The Crack Cocaine of Antique Shows

I'm an antique show slut.

I visit shows all year long, selling and shopping. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than visiting with and making purchases from my fellow vintage and antique dealer friends.

One of my all-time favorite shows is Antiques Weekend in Round Top, Texas.  Round Top, in case you're unaware, is the crack cocaine of the antique's show world and happens to be going on right this very minute (September 21 - October 5, 2013!) The field that I set up in is called The Texas Rose and is located directly across from Marburger Farms at 2075 South State Highway 237, Round Top, Texas 78954.  You'll find directions from Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio here.

Bottom line, I "owe" this show; I wouldn't own my own business or be an out-of-control vintage collector (AKA hoarder) without it!  And the only shopping advice I have to offer is to forget portion control … it is futile! … there are just too many vintage and antique goodies to pass up!

I just drooled …hmmm … perhaps an intervention is in order …

**Note**
I emailed these clips and photos to my talented son, Noah, and he put this video together for me.  He even supplied the music for it!  That's him on the guitar, playing one of his original tunes!!  

City Wide Weekend!

I always get excited at the prospect of selling and shopping at City Wide Garage Sale, on account that it's the most fantastically amazing thing ever created.

Whenever I started shopping and then eventually selling at the City Wide, I felt a little bit like Markie Post or Meredith Baxter Birney in one of those Lifetime movies about the perils of addiction - "Unraveled: The LeAnn Stephenson Story" - in which I rob from the kids' chore money and pawn my pancreas to get one more shopping fix. 

The way I figure it, everyone has a vice of some sort or another.  I probably will never have a drug addiction, or gamble my inheritance away, or take up a smoking habit in which I smoke so much that I spontaneously combust. 

My vice is vintage and antique shopping.

The first time I experienced this particular show, my eyes immediately caught fire and my heart raced when I saw booth after booth of vintage goodies awaiting me.  In my opinion it's the finest example of vintage shopping porn in central Texas.  I recall having to catch my breath, sit down, and put my head between my knees so I wouldn't pass out the first time I visited.

I always find amazingly groovy junk, I mean treasures, from the many vendors at City Wide.  And because I had specific request from a faithful stalker, I mean reader, I want to show you some of the goodies I picked up at this fall's Antique's Week that I plan on bringing to this weekend's sale.

Lots of beautiful needlepoint . . . .

. . . . . tons of new vintage frocks . . . .

. . . . . rainbow colors of vintage crystal inventory . . . .

. . . . . and of course piles of vintage textiles, napkins and damask tablecloths.

The sale is at the Palmer Events Center here in Austin.  I'll be set up near the red skirted info desk. There is a $7 charge to park in the garage or there is a free parking lot at One Texas Center on the Southwest corner of So. First and Barton Springs Road, as well.

Saturday morning between 8:30 a.m. - 10 a.m., City Wide offers early shopper passes for $10 each.  This allows those who so choose to have early access to the show and get first dibs on vendors' merchandise before the general admission customers enter at 10 a.m.

I hope you get a chance to come and see me, cuz I have some really marvelous goodies this show!

Have a great weekend and I'll see every back here Monday!

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Silver City Wide Garage Sale

I don't have frost bite or Raynaud's syndrome, though my finger tips are black, which blows that theory - I always thought I would have to be suffering from some awful disease that restricted my blood flow before my fingers turned gray, then black, and then fell off.  I figured there was some kind of circulatory protocol when it came to digits and their human owners.  Surely they don't, like bananas, just get black spots, then get all squishy and have to be thrown out, do they?  Don't doctors frown upon any extremities being any other color than your own personal flavor of flesh-tone?

I'm wondering all of this because da Hubbs and I are sporting sooty fingerprints like we have just gotten booked down at the police station or something.  Actually, there is a reasonable explanation and it has to do with some really tarnished silver, a Herculean exhibition of upper arm strength, and several hours of buffing. 

After Lynn Goldfinger-Abram's Thingy Thursday profiling her collections, I was hyper-aware of anything silver as I was out thrifting on a recent Sunday afternoon with the family.  We were at my favorite thrift store when I spied a silver creamer stashed on a lower shelf.  As I bent down, I discovered that it was not one creamer but several along with a footed compote, "eleven-ty-six" silver coffee pots, and a wicker basket full of silver-plated flatware.  I shrieked to da Hubbs, "Get a basket and hurry up about it!!!"

I was absolutely unprepared for the amount of work polishing these pieces would be, which is sadly on par with my preparation for all things in general, but, they look marvelous now and I'd love to show them off.  And (insert shameless plug) if you have a yearning to own one of these beauties, I will have them listed on my Etsy site next week and will have them displayed and for sale in my booth at City Wide Garage Sale this weekend.

I hope to see you tomorrow City Wide.  I've been preparing other goodies for this weekend's (June 19th and 20th) City Wide Garage Sale at Palmer Events Center here in Austin. My booth is #221 near the red skirted info desk. There is a $7 charge to park in the garage or there is a free parking lot at One Texas Center on the Southwest corner of So. First and Barton Springs, as well.

Saturday morning between 8:30am - 10am, City Wide offers early shopper passes for $10 each.  This allows those who so choose to have early access to the show and get first dibs on vendors' merchandise before the general admission customers enter at 10am.

I hope you get a chance to come and see me, cuz I have some really marvelous goodies this show!

City Wide Garage Sale This Weekend!

This week I've been painting, upholstering and washing myself into a full fledged frenzy preparing for this weekend's (March 13th and 14th) City Wide Garage Sale at Palmer Events Center here in Austin. My booth is #217 near the red skirted info desk. There is a $7 charge to park in the garage or there is a free parking lot at One Texas Center on the Southwest corner of So First and Barton Springs, as well.

Saturday morning between 8:30am -10am City Wide offers early shopper passes for $10 each.  This allows those who choose to have early access to the show and get first dibs on vendors merchandise before the general admission customers enter at 10am.

I hope you get a chance to come and see me, cuz I have some really marvelous goodies this show!

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