vintage and roses

here's another of my bargains from our garage sale shopping the other weekend -this heavy cut crystal vase cost me $2... I bought it with the intention of selling it on etsy but when I put my red roses in it, I instantly fell in love with it...

feeling thrifty

this weekend was the city wide garage sale that happens in our neighbourhood each year (apparently), and with the state of our garage, we really thought about participating, but decided that we'd get too many people offering $2 for our fully functional air conditioning unit, and $1 for that old playstation 2 etc. so instead of hosting a garage sale we did our duty as residents and went garage sale shopping! :P

as soon as we made it out the door, we were directed where to go. we took our little cart on wheels, and cooper and mckenzie helped us sniff out some bargains.

my first bargain to gloat about is this cute little piano bench that I got for $5 which is going to be perfect as the chair for my sewing table. I am going to paint it white and replace the fabric with this great velvet striped fabric I picked up at a flea market.
and it's perfect for storing sewing supplies toobut this guy here was my absolute steal! guess how much you'd pay for a solid walnut mid century side chair... guess!if you answered about $50-$60 you'd be about right (according to ebay and craigslist), so when I asked the guy how much he wanted for this chair and he said $1, I had to pretend not to be too excited! yes it needs some work, but I am excited to sand this guy back, and replace the vinyl aged cushion with the same stripy green velvet fabric. it's a really solid piece of furniture that will go great in our place.we also got some tools, picture frames, some vintage tupperware, a couple of vases and a cute little owl - all for less than $12. thifty indeed!

sunday at the alameda flea market

yesterday we spent about 5 hours at the alameda flea market in oakland, which seems like a long time, but we hardly scratched the surface... it opens at 7:30am and we had good intentions of being there bright and early but 10am was the best we could manage on a sunday morning. the line up was quite long to get in, but I really didn't notice as I was too excited by my celebrity sighting :) see that great yellow floral coat - that's Victoria from sfgirlbybay! but silly me, I was too shy to say hi, and all I could muster was a smile :) check out her great photos hereonce inside the gates there are isles and isles of tables full of beautiful, kooky and vintage things
we had fun with these geeky glasses

the day started out with the usual bay fog making it quite chilly

but as the fog cleared the sun shone down making it hot in the city! (and bryce and I have the sunburns to prove it)

we didn't go too crazy buying things, I bought 3 retro scarves at $1 each and a little red stool/plant stand for $10 and bryce bought a fat tire neon sign for the garage for $30 (although I think he really wanted to take one of these vintage bikes with him too)

but pretty much anything you could think of you could probably find at this place and if you haven't been, and you live in the bay area I really recommend this as a great way to spend a sunday

oh and this guy: I forgot to ask how much they wanted for him, but this is a real live (dead) bear (poor guy), and he really was this tall - we are standing at the same level. his paws were the size of my head! imagine walking into someones house and seeing this guy standing there???