Saturday’s yard-sale take

It wasn’t a very good day for yard sales, at least not in the early morning. It was heavily overcast and chilly, and because of the holiday weekend, the big sales (church rummage sales, neighborhood block sales, etc) were happening on Monday. But I still did a run — two, in fact, going once in the early morning and again after lunch — and came away with some good finds.

$5 – toy trunk/treasure chest, painted an ugly black and gold, which I have since improved by sanding the exterior and papering it over with old maps (photo to come later!)
$1 – rectangular mirror with orange frame, perfectly sized for propping up on a table for self-portrait practice
$1 – four gel pens, two in black ink, two in purple
free – some stickers shaped like food 🙂
$2 – cheap plastic fake-bamboo blinds, just right for hanging outside our kitchen doors to block the strong afternoon light
25¢ – Revolutionary Road (book), which I plan to give to Jason because he liked the movie and it seems like a good book
$1 – about 2 yards of pink-and-white striped fabric that reminds me of prints from my childhood
$2.50 – kelly-green cardigan, not very good quality but it fits well

Grand total: $12.75

I’m sad I couldn’t make it to any estate sales or the big block or church sales, because I suspect those would be good. Instead, I saw a couple of sketchy-looking sales (lots of random dusty crap all jumbled together, as if the owner just accumulates junk and then has sales every month or so) and several that were just boring. The sale where I bought the chest, mirror, and pens was in someone’s house, set back from the road, which scared me a little, but it was just an old couple who I guess didn’t want to move things outside.* They’d neatly labeled everything for sale with colored price stickers; I love it when people do that and I will certainly do that myself when I have to get rid of all this stuff! 😉 I also saw ninja gear (that was funny), a collection of those free Costco cookbooks, a really cute antique Grape-Nuts tin (it proudly proclaimed “food for your brain”!), a very decent rectangular dining table, a book on Latin and Greek roots (almost bought this just because it was a cool find), and tons upon tons of shoes and clothes.

It was definitely the weekend of clothes and shoes — and of Latinos having yard sales; one of the homes I went to had several generations of the family milling about, and whatever they were cooking inside the house smelled delectable; another neighborhood had men calling “buenas tardes” to each other and hanging out along the fences between their houses, talking. The house with the sale was playing ranchera music. That particular street reminded me of Mexico, and I bet a lot of the residents like it for that reason. The homes were small but nicely kept up, the gardens tended and planted with bright flowers, and there was ironwork along the fences and driveways (some of it painted), and brick archways. It was a very neighborly-looking place, like the people who live there know each other and drop in to each other’s homes to share food and stories. I liked it.

Now I am in LA and having a marvelous time with friends… though I do kind of wish I were going to today’s big sales too. 😉

Oh, and the free plastic trays I got from the 91-year-old lady’s sale last week? Those have come in AMAZINGLY handy for all kinds of crafting. I’ve used them to corral vintage buttons while I was cleaning them, for pouring out Mod Podge into and keeping paper scraps from running away while decoupaging, everything. They are one of the best finds yet. 😉

*And here’s another funny thing — this is the same house that advertised last week’s sale of scrapbooking supplies! Well, they did have them, but they weren’t very good, so it’s just as well they didn’t have the sale last week when I’d gotten my hopes up about it.