‘target’.  I want to get rid of the crates for shelves on the INSIDE to the booth; and this is the last  of them.

I will continue to use the crate shelf system on this outer facing wall where I predominately have primitives on display.  Not sure how long I’ll continue to stock the primitive stuff.  Really depends upon how well it sells!  

I’m not entirely ‘sold’ on how the transition from primitive to cottage works at this corner.  But then I also don’t have any BETTER ideas right now.  So, I’ll just ‘let it ride’ for a while as I focus on the inside of my booth; then see how I feel about it then!

Last week I got rid of SOME of the crates inside the booth; replacing them with this shelf.  will be adding another shelf this week.  These are ‘raised’ up off the floor and sitting on a bench to get the product closer to eye level.

Reconfigured the outer crate wall a bit to incorporate the crates I took from the inside.  I KNOW I have too much stuff sitting on the floor in this display!  And NONE of it has sold!  But I can’t stand bare spots in my display.  So, I just occasionally rotate it to higher shelves!

Took in some more cow pitchers and creamers.

Pretty stoneware with gold rim bowl and pitcher set.

Little nests with eggs.

MORE white pitchers and creamers.

Altered pickle jar and a gallon jar filled with blue and aqua spools and balls of thread.  Cat topped cloches and cat creamer.

A couple of upcycled cloches.

Upcycled bird finials (the ‘how I did it’ post coming soon!)

Several bags of rag balls and thread cones and spools to use as jar or bowl fillers.

My additional space at Stars

All move into my additional space at Stars.  It’s a small 3′ x 8′ space along the back wall, just to the left of my bigger existing space:

I’m utilizing this space for a lot of my smalls right now; decluttering the bigger space a bit to better show off the furniture pieces.

Lots of great vintage stoneware and white dishes.  

 

 

 

Also moved my spinner rack full of stationary goods to the space.

This rack is JAM-PACKED with goodies.  Be sure to give it a spin and take a look.  Lots of great little, inexpensive gift items, journals, note cards, hand stamped tags, even little decorated carry-out gift boxes.  Pretty wire edge ribbon and vintage paper shred in the basket below.