Flea Market Mania

I am obsessed. 

But that's ok.  Creatively obsessing on something is one of my very favorite states of being. 

I'm all in lala-land with visions of flea market booths swirling in my head.  At the moment, I'm still far enough from having one myself (about two weeks) that I'm still something of a snob about booth appearance.  Having been a flea market vendor in the past, I know that it's much harder than it seems to have a booth that looks cool, exciting, well-designed, and pulled together.  It's so easy for it to be stubbornly, persistently junky. 

I went over to scope out the flea market (All My Treasures on Highway 16, Fayetteville) yesterday in preparation for installing my booth.  Within moments, my friend and inspiration, Vanessa Ryerse (www.happinessisabutterfly.blogspot.com) appeared.  She is a lot of the reason I was able to summon the courage to dive into this again.  She has a new booth there (her second booth total) that she was there to repaint.  It turns out that my booth is directly beside hers!  We couldn't be more delighted to be neighbors.  I'm thinking it's a God thing.  She inspires me constantly.

Here is Vanessa's booth:
 

She's a genius:  the black stripe at the top of the wall is blackboard paint.

This is my favorite booth:

I just want to crawl into this booth and not come out.  I want to be the vendor's new best friend and slightly-obsessed fan club president.  I'm pretty sure it's all an exponential interaction between the curly pink chairs with the apple green seats and the pink lamp with the globe shade.  And maybe the periwinkle blue walls. 

The thing I've realized is that I am all about color these days.  In the past, one of my favorite flea market shopping techniques was to look through the booths with my eye programmed just to pick up good color.  This resulted in the finding of many wonderful objects.  This is where I learned of my passion for painted wood -- especially little painted wood stools. 

A visitor to my house once said it's "like a box of Skittles" because every room is a different color.  Hopefully, my colors are more sophistocated than Skittles colors!  But, I do tend to sort my house by color.  If something is green, it goes in the dining room.  If something is aqua, it goes in the girls' bathroom.  Etc. 

I want my flea market booth to be all about color.  My cruise through other booths showed me, over and over again, that this is what drew me in.  Hopefully, color is what will draw shoppers into my booth on the same principle.

Look at all the wonderful color:

Love the peacock shelves, the Coke-bottle-green glasses, and the pink bowl!

Green shelves, blue shirt, blue kids' table and chairs.

Again, more wonderful color.

Glorious red!

Love the yellow but I took this photo mainly because I will need a baby clothes section in my booth. 
I find free baby cloths (in good condition and good brands) constantly.

Black is also a color!  I love this vintage cabinet tuned computer cabinet!

The RED interior is the best part!

LOVE these tags!

There will be lots of chalkboards in my booth!

This is frequently what the back of my car looks like! 
Everything was free except for the $6 chenille bedspread.

That last photo completely justifies my uncoming flea market booth all by itself.  I need an outlet for my fun stuff.  It would be selfish of me to keep it all for myself.  That would also be called "hoarding".

Wishcraft Strikes Again

Sometimes I forget about wishcraft.  You know, it's that magical phenomenon whereby you say you want something one day and the next day it appears in a puff of sparkly pink smoke.  I'm of the opinion that God is involved in it heavily.

I've been needing brown flats.  Every day, it seems, I needed brown flats.  I've scoured the thrift stores several times and bought two pair of black flats, but no brown.  I've contemplated just buying some new but it turns out I'm too cheap.  Really, it was because I knew I'd find some for free the minute I paid for new.  So I decided to skip the paying-for-new step.

Looky what turned up!  Not one but TWO pair of brown flats!  Free from the dumpster.  In my size.  Maybe not the shoes of my dreams, but I do like them and they will be worn often (like right at this very moment, for example). 

In the same black trash bag in the dumpster we also found almost new black Oxford dress shoes that fit Mark perfectly and that he really needed.  Ta da!

Also in the realm of wishcraft: I've been trying to find a place in my house with good natural light and an attractive background to use for taking photos of things (potentially for photographing things I might sell on Etsy but also for occasions like the shoes).  This morning, the shoe photo session brought the realization of the perfect spot.

The dresser in my bathroom is right in front of a light-giving window.  It's a neutral shade of antique white.  There's a lamp right there and three lights in varying forms overhead.  And the vintage lace tablecloth that hangs by the window as a curtain (out of photo to the left) makes a great backdrop.  Problem solved. 

Next on the Wishcraft List is something that I can paint with blackboard paint and put in this frame (free from the dumpster and free paint too, of course).

While I'm waiting, I'll paint the frame apple green.  I'm sure it won't be long before I get to tell you how the blackboard came about.  Wishcraft works like that!