junkblossoms.com

These past couple weeks have been weeks of worry, anxiety and self reflection.  The worry was for my Shih Tzu, Freedom.  Most of you know that Freedom is our junking dog.  He goes with us every week to yard sales.  He stays in the truck and people watches.  He’s very quiet and is so appreciative when people come up to the truck to say hello and tell  him how gorgeous he is.  Last week Freedom was diagnosed with Glaucoma in his right eye.  He hasn’t been happy to have drops put in twice a day but the drops are working.  He also had an eye lesion on the same eye which needed a gel twice a day.  We are finally past the lesion, I think, and he’s down to two drops a day in his eye.  The poor boy thinks every time we walk by him, we’re going to pick him up and put something in his eye.  His trust levels are way down.  The prognosis isn’t very good.  He could lose his eye or at the least go blind.  He could within two years be affected in his other eye.  Right now we’ll take the best care of him possible.

We have also had truck transmission problems.  Prayers were answered and the repairs weren’t as devastating to our wallets as we feared.   Our normal mechanic wouldn’t answer our calls or get back to us so we had to find a new one.  A couple from our church recommended Morris Automotive and they were great.  It’s a Christian run business and they were able to fix it in record time.  I so appreciate them.

The third problem was my anxiety.  I have had Breast Cancer in the past and am required to take an estrogen blocker daily for five years.  It causes my hair to fall out and causes terrible anxiety attacks.  I finally had to call my doctor.  It looks like that’s taken care of.   In all of this I’ve gone from wondering where God was to realizing my faith wasn’t as it should be.  To be frank, just as Freedom needed medication and the truck needed repair,  I needed a little humbling.  I didn’t like it, but I know it was for the best.  So I’m giving all the glory to God for getting us through all this.  He is so good all the time.

Ron, Freedom and I couldn’t go junking this weekend.  We couldn’t go anywhere without the help of our daughter.   The truck broke down last Monday and still isn’t fixed.  Ron and I are praying for a small repair bill.

I didn’t think I had anyting to show you, but that isn’t true.  I told  you there was going to be a Junkblossoms Etsy Store.  We’ve been working on that.  Did you notice the new header on the blog?  Look for the same one on my daughters Junkblossoms Etsy Store.  Today, I’m going to show you what we’ll be listing in the next week.  We have a few ends to tie up before the store opens.  Today  you get a preview of what will be there available to order.

This is a P&D vintage necklace and bracelet set with Aurora Borealis type crystals.

This vintage beaded purse will be for sale.

Here’s a few odds and ends that I’ve shown you before.  Now they’ll be able to be yours.

We have this vintage men’s bowling cufflink set.

We’re lising these Fenton hand painted signed bells.

Also going into the Etsy shop is this set of vintage handkerchiefs.

These vintage beaded clip earrings will be for sale, too.

 I’ll let  you know when we open our doors.  See anything  you want?  If not, there is so much more  that will be in the store.  Please shop Junkblossoms Etsy.  At least visit and say hi.  Thank you, and Blessings.

We’ve had these stools, there are two, for quite a while.  No one seems to want them.   They have an ugly Naugahyde covering on them.  Aren’t they sad looking?

That had to change so yesterday I sanded the legs.  Ron put new polyurethane on them.  He says they look good with the new poly he brushed on.  I say they look good because I did such a good job sanding them.  It’s all in the preparations, right?  I removed the ugly covering on the seat.

I already had this upholstery material and I had found the beaded trim a couple years ago at a yard sale.

As you can see, I cut the material to size and stapled it down.

Then I stapled the fringe around the edge, making sure I placed it where it would hang correctly.   I think it turned out so cute.  This is one sweet stool that shouldn’t last long in the booth.  From this:

To this:

I still have one more to redo.   Now I’m excited to work on it.  Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?

Oh my, I almost forgot to tell  you our good news!  Junkblossoms is expanding.  We are opening an Etsy store named Junkblossoms, what else?  I hope you will check us out.  I have some really interesting things to list.  I’m in the process of doing it right now.  By this time next week, we should be up and running.  I’ll let you know here when Junkblossoms Etsy opens.    Please visit our store and let us know what you think.

Each weekend I am so excited to go to yard sales.  What confounds me is that each week is so different.  The weather can be the same, and yet the amount of sales be totally off.  We didn’t go out on Friday because of storms.  It was beautiful in the afternoon and some of the sales started when the rain stopped.  We didn’t know this or we would have gone out.  But on Saturday when the weather was absolutely beautiful, there were few sales.  The sun was shining.  The temps were on the cool side, which to me is perfect junking weather.  We spend the first two hours without finding many sales at all.  The day wasn’t a total wipe out, we did find a few things but nothing that I could put in the “soul find” category.

We bought this chest of drawers and the two ottomans at the last sale we found.

We bought this table and sports bench at another sale.

I almost kept this Lasagna pan but I didn’t really need it.  I did find a brand new pair of shoes from Sears for me.

Bought this really pretty desk lamp at the same sale.

I pick up every globe I can find.  Got the jewelry box at the same sale.

We stopped at one sale that had several items I was interested in.  None of the items had prices so I had to ask.  There was a cute little chest with three or four drawers.  It didn’t stand more than three feet high and some of the drawer pulls were missing.  I asked the price of it.  The price she quoted was so high, my jaw dropped.  She told me her mother painted the chest.  My question is, are you willing to pay a higher price for someone’s memories?  I understand her sentimental attachment to the chest of drawers, but I didn’t have that attachment.  What do you say?

Last year I found this old coal hod.  I was sure I could just clean it up.  That patina comes off easily right?  I don’t know, it looks pretty rough to me.

I researched cleaning brass on the Internet.  It was suggested to use ketchup.  The acidity in it would take the patina off.  So I tried it.  It did work, but it turned some of the metal pink.  The part around the nail holes.  I also think the surface was marred from the patina.

That certainly wasn’t going to do.  So I decided instead of brass, I’d make it look like cast iron.  I cleaned it up and started spraying it black.

The board under the lid was to keep it open so that I could spray the edge and to keep the lid from sticking to the box.

I think I like the black look better than the brass.

What do you think?  I still had some cans of black paint so I took this old gas space heater we picked up last week at a yard sale and cleaned it up.  It has a lot of character, doesn’t it?

The first thing I did was remove the gas fittings.  I wasn’t sure how to do this so I unscrewed everything that looked like it was screwed on.  I loosened every screw I saw.

It looks much better without the pipes.

Then I cleaned out all the nasty stuff nesting underneath the heater.  I wiped it down and let it dry.  Then with spray can in hand, I started spraying it black.  I love the look.  Won’t this make a great magazine rack.  Or maybe even look nice with a plant in it.

It’s going to look really neat in someone’s home.   These type of projects are my favorite things to work on.