Hooray for alley chair, and some other stuff. Also, my new friend Timmy.

Hi, my name is Kim, and I'm an alley picker.

They say the first step is admitting it, but I have to say, I have no plans to quit.  I mentioned in my last post that I am on the lookout for a tall, skinny shelf - something around 5' tall and narrow, maybe 18" wide.  I am keeping my eyes peeled at the thrift stores, but I am also checking the alleys of my fair city, in hopes of coming across a free one, like the shelf already resident in my booth, which you may recall seeing covered in snow and ice the morning I moved everything in there for the first time:

Alley shelf #1

Once I signed the rental agreement on my booth, I had about 3 weeks before it was time to move things in, and I really badly needed some shelving upon which to display my wares.  So of course, rather than buy any, I just started taking alleys instead of streets when driving around the city, and soon I was wedging the above slightly swaybacked non-beauty into Chester's backseat.  I didn't have anywhere to store it and my opening day was still over a week away, so it sat exposed to the elements a bit longer in my backyard - hence the coat of snow on Booth-Day morning.  

Anyway, I've started cruising the alleys once again, in search of another shelf so that I can fit more vintage goodness into my booth.  Today, I made a nice score, although not of the tall-skinny-shelf variety (more phone shots today, forgot my camera):

Cool old captain's chair.

Check it out!  A perfectly good, sturdy, well-designed chair.  The (admittedly boring) upholstery is in perfect condition too.  Currently it's residing on friends' porch, because I had to vacate Chester's back seat in order to pick up/take home people.  I have offered it to the friends if they want it.  If they don't, I'll try out one of the wood-spiffer-uppers I've heard about on the bloggernets and pop it in the booth and see what happens.  Suggestions on the best wood-spiffer-uppers? Would be appreciated!

Also, I spent some time in the booth this morning, and was happy to find another nifty bit of goodness had sold:

The awesome vintage radio has found a new home!
Congrats, new owner of stylin' little radio!

I had quite a bit of stuff to add, and found that had sold, so I did some rearranging. I moved a set of Southern Comfort glasses up to the top shelf, moved the Autumn Harvest Pyrex bowl down where they had been, rearranged a few more things and added the brass mirror and funny little elephant I mentioned yesterday:

Rotten quality due to the phone-shot nature but the mirror and elephant are there!

I also added another men's cardigan - this one with stripes of mustard and gold, 4 more men's hats, some ladies' blouses, and these guys:

The blue decoupaged Marie-Antoinette and Louis are in the house!

I also added (and completely failed to photograph) 11 pieces of Sabin China SAB76 pattern, which looks like this (thanks Replacements Ltd, for the ID and for the picture):

I have 2 plates, 6 cups, one oval platter, a creamer and a
small gravy boat or another big creamer - not sure which.
Most have some crazing, one plate has some discoloration.

After that and before spending a nice evening singing with people I love and enjoying the backyard breezes and view of Jupiter and Venus hanging out in the Western sky tonight, I made a stop at St. Vincent de Paul in search of the elusive tall skinny shelf.  Still no joy on that front, but I did find a new, super-kitschy little friend:

Hint, the red dot is not a button.  It's a stopper.

I've decided to call him Timmy.  He looks like he's from the 60s maybe, and he's plastic. I wasn't sure what the deal with him was at first, and I kept trying to push the little red button, but it turns out it's not a button. Once I figured out it was a stopper, I got it.  The square base is a reservoir you fill with water, and Timmy, well, he's kind of a rude little squirt.  We had lots of fun surprising people with him this evening, and he will be in the shop next week if you would like him for your vintage toy or novelty collection, or if you just think he's as goofy as I do.  My childhood and young adult selves would both have been too mature to be entertained by my friend Timmy here, but I've grown down a lot since then.  Also, you have to give it to him, the squirt-mechanism still works fine after at least 40 years; that's impressive.

And on that note, I wish you all a lovely evening, and a lovelier tomorrow.  Good night!

The clothes! Or, dark alley adventures.

I'm sure I mentioned that what let loose the floodgates of my thrift-obsession was my intention to open a vintage clothing Etsy store, and yet, I realized, I have yet to post anything at all about the clothes!  So here are a couple of shots of some of my vintage finds:

Lovely peachy late-70s/early 80s gown.  

Not just for old teen horror movies!

Fabulous 60s! Long grey wool dress, matching 
belt with rhinestone buckle and white poly tie, 
and a red wool hat fit for a 60s Bond girl.

I fully admit that part of the reason that I haven't shown a lot of the clothes is also a large part of why the shop has yet to materialize (or... digitize, since it's clearly not a physical shop!).  I haven't shot most of it.  I don't really have a willing and available model most of the time, and I have a mannequin, of sorts, but...
Wait - have I told you about my mannequin?  I don't believe I have!

Make yourself comfy, I have a story to tell!

Once upon a time, I came to the realization that a mannequin would be a really helpful thing to have to photograph these clothes in order to sell them online.  So, where's a thrifty girl like me to turn but Craigslist, in hopes of finding a new plastic friend looking for a home?  And that's exactly what I did.  One night, I came home after a longer-than-usual day at work (I usually finish at 9:00 PM).  I got into my PJs and settled in with my laptop and checked, just on the off-chance.  And what to my wondering eyes should appear but a Curb Alert for various items including a Free Mannequin!  And it had only been posted 20 minutes before.  And it was only maybe 10 minutes from my house!  In an alley in Dogtown, at going-on-midnight!  So of course, I hopped up, threw a hoodie on over my PJs and grabbed my keys.  The ad had said it was in the alley behind the Hi-Pointe theater, so I headed that way, looking directly behind the building and saw... nothing.  Undaunted, I widened my search.  I went up a block or two and came down the alley behind the then still-closed Cheshire Inn, and I found the place!  All the items listed were still there, except... the mannequin.  So sad!  But I wasn't about to come away empty-handed.  There was a box of hangers there, which is a totally useful thing, so I hopped out of the car and started loading the over-sized box into my trunk, in the dark alley, when I hear a voice, going "Hey!  Hey kid!".

Now, if you know me, and even if you don't, you may have guessed by now that I'm not exactly a kid (except on the inside).  And while I am adventurous enough to wander alleys at night looking for free mannequins, I'd like to think I'm smart enough not to talk to strangers while doing it.  Unfortunately....

You see, the flap on the box was stuck and I couldn't get my trunk closed, and I dropped my keys, and I was, I admit, a little bit flustered.  And the voice said, "Kid, do you want to see something cool?".  At which point I thought three things:
A.  No, I really, really don't!
2. Well, yes, kinda.  What if there really is something cool?
C. Oh great.  So this is how it happens.  

So I gathered up my keys and finally got the trunk closed as he walked up, and I started inching around toward my car door.  And he said: "I'm not, like, a rapist or nothin'".  Which, as it turns out, isn't quite as reassuring as you might think.  But now that he's closer (and not approaching me from behind in the dark) I can see him, and while I'm still quietly freaking out, I'm a little bit less scared.  He appears to be, essentially, a drunken frat boy.  Now, I'm not saying that's such a relief because drunken frat boys are known for being such good citizens.  It's just... I thought there was an outside chance I could take him, if it came down to it.  Or at least confuse him until he got tired and needed to sit down.  And at about this point, he's close enough to see the look of alarm on my face, so he holds up his hands like it's a stick-up, and says: "No, seriously, it's so cool!  You gotta see it!  I hid it over there..." and he points to a strip of complete darkness in the relative darkness, in a narrow area between a shipping container and the back of the building.  He does that chin-nod that guys do and takes a step as if I'm supposed to follow him.  At which point I voiced a mild concern at his plan and mentioned how I really needed to get home.  But he barely noticed.  He was on a roll by then, rambling about how he was going to take it home himself and scare the crap out of his roomates, but he couldn't figure out how to carry it all by himself, and since I have a car maybe I should take it.  And it sinks in to me that yes, it really is something cool.  This guy knows where the mannequin is!

I should mention now that a good friend admonished me to never tell this story in its entirety again once I told it to him.  Apparently it induced some stress.  So let me stop right here and state that I was not abducted, robbed or otherwise harmed.  I must confess that the first glimpse of her headless/armless plastic corpse lying naked in the dark behind the shipping container was somewhat freaky,  but I did, in the end, procure the elusive mannequin, with the help of the drunken frat boy.  I even thanked him and shook his proffered hand.  But I washed mine as soon as I got home.

So here she is, and I'll call her Allie, in honor of her humble origins:

Allie the mannequin, in an Easter-

egg pastel 70s knit sundress.

Unfortunately, after all we went through to find each other, Allie here is not your ideal vintage-clothing-displaying mannequin.  For one thing, she has no arms.  You'd be surprised how difficult it is to accurately display clothing on a mannequin with no arms, and an insufficient amount of shoulder (which is why she's wearing a sleeveless dress above).  Also, if she had a head she would be easily 6'3" tall.  Even without a head, she's a good bit taller than me (the drunken frat boy really did come in handy getting her in my car).  And she's no Twiggy, either.  A lot of my lovely vintage clothing is entirely too small for her.  And finally, her posture is not ideal.  I'm not sure what, exactly, she was intended for, but it doesn't appear to be for the optimal display of clothing.  She's standing slightly twisted at the waist, which tends to cause bunching.

Still, she's pretty cool, and works for larger, or stretchy, sleeveless items, and lets face it - she's worth it for the adventure alone.  And what's more, at the bottom of the box of hangers, I found an old coin purse that was empty except for a surprise of 8.65 euros - mostly Spanish euros.  So I made an actual profit off of my adventure, although it has since depreciated considerably.

So good night all - I hope all your dark-alley adventures end as benignly as mine!