Nebraska Junk Jaunt

This past weekend was the Nebraska Junk Jaunt, which is a loop on some scenic byways with lots of garage sales, antique shops, and community sales over a three day weekend.

I went to a couple towns on Saturday afternoon, and another on Sunday.

I love junk. I love refinishing/painting furniture. I love using rusty things, old toys, old tools, and vintage-y things in my art.  I often have a booth at a modernism show and I am always on the hunt for mid-century items. That said, I didn't find much of interest. I was looking for some small furniture pieces and didn't find any of what I was looking for (nightstands, and a small round breakfast table). I didn't even find much good small arty junk, although I do already own a lot of junk and passed on stuff I already had or have had.

I did buy some embroidered linens and doilies: (I love the bucking bronco)

Some old toys:

 A frame (which was free):

And also, a portable clothes rack to use at future weekend fairs I may do, for hanging my dyed T-shirts. (No picture, it's already stored in the garage, and it was only $5).

Then I bought this small box. I want to paint and collage on it, and use it to store art supplies I use often.  Sorry, the Michael Jackson stickers will have to go. The box is cardboard, so it's nice a light, which is nice. 

Field trip to the Paris Street market, Littleton

One of the places I love to go in the summer, is the Paris Street market in Littleton.  I impatiently wait for the first weekend all spring. Finally the first Saturday in May arrived.

It was pretty packed with shoppers, as usual.  I like to look for rusty bits and cool weird things to include in my assemblage art.  These types of things seemed very limited this time.

I also have the new house to decorate, so I was looking for a small free-standing cabinet for the downstairs bathroom and other small house furnishing items.  For the most part, all of the vintage furniture at the Paris Market was painted. I would prefer pieces with a wood finish for the new house. I did not like the colors of the painted furniture. I actually would have preferred something with some pow if I was going to get a painted piece, but most were black.

Regardless, I did find some cute things.

Cast Iron hand, I have a specific spot in the new house for this, and a cast iron doo-dad, for art:

Old folding table, I will probably do something to this and hang this as art. I tried to remove the paint splotches but with little success. I have a pressed tin panel somewhere and thought I could mount it to this to "frame" it.

Pillow.  I love this because it reminds me of a Gustav Klimt painting. The living room walls in the new house will be a green-yellow, so this will look great in there.

This is probably the last time I will get to the Paris Market before we move.  I hope I find some good flea markets in Nebraska.

We also stopped at an Estate sale on the way home.  I have a high tolerance for dirt and dust, but this home looked like it hadn't been cleaned in 40 years. I touched the wood legs of an ottoman and it felt greasy as well as dirty.  Ugh!  I did buy some old roller skates and five small embroidered pieces.  I didn't look very hard at the embroidered pieces while I was there, and I love this mermaid piece.  

I also stopped to see Susan at her studio and exchanged some 50's dress patterns I bought for her for some Methyl Cellulose.  I am looking forward to playing with it, but still need to finish some other art pieces first. I bought this for creating fabric collages, but I found some instructions on my computer for marbling with it, so may try that too.

Treasures from my recent trip

From a gift shop at the Old Town Plaza in Albuquerque. Cute nichos. I am going to take apart the one on the left to make three separate ones.

I found nothing exciting in Arizona, and I looked hard. Since we only went to the Grand Canyon, there weren't a lot of shopping options.

From Black Sheep in Encinitas, CA, lovely hand-dyed wool roving. I thought it looked like a sunset. I typically don't buy a lot of hand dyed roving since it's expensive and I can dye my own, but on vacation I tend to splurge a little.

Then I went to the Mother of all Flea Markets, the Rose Bowl flea market in Pasadena, CA. This place was huge. We were there two hours, in order to cover more ground I didn't poke around in every booth (my usual flea market style) and I still think we only saw a quarter of it. It wasn't cheap but it had some awesome things.Go early, by 11am the line of cars waiting to park went on forever.

I have no idea why I love this tabletop pinball game, but I do. It makes me happy. It has two long nuts/bolts at the top so it will sit at an angle on a table and allow the game to be played, but I am going to take the bolts off and just hang it on the wall as art. I offered 33% less than the asking price and they didn't even haggle with me and took my offer.

Red zigzag scarf (they said it was silk), green patterned silk scarf, white and black lace, $2 each. Hand embroidered curtain (maybe 30"x30") with flowers and birds, $3.

 This little speedometer was the first thing I bought at the flea market, I thought it would be good in an assemblage. The wood block was marked $9 but he sold it to me for $7 and I didn't even ask for a lower price.  This block would be $15 to $20 in Denver.  I will be trying it out in the next few days.

We stopped at the store Art Heaven, in Grand Junction, CO on the way home. I bought some Transparent Setacolor paints since no stores in Denver carry it and I always have to order it online. I also bought some light Lutradur (not pictured) and some belt buckles. I want to make some felted belts. Art Heaven has a 10% discount for out of town visitors (yay!). Also pictured, but bought elsewhere, Jacquard silk salt (from Black Sheep, Encinitas) and gold aluminum foil (used to make a decorative swan for my leftovers at a California restaurant- my food was first wrapped in regular foil, so this foil was clean, but smells a bit like chocolate cake!)