Thrifting and Sifting

I went estate-saling and garage-hopping last weekend, as has been my Saturday ritual for most of the summer, to pick up odds and ends and stuff for my etsy store.

YES, YES, we all know I can't really craft so hot, but I can LOCATE AMAZING ARTIFACTS AND SELL THEM TO YOU FOR CHEAP!

My etsy store (prairie ghost vintage) has been doing pretty well--I've still got a huge stash of vintage postcards left over from, ahem, my wedding (almost three years ago. Uhhhhhh...) that I'm selling off, and then there's always those THINGS that I find when thrift-shopping where I buy it because IT'S TOO GOOD TO LEAVE IN THE STORE, bring it home, and then feel immediately guilty for spending $3.27 on a set of coffee cups when our cabinet is overflowing.

So I started reselling them.

ANYWAY, when I was estate-saling earlier this summer, which is BY FAR the best way to go--all these oldsters in the old neighborhoods I would LOOOOOOOOVE to live in keep going to assisted living, or dying, and there is probably nothing I love more than wandering around through SOMEONE'S HOUSE, especially when it is loaded with old books and housewares and STUFF ON THE WALLS and, yep, vintage toys--I came across this beauty:



It was pretty skanky and dirty, but the stickers were all in great condition, and I had to buy it for Kiddo. Because I USED TO HAVE ONE!

So she can now store her little farm buddies in the hayloft (how freaking adorable is this? I want to die)


But the TRUE AND AMAZING best find was last weekend. I hit the road at 8:30am (you have to get MOVING early to get anything in this town--there is no point in being out after 10:30am unless it is Sunday and you are half-price-buying at what's left at the estate sales) and went to the first sale on my list, which was in this absolutely STUNNINGLY gorgeous neighborhood that I would die to live in--you know, where all the houses are huge and built in the early mid-century and the trees are mature and OOH! YES-AH!

I walked up the driveway and was delighted to see all the vintage kids' toys--like rocking horses, old stuffed animals, etc. When I say "vintage kids' toys," I am shamefully talking about toys from my youth. I am THAT OLD! So I was smiling to myself as I sifted through a stack of old kids' records (like Care Bears Christmas, Strawberry Shortcake Christmas) and I got really happy when I looked on the ground and saw this old, old toy record player that I KNOW, FOR A FACT, I used to have!

And right beside it was a carrel of old Disney 45s/books where you'd put the record on and read along--including one that made me mist up--THE RESCUERS. I used to spend HOURS staring at those pages and listening to the sad/scary (because, really, it was both. SO SAD!) music while hoping THIS TIME Medusa wouldn't make Penny go into the cave.

(Aside: it was mildly terrifying to see Medusa in the book because EEE-IKES, I have HAD her hair. HAD! HAD! NOT HAVE!)


There was only one other person browsing around, so I plopped down beside the stack and started looking at the records, and I noticed that there was also an old kids' plug-in record player beside it. Wow. I was moved by my childhood memories and so I told the garage sale owner that I remembered most of them from when I was a kid, and mentioned that I had a 15 month old daughter. She told me that she had a daughter around my age, and had her over last weekend to pick out whatever she wanted to keep, and this stuff was what she had rejected.

I asked the lady, "How much for the record player, the toy record player, and the kids' records (meaning the 45s, and meaning individually what was she asking for them, since none of them were marked with prices)?"

She said, "Mmm, how about $8 for them all?"

I was like WHOA! but I knew I only had $6 on me. So I said, "I've only got $6..." and was about to ask what she would sell me for $6, but she said "I CAN DO $6" and offered to help me CARRY IT TO THE CAR!

Basically dying, but as I went for the toy record player, real record player, and the carrel of 45s, SHE GRABS THE ENTIRE CARREL OF 33 1/3S AND BRINGS IT ALONG TOO, and IT DAWNS ON ME THAT I JUST GOT THOSE TOO!

I should have seriously called it a day after that, since I knew I wouldn't get any better deals. And I didn't. But LOOK AT WHAT KIDDO AND I GET TO PLAY WITH NOW!




Anyone in the mood for "Camptown Races?"