Braving the cold...

The thought that there might just be something great at those estate sales made me bundle up and brave the cold this morning.    I love to see what the layout of the houses are and imagine how the families lived.   What was taken out of the house before the sale?  This is what goes through my mind when I head to estate sales.  

Today I hit two small sales both very different.  One was a former art teacher and the other was the home of a hoarder.  I really thought they might be filming the show among us and it was day two of the sale!

I found some interesting Christmas items.  A 2 faced Lefton mug, these great felt sequence ornaments, but that darling gnome on the toad stool is to die for.  It is marked Japan on the back and feels like Styrofoam.

A favorite Junior Elf book to add to the collection and 2 very cute Easter picks.

More great kids school books and stories with a cute pack of map pins.

Darling Yahtzee pads, old pipe cleaners and a great multi hanger in red to hang Valentines on!

When I first ran across these tiny pipe cleaners a year ago, it never dawned on me that they were made for anything more than crafting.  Sometimes I need more than one cup of coffee in the morning!

Sewing notions never fail to surprise me.  The plastic bin came in at $1.50 and was loaded with thimbles.  One of which is super tiny and sterling, so cute.  A tin box of millinery goodies only added to the fun.  I rarely find these.

I found this stuck in a box of piano music.  An old litho Smokey the Bear fan.  It was too cute to pass.

Aside from the men that put items the size of dimes on the sidewalk to mark their place in line at the door and the ones that refuse to hand me items while they hoover over all the merchandise, the jewelry table is my next least favorite thing about estate sales.  The women at these tables and I am sorry if you are one of them, but they are like wolves eating their last meal.  They move in for the kill and start picking up jewelry with their manicured nails like a vacuum.  It totally scares me.  I have no patience for that.  I just walk past and leave them be.  You see I don't usually have to fight anybody over a tarnished thimble or a rusted bucket...yet.

Today, the table was open...free of the wolves...and these pieces were waiting for me.  This darling tennis bracelet is sterling, another thing I uncovered once I cleaned it up.  That cute little lipstick...I thought it was a pill bottle until I got home, opened it up and realized it was pink, maybe an eraser, nope the smell gave it away fast, well that and the coral wax all over my fingers.    It is marked with a crown on the top and fuller company. What more can a girl ask for than rhinestones and a pocket lipstick? 

These are the fun things that I like to uncover and for 2 to 3 dollars its worth it to me.  Relics from the past and workmanship that marvels me time and again.

Tomorrow, I am back to my mending.