Weekends are busy...

By here's a few pics I managed to take at the flea...

Morning glories growing on the fence.   These are the wild varieties that bloom this type of year after the fall rains start. 

A six foot tall iron bird cage.... if you don't have a bird, they're great for displaying plants.  Orchids look great, or bromiliads.  Its.asking price is 150.00.

A teak Victorian rocker... priced at $175.00, but we could talk her down a little. 

And just for fun...

The soundtrack to Valley Of The Dolls. A hipster must have... for a dollar...

Work Work Work...

Just moving and moving all that stuff to the new booth.  Finally got it there, and began the slow process of arranging it.  Which takes longer than moving it, especially since there's customers trying to shop at the same time. 

Did sell a couple of Bob's today, despite everything being an unholy mess... or maybe because of it,  and got a bit of the Halloween decor up...
Altogether a pretty productive day...

busy,busy,busy

Well, the flea market is being demanding, but in a good way... business is down a little, primarily due to the heat.  And next week is ANTIQUE ALLEY.  That's the link to their web site, for those of you who don't really know what that is... basically, the highway between Cleburne and Grandbury becomes a giant flea market.  I've worked it a few times, but it can be expensive, booth space anywhere from $35 to $100, and a whole lot of trouble.  You usually turn a profit, but you come out of it truly beat down.

Anyway, I'm told that last year, we at Renfro Trade Days actually got some of the overflow from it... people who were on their way to or from Antique Alley stopped.  (we're fairly close to Cleburne, one of the starting or end points of the event.)  But a lot of our dealers are going to be working the Alley, so I don't know how busy we'll be... if people drive by and don't see any activity from the road, or see a bunch of booths that are covered with tarps and closed up, they may not stop.

I mentioned before, there is a haunted house in our parking lot over Halloween.  This will be opening up on Sept. 27, and it evidently brings business in.  The Haunted House people found out that I used to read Tarot cards for private parties and such back in my far more glamorous gothic days and they've talked me into putting a table in my booth to do readings.  Well, it's extra cash, so why not. 

They've also announced that they will be having a competition for the best decorated Halloween booth, the prize being free booth rental for the month.  Now, back in my Tarot days, I was actually a general party worker.  I free lanced with florists and party planners.  I can do some amazing things with a ball of yarn, some plastic mylar and a glue gun... I can do some of it practically in my sleep.  So while some of the dealers began pulling out plastic pumpkins and talking about stuffing a scarecrow... I'm thinking... I can do this.  BWAH HA HA HA HA. 

Face it folks... I've got a tarot table and small obnoxiously cute voodoo dolls... I'm starting with an advantage.  And then, I find out that the theme for the haunted house this year is zombie apocalypse, Little Goth Bob was just thrilled to his little wood and wire bones.

But... I'm thinking something else for my booth theme.  (You have to have a theme when you do these things.  It helps you focus and keeps everything from looking muddy)

Pics will of course be forthcoming.  I may even show you how to make a few things...  

Swap meet...

Last day of this little event.  And I'm ok with that...

Boots...

I know somebody out there is in absolutely desperate need of cowboy boots with rattlesnake heads on them. 

Little goth Bob is terribly upset... they don't come in boots size

Doings at the flea...

So... since everyone seems to enjoy the posts where I talk about things at the flea... here we go.

Now... I'm on my android, so arranging pics is very difficult. Theres a picture of a blue cabinet. It's actually a Lane Co. cedar linen safe, or linen hutch... basically it's a standing cedar chest witth roll out shelves for keeping folded linens, quilts and sweaters. The blue green enamel is a bit too much for me, but it's a nice piece, priced at 179.00, in truly excellent condition.

Theres also a small black table... specifically a rolling typewriter table that es layeted for the old manual typewriters. Wheels still roll, the side leaves still work properly... I priced it at 40 bucks. They're in high demands because they're funky and useful. But dont fall in love... it was on Craig's list for less than an hour before I got full price paid over the phone with a credit card.

Theres also am auto harp. This particular one has a jack for an amplifier... there are 3 of them in my booth. 100 to 150 each.

And thats what I've got to show for the moment.

I know I said I'd post some stuff from the flea.  But its turned out to be one of THOSE WEEKENDS..  anyway... here we are..   a vintage 50's TV light / clock that is musty too cool to be true, ( not in my booth, but its only 30 bucks,  and some pointy toed custom boots from Mexico.  There's a whole subculture around those pointy toes.  Really. 

A PLANT POST! WHOO HOO!!!!

So... here's the story on this plant...

About 5 weeks ago... this plant appeared at the flea market.  It was a cutting that was sitting on the shelf behind the register one Saturday when I showed up for work.  It wasn't anything that I worried too much about,  such things happen... people share little plant cuttings.  It looks a bit like one of the Moses-in-a-cradle things.  It was still there, sitting on the shelf, wrapped in a dry paper towel when I left.

It was still there the next week, and the next... finally, on the third week I finally yelled out, "DOES THIS BELONG SOMEWHERE?"

I mean really.  There comes a point.

Finally, it became established that someone had brought up a cutting for another dealer who didn't want it, and kept 'accidentally' forgetting to take it home.  Finally, I took the thing home and stuck it in a jar of water.  Poor thing. 

But, I can't say I particularly wanted it either. 

But even after setting in the flea market for 3 weeks... it looked only slightly wilted, so I stuck it in an old jelly jar I had sitting around with some water.  It perked up after a couple of days.  Then it grew roots. 

Then, I had a little bag of decorative spagnum moss.  One of the bargain stores locally had these little bags of the stuff they were selling for halloween decor, and after the holiday they put them on 80% clearance... I got about a dozen of the small bags for 20 cents each.  I soaked it in rain water, wrapped it around the roots and jammed the whole mess in this vintage McCoy violet pot that was sitting here.  It's doing just fine. 

Now, here's the rub.  Anybody out there know the species?  I mean, I know what it is... it's one of the plants that I saw on front porches all over when I was growing up.  It's kinda attractive... but not pretty.  I guess you'd call it semi-stoloniferous.  It makes clumps of leaves, and occasionally sends out long stalks from 6 to 8 inches long with a rosette of leaves at the end, which may or may not send out stalks of their own.  In extremely stong light, it will develop little half moons of reddish purple towards the base of the leaves. 

Leaves are thick... shorter than most of the plants called Moses-in-the-cradle and more succulent... and they don't develop red undersides like those other Moses plants either.  And from all reports, the blasted thing is near impossible to kill. 

I'm not really THAT worried about it... I just like to know what I'm growing for some reason. 

Now, before you start... yeah... it would probably do better with real dirt.  Most of them I remember growing up were in an old coffee can filled with dirt from the yard and they just kept plugging along, although I know of a couple which grew in old vases filled with water and nothing else.

anyway... any ideas are appreciated.

UPDATE:  Thanks to Mr. S at Plants are the Strangest People... this plant has been accurately ID'd as Callisia fragrans... not only is it a classic Pass-a-long plant, native to Mexico, it's also a very powerful medicinal that's been studied and used in Russia for years.  Common names vary, but the most popular seems to be Basket Plant. 



Flea Market Stuff!

well, some of you over the past have expressed interest in the flea market stuff... so, I thought I'd show you a couple of things...

But first, I have to apologize. There's still no damned camera in the house. These were taken with a cell phone, specifically so that I could list on Craigs List... People in Flea Markets tend to list on CL to get a wider range of buyers. That, and when people come to pick the item up... Often from 50 miles away if they really want it... they usually look around and buy a few other things too. Seriously, a few computer savy dealers in the mall can make a big difference to the enitre store... In my listings I always reveal that I'm a flea market dealer. I don't think it's fair not too actually...

Now first... a couple of velvet matador paintings... believe it or not, there's a large market out there for this sort of thing...

A pretty cool oval mirror... 4 feet by 28 inches... it's pretty nice... but don't let it decieve you. The frame is plastic...

And these are actually way cool... 2 vintage diner counter stools. Right now I've got them marked at 45 each. They were rescued from a diner that was going out of business in the early 70's. Neat, huh?

And that's my fantabulous post for the day.

It's really appalling how much you depend on your digital for blogging, isn't it? I mean, I used to be able to actually write... now I have a hard time without illustrations...

stuck at home playing with pottery...

Well, not driving today, so I'm stuck at home with nothing to do but clean up, price and pack stuff that I'll take into the flea market if I ever get a truck to haul things...

Since some of my blog friends have expressed some interest in the flea market, I decided I'd show you a few things... besides. I don't have anything else to do... of course, when I was dealing on ebay I took a whole lot more trouble with the pics to really show things off...

The first pic is Frankoma pottery, in the Lazy Bones pattern, and the Desert Gold glaze. The covered casserole book prices in the 50 dollar range, and the warming stand, which was made to use interchangably with several pieces, book prices in the 40 dollar range. I'll probably ask 45 for all three pieces. For some reason, when I saw these at the Estate Sale, I immediately thought of Ayana, at Water When Dry.... I'm finding more and more that I'll see things that I really think my blogger friends would like.

Frankoma doesn't sell too well here... Most of the local people seem to be going for a more exotic look, with Asian, Indian, and Victorian influences. In my humble opinion, it's a look that looks great in English country estates, but looks a little heavy, uncomfortable and cramped in Texas suburbs, but I'll sell it to them if they want it...

This little cactus cream jug, and the cactus salt and pepper shakers might find a home here... the shakers are probably what's referred to as souvenier-ware... bought on somebodies trip to Arizona. The memento industry uses patterns forever, so there is absolutely no way of knowing how old they are. I like them though...

The cream jug is really a puzzle. I have no idea who made it... Hull pottery put out a cactus line, but this glaze doesn't match it at all, it looks more like a McCoy glaze to me... and of course the only marking is 103... it's definitely an American pottery, and most probably a California pottery, but I can't track it down! (And these reminded me of Julie at A Succulent Life)

I took a pic of the markings... if anybody out there has a clue, I'd love to hear about it... Simply because I want the sugar bowl to match.

I've got 8 of these drinking glasses with Siamese dancers on the side. I'll try to get about $15 bucks for the set...

And this pair of Chinese ladies should get me about $10.

And that's about it for today... maybe I'll drop back by later and give an update on my truck. I'm really starting to worry about it... It's true that I am an independant contractor, but if the courier service thinks that my truck isn't dependable, and they can't count on me, I may be out of a job! The last thing I need right now is to try to be unemployed in this economy...

woke up in the wee hours of the morning. Not by choice, there's a small black demon cat responsible for all this...


Anyway, I decided to check in again.


Closed my ebay store last night... I know that a lot of the ebay stores are closing to protest the new fees and feedback policies. For me it's the fees. I just no longer find it viable to pay ebay a monthly charge when they're not giving me any help. It's almost impossible to get any traffic from their search engine, and they seem to be going out of their way to make the site very seller un-friendly. They keep carping on about keeping the customers happy, but they seem to be forgetting that the sellers are the ones paying them, so the sellers are their customers... the buyers are my customers.

Anyway, I'll still run a few auctions, but the store, "buy it now" listings are not paying for themselves, and I don't have the time to manage those listings while I'm trying to do anything else... so I'll be removing the link to the ebay store on here too...


A few pics that I've been meaning to add... here's a little abandoned farm I saw when I was delivering last week... I have a weekness for abandoned buildings. Don't ask me why, I don't know...

And here's the flower-pot tower I was talking about a couple of weeks ago. A great wat to grow hen & chicks (semperviviums) or encheverias. And easy to build, you stick a nice sturdy metal rod in the ground, string on the pots like giant beads, making sure to lean the rim against the pole, and fill with dirt.

and then, there's the regular pot tower... I've always liked these, because they remind me of pagodas for some reason...

and I'm adding the play blogger link... it's one of my new favorite toys. It's this thing that shows all the photos that bloggers post in a continuous slide show. It's very interesting how the images of everybodies plants, families, pets, kids just flow by and interact with each other.

So, I know that this blog is named after a flea market, and I do actually own a flea market booth... been awful today though. I'm changing from the front two booths in the window, to two other booths in the middle of the store, so I spent all day moving and rearranging and basically driving myself batty.



reasons to do this... (as I have to keep reminding myself)

• cheaper rent


• all those windows are wasted space


• This booth will look much better


• change creates positive energy


• cheaper rent


• I need to downsize


• I need to send a bunch of carp to goodwill


• cheaper rent

Notice that I keep going on and on about cheaper rent... I'm sorry, but in this economy, that's a major motivator.

Now, my real job, being a courier driver, is also starting to cost too much... Have you seen the price of gas out there? Yikes! But, since I took this week off to move the booth... (I'm an independant contractor, so I can take off any time I want.... despite silly dispatcher attempts to say otherwise...) I also went ahead and dropped 400 dollars on a new AC system. That's right, a rebuilt compressor, a dryer, freon and compressor oil, all for 425. That's a deal, as all the other mechanics I talked to estimated over 1000 and then gave me a list of a hundred other things that needed done. Now, my AC went out in the middle of a highway in Ft Worth TX last August, when I'd barely had this job for a month and there's no way in hell I could afford to get anything fixed. Then, whenever I saved enough money to consider it, I had to get tires, or I had to get a new clutch, or whatever... But now I found a good, honest mechanic who works at a very reasonable rate... (I had him do some other stuff first, so I know he's good... )

Anyway, I go back tomorrow, and I finish the booth move, come hell or high water.

Other attempts to save money:

• I take my lunch to work... Fast food is too expensive and it's bad for me.


• I have started hanging my washed clothes on the line outside. During the summer months in Texas, they actually dry quicker out there than in the dryer!


• I don't buy bottled water. Water is free from the tap, and all those blasted plastic bottles are filling the land-fill... I take water to work by refilling plastic bottles I already have.
• I don't buy coffee every morning. I now make coffee at home and take it with me.
• I buy the jeans for work at goodwill. Or I used to... Goodwill is getting a little pricey. Sometime a pair of jeans will be 9 or 10 bucks. Now, one of the other chain charity shops has opened an outlet... Any clothing items that are in their stores for over 6 weeks are sent to this place and sold on Wendesday for 1.75 a piece, then thursday for 1.50, then on Friday for 1.25, Saturday 1.00, Sunday .75 and Monday .50 After that, it gets shipped off somewhere, and Tuesday, they are closed to restock. For jeans that are going to get ruined in every factory and warehouse in DFW, it works just fine.
• I shop at the asian stores... The ones local aren't pretty, and there's some strange stuff in the deli, but the veggies are about half price. Some of my friends get snippy that they aren't clean... but you know what? I'm going to wash it before I eat it anyway...
• I don't run a dishwasher that isn't full.
• I don't buy silly products to clean with. Yes, they're convienent. Yes, they kill all the evil germs that are lurking to attack us... but so does Comet that I can get at the dollar store, 2 cans for a buck. Off brand bleach works just as good as the expensive stuff too...
• I have condensed my storage space from two store rooms to one, and I also put moms stuff in my store room. Since I haven't used any of that stuff for years, I'll be selling it at the flea market, as soon as I can get it in there...

That's just a few of my petty economies...

I am sure that I could make a list of more. But I won't bother you...

Purpose of this post... to clear my head. I just needed to vent a little. Thanks for listening... I don't know why you'd bother though...

busy, busy, busy day...

Well, I went to the flea market today, and found skanky clothes on the floor where somebody had stolen clothes and changed them in the middle of my booth. Now I should probably explain, that my booth includes floor to cieling windows on the street. So somebody stripped in front of a window, and switched their clothes, and left these seriously skanky clothes, I'm talking sweat pants with skid marks... eyuk...

so anyway, I finally got home, mowed the lawn and worked with my plants. Managed to calm down a little... it's just that sometimes people disgust you...

put together a new planter with a variagated agave I found, and did a flowerpot tree for encheverias ... but by the time I was finished, the sun was setting and I couldn't get a picture. And just as I was picking up all my tools... somebody driving by stoped to ask me about all my plants... and consequently restore my faith in humanity.

Anyway, I'll post a few pics later this week...