Latest treasures

Spent some time at booth 78 at Kenrick Antique Mall today.  I was pleasantly surprised upon walking in the door to see the little bookshelf I thrifted this summer on the way back from taking a friend on a college visit to Iowa sitting by the register, getting ready to move on to it's new home.  Here it was fully laden during it's time in the booth, although you can't really fully see its niftitude in this picture.:

Nice little wooden shelf, purchased in Qunicy, IL, has found a new home in the 'Lou!

I also noticed a small white hard-sided suitcase had sold, and the green-background crewelwork piece that I thought once before had been purchased has gone MIA again.  Hopefully this time it actually did find a new home, rather than just going on walkabout somewhere else in the store.

But with the small-but-still-big-for-an-8x8-space bookshelf gone, I needed somewhere to put all those books and whatnot.  Perfect timing, as the purchase I made at an estate sale the weekend before this past one was just waiting in the wings for a space to call its own:

The table top, in the back of hank.

I liked the blue and white enamel top immediately, and the legs are all chippy old white paint with slight traces of blue trim left in spots.  Obviously it's not in perfect condition - there's some rust, and I only ever got around to wiping the top down with some basic cleaner, so I'm not sure if those rings will come out or not with something a little beefier, but I learned the main issue when I went to put the legs on.  It seems to have been somewhat home-made, or perhaps re-purposed at some point.  The legs each have a two-ended bolt in them that goes through a drilled hole in the wood under the enamel top, and then you toss a wing nut on the  bolt and tighten it down.  The problem is, one of the bolts has been somewhat damaged at the tip so that I personally couldn't get the wing nut started on the threads.  I'm not sure if the problem is just me and my weak girl-fingers - someone else may be able to get it on there, but in the mean time, I've taped the nut to the side of the table, and it still stands fine even with one leg not tightened down.  Here it is in it's new spot in the booth, already piled up with all the books from the little shelf:

Not bad for a mildly gimpy table!  You can kind of see the wing-nuts on the sides there,
as well as the hint of old blue  trim toward the tops of the legs.

How insanely awesome is that LeeWards craft book cover with the owl?  And I can't even tell you what a kick I get out of the insane 70s fashions in that "Sewing for Men and Boys" book.

Anyway, I added a few other bits of thrifted vintage to the booth as well:

An adorable little mushroom-house bank.

Love the cool wood-grain back and edging on this Treasure Craft drip-glazed serving dish.

Cute small un-Blendo pitcher with gold starbursts.

Two gorgeous small afghans.

I love the above.  Both are very small.  The blue and yellow one is round, and made of all these little pie-shaped bits.  The purple/blue/white one is amazingly bright and graphic, but quite lopsided in execution.  Both are small.  Not really more than lap-sized, but I love them!  Close-ups of each to the side and below (click if you want to see them big).







By the way, I was planning on ending the 50% off sale on vintage clothing and accessories on August 31st, but I've decided to leave it through Labor Day weekend, so if you're in the market for a vintage hat, purse, scarf, shirt, skirt, dress, or shoes, you've got through next Monday to get them for half price!

And as a reminder, 2ndhand Moon is on Facebook.  Like us and you'll be the first to know about the next big sale!



Anyway, I hope everyone's having lots of thrifting luck here lately!  To see some of the treasures found by people who definitely are, check out these link-ups I'm joining in on this week:

Coastal Charm's Nifty Thrifty Tuesday and Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday

Making up for last week

So you guys?  It's amazing how much stuff you can fit in an 8x8 space.  I have thought my booth was too full to really add much several times now, but every time I try, I find I was mistaken.  This week I added a bunch more clothing and accessories for my 20% off sale, and a ton of other stuff too.  The booth is crammed almost full enough for the big flea market day on May 19th!

Hopefully a bunch of stuff will sell this week and I'll have to add even more next week to be ready for it.  I'm ready for May to be my biggest month ever (I totally just typed 'biggest moth ever', which is not at all what I want in my antique mall booth full of vintage clothing - eek!).  Of course, my biggest month ever in terms of profit would be easy to achieve.  All I'd have to do is actually make a profit of more than ten bucks, but still!  May is going to pay, right?  I mean, cause it rhymes and stuff?  Right?  Anyway, here are some phone-photos of some of the new stuff that went into the booth.  I kind of forgot to take pics of most of the newest clothing, but I promise, it's there, along with:

Small old red/white enamel double-boiler, set of 2 strawberry print enamel nesting bowls, and a large Dansk Kobenstyle paella pan.

I wish I knew who it was that bought the small blue Kobenstyle pot from me a month or so ago, because I subsequently found the above huge matching Jens Quistgaard paella pan they might like to go with it.

Quite a collection of plastic drinkware

 You might be able to tell by the great lot of it I've accumulated above, that I quite like these insulated mugs and tumblers with the rattan (wicker?) under clear plastic.  I have 3 different sets plus one odd mug for sale in the booth now, along with the pair of cute aqua-handled cups on the right.

Small white hard-sided Samsonite suitcase. 

The little suitcase is nice - the interior is in great shape and the keys are in their original little envelope inside.  So cute!  And seriously, how creepy is the little girl with the ravens, or whatever is going on in that picture?  She's looking down at the flowers, but sometimes it looks like she's just got blank eyeballs!

A small Treasure Craft planter, 6 Fire King peach lustre soup bowls,
a cool pink and gray Pro-Tex trivet and a golf-
themed valet tray - mid-century goodness, all!

Fun old Pringles duffel. 

Wicker-woven frame purse - cute!

Lotsa hats, and a couple umbrellas!

More hats, purses, blouses, men's shirts, dresses, etc.

A new hat for the awesomest cardigan.

Cool graphic thermos.

One of the new dresses I added.  Snap-front
"Model Coat".  Love the appliqué!

Pretty pink doll trunk with gold starburst "wallpaper".

Tiny little blue enamel kettle-thing.
Nice little catchall, or pen-holder for your desk!

There's more, too.  Mugs and purses, dresses and an adorable child-sized pair of green-lensed cat-eye glasses... the booth is hoppin', I'm telling you!  Here are a few wider shots (I can't get the whole booth with my phone the way I usually do with my camera):

Far left.

Center left.

Center right.

Far right.

Update on the little pot from Monday and a thrift FAIL (or, laterally speaking, a chance for thrift genius)!

Hi all!  I still haven't unpacked my biggest and most interesting score from Monday, but here, as a consolation prize, is a cheap plastic item that will probably make you smile:

HEY, KOOL-AID!

But wait, there's more!  Remember the little pot from my first post?  The one with the sort of repeating Rorschach glaze pattern?  Well, I just happened to see a seemingly similar glaze style on an ash tray yesterday afternoon in the basement at Retro 101 on Cherokee Street (a very cool shop - any St Louisans with a yen for retro goodness, especially clothing, accessories and "smalls", needs to check it out!).  The ash tray in question had a sticker on it that read "Treasure-Craft, Compton, CA".  So I came home and googled Treasure Craft, and while I didn't find anything exactly like my pot, here's a Treasure Craft tidbit tray with very similar glaze colors and style:

from SWANKmoderndesign.com

More interesting still, when I googled "pottery glaze rorschach", Item #3 was this.  So what do you think?  Did I find the origin of my little pot?  It seems like a pretty reasonable guess, at least.


On another note entirely, I picked up a pair of slightly-too-big but very comfortable and seemingly sturdy desert boots while thrifting awhile back, and I've worn them a few times, and quite liked them until today, when the sole of the right boot started just peeling away, like so:

Thrifted desert boots - luckily I didn't pay much.

Now, this happened about 3 hours into a 12 hour work day, and as you can see, the sole peeled off quite a bit.  In order to make more than 2 steps without tripping, I had to walk like I was either:
A. Igor (or whatever Doctor Frankenstein's assistant was called), or
2. in a Monty Python sketch.

So on the one hand, giant fail of a seemingly good thrift find.  On the other hand... opportunity.  I can either:
A. throw them out - they're no good to anyone now.
2. look into shoe glue and try to fix them, because they really are very comfy and the materials are really good, even if they apparently weren't stuck together very well, or
C. try something crazy!

You know I can't just do A.  I'd have to at least try something else first, or I'd feel guilty.  So here's the inspiration for the Something Crazy I'm thinking about.  I apologize for the quality of the picture; I basically took a picture with my decent camera of an old snapshot I took years ago that's in a frame under glass that's, quite frankly, not very clean:

An old shoe (probably my grandfather's) 

on a concrete table under an overgrown arbor.

Now, I'm not sure how other people will react to this.  Some folks might think this picture is gross.  I think it is fabulous on a number of levels, including:

A. I love the idea of this small physical representation of nature reclaiming it's own.

2. It looks flippin' cool.

C. It's just so ODD!

So I've had this fascinating image in my mind (and on my tv stand) for ages, and recently, I came across this:

From this interesting site I need to peruse more,

where they have a recipe for growing moss wherever you like!

Now, I live in a postwar bungalow in South St Louis city surrounded by zoyzia grass rather than an old English garden or something more suited to this lovely and intriguing art form, but I filed the idea away for "someday", now that I know a recipe exists.  So today, when my really very cool (if slightly too big) desert boots decided to fall apart, I have to admit, I'm thinking hard about giving this a try.  I'm not sure what I'd do with Moss Boots once I had them, but surely something would come to me... right?

What do you think?  Try to repair, or collaborate with Mother Nature on a weird little art project?