A Happy Pile of Junk

Okay, I've made you wait long enough. Here's what I found at Friday's church rummage:

Vintage straw hat with flowers, emerald green candy dish, numeral flash cards, old recipe books (CAKES!), metal molds (I can never get enough of these. I will be re-purposing them for Christmas), Oh! and the tablecloth underneath it all,

wrought iron plant stand,

Hhhmmmm.....

Snowflake dishes!

Coco Chanel's bag. In perfect condition.

An enormous piece of Autumnal vintage fabric,

I will list this in my Esty shop this week. L-O-V-E the colors!

Yet Another Church Rummage

There was only one estate sale listed in today's paper. It was billed as "phase 4 of a collector's estate". I have been doing this long enough to know what that means. It means there won't be a thing there that I want. All antiques, no junk. And let's face it girls, it's really all about the junk, isn't it?

Just as I was about to give up on the whole thing and go back to bed, I saw a small ad for a church rummage. There is something very comforting about a church rummage, because they all have exactly the same elements. Let's have a little tour...

Every church rummage sale in the history of the universe has:

Some wicker, a baby high chair and awful furniture...

Discarded lampshades from every decade of the last 40 years....

Piles of lovingly folded fabric...

A curly plastic pumpkin craft project....

A Shirley Temple item of some sort...This doll was priced at $40 and was very creepy.

Random cheap Christmas stuff....

and church ladies in the kitchen cooking something. In this case, it was a German themed lunch, so the whole place smelled like sauerkraut.

This was my favorite thing...a paint by numbers Last Supper, hung right outside the women's restroom. Sadly, it was not for sale.

In my next post I will show you the treasures I found...and I found some treasures!

If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times....

Never pass by a church rummage! Here's my loot!

Vintage flower basket, English candy tin, giant Pennsylvania Dutch tray, Delft pottery, 1920's Hymnals (Including Gospel Hymn Selections for Female Voices)(!), sweet divided dish with floral aluminium lid, turtle bank circa 1970

2 shoe boxes full of molds of various shapes, Queen Mary dish, doily (note: I am usually not a doily girl, but loved the red and blues of this one), and a vintage pink jewelry box. Look what was inside:

See the fab shoe box? I gave that to my friend Magpie Ethel. She loves silhouettes of kids and the color orange. That's what I call a double delight!

The Church of Really Good Junk

Last Saturday, I was running errands at about 3PM. I saw a sign for a sale in my neighborhood. Normally, I would have just kept driving ~ while thinking ~ they've probably closed, it's too late in the day, we're having 8 for cocktails in 2 hours and are out of raspberry vodka, etc. But this was a church rummage and was right around the corner. So I decided to have a little faith. It paid off.
Vintage flash cards, hand made baby sweater set, bag o' vintage floral leaves, a large green faux Bakelite ring that I will fashion into a towel holder, a small box of vintage clothing tags that read "Handmade by Eleanore"...

Pair of vintage Christmas bells with holly decals, 18 mini tart tins in original box, a red Dymo label maker, 2 boxes of vintage tinsel and a fab set of glasses. See the wave pattern along the top of the glass? Perfect for the hut!

There was lots of Christmas stuff too; I had to paw through a lot of styrofoam and melted wax to find these holiday delights...

When I went to the checkout, the sweet cashier said to me, "We are just about ready to close up ...how about $5 for everything?" I gave her $10.