Keeping Up with Trends Part 1

When I decided to go ahead and theme my case around current fashion trends I wanted to point out to people that old wasn't dowdy or boring. That vintage can be fresh and often times cheaper than buying new.

The first trend in my collection is Ballet, with a bit of a tip to the movie "Black Swan." Items in this collection include a set of beautiful old ballerina framed images, a German wooden music jewelry box, stunning black vintage earrings, pins and necklaces.



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Wallach House Part 2

When researching the Wallach House I asked for some advice from the owner, Mary. She told me to look at current magazines and trends And try to match my items to those themes. So this advice led me to buying all of the Spring fashion magazines and hours of cutting out trends and images that were "hot" and that matched the items I already had.

From there I spent an entire weekend sorting through my costume jewelry and other items to assign them to a category or trends. I repriced everything and retagged it, which in case you didn't know takes a very long time...

Then in May I set up my new case and launched yet again into the world of vintage selling!




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Location:Eureka, MO

On EBay This Week

I'm going to start posting things I have for sale on EBay once a week to show case some new items.

This week I'm featuring two items signed by the German artist M. Foyer, a hand painted porcelain pin/brooch and a pair of hand painted screwback earrings.

From my research I've learned that M. Goyer was an artist in the 1950s that was commissioned to paint porcelain jewelry and decorative plates. Most of her work is florals like the roses and pansies on the pieces I have. They're currently posted at $20 for an auction start price and $35 to buy it now.

You'll find me on eBay as seller foobar252. Happy bidding!

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Wallach House Adventures Part 1

A few months back I shut down my case at the South County Antique Mall after a seven month test in which I only broke even one month. Very disappointing to say the least. At $65 a month for a case plus a 10% commission rate it's just hard to make money, especially when I price my pieces really reasonably. So I took a few months off from the case and just sold at flea markets and on eBay (foobar252). I was searching for a new home for my case in the meantime.

I happened to head down to Eureka again in March or April for an estate sale and stopped by the shops there. Eureka has an antique mall, the Wallach House and the Great Midwest Antique Mall, so lots of options and definitely an antiquer destination. Wallach House just seemed to fit. It's a cross between antiques, gourmet foods, gifts and more. This place is definitely a woman's shop! So I felt like my pretty girlie things would do well here and I began to research the opportunity to become a part of the shop.

Read more in Part 2


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Location:510 West Ave, Eureka, MO

A New Flea Market Location

Last weekend I scouted out the Truman Markets in St. Charles, MO and was pretty impressed. They're in a temporary site, but they have two huge white tents that are enclosed and placed over gravel and paved walkways - much nicer than being in the barn at Belleville and dealing with the mud when it rained! On top of that they've arranged to have heaters in the tents to help keep them warm and are going to see if that will make them viable for the winter.

What makes this so great is that I now have winter options that I wasn't sure I was going to have after the barn shut down for the cold months at Belleville. On top of that this market runs Friday-Sunday every weekend, which means that I can pick and choose the weekends I have free to book my space and it's more flexible, which works great for my schedule. Bonus number three - it's cheaper for a weekend than it was to be in the barn at Belleville! For $15 a day I can have a 10x10 booth, which is $3 a day cheaper than Belleville.

This market seemed pretty nice. I picked a bad time to go and judge traffic (Sunday mornings are always slow) but that gave me time to actually chat with vendors about their experience at this market, traffic and to scope out competition. The market has a lot of variety - there are food vendors ranging from kettle corn to empanadas, crafting people (there's a lady who makes fleece hoodies for pups and I want to get Pan and Freya one each for Christmas) and then there are the antique/vintage folks and your average "garage sale" type folks that you find at flea markets.

I'll have my first booth there this weekend from 9-4pm Saturday and Sunday, so if you're in the neighborhood you should come on out! Take the Cave Springs exit off of 70 and head North toward Truman, if you keep going you can't miss the tents about 3 miles down the road!!

I'll post about my success, or lack there of later. I'm also trying out a dollar jewelry table and a dollar box to see if that will help me just sell items in general. Yay for a weekend of experimentation!

Christmas Stuff

The last time I had gone in to the South County Antique Mall to check on my case (619 for those of you in St. Louis), I was asking the manager what sells. He said now was the time to start putting up holiday items. I commented back that I didn't really have anything like that and wasn't really sure I wanted to get into it and he replied "It sells." That's all I needed. I started scoping out Christmas items at auctions and managed to snag a box of pretty nice stuff.

I decided I'd string all the ornaments that weren't in boxes into sets and then I'd sell the sets. I put a curtain rod in my case to hold the strands of blown glass ornaments and I was pretty proud of my space saving, cool display idea. Sadly when I went to put them in the case my brilliant idea went up in smoke. As I was closing the case door the rod slipped and fell, causing me to loose more than half of the ornaments in a horrible display of shattering shards of multi-colored glass... Sadness :( On the up side, when I went to check on stuff today I had sold one Christmas item already - a 14-piece old nativity set that I really didn't think anyone would want... I only had $8 on it, but hey, at least it sold!!

Second Flea Market - Success!

So I learned from my first flea market - be ready to haggle and start offering some lower price options. In order to do this I made a "Dollar Box" and put items in it that I had gotten in auctions that just happened to be in a box with something else I really wanted. It seemed to work pretty well. Basically I consider those "free" or "bonus" items anyways and anything I can sell is a good thing!

At least this time around I broke the $200 mark, which for me made it a very good weekend!!

What I sold:

Red Dietz Lantern - $5
Wagner Roasting Pan - $20
Pabst Blue Ribbon Bottle Opener - $1
Candlesticks - $1
Heart bracelet - $1
Unicorn pin - $1
Brown and blue beaded belts - $11
Two gold compacts - $20
Mickey Mouse Pocket Watch - $17
Sterling silver hat and sword candle snuffer - $10
School desk - $20
Monocle magazine - $10
Antique watch parts - $1
Blue swan candy dish - $5
Blue and silver spider pin - $8
Nightgowns - $30
Blue glass pitcher with 5 glasses - $10
5 tier corner shelf - $15
70s Barbie - $10
White bracelet - $4
Wooden Duck -  $1
Flower Frog - $1


 Finally what felt like a good day!