Rubber Duck Bouquet - Happy Birthday B!

One of my good friends is having a really big birthday that has an zero in it. Her words not mine. :) She is someone who has everything and really doesn't need anything. We do go out to lunch for her birthday. Being that her husband is a picky eater and I'm not, she can choose the restaurant and order whatever she wants. She has a small collection of rubber ducks so I thought it would be funny to make a bouquet of ducks for her birthday. Something silly she would find funny but not take up a lot of space. 

Craft with what you have

I picked this up at the big estate sale last week. Some how the tops broke off on the way home. It wasn't like that when I put it in my box. 

Being crafty I thought it would make a nice little vase so I couldn't throw it out. I'm slowing trimming back the lavender brushes in the front yard. The bees really like the lavender but it's time for it to be done. 

Thought my little side project turned out pretty cute!

New drying rack!

Ikea Coat Rack

I've been looking for a drying rack to hang my cyanotype and bleaching projects in the garage. 

Today coming home from Savers, I decided to use surface streets instead of getting onto the freeway. Someone must be remodeling their closet as this was out on the street. Did a couple of u-turns (it was a busy street) and I threw this into my car. It's in perfect condition and very clean. Being so light weight so I'm sure it couldn't hold a lot of clothes but it's perfect for what I need!
 

Another Brown Cow 2026

 

I get asked all the time at the store about the value of vintage items from customers. Most of the time they've already Goggled it and want to sell it for the highest price they found. I really hate to tell them the hard part is finding a buyer. Of course they don't want to do the leg work it takes to sell something online or even in person. 

Last week a man came in with a baggie of vintage uranium glass. Yes, he had four pieces in a baggie. He wanted to know if it was worth anything. It was an usual pattern (clover pattern) and glowed green. It was his late wife's collection. I had a lot of questions about it, only because it was a pattern I've never seen before.  

1) How big was the set?

2) Did he have the serving pieces?

3) Willing to sell things individually? 

4) Condition of the pieces?

It turns out it was only the four (salt shaker, sugar, creamer and a chipped wine glass) that were in the baggie. The rest of the dishes were broken when they moved to California. As a thank you, he gave me the sugar and creamer. He kept the salt shaker just as a memento of his wife's family collection. 

The next day he dropped of this cow and I'm guessing it was a thank you to Tami for helping him out. We all know I collect brown spotted cows so it came home with me. Now I'm very curious what else his wife collected!

Life of a Reseller - Cast Iron Cauldron

I've been visiting HomeGoods since they have a tons of Halloween out. I like the Johanna Parker line that is vintage inspired. I'm guessing the image trademark has expired but I still like that look. I'm not buying any because flipping them in my area isn't worth it. 

Today I went in looking for rechargeable wall sconces that don't need to be hot wired. It would nice to have in my bedroom but not really necessary. The first department I went to was the lighting section. Found two that were just ok in the clearance section. Tossed them into my cart. I walked around the Halloween sections several times and then talked myself out of getting the lights. I went to put them back and I found this cast iron cauldron (it's the real thing) just sitting with the lamps. I know it wasn't there when I first arrived. There was no hesitation, it went straight into my cart! It's up for sale at CCB but I won't be sad if it comes back home to add to my collection. :) 

 

Estate Sale Etiquette

This was used as a night light in one of the guest rooms at the last estate sale. It was passed by everyone, even the people that flipped over all the mattresses. This was the first time I saw people check the mattress which wasn't that bad, but not putting them back in place was just rude. 

I thought I could up-cycle the little frame so it came home with me instead of going into the dumpster. I'm guessing it's a scene of San Francisco. So far I like it as a night light so it may be a while before I switch it up to something else. :)


 

Bleach Printing

 

I did a little running around today looking for a beach ball. I want to make a giant eye ball for Halloween but it's not the season for beach stuff. I got lucky at Michael's and found some at 70% off! It's not as big as I wanted but it was all I could find. 

When I got home I decided I really had to give the bleach printing a try. I have all the parts so there is no excuse. My first attempt didn't go well. That the first picture. So with trial and error this is what I learned. 

1) I used a 50/50 mix of water and bleach. Lined the inside of the shirts with cardboard to keep the bleach from leaking to the other side. 

2) Remove the lace as soon as your done spraying the beach on.

3) Go lightly and don't over spray and soak the garment.

4) Let it sit for 5-10 minutes or until you get the look you want.  The black shirt took the bleach super fast. The denim shirt took a little longer. 

5) I threw everything (including the lace table cloth) in the washing machine and used the quick wash cycle. It was super hot today so I just hung everything up to dry. 

I'm going to keep experimenting on the denim shirt and see how far I can go until it falls apart. :)

Life of a reseller

I'm not the type of person that sleeps in. My body just wakes up early and my mind gets going. This morning was the first time neither happened until 9:30. Yes, that's late for me. Guessing my body is just decompressing.

I'm still process things I've gotten from two estates and things that came back from my camping trip. Things have stacked up on my cyanotype (sun printing/bleaching) table in the garage so that's high on my to do list to get cleared off. 

I also had to update my booth at Cottage Crafts as we're switching to the holiday season. My booths don't focus on the holidays too much but a lot of different customers come in so it's good to have fresh inventory. 

The pictures are some of the things I picked up at the last estate sale. I look for interesting things that will add a little interest to my booth. The bubble vase is French and very heavy. It retails for around $250, which surprised me! The ashtray looking bowl is Murano with real gold swirls. It was cover in so much dust it got passed over by everyone at the estate sale. Didn't help that is was in a very dark dining room with no lights.

The aluminum wine glasses are MCM, no really value other than looking cool. 

Think it would look nice on a vintage wine bar. 

I picked up the small painting just to fill a space in my booth. It was more the frame than the painting. Very old school looking. If I find the right artwork I'll switch it out for something more interesting. Maybe even a small mirror. 

 

Life of a reseller

I dragged these out of a rat infested crawl space with high hopes I would also find a Santa. A Santa would sell better even with damage.

It was very hot and dusty with a whole lot of rat activity everywhere. Blow molds can't handle extreme heat. They become very brittle and will break just looking at them. Knowing I would have to wash and disinfect these I had to pass. Getting them out into the daylight, I knew I wouldn't be able to clean them without them falling apart.  It was also very sad to see all the boxed Christmas village sets in the crawl space heading off to the dump. The boxes looked in good condition (no chewed corners) but again with all the rat poop there was going to be a lot rat pee on everything. Right after this I had to go home to shower and wash not only my clothes but my shoes too!

Life of a reseller - urban legend

Did I manifest this?

People joke about finding a suitcase full of money all the time. Well this past week that's what happened as I was prepping for the estate sale. I'm talking about maybe $20k - 30k! It was a "holy sh*t " moment when I opened up the suitcase. Yes, I turned it all into the estate person in charge. 

This wasn't the only $$$ I found. We had been asked to find the dad's Rolex watch. It didn't turn up so I asked my psychic friend if she knew where it was. She said it was behind some boxes on a counter but it left the house the week before in someone's pocket. We checked the bathroom counter anyways (there was a shoe rack on the counter) and found a  big bag of cash! Large yellow envelope with about $400 in new $2 bills from the 70's. It still had the bank band around it. 

Then during the estate sale I thought the kitchen cabinets had been sorted out but they weren't. So I opened one of the corner cabinets and found where all the sterling silver was stored! Two large candelabras and several smaller pieces. That was another "holy sh*t" moment!

The only down side was I locked the briefcase tonight thinking the numbers showing was the combination, well it wasn't. But it did get me wondering why wasn't it locked and why doesn't the name on the airline label match the dad's name? So I took the suitcase to a psychic friend to get her reading on it. I said finding all this money and valuables in random places made me think (sense) that he did some things under the table. Not saying illegal, but just a little shady. Her take on it was he lived a double life. He was a courier of what we're not sure (probably money) but the suitcase/briefcase was used a lot. The suitcase gave off a happy partying feeling, lots of drinking and laughing. 

Update - The silver coins I found came in at $50k!

Pumpkin Evny

I really really wanted to buy these over sized Martha Stewart pumpkins today! At $60 a pop, I had to walk around the store several times. Doing the math on what I spend on real pumpkins, they would have to last at least a few years. Not sure how well they would handle the bright California sun. Plus getting them up in the attic would be an issue. The check out line at TJ Max was so long, like 30 people, I decided I would pass. Doesn't mean I'll stop thinking about them! :) 

 

Life of a reseller

One of the reason I like helping out at estate sales is seeing the good stuff first. The family does go in and take what they want before the sale. My job is to get rid of the junky stuff that won't sell for the haulers to take away. Then set up the house for the sale. 

I'm always on the look out for artwork, especially for my son's house. Has to be interesting and sort of in theme of Lake Tahoe. While I was clean up the office, this 3D map was buried under a pile of papers. I knew right away that was a keeper. I didn't have good cell service at the house so I just had to guess my son would like it. That was a nice surprise but that wasn't the biggest surprise. Have to wait until the sale is over before posting about the urban legends that are true.