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.

 

Going Green

 I got the green group finished, giant pile of wonderful things await the red milk paint, so hoping I find time to do it.  We went Christmas shopping for the first time yesterday, and trying to put up the trees today in addition to finishing listing these and all the shipping.  Breathing deeply!~

Cute Little Green and Red Toys

 There is a new dealer in a nearby antique mall that has been bringing in the cutest vintage toys, and so many in that 1940s  green and bright red, so Christmas perfect.  Here are the pieces I have reimagined for my shop.

I also have been buying up old blocks and Christmasing them up:

Sold Almost Before I Listed Them

 It has been the craziest busy Christmas season I can remember.  Still working all day, shipping and listing, listing and shipping.  I keep filling up the memory card on my camera on photo days, also a first.  Basically doing at least 800 pictures about 3 times a week.  I still have not found time to clean the house or paint my antique projects.  The dog needs a bath again too.  I mostly have kept the family fed, but that is about it.  Here are goods that sold very fast, wanted to remember them when I get to sit and remember some day...

Did There Used to be More Time in a Day?

 I feel like all I do is work lately, no fun to be had and wondering where all the time went.  I used to have time to take walks, get both the girls to school and work, cook and clean, do an elaborate sale in Clarinda and still keep the eBay store going.  Now, I get up, just Grace to drop off at the University, sit down and start listing, photographing and shipping, next thing I know, it is 10 pm.  Dishes not done, laundry piled up, dog needs a bath, mountains of antiques not painted.  Shouldn't be sitting doing this either, but need to complain.  Why can't I get anything done???  Well, more on that later.  I really just want to post these photos for me to look at in the future.  Some of the finished Christmas--my entire creative process has consisted of "I should tie something on that" and "I should put a tree in that"

September was CRAZY

 That went by in a blink!  I created more fall goods than I think I ever have and they actually sold, so I just kept making it.  I pretty much sat down at 8 to paint and create and did not finish until 10 pm every day, stumble bleary eyed in to bed, get up and do it all over again.  In between all the pumpkin paint, I ordered massive amounts of bottle brush trees, the most expensive being the tiny little guys on wood blocks. Most places I looked wanted $38 a dozen!  I did a little better, but they were still crazy expensive.  I bought some large trees in grays and browns, decided they are a little too somber, so will be trying my hand at dyeing trees, I will let you know how that goes.  I decided I would absolutely not make any paper doll creations this year, then Mr. Tim Holtz showed up on youtube giving demos of his new Halloween and Christmas lines, and the next thing I knew, I had ordered every single thing in the line and then some.  I cannot put those dolls down, they are so much fun to create with!

Here is a bit of the Halloween I did with my purchases:

This is "The Spirit Merchant", my paper doll fortune teller, loved creating this little spooky room for her to work in.

"Bewitched" has a black tree atop a cauldron, twiggy witch broom, love it!

No paper doll here, just a little spice tin converted for storage of graveyard dirt.

My piece de la resistance, the haunted music room.  I started this years ago but just couldn't make myself put the finishing touches on.  Got inspired to finish and here it is:

Hmm, maybe this one is my best instead...I love love love how this turned out.  I usually would not alter such an expensive and early piece, but I knew black milk paint would make it so perfectly spooky and it did.  The mirror really needed the haunted doll photo.

Overwhelmed

There are times when I go in search of antiques in America and come up empty handed.  Then, there are times like these when there are so many flea markets and antique shows and the shops seem very well stocked, at least until I show up and take it all home to add to the pile.  I recently told my husband I didn't have any money left, and he looked at me like there were radishes growing out of my ears because I have been shipping about 20 items every day.  I had to explain that while I am selling hundreds of dollars of merchandise, I am buying thousands of dollars in merchandise.  I seriously can barely get to my computer and work table because there are Cat in the Hat piles of bowls and firkins and boxes filled with old tin, all needing to be transformed.  My music room is now the hoarders nest, the dining room has things lined up around the walls and I have to clear a place for us to eat every single night.  Although we cleared out the Clarinda house a year ago, I just now was able to go through a few of the boxes we stuffed in the attic, so much more left to deal with.  We also have the husband's parents home to clear out and it is getting stacked on the front porch and in the garage.  I feel like all I do is fill up the trailer, go to the landfill and dump stuff where ever we can find a bare spot.  Not liking it at all.  With too much to do and not enough time to do it, how did I spend last night?  Went to the casino at 7, looked up from the slot machine to find that it was now 2 am.  I don't even know how that happened, but I can still see spinning reels when I close my eyes.  Of course, I won a lot, and of course I lost it all, but it was fun at least.

The latest dark and spooky items that I have managed to create amongst the chaos:

A Little Bit of This a Little Bit of That

 It has been a roller coaster July.  My husband had a hip replacement and it was a month of recovery.  He fell on the ice a couple years ago when he was out jogging, pulled a muscle that never healed and the limping ended up destroying the hip.  Miracles is what those ortho guys do.  Still, I was in charge of all the fetching of things for the first week, lots of work and worry about blood clots and other disasters, but we came through at last.  I am going to have a hard time when he retires--I barely had a minute to work on my shop, so been putting in overtime now that he is back at work.  Scattered, I am doing everything at once, and here are the results:

Could be fall...

or maybe just jump in to Christmas

but don't forget about blue

and maybe a little red for good measure