Time for Christmas Madness

The normal people are out there are all "It isn't even Halloween, stop with the Christmas talk", but here in the craft world, I should have started listing Christmas weeks ago.  Just got started today and already selling the few things I am listing.  Must find more hours in the day...

Take a Breath, and Get Covid!

 After the months and months of emptying that house, I started to try to work on my shop.  BAM! I get Covid.  Well, crap.  Thank goodness they let us have medication this time around.  Unfortunately, many are getting it and having doctors tell them it is just like a cold, so go home, rest, drink fluids, no medicine needed.  My brother and sister in law are VERY sick because they had one such doctor.  We all got sick at the same time, I had a couple bad days, but pretty much cured except for the very irritating cough.  They are still having high fevers and terrible head aches.  Back in the old days, my husband could have prescribed medicine for them, but all the new "government bureaucrats control the doctors" bull shit, he can't prescribe for any family member.  It is ridiculous. All I get to do is pray for their recovery and hope some of the over the counter stuff will work.

On my worst sick day, I had the misfortune to encounter the most evil, vile, bitter, evil, did I say evil? human being that has ever walked this earth.  All because he thinks he will buy the motorcycles and that no one else has any right to them, including us, the people that own them.  He has been hounding me to sell them, told him I was sick, he told me he hoped I would die.  I just said FUCK YOU.  It got worse, called me a whore, guaranteed that he would get the bikes no matter what.  I don't think so Beelzebub. I hope my run of bad surprises is done for the year at least.  I do need to add that every biker guy that came to the house to buy something has been very decent and kind, they all helped me identify parts and told me how to find serial numbers and figure out what year things were made.   The psycho is definitely an outlier.

Since I hate doing nothing, I have been painting a lot and making fall things between coughing fits, so I guess that is one bright note.

And I Thought I Used to Have Too Much To Do

 

I have been MIA as the last 6 months see the liquidation of my father-in-laws estate.  The man was the king of hoarders--we filled 2 jeeps with car magazines and newspapers to recycle, so that was the usual hoarder stuff you find, but that was certainly not all.  We also sent 4 Jeep loads and 3 trailer loads of antique radios to auction, well over 1000 radios.  Next, we have thousands of radio tubes and knobs and speakers and parts and more parts.  Boxes filled with gaskets and car parts, fenders, windshields, tires, everything car.  Then comes my next task after moving all that, the sorting and selling of motorcycle parts. This is one of I think 50 speedometers.  He had some rare ones, this one brought almost $700, an early Harley brought $1000.  We almost sent motorcycle frames to the scrap yard, but decided to try an auction starting them at $50.  They all brought about $4000 each---are you freaking kidding me?   I still have several actual full Indian motorcycles to sell, a couple Harleys, bunch of engines, it is so much fun. NOT. Last week was scrap yard week and despite all that we have moved out, there was still 10,000 pounds of metal to send the the scrap guy.  That is not an exaggeration, it was literally 10,000 pounds.  House finally sold and I think I just have one more weekend of moving crap out, but still months ahead of continuing to sell all the crap that is piled up around my ears at my house.  

Poor old Catspaw is limping along amidst the chaos.  I occasionally get some stuff done...

Crazy Spring

 It was summer all through March, and now that it is officially spring and April, winter is back! Snow and cold and so much gloom.  I have been so crazy busy.  For almost a year, I have been saying "once this is done, I will have time to breathe"... "Just get through my daughters wedding, then I can breathe"...no wait, crazy Christmas season is upon us, so "Just get through the Christmas rush, then I can breathe"...no wait, everyone is still shopping, I am shipping a million packages a day.  My somewhat messy house becomes a disaster area and there is never time to fix it.  Now, I am in the "just let me get the taxes done", or maybe "what can I do to avoid doing the taxes?"  After all, internet full of end of world during the eclipse, so I wouldn't want to waste my last days.  So here I am, when I should be listing things.  Sales have slowed dramatically, so a bit more time, but not enough ever.  

Oh, and here in the middle of winter, in the city, and I avoid the outdoors at all costs, I have contracted Lyme disease.  Broke out in a rash all up and down one arm, no other symptoms, thought I got bug bites from playing with some puppies, but no, it turned out to be the stuff of horror films.  My husband found a deer tick on the shower wall one morning.  We assume it landed on him when he was cutting brush.  Weeks pass, I am changing bed sheets, and I find 2 deer ticks on his pillow.  My rash is just horrible, but just on the one arm, then I get bites on my legs.  I strip the bed, wash EVERYTHING.  We take the animals and check them, they  have no bugs.  Grace and I take the dog and bunny out to the car and bug bomb the house, spend 4 hours driving around with the pets.  Next day, I find another tick on the bed and about freak out.  This is the first time I think to look up.  My sheer curtains on the window behind my bed have a line of black throughout the rod pocket.  I get on a ladder and find the rod pocket full of ticks. How they got there, I will never know.  There are a lot of deer roaming the city, we love seeing them, they are so pretty, but apparently they brought guests.  We must have brought a pregnant tick in without knowing it and she started a family in the curtain.  James and I both are on the antibiotics, and I still jump every time I see a black speck any where.  Just telling the story is making me itch.  Hope they are gone never to return.

This may be why I turned to all white for the latest creations.

What Are the Chances? With me, 100 Percent

 

I have "framed" cross stitch samplers that I or my daughter have made by putting them on old tins, old slates, anything odd like that.  I love love love how they turn out, but selling them is very cost prohibitive.  First, you have the expensive tin or slate, then add the cost of the sampler, even if I only pay myself 25 cents an hour for the stitching, which takes forever...  Anyway, I got the brilliant idea to search for antique sampler images on Pinterest and make prints to get the look without the cost. After printing one out, I realize it was made in 2010, not the antique look I was going for.  I had a small tin and thought, oh what the heck, I will cut off a little part of the print at the top and put that on the tin.  Now the Pinterest post was just the sampler, no mention of where it came from.  What are the chances that the designer of 14 years ago would be sitting in her home in the Netherlands and open eBay 5 minutes after I list the tin and immediately message me that I am not allowed to use the image?  I don't mind taking it down or being told I can't use it, but really, what are the chances???? 

 Also, someone else told me I was being deceiving for making something look like a real sampler when it wasn't on this tin, even though I said it was a print and not a real sampler.  Maybe this wasn't the brilliant idea I thought it was.

In the meantime, who knew Valentine goods were a thing?  Not me.  I usually put up a few heart tins and go on my merry blue way, but I realized the red stuff that I didn't get done in time for Christmas could be reimagined as Valentines and I got obsessed with spelling things with old blocks, starting with one little "LOVE" set.  Before I knew it, I was in the Valentine biz and I swear it sold better than my Christmas things did.  Did not expect to continue to be so busy.  Guess it is mostly keeping the usual winter angst at bay.

Sarcasm, My Friend

 I continue my imaginary argument...

She writes again.

I send a new missive.

Thank God you have returned!  Hurry we only have a moment before she returns.  Help us PLEASE!  She has us trapped in her factory of paint and fabric nonsense.  She refuses to get educated and keeps muttering about us being mass produced and factory made.  It is so demeaning.  We are old, and nothing old should ever be changed.  We love being like all the other bowls, we don't want to become bowls of color. We don't want to be unique, help us, help us! NO!  She is mixing the milk paint!  I fear it is too late for us, but perhaps you can save the others.  Call the antique police, we beg you.  Have her sent to an internment camp and force her to learn the errors of her ways. Farewell....oh noooooo, I am going to be blue....

The Bowls

At least I think I'm funny.

The Letter I Can't Send on eBay But Really Want To

Behold, the bowl of offensiveness, ruined in its prime by the evil ruiner of antiques, Elaine.  She must be stopped!  She must educate herself and stop her evil deeds!  Only a kind well meaning person can help and she sends an email to the villainess demanding she cease and desist.

So, this is how she did it.  I get a message something like this:

You have destroyed so many beautiful antiques with your nonsense paint fabric and other cheap things.  Stop it!  Then you may actually sell something.

I know I should ignore and delete, but I am a ruiner after all, so I reply with sarcasm:

Nothing I enjoy more than browsing in a shop, then sending the owner a nasty message, because I know everything and they know nothing.

2 days, no response, until....

There was nothing unkind in my note.  I would be a buyer myself if the items were not devalued by paint fabric etc.  check with other dealers if you take my comments not to be constructive.

Good Elaine says, just delete it.

Uh, oh, evil ruiner has taken over and forces me to reply:

You are mean.  Insulting. Condescending.  Read your hateful note one more time and tell me how it is helpful.  Nonsense paint and fabric?  Cheap things?  Stop it!?  Go away.

Then she comes back with

Talk to antique people.  Get educated.  Then your business may improve!

I am really sad that I only replied with Go away again.  Now I can't write my smart ass story that I just concocted, so will just have to write it here, where sadly she will never see it, but maybe somewhere in the future, the good reply that I wish I had written...

Ah, my dear friend, the pompous windbag!  How kind of you to return and regale me with more unsolicited and unwanted advice on how to do the job I have been doing for 40 years.  I am but a humble peasant, purchasing old wares for a small amount of money and selling them for a larger amount of money.  I so stupidly thought that since it is more, as in greater than, that it meant more value.  I have been corrected.  More is actually less, at least that is what you tell me.  And all those customers, who like a little color in their home decor, why they are wrong as well.  BROWN!  All you get is brown, and you had better start liking it.  Because she has spoken and none shall argue.  Talk to antique people? I am an antique people.   I talk to other antique people ALL the time.  They know what I do and they don't care because I pay for the merchandise they are selling and they are kind and decent people.  Oh, and also, the tin cocoa can that Grandpa stored his nails in is not an ancient relic deserving space in a museum.  It is just an old can and if I want to sew calico around it, I can.  The bowl in question?  About 110 years old or so, but mass-produced, factory made, 1000s just like it, not a handmade rarity, so I can damn well paint that too.

P.S.  What on earth can you have against calico?  What has it ever done to you?

Thank you for listening.