Carport Sale Gift

The main road near my home leads to many, many retirement communities.  Fall begins the "snowbird" season, and with that come carport sales.  I often lament that Floridians don't have basements to store up old stuff for me to buy at estates sales, but we do have retirees who bring treasures to Florida only to find they don't need them (wool blankets, vintage coats), or don't have room for them (antique furniture, Christmas decorations, knick knacks).

Today was a community-wide sale at a huge park down the road.  One of my first stops had quite a bit of vintage stuff.  The homeowner said he has a booth at a local antique store.

I came across this box and as soon as I picked it up the gentleman said, "Do you want those?  You can have them!"
"Are you sure?",  I asked.
"Yeah", he said.  "I have 2 more boxes somewhere.  I'll give those to you also."

What did he just say?  He'll give me three boxes of vintage vocabulary cards? For free?  Whoa!
This box contains about 1000 cards with a word on the front plus an example of it used in a sentence.  On the back is the definition.  They are kinda cool for all kinds of projects.

For an example, look at this cute idea from the October 3rd post on Itsy Bits and Pieces.

http://itsy-bits-and-pieces.blogspot.com

I waited around a while, but the kind man never found the other two boxes.  I told him I'd stop back by after I browsed the other sales in the neighborhood.  About thirty minutes later I checked, but he still had not found them.  He took my number and said he'd call if he found them.

Well, I figured that was that, but, later that afternoon I got a call from him.  They are found and they are mine!  His sale was still going on, so I told him I'd be right there! 

Here are my F.R.E.E. vintage vocabulary cards!  Yay!  Another box of English and a box of French!   

How exciting is that?

By the way, did I mention they were FREE!

How I Got Here

Thrifting is in my blood.

When asked " Just how long do you intend to keep this stuff?" my parents would answer, "We keep it for seven years, and if we don't use it we keep it for seven more."

The youngest of five children, I have memories of my brothers bringing home bounty gathered from neighbor's trash piles.  The best ever was the stack of teen magazines.  I papered my bedroom walls with images of Bobby Sherman, Herman's Hermits, David Cassidy, Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Jackson 5, Donny Osmond, and The Monkees.  What a thrill!  I was hooked!


In my teens my mother taught me how to sew and I began to develop my own creativity.  Patterns and textures, colors and embellishments, all these go into sewing a garment.  Not to mention the satisfaction of presenting the finished product.

In my twenties I married a man with a background in scrap.  (His uncle owned a scrap yard).  I have never met someone with such an eye for fantastic junk!  When I go to the junk yard all I see is piles and piles of metal.  But my sweetie can spot a treasure!  Whether it's a birdcage, or an industrial cart, or maybe an old iron gate, he is my American picker!

Fast forward to today.  The kids are grown and gone.  We have way too much stuff already.  But, the desire to hunt never dies.  That 's when my children convinced me to open an Etsy shop and sell vintage.  What a thrill to have a reason to treasure hunt!   I have been an Etsian now for about two years.  I also enjoy creating with vintage items.  I can't wait to share my findings and creations with you. 

I hope you will come back often and together we will see what becomes of it!  This thing called keepsacred.