Reseller Adventures: Free Box Hunting and Book Seller Friends

Last week I replenished my free box supply. (Read: 10 Ways to Get Shipping Supplies for Free.) My box dealer, Joe, is a book reseller and worked part time in shipping and receiving at our local organic grocery store. He has a huge stockpile of boxes and supplies and begs me to help take it off his hands.

I love to visit his pedantically organized book collection. I met Joe bike riding on a mild fall day last year. He was hosting a yard sale and the ample, eclectic piles of books completely filling his rental vintage home's stone stoop caught my eye.

 He was clearly a reseller so we exchanged cards and I went on my way with three books in my bike's basket. We discovered we had friends in common when I ran into him at a nearby bar months later and we've been reselling and thrifting buddies ever since.

I always have to come home with one book. This time I bought a little something that should help me better be a better foster mama to The Yuko cat.

I love reaching out to local vintage lovers and urge others resellers and artists to do the same. The opportunities you gain this way are endless. Thrifting, reselling, writing, and making art with like-minded people is good for the soul.

Have you made resellers friends online/offline? Try it!

Daily thrifting updates, information, & Inspiration: Follow Thrift Core on Twitter and Facebook.

What I Didn't Buy at the Thrift Store: Flea Market Fun

Flea market hunting doesn't just bring amazing finds for pennies on the dollar, it also provides ample laughs and fun. You never know who you'll meet or what you'll see before you embark. Sometimes it's a dud and you don't encounter much, but this weekend I had plenty to document and enjoy:

I was dying for these reproduction vintage tin robots! Not vintage or not, they needed to come home with me. Unfortunately I'd already spent all my flea market cash and I was on the way to a birthday party, so I had to part with these beauties...for now.

Another pretty pack of finds that couldn't come home with me. I love the reproduction tin astronaut.

I searched this pile hard to yield some of the amazing finds you can see here. When the set up is nice and clean like this I tend to pass it over because the vendors will charge antique store prices for the finds when I want flea market deals, but the items here were low-priced. That'll teach me to never pass over a table at the market!

Halloween is close, but every day is a horror opportunity for me. My morbid soul cries out for spooky finds, and this one is a gem. Look at her face, isn't it beautiful?

Some might find these two dolls creepy, but I love them. They'd be here with me now if not for those pesky money/time delays.

And this gorgeous educational skeleton, oh how I've pined for one since my science nerd days. We would be friends, he and I. But we weren't meant to be. The search continues.

And wrapping up the horror, holy hell, look at this morbid display? What would have made this dog feel like he has no way out?

And his friends, too! My god, it wasn't suicide, it's mass plushie murder!

What have you left behind at the thrifts lately? See anything interesting?

Daily thrifting updates, information, & Inspiration: Follow Thrift Core on Twitter and Facebook.

Reselling Experiments: Vintage T-Shirt Haul and Selling Vintage Clothing

Reselling is food for the creative's soul. It's flexible. You can switch your niche and sell things you wouldn't have thought of. I'm giving bold, nostalgic and vintage t-shirts a try in my antique store booths. They're fun to display and they appeal to my love of graphic design. They go with Thrift Core's saturated color scheme and unlike selling vintage suits, jackets, or dresses, they're portable. They're my gateway drug to selling more vintage clothing. They appeal to my inner 12-year-old that's obsessed with zombies, dinosaurs, and robots. Watch out, if it goes well it could turn into a full blown addiction.

What are your favorite things to collect and/or sell? Trying anything new lately?

Daily thrifting updates, information, & Inspiration: Follow Thrift Core on Twitter and Facebook.

Thrift Haul: A Wunderkammer Haul of Curiosities + Toys + Vintage

Damn the quirky soul mates who set up at the flea market this weekend with eccentric treasures. I had strict rules to not buy smalls so I stuck to my guns! Just kidding. I spent until my cash was all gone and got their numbers so I can buy more later. Ha!

I haven't been this excited about a haul in a while! Sometimes you just have to go with the toys your sinful inner child is screaming for. As always, everything pictured is for sale, e-mail me if you'd like anything. I will enjoy each item sitting around at home or my shops until they sell!

Each one of these quirky pins is solid gold. Not a dud among them, I'd be proud to rock any of these. I'll be packaging these for Southern Crossing today.

The antique texture of the brass lamp is delicious! You know you'd love that providing wonderful task lighting on your desk as you work. I like the green of the vintage planter and in the backdrop of the shadowbox, too.

These two coffee mugs remind of classic era comic books from the 1930s. Gorgeous color scheme on these. The "Paw" written with rustic logs? The awesome! It explodes, I tell you.

A lucky yard sale find with the tag on is this cute Sanrio Monokuro Boo bag. It can be worn four different ways!

Edit: I forgot to show off the second vintage Mad Men era 1960s Executair 101 portable bar I've found at the flea market! All the pieces are intact, a great gift for couples or swinging playboys alike!

This Fisher Price horsey lamp will light up nostalgia in a collector out there, I'm sure of it. It's fully functional and plays a little midi lullaby with you twist the blue block in the front. The yellow blocks in the front have a light behind them for extra illumination. I'll have to find a shade for it, but it's cute as is.

I have an entire bookshelf of books I own just because I want to scan the illustrations. I must schedule time and start that daunting task, because the collection keeps growing! The background here is a bit of vintage fabric I bought from the same vendor as the books.

The comic lover in me never resists vintage Peanuts collectibles. I think we'd actual like out bills if we had this retro tin to store them in.

I'm tempted to keep both of these. Oh so tempted. My dusty old wallet has been hanging around since High School.

This the the inside of the top wallet and back of the second "Tampon Case". The design on the Poketo top wallet is drool worthy. Love the pairing of foreign currency with informative and attractive business card with information about the designer. The top wallet is super thin and designed to fit in your pocket with ease.

With this many dainty white unicorns found in one weekend I am the King of Kitsch! Unicorns usually sell well for me so I scooped up each one. All of these are rather small, this is an extreme close-up.

I love the whimsical art and bold typography of this fun tea towel. Fun to display in a Man Cave or kitchen.

I found this Florida Gators clock at a Goodwill pound store. There are rabid fans for this North Florida football team all around me in North Florida so I'm sure it will sell quickly. I usually hate Football merchandise but this one is truly a thing of beauty.

And a favorite find I will proud to display in the "tea" corner of my kitchen is this tiny Japanese still life. I'm not sure the use, it appears to be some type of small votive. It's quite detailed for 4.5 inches wide and 3.5 inches tall!

And now I'm off again to clean, package, and price 1 million things and then clean my poor destroyed home. I have furniture and clothing finds to show off later in the week. I've a busy thrifter!

I can't possibly keep it all! Everything in my thrift haul posts is FOR SALE. E-mail me if you're interested in anything you see! I also host daily deals this blog (the haul post prices are lower than normal) and on Facebook and Twitter.

What did you find this weekend?

Linked to: [Thrift Share Monday] [The Penny Worthy Project] [Flea Market Finds].

Daily thrifting updates, information, & Inspiration: Follow Thrift Core on Twitter and Facebook.

The Secret to Making a Living from Blogging, from the Inside

You've worked your ass off on your blog. You've poured hours into taking pictures, writing informative posts, and promoting. You just want to make a living from your blog right now but it's taking forever. You want the easy life of working from home in your pajamas. If this is how you feel: Stop Now. You're doing it wrong!

Future post planning/scheduling. My style is playful, but I take writing seriously. 

Blogging is about your readers and connecting with them. I've always enjoyed writing, designing websites, and taking pictures, but I blog because I love to educate, inspire, and connect with like-minded people. Remove the money-making thoughts, you won't get rich doing this! That's rare. Don't think this is easy either, a good blog will take hours out of your day to curate. Instead, focus on making content you would want to read and share. That's the biggest secret. From there I recommend that you genuinely interact with fellow bloggers and readers, and always strive to increase quality.

Create quality content you would want to share and success will be yours. Be patient and keep working!

Daily thrifting updates, information, & Inspiration: Follow Thrift Core on Twitter and Facebook.

Things I Didn't Buy at the Thrift Store: Ninja Rap, Funniest Finds Ever

With the ample thrifting I've been doing lately you know funny finds were encountered. There was a time when I'd bring many of these home for their kitschy value but I've been downsizing. At least these pictures will let them life in infamy forever!

This raccoon hat was hilarious on! Should have snapped a photo of that. I almost bought it!

The duck! That's exactly what an invasive damn alarm clock sounds like in the morning. Love the intrusive yellow, too. This clock brings you no comfort.

Every nineties kid had one of these. Mine was neon yellow-green. I heard these sell well on eBay. These can do really well on eBay, perhaps I should have bought this one to help others indulge in nostalgia.

I left vintage mugs behind! It's a miracle! A miracle!

And even more vintage mugs left behind! This is where you can tell I'm using my new smart phone instead of my usual Canon SLR to take photos. Definitely helps me be more sleuth-like and avoid questions and criticisms from store owners. I'd LOVE to know what aps you use on your smart phones for finding thrift stores, finding the value of finds, saving money, etc. Leave 'em in the comments.

The graphic designer in me is eye-humping this album cover. Gorgeous exposure on the photo, amazing solid background, nice balance with the letters on his hat, groovy font, and the white and mustard combination! Funny, too.

A second-favorite, I swear I affect this tone with friends all the time and I've said this to people before entering the house. Need to make my own version of this sign for the homestead soon...

And my favorite funny find! I'm loaded with nostalgic VHS tapes I rarely watch and was tempted to get this, but left it behind since you can usually find these videos online. This would have made a beautiful addition to the collection, though. If you've never seen this...holy hell. Prepare for the most hilarious 90s nostalgia you've ever seen:



GO NINJA GO NINJA GO! So what have you had trouble resisting at the thrift stores lately?

Daily thrifting updates, information, & Inspiration: Follow Thrift Core on Twitter and Facebook.

Antique Store Wisdom: A One Month Three Store Update

Pictures taken with my new phone. Left: Treasure House. Right: Southern Crossing Antique Mall.

It's been one month since I've been juggling space I'm renting from three different antique stores. A lot of people have asked about it, so I thought I'd share an honest disclosure of how I'm doing with all of it and what it's like to rent space from three shops.

I've experienced the growing pains, and it feels like after today I'll finally have all three spaces tagged with the new tags (two out of three down!) and all the merchandise out of way and organized. For now the car has too much merchandise within and bringing boxes up and down 36 steep steps is getting old.

I'm still enjoying rebranding the spaces, creating new tags, and staging with balance and creativity. One space is outperforming the other two by far and I may focus all of my efforts on that space soon, but I want to give the other spaces more of a chance. I don't feel like I've given the other two my full effort and attention.

For now I'm addicted to the challenge. I'm going to keep working at it until I hit my goals! 

What are the challenges you face with your reselling methods? I think it's the same for many of us, balancing it all and increasing sales!

Daily thrifting updates, information, & Inspiration: Follow Thrift Core on Twitter and Facebook.

Thrift Haul: Deer Heads, Paintings on Velvet, and Kitschy Scores

This Saturday my mom and I took my little nieceling on a multiple thrift store and flea market thrift adventure. I'm quite pleased with the groovy retro goodies I found along the way:

The bright red letters were from Carla's Southern Crossing Antique Mall booth. I'm going to install the huge red-orange letters in my space.

No one will ever miss what number my booth is again! I love the texture and saturated color on these numbers.

Another Southern Crossing find was this cute little wooden robot. I'm going to sell him but it's tempting to keep him for my personal collection.

I'm selling him for $9.00. I love the painting of gears on his back and the bright red color.

The wooden carved deer head was a lucky score, he's in perfect condition without any chips on those delicate antlers. I'm selling the buck head for $12.00 and the Ale "Man Cave" sign for $8.00.

The medium sized all-wood wagon is going to look too sexy in  my Southern Crossing Antique Mall space. I'm selling it for $10.00 and the groovy bowling ball bag for $15.00.

I'm selling this large owl piece for $8.00. I may pain the frame a fun color but I'm leaving it alone for now. It's 21.5 inches tall and 16 inches wide.

I resisted many pretty vintage cups but couldn't leave these two behind. I love the contrast of turquoise and dark blue, two of my favorite colors.

The speckled white reminds me of starry night sky in the country and the cups just bring back nostalgia from my science nerd days. They remind me of camping and looking at celestial wonders through huge telescopes.          
I'm selling the cups for $7.00 and the studios owl for $5.00.

I satisfied my cup fetish again with these too-cool clear globe cup set.

I like these for drinking tea so you can see the pretty color of the herbal infusion.

This novelty bar clock is a little rough, but it still works. So perfect for a kitchen, home bar, or man cave. You can flip the hanging tab from "open" to "Closed". I'm letting it go for $10.00.

This mod-style magazine rack is gorgeous in its gold finish and atomic styling. I'm selling it for $15.00.

Even Yuko can't take her eyes off this gorgeous painting! I was so stunned to find this amid piles of junk at the flea market. The frame is very shabby, put the dramatic painting of a camp scene in resplendent nature is pristine  I'm selling the painting for $15.00.

I'm off to work on tagging all this merchandise and getting it cleaned up for Southern Crossing Antique Mall. After Friday's one year freelancer check-in I can't stop working! Super inspired. And by the way...

I can't possibly keep it all! Everything in my thrift haul posts is FOR SALE. E-mail me if you're interested in anything you see! I also host daily deals this blog (the haul post prices are lower than normal) and on Facebook and Twitter.

What did you find this weekend?

Linked to: [Thrift Share Monday] [The Penny Worthy Project] [Flea Market Finds].

Daily thrifting updates, information, & Inspiration: Follow Thrift Core on Twitter and Facebook.