yourgreatfinds

Wow! An entry.

2010-10-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

Hello! I have not been blogging lately simply because the photos that I take with my new camera do not fit into the blogspot template. I do not want to stop and change the DPI of every shot to be able to blog it. Being a perfectionist, I do not like the 3/4 photos that show when I post.
I do want to tell you that I bought the most fantastic collection of Native American jewelry than I have had the opportunity to buy in a long time. I will begin to list it today. Also, Cory has started to expand this eBay business and is picking as he travels cross country racing. He just completed his second pick. The items from the first one sold the first time through and we were pleased that the items were appreciated. This next load looks even better. Many vintage advertising and even some vintage ladies' hats. So many wonderful things are coming to Yourgreatfinds over the next few weeks! Here is a peek in 3/4 photos....argh!

Score!

2010-07-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

I just got home from shopping at my favorite antique flea market. I have an exciting load today. Will take me about 10 days to get it all listed. I found different things than the usual and I am thrilled to write the listings. I will begin momentarily. Here is a sneak peak......

Happy Independence Day!

2010-07-04T18:37:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note. We went out to the Indian Powwow today in hopes of a fireworks show tonight. Not tonight! We live near the Ocean and our fireworks always gets ruined by fog. Trying to figure out what to do now. However, I saw my Zuni Indian lady and she brought me this leather pouch full of Santo Domingo and Zuni necklaces and one pair of Zuni earrings set with opals. I also have some other great things coming next week. A White Hogan bracelet, a repousse concho belt and more!

It's BURLY MAN DAY!!!

2010-06-23T14:24:00.000-07:00

Today is burly man day. I found some very nice big manly vintage Native American pieces for you guys out there. I am listing them first today as there are about 10 pieces. Then today's treasures for ladies will follow.

BUG DAY!!

2010-06-21T15:01:00.001-07:00

Today is "BUG DAY" at yourgreatfinds. I purchased a collection of Navajo sterling silver & turquoise butterfly and bug pins and even a scorpion bracelet. I will start offering them today.

A great day SHOPPING!

2010-06-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

See this very fat satchel? It weighs over 30 pounds and is full of awesome vintage jewelry that I purchased today, just for you! I had aspirations of beginning to list today, but family obligations have me pushing back until after my morning shipping session. Stay tuned for the good stuff! I found something special for all of my wonderful customers...

LAVENDER DAY!

2010-06-19T15:38:00.000-07:00

Today, my daughter and I attended Lavender Day at Summer Past Farms. It was a lovely spring day and we learned how to make lavender bottles without the stems breaking. The secret is the water your plants well the day before and then to pick the lavender first thing in the morning and start making the bottles right away. We are going to make more here at home Tuesday morning and I will post "How To" photos and instructions for you.
I am attending an antique flea market in the morning. I have several appointments with pickers through out the morning so be ready for some great things to show up on my eBay store tomorrow afternoon.
Here are some photos from our day at Summer Past Farms.
This is one of the 4 farm cats, "Yarrow". He is 19 years old. We LOVE cats.

This is their soap shop where I bought hand milled soaps and lavender.olive oil lotion that is amazing!

We had lavender lemonade and lavender cookies.

Great finds----again!!!

2010-05-16T13:13:00.000-07:00

Just got home from a foggy, gloomy antique flea market with one of the best loads of fresh finds that I have had in a long time. My photo booth is warming up as I type so I can get shooting and writing. Please check everyday as it will take two weeks to list it all...the gift that keeps on giving!

Flea Market

2010-05-02T14:09:00.000-07:00

Just got home from the flea market. I have some wonderful, different finds today. Cameos, lockets, gold, silver, Mexican, Native American and even a Mexican tiara. Very excited to start listing. Here is a peek:

A great load!

2010-04-29T11:52:00.000-07:00

I am not even finished listing my great finds from two weeks ago, not have I finished the estate sale, but I saw one of my favorite pickers today and brought home over 100 wonderful things! They range from Native American to Mexican to some Cameos. There will be plenty of 9.99 starting price bidding auctions coming as well as some fine pieces as fixed price, some with best offers for the sophisticated collectors. I even a fine Mexican poison bracelet that has all the good stuff, even a heart design. Photos of the first group are loading now. I will be listing heavily every day and night as I only have a few days and then I will be at an big antique flea market on Sunday. I have and will continue to put in 14 hour days to get this job done...Thanks for your patience.

Estate Sale

2010-04-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update. I still have some fine things from shopping last week-squash blossom necklace, ingot silver & turquoise bracelet, Victorian items and more to list on eBay, I have been slower at listing because with clearing out some of my inventory, my shipping load is three times more than usual and it takes me sometimes more than 6 hours to pack. Once I get through this, I will be listing heavily. I also saw an old cowboy that I know yesterday and I picked up about 10 old early Navajo pieces from him. And if that is not enough, my friend is an estate liquidator and she pulled all of the fine jewelry from the estate and I am going to offer it on eBay. I will have some great things coming up! I have a huge box packing load today, 30 orders going out. I aim to get them done before bed time so that I can concentrate on writing listings and auctions all day tomorrow. Stay tuned....

What am I doing?

2010-04-19T15:05:00.000-07:00

I went to the antique flea market and came home with some outstanding finds! I will share some photos below. If you are wondering why all of the 9.99 auctions lately, I have decided to bring my inventory down to 500 piece instead of 1000. Just too much to take care of. There are some killer deals. I listed a bracelet that I paid 175.00 for, started it at 9.99 and it sold for 67.00! I listed a necklace that I paid 125.00 for and it sold for 48.00. You may want to check it out. Might find a smoking hot deal! Here are some of my up and coming fresh finds:

The Hold Out.

2010-03-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I have been holding out on all of you this week. I have some great things that I purchased last week, I will be listing today and tomorrow. Lots of unusual things and rare turquoise.

A great Flea Market...

2010-03-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note. I found awesome things at the antique flea market today. I wanted to show what it looks like there. This is one of the rows when I first get there right as the sun rises. It was foggy today. There are about 16 long rows, 800 or so dealers.

It is not like this for long. I have to go so fast and find everything that is good before it gets crowded. Once that happens I can't see anything.

Here is the Facebook gang. We met at TC Leary's booth. It is TC, Ed Strnad and his his wife, Gloria and myself.

Navajo and Meteorites

2010-03-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share a necklace that is from my personal collection. It is Navajo and has some good age. It is of polished turquoise. The pendant is a genuine fetish of a meteor in it's natural shape. In the early days, the Zuni collected stones that were found naturally in the shape of an animal. The hand formed black clay bird beads are made with something the Navajo call "powder". Powder is the black fusion layer that they scrape from the surface of a meteor. (Which devalues the meteor ) These clay beads are actually magnetic.

A flea market cart make-over.

2010-03-19T09:14:00.000-07:00

I have not been writing fresh listings as I am getting prepared for the big antique flea market this Sunday. I am one of those ladies who pulls a cart along with her. I have to have it to help me carry my stuff! I have back issues from 18 years of horseback riding. I carry with me jackets, gloves, food, drinks, calculator, extra pens, gem tester, metal testing kit and a purchase log. I also like to keep my purchases inside. Emily and I have worn out the liner that I made for this cart years ago and this is how it was looking. I looked like a bag lady!

I made a new fabric liner that is complete with interior pockets that custom fit my tools and equipment. It now has an adjustable cup holder for both Emily and I. And take note of the wonderful obnoxious sounding horn on the handle. That is for the rude shoppers that have no civility or manners. We now can blast them! My dumpy flea market cart is now a pretty WAR WAGON!!!

Why not so much blogging?

2010-03-13T11:09:00.000-08:00

Hi! I have not been blogging so much as Facebook has been taking much of my time. I just started an eBay fan club on Facebook. It will be full of tips and information about eBay as well as being a place where you can share your great finds. I am actually working with eBay employees on this project. It has only been up for 24 hours, but check it out. There is a link on the right. And if you want to be friends on Facebook, send me a request.

I am not shopping much this weekend as I am saving my pennies for the big flea market next weekend. I am trying to remind myself to take my camera to the flea market so you all can see photos of it. Cory has the point and shoot with him at the Gatornationals this weekend and won't be home in time for me to take that one. I have to bring the big girl along.

GREAT finds!!!

2010-02-21T15:23:00.000-08:00

The rain stayed away long enough for the antique flea market to tae place today and what a great load I have! I did so well today that I will be able to skip the next flea market to go watch Cory race at the March Meet in two weeks. Here are a few photos of what I will list today, but there is much, much more!!!!

Micro Mosaic

2010-02-15T12:37:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note, I have an entire collection of micro mosaic pieces to offer on eBay today. Here is part of the collection. My daughter, emily found these. At 11 years old, she is becoming quite the distinguished picker!

a sunny day for the opals!

2010-02-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

We have a sunny day so I was able to shoot the remainder of the opals. I am uploading them now. It will take a couple of hours with my funky videos. I will start the listings later tonight. I promised Emily and Cory an evening at the movies to see Avatar.

Mexican Opals, Things and My Mother was Right...

2010-01-30T14:07:00.000-08:00

First of all, for those of you who have been asking for more Mexican opals, the opal fairy has blessed us! I have several Mexican pickers who bring me finds from Mexico. I do not like to go there as it is just not a safe place for a white girl right now. After the lot of old store stock no one could find any. Everyone came up with the same information. Due to the poor economy, opals are not being mined in Mexico right now. Well, my favorite picker found a bag of Mexican opal cabs, red, yellow and clear. He has granted my request for opal pieces in silver at a great price. He designed rings and pendants himself and had them all set into silver. They are fantastic! I am hydrating them right now and will start listing tomorrow. Opals, especially jelly opals are best kept in water since they have a high silica and water content. Here are a few:

Now I always tell him to get me old stuff, which he does. He did a very cool thing! He took an old broken genuine amber necklace and made this:

So, you are seeing the first designs of a new Mexican designer named Manuel Canizales. I have asked him to start marking his designs MC. This is a very cool thing for you can get his very first designs. We are also helping Mexico as things are not good there. People cannot pay their rents and it is bad news. Manuel has several silversmiths making his designs so we are giving work to people really need it and getting great things of high quality at a good price. It is a win -win for us all!
I have some great vintage jewelry as well to offer all week, like this

...and I will finish listing the pile of vintage 925 silver charms as well. I have a collection of antique sterling silver sewing thimbles coming up too.

I also want to comment on the run of bad luck with all of my stuff breaking. The silver lining is that even though it costs a fortune, YOU GET NEW STUFF! I have been practicing with my new camera. I decided to step up, no more point and shoots, and get a real camera with real lighting. I am still learning, but I hope that you are enjoying the huge close up shots. The broken washer and washer deal. After over a month of limping along with broken units, we bought new ones. We spent time researching the heck out of everything. We decided to go German. Almost bought a Bosch set, but in the end, we stepped up and bought the Miele units. I am so pleased with them. They are AWESOME. I highly recommend them.

The car is fixed thanks to Cory. He took care of the blown head gasket. With his profession, he knows many car people and we had a line man for GM who also works for Cory on his pit crew. Am I lucky or what? Not only did I get to have my car fixed instead of junked, but I got a discount and a pit crew man did the job! It runs like it was new. If you have a Chevrolet product, I highly recommend Cormier Chevrolet in Long Beach. It was a heck of a drive for us but so worth it!!
And then there is Deeve. Many of you are asking how Deeve is doing. He is one of our Bengal cats who has pancreatic cancer. He survived a huge surgery that was quite unplanned. He is on his second month of chemotherapy and feels great. We are hoping that this will extend his life and improve the quality of the time he has left with us. So far so good. See:

He still has a bare belly from surgery. The chemo has slowed his hair growth. He is mad at Emily here for holding him the way he does not like to be held, but he is a sweet boy and we are hoping for the best for him.
And the last subject is THE MOP. My mother has been hammering on my head to buy a Shark steam mop. Every time I talk to her, I have to hear about her damn mop. It was driving me nuts! For 6 weeks, MOP MOP MOP. The thing is expensive and with all of my broken stuff I did not want to spend the money. I tried to get one of those 20% off coupons for Bed, Bath and Beyond. Nothing in the mail. I tried to download it and it would not print. I called and they emailed one and it would not print. I finally went to the store, talked to the manager, got the 20% off and bought the thing just to shut my mom up. Guess what? I hate to admit it, but my mother was right. This thing is fantastic! If you think your floor is clean, try this thing. You will not believe how much dirt comes off of your clean floor. If you have a dirty floor, it will be a whole new color when you finish. It is well worth the money and fun to use. So much less work than any thing else. I have about 2000 square feet of hard surface in my home so it is a Godsend.

I am signing off now to write some fresh listings....

Not much Blogging...

2009-12-28T08:58:00.000-08:00

So, I have not been blogging much lately. That is because it is December and this is my unlucky month. Who wants to read a blog about someone else's misfortunes is what I was thinking. I was up late thinking about it last night and decided that perhaps you might want to hear what my month has been like. It is kind of the thing where you will read it and think "wow, everyone else has times like this!" So, last year it started in September with the death of my daughter's cat, Ginger and a huge vet bill to go with it. Last year, my December ended with a huge bang. Coming home on Christmas Eve to a broken water pipe in my upstairs wall which had flooded my kitchen and ruined my kitchen ceiling. We had to turn off the water and live out of buckets that we filled with garden hoses until the 26th. On the morning of the 26th, while waiting for the plumber, I opened the fridge to get breakfast to learn that this appliance had died in the middle of the night. By the end of the night on the 26th, I had a hole in my ceiling and wall upstairs, running water, a new fridge from Sears and a thousands of dollars in new bills. What did I do? I had a huge sale and sold off eBay inventory. It sure helped thanks to all of you.

This year it started in Sept. with the death of my horse, Snickers. I am still broken hearted over that. Then our Cat Deeve was not acted as peppy as usual, so a couple of weeks ago we took him to the vet. He is a 3 1/2 year old Bengal, Ginger's litter mate. The vet thought he felt something in his abdomen and since Ginger died of an obstruction and this cat eats things that he finds as well, we opted for exploratory surgery. After spending $2500.00 to lose Ginger, I got Petplan health insurance for my other three cats. They opened Deeve up and found a tumor on his pancreas. He lost 40% of that organ and his spleen. They closed him up and he is recovering well from the surgery. The bad news is that the tumor is pancreatic cancer. There were no metastases, but the nasty stuff is in his blood stream. The bill so far, $6000.00. I could buy many cats with $6000.00. Thank goodness for insurance, but my part of the bill is still upwards of $1500.00. The cancer that he has is so rare that they have no treatment but one chemotherapy that keeps cancer cells from establishing a blood supply. It is a pill that we will have to give him every other day for 6 months. They gave him 6 months to live without it. If it works, he could live longer or perhaps halt the cancer, but as we all know, pancreatic cancer is almost always fatal. We are going to to do the chemo, thanks to Petplan as they will pay for the $300.00 per month it will cost. We start today. If it makes him sick, which it is not supposed to do, we will discontinue it and let him progress naturally. I will post a photo of Deeve later today. So please send your positive energy to Deeve, he is too young to be going through this. If you have pets, I highly recommend Petplan insurance. You can find them online at www.gopetplan.com. It is worth the money, let me tell you! So, that is the first thing. Then our washer and dryer went out on literally the same day. Cory has them somewhat working so we can get by while we research, hunt for the best deal and save money for new ones. We are hoping to score a floor model or a dented one at a greatly reduced price. Then, yesterday, I had to take my daughter to visit her father. On the way home, on a long dark freeway in the middle of the hills, my car broke down. I have AAA and am so glad. Towed it home and I am waiting for the tow truck now to take it to be fixed. It is either the radiator or the water pump. Hoping for radiator because if it is the water pump, the engine has to come out and I am looking at a $1500.00 repair...Keeping my fingers crossed. How in the world will I ever pay for all of this? I have alot of money tied up in eBay inventory and once again I will be placing everything on sale. I will do this when I get home from the repair shop. Many treasures will be at my cost or less just to raise the money to pay for another unlucky December. Please check it out. You may find something that you really want, really cheap! Anyone else having issues like this?????

Congrats Emily!

2009-12-16T14:50:00.000-08:00

My congratulations to my daughter, Emily for receiving the International Baccalaureate Learner Profile Award today! Right On Emily! I am proud of you!

eBay

2009-11-21T19:01:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note. If you are trying to access my eBay store or my auctions, eBay is having major technical problems today. Over 800 of my listings have disappeared and can only be accessed if a particular auction has been placed on your watch list. I started writing new listings today as I was anxious to show you the treasures that I found at the antique show yesterday, but I stopped after writing three listings as they were disappearing into the cyberspace twilight zone. Here are some of the things that are up and coming as soon and eBay is up and running properly again. Sorry some of my photos are too large for blogspot. I was not planning on posting these here. I have been on eBay 12 years now. This reminds me of the old days!

A short Story by Emily Fox

2009-11-19T17:52:00.000-08:00

For a class assignment, my 11 year old daughter had to create a character and write a short story.
Where did she learn to write like this?????
The Best Friend Bully

"What happened to her?" Madison mumbled to herself as she passed by her once best friend Sabrina. Sabrina was currently picking on a smaller girl, and snickering with her possy. "It is such a shame that she models her own life after every one of her twenty two years old sister's BAD examples.
Tears came to her eyes as she thought back on the memories eight years ago, in kindergarten. It made her sick to her stomach just knowing that they used to be as close as sisters to each other, and now that was all gone because Sabrina would rather be "cool." Madison only hoped and wished that she never had to speak to Sabrina again. She didn't want to be friends with someone who made friends only with people who dressed cool or were "bad girls." "I wish I was still in kindergarten," said Madison, "The good old days before Sabrina turned against me."
Another lunch passed. Madison was sitting back at the lunchtables,and watching in disgust as Sabrina ruined another person's lunch by beating them for their lunch money. Madison sighed. It was just a typical, everyday lunch, but it still bothered Madison that Sabrina acted like this. The bell then rang, startling Madison, and everyone headed home.
That night, Madison's phone rang. "Oh no!" Madison moaned, as she answered the phone to Sabrina's obnoxious, loud voice. The first words she heard out of Sabrina's mouth were, "What was your problem at lunch today? You kept staring at me with a nasty, horrible look on your face. What was that about?"
Madison's body turned to stone. She did not know what to say back. She did not want to speak up and tell the truth. That would put her at risk of being bullied. Her mind raced. She knew she had to make a decision soon or Sabrina would think she was too afraid of her to answer. Madison did not want that to happen. It would just give Sabrina more power. Madison quickly decided on, "Umm... I was just... cranky and uhh... TIRED!
Sabrina replied, "Tired...? Tired of what?! Obviously it was enough to make you be a brat to me."
That was it. That was the final straw. Madison cried in frustration, "You know what? It is YOU!!! YOU are the brat that no one likes! I don't even like you anymore!"
Madison soon realized what she had just said and clamped her hand tight over her mouth. She was really troubled now. She knew she was really in for it, the next time she saw Sabrina. She decided that all she could do was hang up the phone, so she did. She plopped down into her bed and cried herself to sleep.
The next day on her way to school, Madison kept having bad thoughts about what Sabrina might do to her to get revenge. She headed to her first class, but Sabrina was not there. Then on to her second class. No Sabrina anywhere. She noticed the same thing in her third class. Madison was puzzled. When she got out to lunch, her phone's caller ID said that Sabrina was calling her. She nervously answered the phone, and to her surprise, was greeted by Sabrina's mother's voice. She said, "Madison, I am very proud of you for standing up to Sabrina's poor behavior last night. She has been crying all day and was too embarrassed to come to school today. I think you really got her this time. You did the right thing."
Madison smiled and closed the conversation with a shy, quiet,"Thank you," and the two hung up their phones. Madison felt a combination of guilt and pride. She still had fear of Sabrina deep down inside, though. She had a haunting, pestering feeling that she was still in for a consequence. She quickly ate her lunch and headed home.
The next day, the feeling grew. Sabrina was at school today. Then, at break, the feeling became reality. Sabrina summoned her possy and they surrounded Madison in a circle. They were throwing insults at her, and they pushed and shoved her among everyone in the circle. Madison briefly noticed Sabrina's older sister, Jillian, searching carefully through the others that were at break for Sabrina. She had to pick Sabrina up early for lunch before her doctor's appointment. Jillian noticed the circle around the small girl, and as she looked closer, she noticed that Sabrina was part of the circle of bullies. She marched right up to the girls and shouted, "Seriously, Sabrina?" The group immediatley stopped shoving her and froze with wide eyes. Jillian grabbed Sabrina by the wrist and dragged her into the school counselor's office. The counselor spoke with the principal, and they decided that a fair punishment would be a Friday school, and having to write a letter of apology to anyone she had ever bullied. Madison sat back and giggled. She knew that Sabrina would never mess with her again!

THE END

Christy Silacci

2009-11-13T11:16:00.000-08:00

So, I decided to once in a while share with you photos of my stuff. This is a pair os strawberry girls that were custom made for me by folk artist Christy Silacci. She is an amazing artist with a very whimsical style. I rarely have time to attend folk art shows anymore and I sure miss them.

You can find Christy's work offered on the web at Christy Silacci

The Day Of the Dead

2009-11-01T17:28:00.000-08:00

We were up early this morning and spent hours shopping the antique flea market. We found some great things, even a 1917 Ouija board that my daughter thinks is really cool, an advertising umbrella from New England and a HUGE Mexican wooden chess set. Of course a wonderful collection of antique and vintage silver jewelry that I have already begun listing on eBay.

We then attended Dia De Los Muertos. It was held on the grounds at the San Luis Rey Mission. Here are some memories from our day:

Here is my mole chicken tamale. It was huge. Could not eat even half of it.

Here are some of the altered that people built for family members and loved ones.

I love the sugar skulls!

My daughter decorated our yard with these last night. Loved them!

Happy Halloween!!!

2009-10-31T11:44:00.000-07:00

Hey, I am back! I hurt my back very badly, even spent a day in the hospital. I literally could not walk and missed my favorite antique flea market. I have been struggling to keep things running as usual with the help of Jessica Walker, DC. If you need a good Chiropractor and live in the Oceanside area, she is amazing. I will place a link on my blog to her website.

We are quite in the mood for Halloween today. My daughter is now living her life as Coraline (for the day)

... as she does paper cutting to 8 luminaries that we will have in our yard tonight. We will also have a fresh grave with a skeleton for the trick or treaters. I have also listed three antique black stocking cats from the private collection of a dear friend of mine. There are four shown here, but I am buying one of them. If you like them, buy them fast because I will buy any cat that does not find a home with an ebayer soon. I want them all!

With the help of my daughter, or Coraline that is, I will attending a great antique flea market tomorrow as well as a Dia De Los Muertos celebration and the San Luis Rey Mission. I am taking my camera with me. Perhaps I will pick up a few sugar skulls from the locals to sell on ebay. I am sure that I will be listing some great finds on eBay tomorrow afternoon.

Have a wonderful Spooky day!!!!!

Heart Stones

2009-09-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

I have not felt much like blogging lately, but I wanted to share a fun thing. All of my life I have lived near the beach. I have always been an out doors girl whether it was camping in the redwoods with my family as a child, enjoying an antique road trip across the country or being out on trail with Snickers as an adult. I have always liked collecting things from nature like abandoned bird nests, feathers, rocks and pebbles. My favorite has always been the rocks that nature has shaped into hearts. I have saved them all my life. They are tucked into drawers, dropped into bowls an some have been given to lovers and friends. I met my life long friend Rita for lunch yesterday and knowing about my heart shaped rocks, she brought me a wonderful little book by photographer Josie Iselin called "Heart Stones". She collects them too and did a great job sharing her collection in this book. My daughter loves it as well and wanted to go on a heart stone hunt at the beach. Now, I have never gone looking for heart stones, they just happen, but I took her to Carlsbad Beach yesterday after school to look for some.

We found some good triangular almost hearts...

This one looks pretty good..

Then we found this:

Here are the winners! I was so surprised to find some so quickly. We cannot wait to go searching again. We are hooked!

Here is part of my collection and the sweet little book that gave my daughter and I a special activity to share together.

!2 Hours on the road!

2009-09-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

Hi! Emily and I were out the door before 5 AM today and drove 75 miles one way to attend the antique flea market. We also visited a lady who wanted to thin out her personal jewelry collection and as a result, we did not get back home until 5:00 PM! I am exhausted. We collected one of the best loads ever! I cannot wait to start writing auctions for you, but it will be tomorrow after I finish shipping. I promise that it will be worth the wait. I will be a little slow writing as I have saving money for quite some time to purchase a new computer. I have been writing all of these auctions for the last few years on a cheap reconditioned PC that I bought when by work horse computer died. Yesterday, I did it! I am now writing to you on my brand new iMac! I am still training my menopausal brain to work the keystrokes and get fast at it quick! I am looking forward to bringing you better looking photos and videos as soon as I master this superior machine! I am glad to not be limping along on that old pc I had. As Cory always says about his tune ups on his race cars "You are only as good as your tools". Now I have one awesome machine and I aim to live up to it! Still missing Snickers...

A sad day for us.

2009-09-08T11:16:00.000-07:00

Today, I will be taking the day off from listing. I have some great things for all of you, but I just had to put my beloved horse Snickers down. I have a broken heart and just need to grieve. Snickers had a bad case of colic this morning and the vet came out and confirmed for us that it was time to let him go. He has been a part of my life for 18 years. We had some great times together that I will never forget. Godspeed Snickers! We love you!

No Action Today????

2009-09-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

I have had a few emails from you asking if I am ok today because I was not listing as I usually do on Saturday. I am great! Today is my Emily's 11th birthday and we spent the day doing birthday things. We did visit a fantastic spa and I forgot my camera! I am going back again and will sure remember next time. It was amazing! I am off to bed now as I will be up early and shopping the antique flea market. Look for fresh finds to begin to appear in my listings about noon tomorrow....

THANK YOU!!!!!

2009-08-31T17:34:00.000-07:00

A HUGE THANK YOU to all of you for making my annual birthday sale a great success. It was the best one yet. You got some smoking hot deals and as Sara says, I got to redd up my store. I am late in writing auctions today because it took me more than 7 hours to process all of the shipments from that 24 hour sale. I have some fantastic finds to offer this week from my shopping and by chance finding a new picker on Saturday. Here is a sampler of what is coming...

The above piece is made by Navajo artist Lillian Fernando.
And so is this piece.

Morenci Day!

2009-08-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

I found some great things today as always. I met with my picker and then just by a stroke of luck met a new one as well. I cannot wait to start listing. I found several pieces set with high grade Morenci mine turquoise today. That mine has been non-operational for years and is highly collectible. Here are a few pics and then I am getting to work! The sale starts in a few hours and I need to get some fresh items listed today.

SUP????

2009-08-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

So I decided to entitle this entry after a common gutteral uttering (Yes, Mr. Stormer, I was listening!)-text language that I see my daughter is using. "SUP" translates to "What is Up?" And I need to tell you what is up with yourgreatfinds lately. First of all, remember my birthday sale last year? My "When it is my birthday, it is everyone's birthday sale"?. I am doing it again. It will start Saturday evening, on my birthday eve and run a little more than 24 hours. Since I am turning 49 on Sunday there will be 50% off items-because I am almost 50. There will also be 35% off items because I wish I was 35. I will be seeing a picker tomorrow and will have some fresh items. I will mark down things that I may have declined an offer on before. I may have told you one price and now it may be lower. Get it while you can during my birthday sale. It goes up when my age does at 5:55 PM because that is the time I was born. Have fun!
I have changed and upgraded my store. I can now place more than 250 items on sale at a time. I have automated feedback now. It is random, which is not as personal, but at least the job will get done.
You will see changes coming as I strive to make your shopping experience better. I have taught myself to shoot and upload short videos of items. I will be using these for diamonds, transparent stones as well as opals. Right now I have Mexican matrix fire opal rings that are old store stock. That supply will run out, but for now, I am buying all I can from my source. Many of these stones are amazing. I am a terrible videographer. I apologize for that, but I will practice and if you bear with me, I will get better. I am off to list the Mexican opals and be ready for tomorrow night!!!

Congrats to Pedaler Racing

2009-08-18T12:23:00.000-07:00

Congrats to my sweetheart, Cory Lee as well as Kris Krabill, Gary Turner and the entire crew for upholding their Championship and winning 38th Annual PEPSI NIGHTFIRE NATIONALS at the Firebird Raceway in Boise, Idaho. Here is the official story:

SUNDAY HIGHLIGHTS: 38TH ANNUAL PEPSI NIGHTFIRE NATIONALS

Krabill repeats at Nightfire

Over four rounds of competition Kris Krabill got progressively quicker in his AA/Funny Car, and capped the weekend with a blistering 5.95-second e.t. to score the title at the Pepsi Nightfire Nationals for the second straight year. Krabill ran 6.05, 6.01 and 5.96 to advance to the final opposite Bucky Austin. In the championship round, his 5.95 outpaced Austin’s 6.16.
Cory was not driving this time, he was crew chief and what a fine job he did! Awesome job guys! We are so proud!

ANCHOS!

2009-08-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

Today, I drove inland so that my daughter and I could visit our dentist, Dr. Gregory Blash in Corona. He is so good that we have no desire to find a new one here in Oceanside. After our visit with the dentist, I had to go have an early dinner at one of my favorite Tex-Mex joints. I never get to go there anymore because I just live to far away. It is called Anchos and it is located in Riverside. Here is is:

I am glad we arrived early as this place is always very packed because the food is so good!

They make all of their own tortillas. SO TASTY!

Now, this is what I am talking about!

And here comes my favorite dish...Camerones diablo.

It comes with cilantro lime butter that is awesome!

So, we had a feast indeed. The other thing has been this. My daughter starts school next week. She NEEDS a pair of bright lime green VANS sneakers. We have looked everywhere. Since we live near the beach, there are none to be found anywhere. We decided to try the Tyler Galleria in Riverside before we headed home. We did find them! However, we decided that the Converse All Stars were way cuter than the VANS. I have been looking for these stinking shoes for her for long that the look grew on me. Look what happened....

Emily re-fashioned the laces after we saw a kid with non matching laces walking around with friends. So, now I am the late forties something mom who wears Jeans, Ed Hardy shirts-piles of turquoise and bright lime green converse shoes. Right on baby!

Shadow Puppet Theater!

2009-08-07T18:42:00.000-07:00

Remember when you used to do this when you were a kid? We made a shadow puppet theater in our backyard retreat today. Here is part of the performance:

The Juicer!

2009-08-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

So, have you ever wondered about those juicing machines that you see on the infomercials? I rarely watch TV but over the years, I have been intrigued by the Jack Lalanne Power Juicer. Having those healthy juices sounds so good. I just never wanted to spend the money on one, plus I figured that the thing would be a nightmare to clean after juicing. So, the thing is that my birthday is at the end of the month and my daughter and I decided that the juicer is the gift for me. So now we have one. I got the stainless version, the "pro" because is matches my refrigerator. See:

So, here is the scoop. We start with apples and pears. Only little ones will fit in the shoot, so most of them have to be cut up. They claim "extra large-no cutting fruit" uh-huh.

The apple juice alone is fantastic. You can drink it right out of the juicer, but I double strain it.

I strain it into one cup and then again into the pitcher.

It gets this stuff out of there and keeps longer chilled without separation.

We tried that mango. Not a good idea, It clogged up the machine. We added watermelon and strawberries.

And blueberries..

And two carrots....

And tah-dah! Wonderful delicious juice!
And the "EASY" clean up....

My kitchen and the machine is a holy mess! There is even fruit on my walls, my blouse and my floor. Yes, the machine is put together correctly, it just makes one hell of a mess. However, the juice is NOTHING like what you get in the store, even the health food store. It is amazing! So we will clean up the mess and drink our juice. It will last a few days and then we will be making another mess. So far we like black grapes, apples, pears, strawberries, blue berries and carrots together the best. So if you ever wondered about this thing...it makes a huge mess and takes a while to clean up, however the juice that you get is worth it! Oh, and we also make smoothies with our juice. You cannot juice bananas, so we save them for the smoothies and there is nothing like one of our home made smoothies! So if you are thinking about going healthy and juicing-go for it!

My Treasure in a Baggie

2009-08-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

I am blogging and writing auctions early today as Paypal is down and I cannot ship. So frustrating! So when I was shopping yesterday and I paid $50.00 for this dirty little baggie that I found pushed & smashed over to the side inside of a case.

Here is what is inside! The silverwork is sterling or better and early tufa cast. I am not sure what kind of claw that is. Turquoise is real, leather is real, long beads are bone and many of the silver beads are stamped. It is in poor condition. Now I have to decide if I want to frame it as it is, restore it or take was is still good and give it a new life as something else. What would you do?

Isn't it special? I am sure C. 1900 at the least. (I am keeping it)
Here are some of the treasures that I am listing today...plus more!

Outstanding shopping day!

2009-08-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon! I just got home from the antique flea market and have such a fantastic hand picked collection for you. No group shot today. I am just going to get after it. I do want to share with you about coral before I go. First, last week, Cory was traveling through the Southwest and was talking to a Navajo man who owned a trading post on the "rez". He told the man about me and what I do with vintage jewelry and the man asked if I had any old pieces with coral that he could buy. He wanted the coral so he could take it out scrap the metal and resell the coral to be reset into contemporary pieces! He said that natural coral, red and angel skin are very hard to find and they are recycling old pieces. Then... today, one of my best pickers who is a very hip and informed dealer, told me that Tiffany & Co. just announced that they will no longer use coral of any kind in their pieces. On June 10, 2007 they announced that they would no longer use endangered red coral, now it is all coral. Looks like we need to recycle the vintage coral so I bought all of the coral I could find today, before it is gone. There was some available, but not as much as I wanted to see. Anyway, I am going to get to work now. Here are a few of the treasures going up today...but the next few days are going to be awesome!

My Medicine Bag

2009-07-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

Hi! I was up early today and shopping by 6:30 AM. I came home with some great things for you. Lots and lots of turquoise and silver. I will list a few pieces today, but I have company coming and may not get much done. Tomorrow I will be listing all day long so get ready because the freight train is coming! I wanted to show you the one thing that I am keeping that I purchased today. I found this very cool worn hand beaded leather medicine bag. It has inside a beautiful sugilite stone and a tiny thin leather pocuh that can be worn around the neck. It has something tied inside, I do not kno what, but it has tiny hand painted crosses on it. Sugilite is considered to be a high psychic stone connected with the third eye chakra. I am not sure of the vintage but it is worn and awesome! I love it!
Also, Cory is traveling right now, but he did drive through the Southwest and is bringing two Navajo pieces that he purchased on the Rez. He sent me photos via cellphone and I gave the ok. I am also seeing a picker in the next few days. One that has great early stuff and has been promising me that she will let me buy from her private collection. Can't wait!

The Big Antique Flea Market

2009-07-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

Hi! With only 3 hours of sleep last night my daughter and I were up at 4:00 AM and out the door to attend my favorite flea market of the month. It is so hot that we could only shop until we wilted at 9:30 AM. However, we scored some awesome things today. Here are some group shots. Not artistic photography, but it will do the job! I will begin listing in about half an hour and hopefully eBay will be posting auctions promptly. Thanks for checking in!

Backyard Outpost

2009-07-16T21:47:00.000-07:00

Before I get back blogging about Seattle I wanted to share something kind of cool. I first have to confess that I am a Mary Jane Butters fan. I love the magazine "Mary Jane's Farm" and just got the book "Mary Jane's Outpost" My daughter decided that we needed a backyard retreat like in Mary Jane's book. Cory found us a very cool tent and we made it into our little hideaway. My daughter did much of the decorating. Even though I live near the beach, it is hot! The first night we had the outpost, we spent the night out there under the stars in the cool ocean air and it was heaven. My back was not thanking me in the morning for sleeping an an air mattress, but it was fun and we will do it again. Here are some photos of our backyard outpost. A neat way to have a little camping vacation at home!

And my favorite candle from Trapp Candles.

These are one of my vintage cowboy boots with turkeys on them!

The view from the ceiling.Smog is nasty to live with but it makes beautiful sunsets.

More adventures in Seattle

2009-07-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy trying to get caught up that I am doing some late night blogging as well. I wanted to share more of my trip with you. We began the fourth of July with a morning trip to Pike Place Market. All I can say is OMG! I loved it! It is on the harbor....

I loved this piece of artwork that I spotted when we first entered.

Just look at the gorgeous flowers and produce! The food was every bit as good as it looks. The quality of everything there is second to none. Check it out!

so many hand made soaps and foods. The honey is awesome. We brought home blackberry honey.

This is lotion!

This is Linda and Vicki. They are sisters who have a lavender farm. They make eye pillows, sachets and lavender bunches. I also purchased some fragrant culinary lavender from them. They do not have a website, but their phone number is visible in one of the photos.

These chocolate covered dried cherries are to DIE for! They do have a website. So so so yummy!

We then had a cruise of the harbor. The old brick hospital building, which is rumored to be haunted is now the home of Amazon.com.

We had a tasty lunch at Cory's favorite Ivar's. I had salmon and chips. Yummy! I don't like fried food, but the next day, I had to have this fish again!

I have to stop for the night as my ftp host photobucket just went down for maintenance...more tomorrow.

Shopping, Blogging and getting caught up

2009-07-11T12:16:00.000-07:00

Hi! Just to let you know that I am struggling to get caught up. It took a long time to catch up my shipping after being out of town and now my daughter has some social engagements that are taking me away from work today. I did however, go shopping this morning and I have some great things. I got 14 different Mexican fire and matrix opal pieces right up from Mexico. I have great turquoise and Mexican silver. I am going to try to get some listed today. eBay is not posting listings promptly and some are showing up in the middle of the night. I will be listing two right now and some tonight. Tomorrow, I am going to stay home almost all day to list. I will also try to finish blogging about my trip. I am dying to show you the neat things I found and saw!
Here are some of today's finds.

The trip!

2009-07-08T21:42:00.000-07:00

I will have to share about my trip little by little as I am so behind in work. I listed some of my Washington finds, but still have more to go tomorrow. We arrived in Seattle in the late afternoon on Friday. We walked to the Space Needle area to look around as I have never visited this area of WA. The first thing I noticed was the concrete area around the Science Fiction Museum was covered with chalk art, all of it expressing love and sadness by the death of Michael Jackson. Guess it had not rained in a while...

We hopped on the monorail and went down to the center of town. We ended up in a mall and this store was a kick in the pants. The tile mosaic mermaids on the outside of the shop were awesome!

The name of the shop is "Fireworks" If you are ever in Seattle, check it out. They have really great gift items...and stuff for you too! And speaking of fireworks, check out these plants that I found growing in a garden.

We made friends with this guy....

I love crows! We then went to dinner at one of Cory's favorite places "13 Coins"

The food was awesome. This is chef Hugo making fire for us.

We went back to our hotel-for some sleep...tomorrow I will show you the Pike Place Market....Nitey nite!

SEATTLE!!!

2009-07-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

Hi! I just got home from a quick five day trip to the Northwest-mostly Seattle. I had a great time. I will be posting later about my trip, the great shopping, good things I found, people I met and will be writing auctions to offer the great finds that I purchased. I first have to ship just about 30 boxes, and then I will write some auctions. I will blog later tonight. I have so many things to list in the next few days to get ready for the Saturday flea market...I am off to work now and will be back later tonight with some good stories and photos.

Shopping on Father's Day!

2009-06-21T16:03:00.000-07:00

Hi! It is 4:00 in the afternoon and I just got home from the flea market and from visiting my father for the big holiday. I have exactly one hour to photograph and list items from today's shopping before I have to go get my daughter who is visiting her dad. Let me tell you, did I get LOOT! Below is just a sample, but I have well over 100 items to list this week and every piece is good. I want to keep it all..but I won't. I got it for you! Here are just a few things, but get ready because the freight train of great finds is coming this week!

Antique Rag Dolls and Teddy Comes HOME!

2009-06-19T15:18:00.000-07:00

Today I received two boxes filled with treasures that I will be offering on eBay for my friend. There are antique rag dolls, antique tin topped glass jars, and a very rare 1908 Laughing Roosevelt Teddy Bear that I once owned. I also have 31 collector halcyon days enamel boxes. Be sure to check these things out. I will be back to listing jewelry on Sunday night after the big flea market and Father's Day activities. Thanks for taking a peek!

Indian Powwow at Mission San Luis Rey

2009-06-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

I just got back from the Indian Powwow at the San Luis Rey Mission. If you live close by, go check it out. It is a fun experience. I have some photos for you, but many of the Indians don't want photos taken of them, so many are of the backs of their costumes, which are beautiful. I did purchase some great jewelry. I bought as much as I could from my favorite Zuni woman. She was so sad this morning because her transmission broke on her old van on the way out here, and then she ran over something in the road on the highway and blew to tires. She drives here from the rez in AZ. She usually comes with her old dog, but the dog passed away a few months ago. She did have a helper with her, but I felt really bad for her. It is a good thing she had so much great stuff! She made the coral necklace in the 1960's (she is in her late 70's or early 80's) I got the very early oval bracelet from her as well. The wear on this piece is amazing. The necklace is HOPI and I bought it from a Navajo man. I will not be able to list it as Hopi in my auction as it is not signed. It is old and has nice wear as well. I did not get a huge quanity of things, but what I got is very very nice! Here is the load:

Here is my Zuni lady with her bright red hair.

????Indians come in black and white too!

Here are a few shots of the Mission San Luis Rey grounds.

A Touch of Santa Fe In California

2009-06-09T13:26:00.000-07:00

I have so much to share with you, but have so little time right now. I will just have to get caught up when I can. I wanted to share with you a great shop that I found in Solana Beach, CA. It is called Cowgirl Trading Post. It reminds me of one of my favorite shops in Santa Fe called "Simply Santa Fe". My contact there is a sweet gal named Sunny. I have many photos for you. Check out the leather old glory sofa! She has Double D Ranchwear, jewelry by Rocki Gorman and incredible home furnishings. The last photo is of a business card so you can call if you see something that you like. And, the coolest news is that she is coming to eBay this week! I will update when I know more.

The taxidermy is from the Jim Beam estate!

Love this jacket. I actually have one. I do not know who that guy is, but he's cute and I thought you gals would like him!

This lamp is one of a matched pair. They are estate pieces.

A fine day shopping!

2009-06-07T12:34:00.000-07:00

I shopped like crazy this morning-was at the flea market before 6 AM. I got some outstanding things. I am so proud of my finds! Here are a few of the things that I am listing today, but there is so much more to come!

Fifth Sunday!

2009-05-31T11:44:00.000-07:00

Today was "Fifth Sunday" Antique Flea market. I love it because it is smaller than normal and there are seller there that cannot typically get a space at all of the regular flea markets so it was shopping new blood today. What a load I got! I think you will be pleased. I am going to start listing momentarily and list off and on all day. The problem lies with eBay who has been doing random system updates. Normally the auctions come up minutes after I submit them, but for the last week, it has taken more than 12 hours. However, not for all auctions. Yesterday I wrote 9 listings and one showed up right away and the rest showed up sometime in the middle of the night. So, please keep checking. They my show up all at once-who knows. Here is what is coming this week, starting today:

Note: I did pull one item, the bracelet below the bird earrings for further research.

UPDATE

2009-05-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

I just wanted all of you, who shop with me on Friday nights that I have been writing auctions on and off all day. The auctions are in the system, but are not showing yet because eBay is doing system maintenance. Some of yesterday's listings did not show for over 12 hours. I am working...

Listing DETOUR

2009-05-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Hi! I have so much to list on eBay from the weekend, but I got up this morning with an intuition that I needed to go back to my little haunt down south where I got all of the great things last week. See below...Low and behold the gal had restocked in preparation for the holiday weekend and I got to cherry pick. I have 8 items I believe and I am listing them today. Look at that Hopi necklace! OMG! And yes that is a very long Santo Domingo spiny oyster bead necklace! A rare find indeed. I am waiting for my camera batteries to recharge so I can shoot piece. Listing will begin in about 1 1/2" to 2 hours. I was able to shoot the tab necklace before they died, so it will go up now.

A LOT SHOPPY!

2009-05-17T11:48:00.000-07:00

I just got home from the flea market and no wonder I could not sleep last night! I had a feeling that I was going to score some great things and I sure did! I was up at 3:34 AM and on the road so that I could be shopping by 5:30 AM. The loss of sleep was worth it. I am not doing a group shot at there is just too much. Nearly 200 items. There are two squash blossoms, countless bracelets, rings, rare turquoise, several old bolo ties, early silver work, Old Mexican silver, Italian micro mosaic work, cameos and some very nice Victorian gold. I even found some old Indian leather slippers and a Victorian iron doll bed in old paint. What a fun day! I am going to get organized and start shooting photos. Should be listing within the hour.

A little bit "Shoppy"

2009-05-15T15:09:00.000-07:00

Hi! In preparation for the big flea market Sunday, I was feeling a little bit "shoppy" today and I had a nagging feeling that I needed to drive down to one of my favorite haunts, even though I was there about a week ago. I hopped in the car with a girlfriend and headed on down the coast. I'll be darned if some fresh inventory just came in for the weekend and I scored, not one but two Santo Domingo Indian turquoise tab bead necklaces, a bench bead necklace, a fine nugget necklace and a Zuni rosette bracelet! I have been looking for a good tab necklace for months and months and there just are not any out there. I am so thrilled. I have written some of the auctions this afternoon, but may finish tomorrow as I have a huge nasty headache.

Nice Turquoise!

2009-05-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! I just got back from the flea market. I got some very nice things today. Let me tell you that with the rising popularity of Native American Jewelry the prices are rising quickly and the availability is much more scarce. I am working very hard, but still finding the good stuff! Here is the jewelry, but there are some nice antiques that will be sprinkled in with the jewelry as I list this week. I was very busy with my daughter's school obligations last week, but will be back writing today. I do have shipping to do as well, but the good stuff is coming....Here is your sneak peek.

Still writing auctions...

2009-04-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

I am still writing auctions from the huge amount if inventory that I purchased over a week ago. I will be attending a flea market on Sunday where I always come home with great treasures. I am debating about going to the flea market down by the Mexican border on Saturday with this swine flu thing. My daughter and I just got over a 3 week flu attack which may have been swine flu for all we know. So, the jury is still out on that possibility, but I will continue to write all week. There is still so much left. Check out the stones that are set in this watch band that I am listing today:

And this is Victorian and Native American made.

A nice early ring...

What a Great DAY!

2009-04-19T12:45:00.000-07:00

I am back from the flea market and just want to tell you all that I have so much fresh inventory that it will take me more than a week to list it all. I have over 50 old Indian turquoise rings. necklaces, bracelets, some great Mexican, a 3 muses cameo even a cool Victorian hat and a sterling shoe hook. The flea market rocked! So much little stuff that a group photo would not work, so I am just going to start listing...stay tuned and thanks for looking.

The Antique Show...

2009-04-17T16:48:00.000-07:00

I am back and had to speed shop the show today to get back in time to pick my daughter up from school, however, I came home with about 30 things. I think I may go back to the show tomorrow, but I might just stay home and write auctions as there is a big flea market Sunday. No group shot, but are a few of the things that will go up tonight.

Three of these will be 5 day bidding auctions. There is so much more to come!

The Scoop...

2009-04-14T08:56:00.001-07:00

Here are my exciting shopping plans. I am attending an antique show on Friday. I always do well at this one. Before the show I am meeting a dealer from Albuquerque who is bringing me some necklaces and bracelets. I have seen photos and know that I am getting at least 4 pieces from her for sure. The necklaces are Southwest charm necklaces that are outstanding. Then, I am meeting with a picker that I call "The Snowbird". He usually has some very early pieces. I have another picker that I usually run into at this show and I know if he has anything for me, he will bring it...plus I have all of the wonderful things that will be on display at the show. I will do a group shot when I get home and list Friday night and all day Saturday. Sunday morning, my daughter and I will be up before the sun shopping the biggest flea market of the month. I usually come home with pounds of jewelry from this one. I am hoarding money like crazy this week so that I can buy well all all of these events. Wish me luck!

Shopping in the Rain!

2009-04-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

We headed down South this morning to a little flea market that we love. The skies threatened rain while we shopped and did cut loose on us, but we scored some great things thanks to all of the wonderful people that I buy from. Just take a look! I have a little league game in the middle of the day today, but I will be listing on and off all day. My family is making me take tomorrow off, so I won't have any new up then, but will resume Monday.

The Flower Fields at Carlsbad

2009-04-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

Even though I am fighting a nasty cold, my family talked me into a family adventure yesterday. We visited the Flower Fields at Carlsbad. It is an entire hillside that over looks the Pacific Ocean that is growing grounds for prized ranunculus bulbs. They bloom for a short time before harvest and the grounds are opened to the public. It is gorgeous! They also have things for kids to do like a sweet pea maze and pretty gardens to wander through. Check it out! If you think you might want to come down and visit, hurry, they won't be blooming much longer.

Deeve!

2009-04-07T10:03:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to share a photo of one of our Bengal cats, Deeve. He was napping in the window on a lovely spring day and looked up as I was shooting the photo.

SUNDAY'S LOOT!

2009-04-05T13:29:00.000-07:00

Hi! I just got home from shopping and did fantastic! All of my usual vendors had something special for me and there was a new guy. He was selling one time only because he was here to attend a funeral and decided to bring goods to the flea market. He was from Southern Utah and had some great stuff. Most of what he had was from the 1970's. He told me that he used to be a hippie and sold Navajo jewelry back then and in going through things, he found a bunch of stored stuff from those days. SO here is it and I will be writing as fast as I can..Oh! And for you fans of Twilight, I paid special attention to find some good turquoise bracelets like actress Kristen Stewart wore as Bella in the movie. I found four of them!

SCORE!

2009-03-29T13:54:00.001-07:00

Hi! Boy I did not want to get up this morning. My head cold is getting to me, but I crawled out of bed in the dark, showered and my daughter & I hit the road this morning. We drove an hour to an annual street faire watching the sun rise as we drove south, we ended up not too far from the Mexican border. It was an interesting show. Lots of vendors and most of them with very high prices. Bracelets that I offer on eBay in the $250.00 range were fetching 695.00! I did however, find two vendors that had great stuff. One was a bunch of brothers that had inherited their antique dealer mother's collection. They were great guys and we wheeled, dealed and dickered so! I came home with a nice bag of loot for you. There was also an old cowboy who had some neat things. Have never seen him before. Then, My favorite picker was there and has a few baggies of treasures for me. So all in all, here is what I got. Check it out. I will start writing today...

UPDATE

2009-03-25T14:40:00.000-07:00

Hi! Just a quick update on what I am doing. I have slowed down on my auction writing though I still have great things here to list because I am having huge problems with my FTP photo host, photobucket. It is rotating photos in a random fashion when uploading that the costs me major time to fix. I am trying to find a better FTP host. Also, I am revising auctions as we have to have a return policy in all auctions before 4-1. Revising 850 auctions takes forever. I am though taking the opportunity to add best offer options to many auctions so now is your chance to dicker prices with me. I love it!

DUBLI

2009-03-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, I just want to talk about one more thing. My sister in law called me last night wanting to know if I know anything about a website business opportunity called Dubli. I had not. It is being presented as the site that will blow eBay away. (Right) She told that she was thinking of investing in this as as she talked, my bull%$#* detector was alarming like crazy. So, I decided to check it out. GEEZ! What a complicated scam this one is. It is a multilevel pyramid scam that is preying on people who are ignorant to the internet and want to get rich quick. The hook is a "reverse auction" as they call it, which amounts to nothing more than gambling. They have paid advertisers which they present as the actual listers of the items. They are charging fees of $3000.00 for people to buy their "license" to buy credits to use to PAY to bid on items-which lowers the bid. You pay .80 to lower the bid by .25. I am sure Dubli is making money out the back door with spam as well. This reminds me of another scum bag company that preys upon the ignorance of people...Amway! The main source of income for Dubli is to get more people to buy a license. The whole pyramid thing. You are supposed to call and bother every family member and person you ever knew and try to get them to join...just like that other company in mentioned. If you are looking for some extra income and are approached by one of these poor ignorant souls to give your hard earned dollars, send them packing. If you want to blow your money gambling, go to Las Vegas. If you want a business on the side and want to invest a bit of money in something, go buy a product that you like, and perhaps have a passion for and sell it on eBay. Your return will be better and you will be putting money in your pocket, not the pockets of these Dubli thieves. If you want to invest money, invest it in a tangible product that you can hold in your hands and sell to a customer. These are hard times and the scum bag crooks and thieves are out in force to get their hands on your hard earned dollars. Don't hand it to them.

Myrtle Creek Nursery

2009-03-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

As we are enjoying the tail end of a wonderful rain storm today, I will take a quick break from auction writing to show you some photos of a great plant nursery near me in a town called Fallbrook. We decided to replace the tree in our front year. We had to remove the old one as it was lifting our driveway. This nursery is so well decorated and the quality of their trees and plants is very high as they have their own growing grounds. Not only does Myrtle Creek Nursery have great plants, but the decorations and gifts are fantastic as well. Take a peek:

There are several charming buildings on the property.

This is one of the resident cats, Beau.

We hiked out past the barn to find our tree but the bees got there first.

We ended up with this red bud tree.

There are several rusty girls for sale out by the 5 gallon vines.

Myrtle Creek Nursery has a website. They are located at myrtlecreeknursery.com.

A load of Turquoise!

2009-03-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to show what I am listing today....

Told ya that I held back some good stuff...and there is still more....

Update on listings

2009-03-19T11:05:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! I still have so many great things to list on eBay. I have 5 great pieces of Native American that I am trying to verify the hallmark on. I have two excellent beaded necklaces, one Mexican and one Native American that need slight repairs as well. I have more than that coming, but I need to get the tasks done so that I can get them listed for you. I am going to list 5 more items today and then focus on getting these special items ready to list tomorrow or Saturday. I also need to finish getting things ready for tax day and I am still doing revisions to all of my auctions. eBay wants me to move my blog link to my about me page and delete all links on the front page of my auctions... all 850+ of them. It is taking forever! I have decided that while I am doing that I will add best offer to many of my auctions, so you will see some changes if you have not already. So just know that great pieces are still coming...oh! Check out my wisteria vine. I am so proud of it. Spring is here!

Power Shopping Day Two

2009-03-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

OMG! My daughter and I were up so early today and shopping before the sun came up. We came home with pounds of jewelry! There is so much that I cannot even photograph it all in a group shot. It is all good stuff that we hand picked. I am going to get busy writing as it will take me more than a week to get it all up. There are a few Native American pieces that are signed and I need to find out who the artist is, so I am going to mix it all up all week. I usually do all of the Indian stuff first, but not this time, so please take a look every day as there will be many buyitnows. Here are a few of our finds:

Day One of POWER SHOPPING!

2009-03-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

My daughter and I were up before the sun this morning and shopping the flea markets. Let me tell you, my ten year old girl can shop with the big girls! She found several of today's finds including the Navajo bug pin. Here is what we found. Not all will go up today and tomorrow we will attend the big one, so will have another load hopefully. But, I am going to start writing listings in a few moments.

A day off at the Drag Races!

2009-03-08T14:20:00.000-07:00

Hi! I took the day off yesterday and drove 3 hours to Bakersfield, CA to the Famoso Raceway to attend the Nostalgia drag races. Cory crew chiefs a vintage nitro funny car called "The Pedaler". Yesterday was qualifying day and today is eliminations. As I write this, they have not yet competed in the first round though the team is up against their toughest competition. Luckily, the other team has a very inexperienced driver. So, I will update on the elimination rounds later as I know that there are some Cory Lee fans that read this blog for the latest scoop.
Here is the body out in front of the pit area.

The crew hard at work before a qualifying run:

Here is Cory in the center.

If you have never been to a drag race, here is the pit area.

There were many vendors attending this event. One really got me excited. Usually racing events are all about cars and guy stuff, but right in the middle of all the car parts and chromed pipes was this booth.

Atomic Kitten salon is located in Bakersfield and it blew my mind! Those gals were all about 1940's and 1950's bombshells and were doing pin up hair do for the gals at the track. The fashion is so different in Bakersfield compared to the beach town that I live in. It was all about pale white skin and dark dyed black hair, some with streaks of bright color, or Marilyn Monroe platinum blond hair... and tight clothing, high high heels and very RED lipstick. I felt like I was in a time warp. The only major difference in the style was many of these pale white skinned girls were also covered in tattoos. Here are some photos of the booth and some of the gals that we spotted walking around in the retro look.

Here is a link to the Atomic Kitten Salon Myspace
Retro Bombshells

Back to racing...One of the traditions at the Nostalgia Meets is called the "Cacklefest". They bring all of the nitro fuel burning cars up onto the track at the same time and have them start their engines at the same time to see just how loud it can get. If you look closely at this photo, you can see the yellow cloud of nitro that is over the cars. The wind blew it right down the track and when it hit, the crowd really felt it. Tearing burning eyes and painful lungs.

That is all for now. I am off to write some auctions. I will update with race results....

No Sleep and Great Finds!

2009-03-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

Hi! For some reason, I could not sleep last night. Cory came home from testing the race car at 1:30 AM and informed me that our house had been toilet papered. I was awake and was so deep in my studies that I did not hear a thing. I am sure that the TP job is in honor of my pretty little daughter and the first of many jobs to come in the future. So instead of seeing my daughter out there in the morning, the TP artists got to see an old mommy in her pajamas out picking up the artwork at 1:30 AM. The boy next door was watching from his upstairs window and I did hear an exclamation of disappointment when I removed the artwork before dawn and the neighborhood did not get to see my yard bask in it's white flowing glory. It was much better when I was a kid. Toilet paper came in colors and we had lots of trees in our neighborhood. I was quite good at this sort of decorating myself! Anyway, I usually have a hard time sleeping the night before a good flea market because I am so excited! It seems that somehow I can sense when I am going to score some great finds. Well, intuition did not let me down. I scored! I spent all week on a bummer because Native American is getting so high in price and so hard to find. Low and behold, first thing, I found a new picker who came to this show, one time only and she is from Albuquerque, NM! She only sells at shows once in a while and has agreed to ship finds to me often. YAY! I have some fantastic things from her. We even know some of the same people so we have an instant trust bond in place. So here are some photos. I will get busy listing today. I got less than two hours of sleep, so I am sure you will find many typos in my listings. Just ignore them and look at the photos. As it stands now, I am not keeping anything below,. I am in a very disciplined state of mind today...The first things will be auction style listings. I have to have some of those because those affect my search standings. Have to write a few every day. But many of my finds will have a buy it now...so if you see things below that you like, check my new listings often so that you will not miss it. I cannot tell you how many emails I get from disappointed buyers who missed something that they really wanted bad. As always, THANK YOU for your business. I LOVE my job and you keep me working!

What a load!

2009-02-15T15:26:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note to tell you that shopping today was extraordinary! I came home with pounds of jewelry! I am going to get busy writing auctions but get ready for the mother lode!

THE BIG COUNTDOWN!

2009-02-14T17:35:00.000-08:00

Hi! It is the big countdown. I have been an eBay seller for 11 years. (I had another ID before my divorce) I am 17 feedback ratings away from my 10,000 feedback shooting star! Pretty exciting milestone for me. To celebrate, I am having my biggest markdown sale ever. I will mark many things down more than I ever have for just a few days. If you see your special item at a good price, go for it. It may never be that low again. It is going to take me about 4 days to get everything marked down because I have 850 items and eBay lets me place 250 on sale per day. I started 250 last night and the eBay system failed and started a sale with 0 items. Back to square one...Anyway, I just did 124 to make sure it takes, and after that I will do more.

I also was out shopping today. I had a grand time. All of the Valentine's festivities were great! I neglected to bring my camera, darn it! I have some great Native American, some Victorian and some fine old lockets for you. I will get some listed tonight. Tomorrow I will be up before the sun at an antique flea market so be ready for tomorrow night. I will list heavy on Monday and Tuesday as well.

Shopping in the rain!

2009-02-08T11:52:00.000-08:00

Good morning! My daughter and I were up before the sun this morning. With a forecast of rain for the next two days, we decided to chance it and drive 1 hour to a flea market near the border to do some shopping. With our Starbucks hot chocolate we drove in the rain hoping that our intuition was correct and that we would be able so somehow shop today. Just as we arrived the rain stopped. The dealers quickly put out their tables and we shopped under black skies and a double rainbow. Wish I had my camera! It was beautiful. I found a good load of Mexican Taxco 925 silver, a pair of early Navajo earrings, some 1920's beaded flapper necklaces and even a 1970's puka shell necklace. Remember those? My daughter got the steal of the day though. 10 years old and she is digging though the jewelry and pulls out a little silver colored ring with a rhinestone in the center. "Mom, I think this is a real diamond." I am half paying attention, "Yeah, Yeah-How much and does it fit you?". She asked the man. $3.00...Ok, so I gave her $3.00 and she put the little ring on her finger. We got home and she wanted to test it with my diamond tester and I'll be damned! She found herself a 1/8 carat diamond for three dollars. That girl has got it! Born to be a scrapper just like her Mama! So here are a few photos for you...I will be writing off and on all day. It is raining like a big dog again. We got home just in time. Lady luck with with us today! I hope we found something special for you!

This baby rattle is by Tiffany & Co.

I even found a piece of Lois Hill! Always love her stuff!

Beware of Sharks!

2009-02-05T15:18:00.000-08:00

I have something to share with you. As you may know from reading my blog, I am often out and about buying jewelry for my eBay store. I buy from American pickers and dealers as well as private parties, estates and pickers from Mexico. I live in North San Diego County so I get news from San Diego and Los Angeles which are both very happening cities. We talk business all the time and share stories. Because times are hard, people all over are selling there gold and silver, but mostly gold as scrap to be melted down. They are doing this for some quick cash. That is great for broken chains and ugly nugget rings from the 1980's. However, some very nice Victorian pieces are being destroyed as scrap for quick cash. I have seen pieces one week, gone back the next to get the piece and the dealer tells me that they scrapped it. UGH! What a bummer. So, I am will be adding lots of Victorian pieces to my store in an effort to save them from the melting pot. Even some pieces with a blemish or too because once they are melted that piece of history is gone forever.
The other thing is this. Whenever a business is booming the bad guys come out. There are some con artist sharks out there right now wanting to get their hands on your heirlooms. They call themselves gold buyers and they advertise in the newspaper that they will be in town for 2 days at such and such hotel room. You call and make an appointment to sell them your jewelry. You bring your old stuff, they pay you cash. Sounds good? A very experienced dealer friend of mine decided to take a few pieces to these sharks to see what happened. He took a huge rare $3000.00 cameo brooch that has a glass door on the back for the display of a loved one's hair. This mourning brooch is set in a huge solid 18k gold setting. He also brought a heavy Mexican sterling silver, signed bracelet by Antonio Pineda. It's value is $2500.00. He was told that the cameo was not real gold and offered 300.00 for it. He was told that Mexican silver is not real silver and offered 100.00 for the bracelet. Now you know those pieces would not be melted down, but sold at high market value for a huge profit. My friend just told him "No Thanks" and left. As he entered the elevator, there was a little old lady with a box filled with her old jewelry. He knew right where she was headed. He wanted to throw up! So, if you want to sell your old jewelry, please take it to a reputable dealer and research your pieces at the library first. It could be well worth your time to do some research to ensure that you are not taken advantage of by these sharks. Please pass this information on. It would be great to stop these bad souls from ripping off trusting good people.

Lockets!

2009-02-03T13:54:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have been asking me for more vintage lockets, I will be listing them today. Some are a great buy and some are very old and may be a bit pricey, but I hand picked each one and I think I will have something that you will like. Old Lockets are HOT! I saw a gal at the flea market with two necklaces and a bracelet filled with lockets. She collects them like charms. There are two gals that I know are LA designers that buy lockets and make one of a kind jewelry pieces with them. Also, I still have more Native American to list as well as many other great finds. I will be writing all week!

Great Finds!

2009-02-01T14:21:00.000-08:00

I am home from shopping! I found some neat things, but let me tell you, I worked hard to find them. There was alot of competition with buyers and not the usual amount of treasures to go around. I had to be fast. I had to dig and work and spend much more time than normal at this flea market to come home with the booty that I have here. It was worth the work. I found things that I never see out there like a pair of antique cut steel earrings, an art Deco Whitby jet ring, some Navajo rings with rare turquoise, a great early quilt and lots of jewelry! I am a bit slow to list today as I have to go through all of my listings and remove "money order" and adjust the shipping charges to the new rates. It is taking forever. I have just over 100 left to do. I stayed up late last night working on it and slept only 2 hours before it was time to go to the flea market. Here is my favorite bracelet of the day...

So, I am back to work. Tomorrow will be a huge listing day!

Good shopping!

2009-01-31T17:42:00.000-08:00

I found some neat things today...not alot, but what I found is really nice. See...

I am listing tonight, but I am very tired. Don't know how long I can hold out and have to get up at 4 AM tomorrow. I am still learning how to adjust the lighting in this photography booth so please bear with me. As I was shooting today, Jasper was all over this new thing. Would not leave until I took his picture.

I will be out shopping before dawn at a great flea market tomorrow so stay tuned.....

A new piece of equipment!

2009-01-30T18:01:00.000-08:00

Hi! I am so excited! This morning Cory brought me a wonderful gift. A new lighted photo booth to use to shoot my items for eBay! I am so excited. I have such a time dealing with natural light and weather conditions. I have to shoot at certain times of the day when lighting is just right. Now I can shoot photos anytime of day. No glare! I have to play with backgrounds and light colors, but here are some first shots.

The following ring is not for sale.

I have to do some more adjustments with color, but the turquoise colors will be true and the lighting allows for much more detail...almost too much!
I am off to play some more. I will be up early tomorrow and Sunday purchasing great finds for you, so please check my eBay store tomorrow afternoon and Sunday afternoon as well as Monday for good things!

Great CHOW!

2009-01-24T13:18:00.000-08:00

Hi! I have been working so hard trying to get all of these great finds listed that I have neglected to do a little blogging. I wanted to share with you a great place for ribs. Forget the she-she rib joint in Newport Beach, because the Mexicans have it all when it comes to smoked ribs. There is a little Mexican market in Vista, CA called Primo Food Market. It is right off the 78 freeway. They have big smokers out front. They make ribs only Thursday through Sunday and you have to get there early while the getting is good. It is a market, so there is no place to dine. You have to tote them home or bring your picnic basket and head straight down the 78 to the ocean for a nice rib picnic lunch at the beach. This is a Mexican market so it helps if you speak Spanish, but one can get by without it most of the time. They have fresh produce and Mexican vanilla that is great to bake with. When you go to the back of the store for your ribs, ask if they have any tamales. If they do, snag them. They make outstanding tamales, which sell fast, so you have to get there early for those too. They have fresh juices and home made horchata to drink. It is just a dive on the side of the freeway, but the food is fine!

Also, here are my shopping plans for the next week. I am not shopping this weekend. However, I am seeing a great picker on Monday morning. He has some nice Indian jewelry for me. I will begin to list that load Monday afternoon. I have some things coming from a private party sometime next week. Saturday I am going down by the border to buy from my Mexican pickers and Mary. I will go to a little outdoor swap meet as well. Saturday night will be heavy listing as well. Sunday morning I will be up before the sun attending a flea market. Lots of listing after that. Hope I find something great for you!
Here are photos of the Primo Food Market...

These ribs are so tasty! You get a full rack of ribs for $13.95. This is less then half a rack here.

WOW! Have I been shopping!

2009-01-18T12:25:00.001-08:00

Just a quick update, I hope that you are ready. I went to an antique show Friday, those items I have about half listed and today I attended an outdoor flea market. I came home with 100 things! I have Navajo, Zuni, Mexican, Italian mosaic, cameos, pearls, rare turquoise, a satellite ring, so much Victorian gold...I am so excited! Here is a funky snap shot of the pile of jewels I have to list as well as an antique china head doll in original clothing, jewelry and chair and a great antique beaded bag. I am getting to the writing of auctions today, but it will take me all week. Have to finish by Saturday as there is a street fair that day...if no rain. You will love my finds! Please take a look at least once per day, but many will be buyitnows...would not want to miss something good.

A Nasty Cold, a Broken Toe and New Idea

2009-01-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

So, I went out shopping yesterday and found a few wonderful things including an elusive lava cameo. Going was slow as I have a nasty cold and a broken toe. My horse, Snickers, stepped on my foot a few days ago and broke my toe. I have had this idea since I posted the Victoria photo of the pearls and cameos, so I went through Mary's things so see if I could get enough supplies to show. I love coral and old coral is commanding a huge price these days. I thought it would be great to have multiple length strands of beads, I used coral with an artistic placement of assorted vintage gold and silver lockets. I love lockets. The first piece of jewelry that a boy ever gave me was a locket that had Ray + Linda engraved on it. I still have that locket though Ray did not turn out to be a score. (I was only 16) Making one of these necklaces would be a fun project for a girl could have a locket for every family member or friends or whom ever...even pets. So here is a photo of my idea. I did not actually attach the lockets as the coral is for sale on eBay. (The lockets will be up today as well)

Shopping news: I am going to be attending an antique show on Friday and seeing one of my favorite out of state pickers, then Sunday is a big flea market. I have many things on sale to help get the funds together to be able to purchase some great finds at these places. Please check them out and please visit my store next weekend and Monday to see what I got.

Shopping Day!

2009-01-04T11:06:00.000-08:00

Good morning! The leaky pipe is fixed, Cory is working on the holes in the walls, the new refrigerator has been delivered and the rain has stopped so I went out flea marketing early today. We got there very early (that was my fault a bit of overkill on the rise and shine time. It was so dark that we could not see anything well enough to buy so since my daughter and friend were looking at me for getting them up so early we decided to hang out at Starbucks for a while until the sun started coming up. Boy, what a little caffeine can do to perk up a treasure hunter! Boy did I find some great stuff! I found many good estate things. I have been through a dry spell finding cameos in the last 6 weeks, but today my luck was back and I found some truly wonderful cameos, even a signed habille piece! I have an incredible Native American disk wedding bead necklace, two great early bracelets and lots of coral. I have bead necklaces of pearls and garnet and a fantastic amber electric guitar pin. I am about to go out and start shooting photos for today's listings. I will be a little slow getting them up as I am re organizing my office. My antique roll top desk was falling apart, so I got my Makita drill and a bottle of glue and fixed it. I now have the contents stacked in my office and everything needs to be changed around. I also want to work in my art studio to this office, so I will be writing and decorating intermittently. If it comes out great, I will post some pics...I am even trying some Feng Shui in here. Anyway, here is the loot....

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T13:01:00.000-08:00

I want to first wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! Thank you every one for all of your business over the years. You are so appreciated! We were up very early this morning as my 10 year old daughter could not wait to see what Santa brought. Kids make this holiday the best!
Second, I have a great sale running until midnight the 26th so please check it out.
The last thing is that I will be very slow to answer emails over the next few days. I also will not be able to ship tomorrow. I am having a terrible plumbing problem and there is not a plumber in or out of town that will come help us until tomorrow. We have had to turn off our water and I am trying to dry out carpeting and drywall to try to prevent having to have it all redone. Since I live near the beach, if a pipe breaks inside of the wall, we have a high risk of mold developing so I have a huge problem on my hands here. I will try to do my shipping on Saturday. I still have many fresh finds to list, but that may have to wait a day or so too. Thank you so much for your understanding.

Apple Cider Vinegar

2008-12-22T16:59:00.000-08:00

Ok, Just a quick thing to share. I have been a weight lifter most of my life. I love it! I have to take the summers off from the gym as there is no one to watch my daughter while I work out. When school started up I went back to the gym. I was telling my friend how this time at my 40+ age, I am having trouble getting the extra roundness to leave my mid section. My friend told me that a body builder that she dated drank vinegar to help his body dispose of fat properly. She that he was very lean. I knew that there had to be more to it than that so I did some on line research and found Bragg Natural organic apple cider vinegar. For the vinegar to work, it has to have the mother (part of the mother apple that started the fermentation process, and it cannot be distilled. It has to be all cloudy and icky looking to do it's work. All you do is put 2 teaspoons into a few inches of water, plug your nose and drink it once or twice per day. Go to the bragg website at bragg.com and check it out. This stuff is so healthy for you. It tastes not so good, but let me tell you, it works. That stubborn stomach fat is disappearing and I am amazed! I also learned that we need pectin to help our bodies lose fat. Apples, grapefruit and berries help do the job. I am eating the fruit that I can, but since is it not berry season, I am supplementing with grapefruit pectin tablets. I am thrilled with the results...and now it is Christmas vacation and I cannot go to the gym for two weeks. Darn it!

Today's Fine Loot

2008-12-20T14:02:00.000-08:00

Hi! I went out shopping today and came home with a very nice collection of great finds. I have some photos below, but this is only about half of what I found. I am not going out tomorrow like I usually do as I am coming down with a cold and need to not be out at 4:00 shopping at an outdoor flea market. Have have enough fresh finds for the entire week. I will be keeping the square white stone ring. It is a natural opal in need of some work. I will be writing auctions today, tomorrow and Monday as well as whenever I can fit them in between holiday functions. I wish you all a very Happy Holiday season

Yucaipa and Oak Glen

2008-12-15T10:29:00.000-08:00

Good morning! Yesterday I took most of the day off for a family trip to Yucaipa and Oak Glen. Years ago,after my divorce, I purchased a house in Yucaipa where the three of us lived for 2 1/2 years. It was a great place to heal, a small town with horses and real weather. But, I knew it was not a forever home and moved close to the beach. Still not my forever home by the way. I will move again to the north where it is horse country. I can have my horses and grow berries, but that won't happen for many years yet. Anyway, we visited our old house and all of our favorite place. We stopped to visit Granlund's where they have a great little cafe and gift shop. Out back there is a big building where they make hand dipped chocolates that are shipped around the world!

We then headed up to Oak Glen. It is a small community that has a long history of apple growing. The apple harvest season is over for now, but we were able to score some of Law's apple cider as there are many cider mills in the area as well.
Oak Glen is just up the road from Yucaipa. One thing we used to do when we lived there was whenever it rained in Yucaipa, if the storm was cold, we knew it was snowing up the hill. My daughter was so excited every time we had a storm. Even if she had school, we would have to go up the hill after school to see of show had fallen. There was a one day storm last week and we has dismal hopes of finding any snow. As we drove up the hill, we found a light dusting of snow, and the air was cold enough to keep it in place. My daughter and Cory has a great time scooping it up from around tree trunks and had an ongoing snow ball fight all day. Of course the snow was like powder and rarely did a snowball hold together long enough to hit it's intended target, but hey this is what you get in Southern CA. We'll take it!

Signs, signs everywhere a sign...

This is the only time I saw this dude....

We went to the Oak Glen candy shop. My daughter and Cory had their traditional caramel apples and I was thrilled with my hard to find penuche fudge. We sat and looked at these all over the ground around us. All dusted with snow.

There is a little village where artist's offer their goods.

And I did do a little antique shopping. My favorite shop is in Yucaipa. It is owned by a woman named Ruth. She sold me 6 persimmon fruits from her tree for $1.00. Aren't they beautiful? I got a great deal on three vintage boxes of pastels and the jar of old paint brushes was only 75 cents. I did score two old Navajo rings. The big one is staying with me for now, but the little one, which is set with a fine piece of spider web turquoise from the Lone Mountain mine will be listed today.

Also, Saturday night, I made myself a new area for shooting photos. I use natural light so you can all see the true colors of the turquoise and the milk paint on my antiques. I am trying it out today, but light is low due to our wonderful winter rain storm. These are my pomander balls. I have had them for almost 20 years. One of then is older than that though. It was made my Grandma Betty in the early 1960's! We intend to make some more this year. They make the house smell so good!

All in all, we had a great day yesterday. It was sad to see how many shops had closed due to the economy. Our favorite gift shop in Oak Glen was closed down.It had a huge porch and a big warm wood burning stove inside. It was up above the snow line so we could always count on a pile of snow to be on that porch. It was sad to see it all closed up. However, on the bright side many shops were still open and thriving. Oak Glen has been around since the 1800's and made it through the Great Depression and many other challenges. I am sure this community will make it through again. If you are in Southern California, it is a great place to go for a weekend day trip.

Show and Tell

2008-12-14T10:14:00.000-08:00

Good morning! Before I head out for a family visit to Yucaipa and Oak Glen, I wanted to do a quick post. A nice gal on eBay asked me to post photos of some 1830's bead work that I found in an antique sewing roll up. I have a collection of antique sewing items that I have gathered most of my adult life. I even have two sewing pockets. Here is some of my collection and how it is displayed in my home. Sorry, none of these items are available on eBay or for sale. It is just show and tell time!

This is the antique sewing rollup and it's contents.

Los Rio Street San Juan Capistrano

2008-12-12T12:50:00.000-08:00

Hi! Yesterday afternoon, my daughter and I had to travel to Orange County for an appointment. We left early to make a quick stop on San Juan Capsitrano. Our mission was not the mission itself, but charming Los Rios street which is the oldest street in Orange County, CA. There is a train station right there and many travel by train to visit for the day.

There are several places that we like to visit on Los Rios street. I like to visit this gate every time I visit as it always has a different wreath.

Then there is The Ramos House Cafe. I have never taken the time to eat there, but I hear it is fantastic. The cafe it located at John Q.'s house and the dining area is his patio. Wine is stored in his basement, the home made ice cream is turned on his back porch and the herbs are grown in his garden.

Now our family traditionally begins the Christmas season by gathering in our great room with a bowl of popcorn to watch the 1983 movie "A Christmas Story", so we have to visit John's front window every year to see this:

And I always get a kick out of this friendly warning that is posted at the entrance to the cafe.

There are many charming shops and homes to see as you walk along Los Rios.

And then there is the house with the red door. I always have to walk all the way down the street to see it.

These is a catering buisness in this home

This was located in a little garden shop near the cafe.

We then headed back to the car and found on the main street in town a brand new shop called "A Touch of Elegance". They were having a ribbon cutting ceremony. We sampled some treats and purchased a tasty cheese ball mix that tastes like caramel apples. I will be taking one to a dinner party tomorrow evening.

We arrived at the car and waited for them to light the park Christmas tree. They did not get the job done in time for us. As we stood there, my 10 year old daughter said "Mom, we do the funnest, coolest stuff together!" It was just a quick stop, but Yeah, I guess we do!

We like to feel pretty!

2008-12-09T09:32:00.001-08:00

So, I wanted to share how I feel about "pretty". As I get older, I get so bogged down with responsibility that I sometimes forget that I am a woman who likes to feel pretty and sexy. I work in my home and it is so easy to just throw on some jeans, a loose t-shirt and my warm Ugg boots and knock out a load of work everyday. When you are involved in a relationship, things get comfortable and you forget that your man likes to see a sexy woman. Because my man is in a high profile job, being a race car driver, I think I tend to stay a bit more aware of that fact because I have to deal with "track whores" wanting to be with my man on a continual basis. (Cool! This is my blog and I can tell it straight up! No sugar coating the story here) But, let me tell you. It does not matter what your man looks like, or where he works, how much money he has or where he goes, there is always some tramp somewhere looking him over. I think the key here is that we do things for ourselves so that we FEEL pretty and FEEL sexy... because if we FEEL it, we ARE IT! It does not matter if we have gained a few pounds or just got a bad haircut. It is how good you can make yourself feel inside that shines through and makes you look good! Just think about the last time a man opened a door for you, didn't it feel great? My single mom friend who lives on a ranch with a dirt yard and chickens outside her door told me that it would be easy to just get up in the morning and exist. But, she doesn't. She showers, does her hair and wears make-up and jewelry everyday. And if she needs to feel sexy, she wears high heels around the ranch! How cool is that! She struts her stuff and it feels great! I got to thinking about that. I am very large busted and have spent most of my life hiding my breasts because men stare at them. It always made me uncomfortable. I recently got rid of all of my baggy t-shirts and purchased tight t-shirts and decided to let the world see these girls! Let them stare! I also shelved the Uggs and purchased several pair of high heels to wear with my new tight jeans. I feel sexy in those shoes... Once I learned how to walk in them again.
And then there was the issue of make-up. Wearing make-up is a lot of work. However, wearing it makes a huge difference. It can make you feel great! A couple of years ago, I took a job with a modeling agency as a make up model. I needed extra money so I could pay bills and build jewelry inventory for eBay. I am an artist and I want doing altered art to make ends meet, but the modeling pays very well. Being in that environment I learned so much talking to women. I am forty something and let me tell you, it does not matter what your age, women want to feel pretty. I had women in their 80's learning new techniques, and updating colors. I loved talking to those women! They taught me so much!
I also spent time educating myself about makeup companies. Being a single mom, I have to save money where I can. Did you know that there are just a handful of companies that manufacture cosmetics for everyone else? These major manufacturers are own a huge list of their own labels as well as private label for other companies. For example:Loreal owns Lancome and Maybellene. that is why Lancome has such great mascara. But why pay a huge price at Nordstrom for Lancome, when you can go to Walmart for Loreal or Maybelline mascara. I prefer Loreal because it dries faster. Mac is owned by Estee Lauder. Borghese is Revlon. Check it out on line. You will be amazed!
I did find a line of cosmetics that I love! It was created by the Factor brothers, grandsons of Max Factor. The line is called Smashbox. I first was attracted to the eyeshadows being an artist. Have you ever purchased an eyeshadow, applied it and it was so light that you could not see it on? Looked great as a cake, but where did it go? Smashbox eyeshadows are pigments. They go on just as you see them. All you need is a few good brushes and a mirror. Here are some of mine. I let myself get a new color every week as a special treat, just for me. Are these colors not rich and awesome?

I also just purchased their foundation primer. It is a gel that smooths your skin under your foundation. It is outstanding!

I also want to show you my bathroom counter. I decided to display my makeup, just for me. I do not want make-up application to be just another morning ritual that I have to do, it is an artistic event! I have everything stored and displayed in antique sterling silver, which for some reason can be picked up for nothing these days. I look at my beautiful colors displayed in sterling and I feel special before I begin.

Once I am dressed in my tighter clothing, high heels, my hair and makeup is on, I then pick which jewelry to wear for the day. Lots of bracelets, earrings, a necklace or two and pretty rings to look at all day. I love bracelets and rings because I can see them when I wear them. Now that I am feeling great inside, I am looking good on the outside! I take that long walk down the stairs to my office and begin my day shipping orders, taking photos and writing auctions. Auctions with wonderful antique and vintage jewelry finds for you...so you can wear special pieces to feel pretty too! So girls, get out those tight shirts, show a little, put on your heels, makeup & jewelry and strut your stuff. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

Sara's Art Studio

2008-12-09T09:20:00.000-08:00

Good morning! One of my good friends that I met on ebay is a wonderful jewelry artist. She sent me some fantastic photos of her workshop that I want to share. I had a hard time getting them to download, so I only have two to share. She makes the most awesome jewelry. Here is a bracelet that she so kindly made for me. It is of antique beads and buttons.

She made many of the pieces displayed on her dress form.

There is also a photo of a table that she made out of a sled. I cannot get the photo to download into my computer. It is amazing though! If you have a pretty vignette workspace that you want to share, email me a photo. I will post it! yourgreatfinds@aol.com

More Loot!

2008-12-07T13:22:00.000-08:00

I was up at 4:00 AM this morning and shopping in the dark at a great little antique flea market. One of my favorite pickers brought me some special finds. Also, one of my favorite dealers from Oklahoma was back in town for this show after being gone all summer. I have some great things just for you! Here is a peek!
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A Parade and Some Holiday Shopping!

2008-12-06T20:29:00.000-08:00

Hi! Today, My daughter, my parents and I rode on a float in the Hemet, CA Christmas parade. My mother is a member of the Assistance League and it was the float for the organization. They raise money to purchase school clothing for needy children in the community. The float amounted to a decorated flat bed truck with bails of hay, but we had fun! All of us ladies were quite thrilled to have a big red fire truck with those handsome firemen aboard right behind us! (Have you ever seen a fireman that was not handsome?) Our joy was short lived though because as soon as we turned the corner, someone in the crowd has a problem and the truck pulled out of the parade to help them!

On the way home, I stopped by to see a friend of mine and purchased several pieces of Indian Jewelry from his private collection. Check my auctions. I listed them today. Two pieces are already spoken for.

We then stopped in Temecula. If you are anywhere near Southern California and have the time, shopping trip to Old Town Temecula is in order! Right now it is very much in the Christmas spirit. I plan to go back next week when I have more time.

Some of my favorite shops:
This place bakes fresh bread all day that is to die for!

A great nursery

This shop is darling and just added home made chocolates.

There are many historical buildings, great places to eat and a whole day of shopping...the wine country is just down the street a few miles as well!

Check out this cool website!

2008-12-06T17:12:00.000-08:00

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