My First Post!

After following and being inspired by blogs of fellow antiquers, junk hunters, and vintage lovers throughout the past year, I have finally decided to join in on the writing fun! I have had the great fortune of starting an antique booth at the Austin Antique Mall, and I have learned so much since opening in April. It has been such a great adventure and I have met many wonderful people along the way..several who have encouraged me to have a blog! So here it is...a way for me to chronicle my progress with my small space, showcase my favorite finds, and write about the fun I have while driving all over central Texas and visiting small towns (creating my own version of American Pickers!).

Here are some booth pictures from the 'grand opening' in April.

The finished product for Day 1. Sales that day = 0. My disappointment = huge! However, I sold the a piece on Sunday and that brought some relief.

I was excited and dreading the move all at once. I had a field trip with my 8th graders the night before to the Austin Symphony and didn't get home until midnight; I was up until 2am writing out price tags, and I could barely sleep thinking about how it would all come together. Thankfully, it did, with the help of my wonderfully supportive husband! Here he is hard at work.

This picture shows just how little inventory I had when I started! I can't believe all the bare wall space...I try my best now to cover the ugly (but practical) pegboards.

I didn't have a lot of display pieces, so I had the mall owners leave this bookcase in my space so I could house items on it. It looked terrible! Thankfully, by the next weekend, it was gone and replaced with one of my all-time favorite display pieces.

Here's a picture of the booth from Week 2 - ahhh, much better! There's my favorite display piece, a handmade hen nester I found in Giddings on my way home from Warrenton this past spring. It can now be seen in Gatherings, a gorgeous shop in Georgetown. I was sad to see it go and learned a hard lesson about how to price display pieces from that great gray nester.

Here is the booth about a month ago - glad to report that I finally sold that bird cage!

I so greatly enjoyed my summer shopping for my booth. My hobby has put 11,000 miles on my vehicle since I got it in March - can that be right?! A list of the places I have been:
-to my parents in IL
-Warrenton (twice)
-Burnet, Bertram, Kingsland, Llano (too many to count!)
-Geronimo, Seguin, and New Braunfels (a few times)
-Bastrop, Smithville
-South Congress here in Austin
-McKinney
-Georgetown
-Fredericksburg
-countless estate sales, flea markets, and garage sales

I even sweated it out as a vendor at the Burnet Road Flea Market on the last day of July with some good friends who are always up for a vintage hunting adventure. Not sure what we were thinking, but it was a memorable day! Not so much profitable, unfortunately....


Fast forward through the (hottest) summer (ever in Austin history), and here is what my booth looks like now:

It is still a constant work in progress, and I am still very critical of my displays as there are so many great vendors to which I compare myself! But I am loving every bit of it and of course learning a lot along the way!

A very special thanks to my very special Mom, who has been a great encourager and supplier of wonderful vintage wares for my booth. She saved a carload of goods for me, packed up my car with endless bags of carefully wrapped treasures, and even endured the 18 hour drive back to Austin with me. She has great taste and I am so glad to have had her help! Here is the one item around which the entire car was packed:

And here is my favorite item that my Mom saved for me; it is a beat up, rusted out mailbox that spent 20 years on our farm. It went to a good home last week, as a sweet vendor purchased it to display pumpkins at her house.

Well, that should do it for my first entry. Thank you for reading, and I look forward to posting more progress, fun finds, and inspiring displays from shopping excursions!

-Sarah