I don’t really know why certain things catch my eye.  I’ll be walking through an antique store and just see it.  Something that is interesting or has a special patina about it.  I just know it when I find it.  One thing that’s been catching my eye lately is…binoculars and opera glasses.  I guess that’s two things, but they’re kind of the same, right?     I keep them on a shelf in my home office and pull them out occasionally for photo shoots.     I think I like them for the same reasons I like cameras, typewriters and fans.  They’re something that were meant to be utilitarian, but now they just look cool.     What’s caught your eye lately?

I received a ton of comments over the weekend asking where I buy my grain sacks, so I thought I would share.  Unfortunately, I don’t have one magic hookup, but I get them here and there as I find them.   I’ve bought a bunch from Pete, my fellow vendor at Lucketts.  He doesn’t always have grain sacks, but he has them pretty regularly.  The nice thing about buying from Pete is he buys grain sacks that aren’t in pristine condition.  That means they’re not expensive (about $25-$30/each.)  It does mean you might have to wash them or work around some stains or patches, but I’m fine with that. I’ve bought a few grain sacks at antique fairs, but those were quite a splurge at $65/each.  They were in amazing condition, though, with very cool embroidery.     Another source has been some of my readers living in Poland and

I haven’t been out to yard sales for over a month.  I’m not sure why, but I just haven’t been in the mood and we’ve had other things going on.  This week, though, there was the Rt 30 yard sale in New Oxford, PA, so I set out with my mom, husband, Sean, Emily and the boys and we found some great stuff.  The best haul of the day was probably this antique wooden tool box…       I also bought a set of antique French pate knives for $10…       …two Sterling silver salt shakers for $5/each…     ..and a few other things.  I didn’t find any great furniture, which was a good thing, since we had a van full of people.  Emily had never been to yard sales before and she found a couple of cool things (some slate pieces from a roof and

Some people have their recliner or their rocker or their rolling desk chair.  It’s a spot where they spend a lot of time and they enjoy the time they spend sitting in it.  I have my painting chair.  I “saved” it out of my Opa’s attic (that’s German for grandfather, in case you didn’t know.)  I brought it home with plans to paint it and sell it.  While it was waiting its turn to be painted who-knows-what-color, I sat in it when I worked on other pieces of furniture.  I soon realized that this vintage, kid-sized desk chair was the perfect height.  This chair would never get a makeover.  Instead, it would become my hardworking painting chair.  It’s sturdy enough to stand on, it’s small enough to tuck under my workbench when not in use, it’s pretty comfortable and it really saves my back.    I pulled it out the other day to paint a

When I was shopping to get ready for the Lucketts Antique Market in May, I came across this jewelry scale. Now, if you’ve read my blog for even a little while, you may have picked up on my love of a few things…fans, typewriters, ironstone and scales.  I had never seen a jewelry scale, so I bought it. I was in a major buy-to-sell mode, so I put a tag on it (with a pretty outrageous price) and brought it with me to Lucketts.  Before the fair began, another vendor was over checking out MY scale.  Oh don’t you DARE buy MY scale.  I know it has a tag on it and I put it out there for sale, but I didn’t mean for anyone to BUY it!  Ha…well, she walked away to think about it and things started to get a little crazy with customers.  About midday, the scale was