Something you won't want to miss

I'm excited for October, you guys!  I've always loved October.  When I was a little girl that was largely because of my Birthday, and Halloween.  I suppose those are still two of the main events, but the attractions are numerous:  cool crisp weather that allows for layers and sweaters; Fall leaves that look beautiful, smell kinda spicy, and swish and crunch underfoot; apples, apple cider and apple pie (more on that soon!); the return of my favorite earthy colors to clothes and home decor; the smell of wood smoke on the air; snuggling under blankets; unexplained bouts of nostalgia... need I go on?

But now there's one more thing to add to your list:  The Kenrick Antique Mall-sponsored Fall Flea Market, next Saturday, October 6th! 

Now, I've been to a few flea markets in my day, and I want to be clear.  Sometimes, when people say flea market, I've gotten all excited and shown up and it looks like this:

Or like this:

On the other hand I've also, in my days in Brussels in the 90s, had the great privilege to go to the Saturday market in the Place du Petit Sablon, which was like this:

Unfortunately, I can't promise you that next weekend will be like the Antiques Market in Brussels, but I can promise you it's not going to be just knockoff handbags and sunglasses, or three guys with some books spread out on blankets. There will be tons of vendors, this much I know.  And last time (in the Spring), they had food, so there's probably that to look forward to again.

I, unfortunately, will be stuck at work the day of the sale, but I've seen it twice now, and it's prety big, with lots of variety (Kenrick Plaza's parking lot is super huge, and much of it will be taken over by vendors.  I think the last I heard it was 80+, and the smallest vendor space is the size of a parking space.  Not bad!  And don't forget, the antique mall itself is open, and practically every booth inside will have a sale going for the weekend.  The 2ndhand Moon booth (78, as if you didn't know, 2/3 down the 3rd aisle, on the right!) will have 25% off every single item, no exceptions, so it's a good time to snatch up something vintage for Halloween, or a Treasure Craft candy dish or planter,or some cool vintage luggage, or a bit of Pyrex, or even the gorgeous Mad Men-esque chair, seen here if you missed it!  And as if the flea market and the antique mall weren't enough, don't forget there's also the huge Shrewsbury Value Village right there - literally next door to the mall, in the same plaza!

So if you go, let me know how it went?  I'll be stuck indoors away from the nice Fall air and all the treasures, so I need someone to give me the scoop!

Gearing up for Halloween!

Guess what, you guys?  It's officially Fall, it's almost October, and you know what that means!

Halloween is coming!

I took this pic on July 3rd this year, but it seems like a good Halloween flag sort of image, doesn't it?

I love Halloween, and I love vintage clothing, and I have a penchant for buying kitschy stuff that isn't really every-day wearable on the theory that someone needs to give it the love it deserves for the very fact of it's unique existence.  So you know what that means, don't you?  I have some seriously fun Halloween costume ideas to share with you guys (which are also going into Booth 78 at Kenrick Antique Mall, of course)!

First up is an early 70's era granny-type dressing gown:

Granny gown

Add your own hairy legs and a toothy mask like this one from buy.com:

All the better to see you with, my dear!

Or try this (admittedly hideous polyester double-knit) number:

One-piece double-knit three piece look dress.

Add a hat with a pom-pom on top and a golf club, and I think you'd fit right in with these fine chaps:

You know you wanna be the 4th Stooge, Shirley!

While we're on the double-knit, how about being a sailor-girl for Halloween?:

Sailor suit

You could be the new face of Cracker Jacks:

In case you couldn't tell it's a zip-front jumpsuit!

And as we're being all patriotic now, how about serving your country as a nurse?:

No, not a slutty nurse!  An old-timey nurse!

All you need is the weird little origami hat!

Or if you like your uniform a little sexier, how about the friendly skies?  Here's a vintage Northwest Airlines hostess uniform:

Northwest Airlines uniform.  They got swallowed up by Delta.

See the NW logo on the pocket?

Afraid of heights?  Prefer the high seas?  Grab a skipper's hat and some Topsiders and you can go yachting in the 80s (or maybe you're the captain's kid from Love Boat?):

80s drop-waist knit dress - easy comfort!

Hate the 80s? Want a little flower-power?  How about this:

Snap-front flower power dress.

Just add some tall boots, tease out your hair and kitsch the night away!


If you've got a pair of moccassins and an old Cher wig, and synthetic fabrics (and political incorrectness) don't give you a rash, you could always snap this up:

Tan velour 70's Pocohontas-chic!

Or if you really really don't want to put in a lot of effort (or if your names are Barb and Dave and you're feeling a bit nostalgic), just cuff your jeans, toss these on and enjoy the party:

Red & White retro nylon jackets.

Names embroidered on!

I'm putting all of the above into the booth for super cheap for Halloween - I don't think any two of these together cost as much as the wolf mask I linked to above - and there's still lots of other great stuff in the booth, and more to come as I sort through all my goodies looking for Halloween inspiration.  For instance, expect some zom-prom (prombie?) dresses very soon!  So if you're on the lookout for a fun costume, definitely stop by Kenrick Antique Mall (or message me on the 2ndhand Moon Facebook Page).  I'd love to hook you up!

Linking up to Coastal Charm's Nifty Thrifty Tuesday and Me and My Shadow's Magpie Monday!

The big find of the weekend

Saturday night I showed you guys some of the stuff I picked up that day, but not all.  I didn't show you the haul from the St Anthony of Padua church rummage sale in Dutchtown, for example:

They were having a bag sale, so I grabbed a lot of things I otherwise might not have.  No point not filling up the bag!

Some of the highlights include a pair of small souvenir trays (very small, like for change):

London scene, melamine, made in Italy

Colorado, kind of heavy, copper-plated?

Cute ceramic owl

Kitschy scoop and mug

Tiny pretty bud vase

  

The little bud vase is very sweet - sort of semi-hobnail, so that it looks somewhat sea-urchin-esque, the scoop is a great shade of green, and I just love the owl.  The trays were more just because the bag wasn't full, as was much of the rest of the contents of the table, except for these:

Very cool looking old icon.

3-D lenticular Madonna & Child

I have a big soft spot for kitschy religious iconography, and I don't know if I've seen much more kitschy than the plastic lenticular Madonna & Child above.  It's scratched up, and made of cheap plastic, but I don't care.  LOVE IT!  On the left is something much less cheap.  I'm not exactly sure who this is meant to be (to be honest, I only really know Mary, St Christopher because I've seen the medals, St Anthony and my favorite, St Francis).  I've decided to believe that thing he's holding is a stylized bird, and say this is St Francis.  He's on this padded blue velvet stand that's really quite pretty and I love him even if I have no clue what he's for.  

The best from the church, though, I already hung up in the booth:

Gorgeous chinoiserie needlepoint

This needlepoint is gorgeous.  I love how the scenery is all in tan and gray and creme neutrals and then there's the woman in rich bright blues and yellows.  The price sticker from the rummage sale pulled off a patch of the gold on the frame, unfortunately, but it's fun to know that under the gold that bamboo frame is for some reason bright red.

Another bit of needlework, this one obviously done free-hand, without a pattern.

 I love, love, love this!  I haven't read through it all, and I doubt I would understand all of what's in there, but just thinking about how much work went into it is overwhelming.  It has phrases like "vatican council II" and "sacrements", but there's also something about a purple sweatshirt, and the St Louis Cardinals, and various dates.  It starts with "An instrument of peace", which is what caught my eye first, and it ends with "Happy Birthday my friend Luv Tup.  What an amazing friendship this must represent, you know?  How many hours went into hand-stitching all of these memories?  It makes me sad that it ended up in a rummage sale, but I hope someone else will be as enchanted by the idea of the great love this represents as I am.  Here's a close-up on the center:

           
And yet that stuff was still not my big find.  The big find was this:

Sexy brown upholstered mid-century modern chair.  

This chair is gorgeous you guys!  I love it so, so much.  And it's comfy, too!  And if my new friend Mary Poppins didn't shed her body weight in fur per week all over my furniture and claw everything when I'm not home, I'd keep it for myself.  But I've put it in the booth because, essentially, it's too good for my house.  It's not perfect, though.  The upholstery is in great shape except for the points of the arm rests and one little slit in the cushion on front, but... you know, you can't really have the points of the armrests showing stuffing, can you?  Also (and this is an easy fix, but since I didn't realize it until I was moving it into the booth I haven't fixed it yet) one of the little brass foot-caps on the tapered legs is loose, so that if you grab it when you're trying to move it, it will slip off.  A little glue up in there will take care of it, so I just have to remember to bring some with next time I get to the booth.  Anyway, all of that is no big deal because the chair is just so hot!  It's not marked, although I did see a spot where there was a bit of paper stuck under one of the staples at the bottom, so it used to be.  A Google image search makes me think it's probably by Selig of Monroe.  Check out this one offered on Live Auctioneers:

This one has a taller back, but the same arms and tapered legs and it's even got the same V pattern of the buttons on the back, and I don't see any indication that this chair style was so iconic as to be copied by other companies, so I'm guessing mine is also Selig of Monroe.  And as much as I'd love to keep it for myself, it's available in booth 78 at Kenrick Antique Mall right now, along with the two framed needle-art pieces, and tons of other great stuff!

Want to see more treasures?  Check out the link-ups!:

Coastal Charm's Nifty Thrifty Tuesday, Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday and Me and My Shadow's Magpie Monday

Themes

I planned to sleep in this morning because I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before.  And when I say sleep in, I mean way in!  I wasn't going to bother opening my eyes until noon.  But the cute little gray kitty who has taken up residence in my house had other plans.  She let me sleep until about 10:00, but after awhile even Mary Poppins gets impatient, so she let me know that it was definitely time for breakfast.

Mary Poppins, cute enough to wake up "early" for.

Once I got up and fed her, I found texts on my phone from both Mayberrys of my acquaintance to the effect that I was missing out on a sale full of stuff I would get a big kick out of.  And as I have no willpower at all to stay away from sales when even mildly provoked, I hit the shower and headed out the door.  And they were right, this sale had a very clear theme, and I stuck right with it.  Wanna see?:

MUSHROOMS!  They somehow both compete and go perfectly with my wild 70's kid-sized card table, don't they?

A closer look?  Why certainly!

Tossed a couple of tissues in there so you can see the details.  I'm classy like that!

Love polka-dotted ones!  Strangely I've never seen a polka-dotted one in the wild...

The two tiny ones in front are porcelain, apparently intended to hold tiny candles.  The lager, almost-matching one with the flowers painted around its base is wooden, and came with (some of) its own candle.  The little mug is plastic and way too reflective to get a decent picture.  The pitcher has a chip right in its pour-spout, and there's also some chipping to the enamel on the big saucepan, but if I told you what I paid for the whole bunch of stuff, you'd know why I just don't care.  It's all adorable!

The second theme of the day wasn't really dictated by the sale itself, which had lots of other totally unrelated things, but for some reason I was drawn to things that all sort of told the same story:

Vintage desk lamp, address "book", stamp holder/letter scale and bow-tie.

In my head his name is Martin.  He is very meticulous, but not uptight.  His work is something academic that involves lots of correspondence to confer with colleagues around the world.  And these are his things:

Add Love the font and the star-burst, and you gotta know bowties?  Are cool!

It was hard to get a decent close-up, and now you can see I didn't bother dusting it first, but check out the awesome little scale.  You slip your envelope in the little clip to weight it so you'll know what postage to use, and then your roll of stamps is right there handy.  So cool!

A little glamour shot of the lamp.  The perforations in the shade are little Eiffel Tower shapes.

Anyway, I quite like Martin and his lamp and I'm glad his become one of the many fictional residents of my brain ;)


Wanna see what some non-fictional folks came up with, too? Visit these fun link-ups; I am!

Cap Creation's Thrifty Love Link Party, Chic on a Shoestring's Flaunt it Friday and The Thrifty Groove's Thrifty Things Friday

Right spiffing, innit?

So I spent some hours Tuesday at the booth trying to spiff the place up a bit.  Spiffing isn't always my strong suit, but I think I've made some progress.  I had decided a week or two ago that the blue industrial cup-washing rack thingies in the booth had to go.  I love the idea of them.  There a bright cheery blue, and kind of swirly looking:

I loved how they looked as a backdrop, like to this cute mushroom mug set (still available, by the way!)

And I thought they'd be handy for displaying things like scarves and small linens and things:

Here they were with a few little bits inside - still looked kind of fun.

But as the booth got more... I'll just say it: crowded, and more and more of the little cubbies in the rack got filled, I think it just became too much.  It was like visual noise.  It just didn't help show off the merchandise anymore:

With all that crammed in, it just looks messy.

I had already planned to take them down and do a bit of an overhaul of the space, and now, thanks to the  lead from my Mom and Dad, I had found a great shelf to help in reorganizing.  

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago, someone bought my little book shelf, and I replaced it with a somewhat rustic little blue and white enamel-topped table, which had already opened things up considerably.  I went from this:

Still a bit over-crowded!

To this:

A bit more open - making progress!

So Tuesday, I did the following:

1. Took down the blue crate/cup-rack things.

2. Stacked the small table that's hidden behind the suitcases in the above picture on top of the little wooden cabinet you can barely see since it's stacked with blue cup racks, overflowing with linens and piled with merchandise.

That gave me this:

A little more space for the eye to see, and with one door closed, maybe people will even
be able to tell the little cabinet exists!

3. I moved the suitcases back up against the back wall, stacked them and used them to show off some of the cute vintage purses, shoes, etc.:

Vintage suitcases are a personal weakness. A stack of three serve as an end
table in my living room, too!

4.  I brought in the new shelf.  You've already seen this pic if you saw the blog yesterday, but here it is again, in context of the overhaul:

I need to improve the display-quality of those linens.
Too much of a good thing is too hard to see.

5.  I took the little wire cart that I'd previously crammed between the beat-up low shelf on the right above and the clothes rack, I filled it with the smaller purses, and the scarves, doilies, small linens, etc., and placed it next to the blue and white enamel table at the front of the booth, and tucked the cheery little green footstool/doll table underneat:

I like the pop of green under the table to go with the bright green craft book on top,
and the little cart takes up very little space at the entrance to the booth.

6.  I swung the clothing rack around so that rather than being on the side of the booth, it's along the back wall.  It leaves less room for pictures/paintings/etc., but I'm still trying to make a go of the whole vintage clothing aspect of the booth, so I think it's worth it for a time.  At least through Halloween (because everyone who's anyone is going to be buying vintage awesomeness from booth 78 at Kenrick Antique Mall for the Halloween costume this year!).  

So here's the overall effect.  I don't think I'm done tweaking, but I like where it's going a little better than before:

I still feel like it's a bit too busy, but it's definitely getting better.

There's plenty of room to walk around inside now, and with more shelf space, things aren't as crammed together, so I'm hoping that makes it easier to see and not just look, if you know what I mean.  I think next I'd like to replace the wire cubes on the left wall with something that's less deep.  Preferably something I can put a price tag on and sell out from under my merchandise!  And I definitely need to replace, or at the very least paint the long low shelf on the other side.  That's the one I picked up in an alley a few days before I was supposed to start my booth.  Or possibly just put more tall shelves on one side and leave the other side free for some bits of furniture and wall art.

What do you think?  Is this better?  I'm open to any and all suggestions.  I just want to make buying from my little 2ndhand Moon booth easier and more enjoyable.  Am I on the right track?

Oh, and I keep forgetting to say, go Like the 2ndhand Moon Facebook Page, so you'll know when there's a sale, deal or special event!