Windy Day

      We  made an early trip up the road to Statesboro, GA for the Highway 67 Fall sale. Hurricane Sandy off the east coast made for a dark, cold and windy morning. The weather may have been gray, but the picking was great.

See a few of the treasures we picked!

The picking sister was taken with this red phone. I think now she

 feels like she can pick it up and talk to the President.

I am not much of a cook these days (may I defrost something for you?), but

am always attracted to child-sized kitchen toys. We scored twice today.

Tiny cake anyone?

If you are a picker, you have seen a lot of simply ugly lamps. Beauty must be in

the eye of the purple and mid-century modern-loving beholder. Laura loved

these lamps.

We spent quite a while poring through boxes of a family's

momentos - report cards, photos, college papers, awards and

 gifts from a large Ohio family over the last 100 years. Sorting

through the stash was like reading a detailed history of this family.

We finally made a purchase - each  of us got a beautiful spelling

report card filled with gold stars.

This is the largest dresser set we have ever seen. Can't wait to research it for the

etsy site, www.etsy.com/shop/pickingsisters.

Visit our online shop to see more of the vinatge goodies we have recently added!



Taking Vintage to the Craft Room

Sometimes I just have to use one the treasures we find and create something. I love old books and used this damaged one and some old buttons to make this wreath. In case you are picturing a perfect, sunny craft room with everything in its place, HA! Mine has etsy items to be photographed, mailing supplies, my cats and boxes and boxes of old files.

Back on the Flea Market Road Again!

One of our favorite areas to visit and shop for vintage treasures! Divine mountain scenery, cool evenings, wonderful locally owned restaurants and hiking to waterfalls. And of course miles of walking in warehouses packed with vintage goodies.

Every trip to Asheville includes a trip to The Tobacco Barn. We made quite a few purchases

and of course Jeri was busy taking photos. I thought this was the ugliest lamp ever, but Laura who loves everything mid-century thought it was fab.

From ladders to letters, kitch to oddities this warehouse is stuffed with an incredible number

of items to browse through.

This juke box record player is on my wish list!

Another not-to-be-missed place for vintage is ScreenDoor in Asheville. We wandered for

hours and saw the only other Blue Horse coupons we have ever seen. (We recently bought a large jar of them!)

We always stay in Flat Rock, NC at Highland Lake Cottages. Imagine how tickled we were to find a white peacock on our back porch. Must have been a good picking omen.

Jeri loves goats - baby goats, old grandfather goats and even metal goats. Flat Rock abounds!

Just for grins I texted home this picture from our trip. I didn't mention that it was a stuffed display at the Ranger's station...

NEVER enough photos of cool signs.

Lots of large outdoor markets are filled with more new stuff than old, produce and tools, but we

did find a few vintage items.

These cucumbers were huge!

We saw a large structure at Smiley's covered with a tarp and couldn't resist sneaking underneath. It was an amazing merry-go-round! 

It's Picking Time Again!

     We have our picking mojo back with a trip to South Carolina and one to North Carolina this month. Great vintage treasures, lovely scenery in the Smoky Mountains and as always fun photos, giggles and lots of cookies. You know it's picking season when you score 5 paint by numbers AND a sock monkey.

     The latest monkey is named Elmer and he wanted to see the scenery so we propped him up to see out of his window. He is now enjoying his new family at Jeri's house.

Our travels took us to Seabrook and Beaufort, SC, Flat Rock and Asheville, NC and a Salvation Army warehouse sale right here in Savannah. Laura found this funky award for the Friendly Letter Writing Contest.

and a great weather vane for her yard.

Because my alter ago is a cowgirl, I couldn't pass up this metal bunkhouse. I added a

cowgirl and Woody and a horse (of course).

     For the woman who longs for a more genteel time when vanities were part of the bedroom, here are a few treasures we found. See below a Christian Dior wig box, a refillable Avon powder puff wand that holds dusting powder, pastel shoe tress and a box of shoe mitts.

     The barn is filling up again with new finds and we have some items in our etsy shop that we are ready to mark down. We're celebrating a great summer of sales at mysistersbarn that we are opening a SECOND ETSY SHOP. The current shop will be all items on sale and the new

shop will feature the most recent finds. We hope to have it set up by next week

and will create a post when it's open!

In the meantime...here are a few of the cuties you will see for sale in the new shop!

Some days I think I live on this street!

Jeri, Jeri Quite Contrary...

It's still really slow (TOO HOT) for finding many sales, so I have really spent more time tending to my garden. Now that summer is coming to an end, I have made a report card for myself. Some efforts were spectacular successes (sunflowers and four o'clocks), others were total failures (poppies). Enjoy the bright colors of the sunflowers, zinnias, wildflowers, four o'clocks and morning glories.

The Picking Sisters have two trips coming up to NC and to Florida, so the next post will be the vintage treasures we all love. (P.S. -Scroll to the end to see a recent sign score!)

Morning glories tangled with sunflowers and into the neighbor's yard.

B+ for the Morning Glories. Lush vines, but  not as many blooms as last year.

A+ for the sunflowers. The no-fail seeds made it easy to grow towering plants with

dinner-plate sized blooms.

Watching the sunflowers open was great fun - like a really cool science experiment.

Here's something I learned...whenever I cut the flowers the plants would

morph into one that made multiple small blooms instead of the single giant ones! 

When we were little one of our favorite things to do in the summer was picking four o'clock flowers and stringing them on a vine to make lei. They grew wild in the lane and always closed up at night. The ones I grew thrived and bloomed, but only at night. I finally looked at the seed packet and these were evening bloomers. Note to self: READ the seed packets next year.

I am especially proud of coaxing a bloom from this $1 Calla lily I bought at a thrift shop.

How rainy has it been? Look what sprouted in just 2 days...

And now the sign. It's 3' by 5' and "it's the Real Thing" from the 70's or 80's!