Books, Books, and More Books

One of my ttv (through the viewfinder) photographs from my jillruthandco Etsy shop is featured this morning on this blog with some other really great book items. I think it will be fun to explore the site.

We have shelves and shelves and stacks of books here and it's hard for me to walk away from them at sales. I'm not sure what I love the most: new books, old books, or kids books. Paging through an old book though is really something special. The last garage sale I went to on the junk jaunt had a LOT of old books for 15 cents a book. I only bought one sack full because my pick up was packed. It was hard to leave the rest behind. I couldn't even tell you right now what the books were but the covers were awesome and the history was palpable. I need to go dig for that sack right now!

If you have a minute go check out Samantha's blog if you're a book lover I don't think you'll be disappointed! Now out to my pile to find that sack....

Junkin' Monday

I left in the cloak of darkness.....to the annual Nebraska Junk Jaunt. My first time to go digging through garage sale after garage sale in this junking extravaganza.



There was a cozy fog to drive through that lifted right when I got to my first sale a little before 8am.



Five--count them--five typewriters came home with me!! I left a few behind too that were way overpriced. Funny how prices fluctuated from sale to sale.



I guess that's a wasp's nest in there. I will use this one for salvaged parts. I could never take the keys off of a good typewriter and even this one will make me sad to dismantle, but it's really falling apart and is rough. The keys will clean up beautifully. I'm sure there will be uses for the other parts too. Let me know if you know of any good projects for the rest of the typewriter!



Needs a GOOD cleaning but gotta love the color!

I had the pickup full and I will spend the next month sorting, cleaning, etc and will share some pictures along the way. I got back at 10pm and really enjoyed the day of scavenging! Now, you can join Clara and Marcela for Junkin' Monday at Cottage Charm and Family Inspiration to see other great vintage finds and sweet junk!

The No Bid Pile

At the auction I went to Sun., they had 2 lines going most of the day. I usually move back and forth from one auction ring to the other. I missed the books and paper items selling because I was more interested in something going on in the other ring. Later, I saw this big pile of paper ephemera and books left where that part of the sale was. I was pretty sure it was a "no bid" pile. I peeked and thought it looked interesting. I asked one of the runners and he said "Sure, you can have it for 25 cents."




We've all had far more than 25 cents worth of fun looking through all of this! Look at the newspaper headline.



And that little burgandy book on the top of the pile up there was a diary. There are posts in it like..."today, dad spanked me" , "my brother blooded by nose", "we went to church", "I had to stay after school for spelling." I may have to google "Roger Blatter" and see if he ever really became an author. I'm guessing he was around 8 or 9 years old.



These pictures are from a child's song book--quite old--look at some of the titles of the songs and lyrics!



Yeah, it was almost another world compared to now.



A song about cleaning. I may play this on the piano to inspire me! Or not.



Ya gotta love this. Sure makes you think about how it was, "back in the day"!



There are two of these Big Chief Tablets in the pile and quite a few Nat'l Geos.



These were magazines for kids like weekly readers.



Another beautiful song book. Click on the images to enlarge them and you can read them better.



There are about 6 of these notebooks. Not written in and in almost perfect condition. Aren't the images great?

I think I will share some more paper ephemera especially ads from old magazines that I have from time to time here on the blog. I just love to look at them so I imagine there are others that would like it too.

25 cents well spent I think.

(I scheduled this post because I am on the Nebraska Junk Jaunt all day Fri. and thought I might be a bit busy sorting today.)

I Dare You.

Monday night as I was making a delicious supper of tuna and egg salad sandwiches, my son said, "Do you know you can't break an egg if you squeeze it in your hand?" "Huh? Right!" or something like that was my reply. Says he saw it once on TV. So of course I was sure right away that it was true.



So the experimentation began. He was right. You can't. We tried hard boiled and raw eggs. Of course when I tried, I did it over the sink---just in case---he was still somehow yankin' my chain. We had them deep in our palms like the picture shows. When Will used both hands, one hard boiled egg did break, but with one hand you couldn't break it no matter how hard you squeezed.



Can you tell by the picture that he is squeezing really hard? Maybe this is old news to some of you, but I sure had never heard of it. And I love this kind of quirky information. I imagine there is a physics explanation for this but you aren't going to hear it here.

Now, go ahead and squeeze an egg. I dare you. (Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for broken egg on your floor.)

Junkin' Monday

Oh my goodness! It was a sweet junkin' weekend. City-wide garage sales in David City on Friday followed by an auction in town yesterday. Hard to decide what to post about, but my large purchase of clocks won out. As with so many vintage items (doors, windows, cameras, aluminum coffee pots, fabric, buttons, etc.....)I'm pretty smitten with clocks. There were a few clocks that got away at the auction--way to pricey for my budget--funny thing is I got the ones I loved the most and they were the seasoned dealer's rejects. Hhhmmm--don't really know what that means. Are they the clueless ones or me? (That is a completely rhetorical question. I'm not looking for you to answer it for me!!!)



Mmmmm, can you hear the ticking? You might notice the two on the front right--no, they aren't actually clocks but wall thermostats. They look awesome.



And, this large one in the back?! A game timer! How fun is that?! (Alas, it doesn't work, but my son and I got the back off this morning so we'll see if we can get it going.)



Look at the little art deco beauty hiding in the back row--check out these art deco clocks I have listed here and here. I found those at the flea market I posted about last week in Junkin' Monday. Now, head over to Clara and Marcela's blog Cottage Charm and Family Inspiration for more Junkin' Monday posts. So fun to share the vintage quest!

It Was a Good Day.

This is how the morning sun met me driving down our lane after dropping kids off this morning. Looked to be the start of a good day, and it was!

I Do Love Etsy

I love the creativity, community, and ingenuity found on Etsy. This is a contest they hosted to promote handmade on Etsy. There are ten, 15 to 30 sec. videos in the finals of the competition. And they are GOOD. You can check them out here. You can even vote for your favorite if you want. I wonder what kind of entries they would get to promote the Vintage Sellers on the site? I could do a time lapsed video of rust accumulating on my lovely junk!

Junkin' Monday

I stumbled upon a fun Meme this morning and thought I'd join right in. Over at Cottage Charm and Family Inspiration they are hosting Junkin' Monday to share your great junk finds. Never a shortage of that around here.

This weekend I went to the Flea Market at Venice Antique Mall west of Omaha. Found some really fun items, but left a couple behind---So... when we went to the zoo yesterday in Omaha we stopped by the Flea Market again to get what I should have bought the first day! And lo and behold I found this!



Oh she's rough alright, but I just couldn't pass her up. One of the kids asked me what I was going to name her. I informed them I only name my mannequins, not my dress forms. But, as I was photographing her I kept seeing personality, and I think she does need a name.




Now, what to do with her? I'm open to any and all suggestions. What do you think I should name her? and please help with ideas of what to do with her. I should add that she's a bit musty smelling and if you can't tell in the photo--very rough, rusty, and wobbly. I have one very similar in really good condition already in my sewing room. (I'd hate to make her feel second rate by putting her in there with my other one.) If you click on the photo, it will enlarge and you can see the condition.

Don't forget to check out the other fun Junkin' Monday finds!

Every Garden Should Have One

This great outdoor sink sits in Warren and Danita's garden. You may remember my brother Warren from this post---no wonder those lovely carrots were so clean!



This is a bit better without the bright red hose!



Don't you love the old faucet?!



The is a galvanized table from a school in western Nebraska. I think I was told it was for playing with sand and water. Warren cut a hole for the water to drain through and put galvanized screen on for the veggies to sit on while washing.
We have a lot of gourds and pumpkins just waiting for harvest and washing. I'm on the look out for such a table and faucet~~~on my list for someday~~~

Shed Sale

Well, yesterday Randy, the little gals, and I headed off with our last load to set up at The Shed Sale. I posted about the 4th of July sale here. Now for Judy's fall sale, I'm a vendor! We had taken a load a couple of weeks ago and securely tarped it to protect it from the rain. Even though my stuff is in a shed, it's not waterproof! Right after we untarped, started marking, and moved tables (that I had stored out of the rain for 15yrs) outside, it begins to rain. And rain. And rain. The gals are muddy, the tags are wet...Randy suggests we go look at some printer's blocks for sale that I had seen on Craig's List which were another hour south and hope the rain stops so we can come back and clean up. So off we went after a bite at Mickey D's which includes a hot Mocha! By the time we got back to the Shed Sale it had quit raining but was dark so we used our headlights to finish tagging and cleaning up.

Those sweet printer's blocks are from the box of blocks I bought from Craig's List stop. I'll be listing some in my Etsy shop soon.

Judy is a delight--she wasn't minding the rain at all--said it was "freeing" to be able to let things get wet! Good attititude!

What was worse than the rain was that I didn't even get to shop the sale because of how much the rain slowed us down. There were treasures everywhere and I couldn't look and shop. Sad-- I know.

If you're from NE stop in! 6 miles south of Seward. Just take the I-80 Seward exit and follow the signs south! The sale starts today and goes through Mon. 10-4. Monday is deal day and I'll be down there then.