Normally, we bombard you with the weird and crazy, but this week, due to an amazing day of yard/estate saling, we are going to bombard your with the weird and wonderful. And yes, every bit of this stuff made it home with one or the other of us.
We started off heading over to an estate sale that looked pretty good. When we got there, we found out that the house was pretty small, there was quite a line, and they were only letting a few folks in at a time. It was a lovely day, but it seemed a shame to waste it standing in line, so we make the mutual decision to head out to some of the alternate yard and estate sales on our list. We figured that if everyone was in line here, they couldn’t be there!
Popped over to a yard sale around the corner and Deb snapped up this adorable dog picture:
Nothing at this sale was priced over a couple of bucks, so how could you go wrong? [Deb here. This dog looks like my sisters’ dog, Belle. I showed them this photo and they want the picture, surprise, surprise!]
The next sale yielded this darling book:
Deb can’t pass up a children’s book with wonderful illustrations, ever! Take a look how pretty it is inside:
After doing a bit of digging she found out there is a matching Cowboys book. Now, that will be on our list of things to find!!
After that, it was on to another estate sale. This one had also been running the day before, but judging from the state of the junk there, and the prices, we didn’t miss much. After wading through enough religious pictures to coat the Vatican, and every last card, letter and newspaper clipping that had ever come into that house, we each accumulated a small pile of things. Deb put back a cute child’s pajama set from China after finding out they wanted $10.00 for it. No money to be made there, but she did score these:
The hat came from JC Penney, and was awfully fun. With a bit of steaming it should be cute as ever. The picture was actually a card, but it was hand-painted on silk, and that will get her every time.
I came up with this small pile:
The strawberry thing is an amazing hat that would be perfect for the first day of spring. The books are three little give-a-ways from Hallmark about Valentine’s, fall, and teen parties with recipes, decorating, and game ideas. I was OK till they mentioned the prune cake for a teen birthday party. Nothing screams nerd like prunes! It would probably make you the least popular hostess on the planet. Deb found me the little Colorado photo album. I am a sucker for any local vintage stuff, and this came from Estes Park, just up in the mountains.
The next estate sale was a little odd, as it really looked more like they were setting up an antique store in the basement of this house, and the prices were more like an upscale mall, so they had delusions of grandeur, but Deb spotted this bark picture:
And was able to talk them out of it for only a fiver. Not like she needs another one, but hey, she didn’t have one like this. See this post, for more info on these, in case you missed it the first time around.
After all that, it was finally time to return to the first estate sale. The line was gone, and there was hardly anyone around. Good thing, too, as the house really was tiny. The lady who used to live there was tiny (at least her clothes were) and she had lovely taste. We loved her, and we found some fun stuff:
My haul was modest, and consisted of this darling kitty apron, a dress length of blue and white fabric in a really odd pattern, the tiny honeycomb Halloween owl, a jaunty wooden pin, and a tiny ivory carved bull. Here is a closeup of the owl and friends:
You had me at vintage Halloween, and that little wooden pin is so ’40s. Probably from during the war, as they used lots of other materials when metal was needed for the war effort. I also found a few books. Deb handed me the cat one. We do that so much at sales; that’s why we shop together!
And here is some more local history. The book in the back was written by a lady who grew up in the hotel my folks own in Old Town Ft. Collins, so that is cool.
Deb had this big haul:
More darling children’s books. The animal one even had a cute camel valentine tucked inside it. She nabbed the silhouette, as it was Little Red Riding Hood, and rather unusual for one of those. A hanky apron, a cute hand-painted chicken hook, and some old bubble lights were added to the mix.
After that, we were nearly dying of hunger (believe that, and buy my swamp land) so we headed to lunch, knowing we had one more estate sale. After chowing down on Indian food at Taj Mahal, we headed out to one last estate sale … which we will tell you all about in Kathy and Deb’s Excellent Adventure, Part 2, coming to computer screens near you in two weeks.
Second Hand Roses 
Aw, the Kitty apron, my mom made one like this in the early to mid-fifties ….They came as a printout on the fabric with idiot proof instructions. So cute! And, so many Western things–which of course we seldom have around here.
We both love those vintage apron kits; one having kitties is fairly rare! Yeah, it’s yee-haw country out here and we see western things galore–both good and bad. I’m from MI myself, so it doesn’t appeal to me as much as Kathy, who has lived here her whole life. But, some of it is pretty darn fun!
Love me the owl and bull!!
Kathy was over the moon with the Halloween owl–it’s made of paper and honeycomb and it’s Halloween decor, which is her favorite holiday by far! She also loves old carved ivory because it’s so beautiful. It’s too bad what they had to do to get the ivory in the first place, but the old stuff happened a long ago. The coolest ivory is the mammoth stuff that they’re excavating now. No harm, no foul!