Garage Sale Heaven!

Today was Woodbury's annual Lions Club Garage Sale...literally hundreds of Woodbury residents set up shop in their garages and sell everything you can possibly imagine. Tom and I have made it a tradition of taking Friday off (that's the first day so you get the best selection) and we (ok "I") found lots of treasures. My favorite find was the vintage sequin and felt Santa and Snowman ornaments...I discovered these beauties in one of the community churches. Tom's loot is pictured way in the back...he found some old MN Twins Wheaties boxes for $1 each. Oh, I also found two bundles of vintage hankies, each bundle had about 20 hankies each and guess what I paid for each bundle...25 cents! I also got a bunch of really old books for FREE, vintage yard tools for 25 cents each, vintage games, puzzles, vintage jewelry, vintage linens, lots of vintage Christmas goodies, a few vintage cookbooks and a fantastic old desk that Tom managed to talk the sellers into taking a measley $25 for. I'm in garage sale heaven!

And this little find is for my sister...my photography skills are pretty sad, this picture is much prettier in person
I recently joined a swap group and this is my first completed swap project. We were to find a little something at a thrift shop and alter it. My swap partner happens to like Victorian things so I hope she likes this...and I hope she doesn't read my blog because it won't be much of a surprise if she sees it before it arrives in the mail.

I like the way it turned out so much that I may make a few to sell in my Etsy shop.

"Thank you for your service"

Shelby and I spent most of last Saturday at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds where they were holding the annual spring Antique and Flea Market Spectacular. We literally ran out of money so we drove home to get my bank card, ran to the bank to get more cash then headed back to the fairgrounds to snatch up more treasures. We got a ton of loot but my favorite find of the day was bought at the very first booth we visited...it's this great hand-painted little shell coin purse, it was obviously well loved but it's in really good condition aside from the worn paint. I think I have the perfect idea for it but I'll have to see how it turns out!

A wonderful customer and really sweet lady custom ordered two vintage military themed journals from my Etsy store...one is for her husband who is serving his second tour of duty in Iraq and should be back home in October...the second is for a co-worker who will also be heading to Iraq very soon. I found the tasseled flag cards at the flea market and immediately thought they'd be perfect on the journals...hope you like them Melanie!

I've been wanting to do some art swaps but didn't quite know how to go about doing it. I found a great website dedicated strictly to art swaps so I joined a few (maybe more than I should have but I always work best under pressure!) I'll post pictures as soon as I get my goodies made...the best part of it all is looking forward to receiving my packages filled with secret treasures in the mail. Can't wait!

Time flies...

Seems so long ago that we were in hot, sunny Florida for spring break. The weather was perfect the entire eight days we were there, and, needless to say, we had SO. MUCH. FUN! This was the first vacation in a long time in which none of us wanted to come home.

Here are some of my favorite picturesShelby gave Mickey a little smooch on the cheek...

Matt was thrilled about this one since Goofy has always been his favorite Disney Character (with Pluto a close second)

I was thrilled Pinnochio was there! Isn't he adorable?

Love this picture of me and Tom...kind of romantic huh? This was at Clearwater Beach (Gulf of Mexico)

I just couldn't resist snapping their picture under the "We have crabs" sign...notice Matt didn't want anything to do with it. Tarpon Springs, Sponge Docks.

{BIG SIGH} I really haven't come out of vacation mode yet even though it's been a week since we got back...I'm having a really tough time getting back in the swing of things. I quit my shameful photography "picture a day" blog...I fell behind while on vacation and there's simply no way I'll be able to catch it up now (or maybe I'll feel really ambitious this weekend and just do it??) I did manage to make a few new goodies for my shop...

That's all for now!