Springtime in Statesboro, GA!

Spring is actually bustin' out all over and that means outdoor flea markets! This is our 3rd annual trip to the outdoor market at 67 Antique Mall. Where is it? On Highway 67, natch.

It was a great day and we snagged a pair of paint by numbers, a set of fabulous tea trays from the 50's, a spiffy ZigZag cigarette poster for Laura, a really old 24" wooden ruler for Jeri and a grand set of metal kitchen cannisters.

Here are some treats we would LOVED to take home...

Then there are the critters large and small we saw browsing with their owners...

Some booths are just visually pleasing like these bottles.

Then there are items with a bit more limited appeal. I wonder who took home

 this stuffed pheasant.

Ghosts of marriages past???

What's for lunch? Or dessert?

It's hard to believe that the prices on this old gas sign were real!

OUR ETSY SHOP!

Etsy mysistersbarn

Picking Plus a Parade in Darien , GA!

     The Picking Sisters headed south yesterday for Darien, GA & the traditional annual Blessing of the Fleet. The shrimpers are a vital part of this area & the blessing is celebrated with an

All-American small town parade down Main Street, which is actually US Hwy. 17. With I-95 now running through Georgia, you can easily skip Darien, but if you love a treasure of a little town like we do, go enjoy the history, the oaks covered in moss & a scenic working shrimp dock.

     Laura was already  waiting in my driveway at 6:30AM yesterday morning, but it was worth the early hour - we found the kitschiest of all kitsch at a church sale! It's a poodle made of shells. We also bought 8 goose decoys (which we had never seen & were told they were 60 years old).

We sat on the curb & enjoyed the floats & the patriotic tone of the parade.

 A Shrimp Boat float!

Who doesn't love to hug a giant pig?

When is a golf cart a parade float? When it's decked out with a grocery cart on top and accompanied by the Piggly Wiggly pig.

Ronald McDonald on one of a large fleet of old & new fire trucks.

Shriners do the most incredible charitable work so they are forgiven their

antics where big men ride small bikes.

Fort Stewart is closeby and the crowd welcomed the 3rd ID band.

These horses were smokin' (well not the horses themselves - look closely.)

Big dogs get to celebrate too.

No parade is complete without the wonderfully wacky Shriners.

This clever creation represented the McIntosh Art Association.
There is an art gallery in the Old Jail.

This shrimpy painter was our favorite!

The Picking Sister ready for the parade.

Perhaps a delightfully no-nonsense candidate?

What IS under those kilts???

 And of course there are the beauty queens...

I can't seem to get enough of  funky & unusual signs. 

This was definitely worth the u-turn for the photo.

Remembrances of Past Pickings

     We hit a fabulous neighborhood garage sale this morning, but the *&%^%$#@ camera is on the blink again, so can you imagine our treats in only words We scored a divinely old globe for Jeri's collection of vintage globes, a large wooden box with a yummy celeryish-aquaish paint patina & an old metal Tetley Tea can. We also grabbed two funky green & orange trivets from the 70's & a 1953 map of the Ocean Highway from New York to Florida.

     It's always fun to find something we've never seen and we found a game called BEANO by Milton Bradley that looks a lot like BINGO, but is advertised on the box as "The Peppy Party Game for Young and Old"!

HILLBILLY BUBBLE BATH!

So please forgive us the lack of new photos & enjoy some of our favorites from our first highway sales when we were just rookie pickers!

You know it's a good sign when pickers are welcomed!

Laura loved the charm of these greeting card samples.

This is the booth where they sold the HILLBILLY BUBBLE BATH...

A must have for Jeri's growing postcard collection.

 These S & P cuties are marked Chille and Willie.

We bought lots & lots of retro bowls.

William Shatner circa 1993!

A fun reminder of a simpler time before cable TV.

  What a sight to see a hole clothesline of these panties for amazons.

How many Potatoe Head ties have you seen?

Beautiful and still works!

The kinds of signs that make our hearts flutter.

Yet another raccoon for a family member & raccoon collector that probably
 wishes we'd stop
bringing her back every kind of raccoon-themed item possible!

Back on the Highway!

     It's such a great feeling to be back on the road. Spring is here with warm weather and the highway sales are starting to pop up again. The picking sister and I headed just a wee bit south or west or whatever yesterday for the Georgia Peaches to Beaches sale along Highway 341. We gladly stretched our picking muscles a bit with the first highway sale of the year. No one who knows me will be surprised that the compass I bought for the car doesn't know north from south. Maybe I should shop in a real store?

     It may be a new year, but some traditions remain; up at an unholy hour in the dark, we don the lucky hats, grab a bag of Mc-something breakfast and drive like the wind for what be miles and miles of hideously expensive gasoline to find a treasure that most people would toss out in the first place (which is why it only costs $.25 for my used mini-Ball jar). We cruise until we see something promising like a church parking lot full of tables or a sign. Very few signs are printed - most are a variety of hand lettered versions. Like the one that offered a "Chester Drawers for Sale". What the heck; we knew what they meant.


My favorite of the day? A large papier mache horse that will someday be painted and hang on a wall in my house. It's priceless to me, but Laura got it for $3.00.

Jeri's Lucky Hat

Laura's Lucky Hat

Of course locally made food is always a draw. What's better than a funnel cake?

 A jumbo funnel cake.

We scored some old (no charge for the mold) board games.

A divine Kool-aid Pitcher with cups at Honest Al's (he really was).

 and some lovely FireKing dishes at a shop called the Front Porch.

What else did we find at The Front Porch? Laura found her knight - she's into heavy metal (sorry).

     Today was about doing the bookkeeping, cleaning our treasures, photographing everything and starting to add more items onto our etsy site. With any luck my energy will hold out at least until the Kool-aid set is on our etsy shop. Every weekend from now to May looks good for an auction, highway sale, parking lot sale or neighborhood sale. Stay tuned for more picking and more treasures!