Dig This Treasure!

Two Saturdays ago, I drove out to Grass Lake, where my friend Sarah lives, to check out some local resale and antique stores. She wanted to take me to one store in particular that’s located in (tiny) downtown Grass Lake, The Copper Nail. Before that, though, we had to stop at the Grass Lake Diner for breakfast. Look, all I’ll say is that I had the most amazing “toast” of my life. I don’t know how I didn’t take a picture, but I did find one online. Basically, they take banana bread or pumpkin bread and toast it so it’s nice and crunchy on the outside and cakey on the inside. Then they slather it in butter. So it looks like this: 

My mouth is watering just remembering it. 

When we finished breakfast, we went across the street to the Copper Nail and started digging. The store is community/volunteer-run and gives all of its proceeds to local nonprofits. Very cool. The store is a mix of vintage and new items, and the first thing I saw when entering was a rack of Halloween costumes. Nothing really struck my fancy, but I was a bit horrified by this:

… and then fortunately while recovering from that visual, I noticed a marionette hanging from a shelf.  

There were TONS of books at this store, which, as I’m sure you’re not surprised to hear, made me incredibly happy. I found some with pretty chuckle-worthy titles. 

They can? I guess they can. 

One nice touch about The Copper Nail is that they offer their guests cookies. Sarah said they’re normally homemade cookies, so she was disappointed by the selection that day, but free cookies are always good no matter their origin, if you ask me. 

Check out that moose butt. I just noticed it. 

I was hopeful that I would find some old paper goods, and got really excited when I spotted this Santa box, which I recognized right away as being a card or stationary box. 

While these Santas are super cute, all I found inside was a bunch of birthday cards with ducks on them. Whomp whomp. 

In the end, I did find some cool treasures. Here’s a group shot. 

A little bag of vintage cards, a Linus and Sally figurine, an adorable vintage Paddington for $1, a vintage pitcher, and a cool old copy of The Westing Game! I already have a copy of the other book, but I bought this one to stick in our neighborhood Free Little Library, which happens to be across the street from my house. Paddington will fit right in with the rest of the stuffed children’s book (and TV) characters I’ve got on one of my office shelves. 

I also purchased this ultra cute ceramic Christmas guy. 

He looks like he was made by someone at home with a kit–probably a lot like those Holland Mold heads I wrote about a few weeks ago. He was only $2. Adam was thrilled because we are super short on Christmas decorations. Right, Adam? 

I also purchased these two chalkware lambs to resell. 

Do you notice anything weird about one of the lambies? 

So let me explain what happened. After I paid, the nice little old lady who rang me up started wrapping my breakables in newspaper. But she was balancing the paper bag she was putting all in on a wobbly chair behind the checkout desk. When she was loading the last few items in, the bag tumbled to the floor (with all breakables inside) and Sarah and I just looked at each other and made an “EEEK” face. The lady took out the chalkware sheep and looked up and said, “Well. What do you want to do?” as if *I* had, through psychic powers, willed the bag to fall to the ground. I told her I didn’t want the sheep for $10 since one of them was now legless. They ended up selling them both to me for $5. 

Finally, check out this cute baby blanket with bunnies on it. I like buying cute, soft old blankets to put in the various pet beds around the house. Another habit that my husband loves.

As soon as I took this blanket out of the bag, Scout decided to kick back on it. 

If he looks a little somber, that’s because this picture was taken a day before we discovered that scout had eaten a 13-inch piece of cellophane that was stuck in his stomach. What happens when your cat gets cellophane stuck in his stomach, you ask? Well, you pay $1600 and then your cat looks like this: 

Now he gets to wear a more stylish, clown-like collar, and he seems to be doing a lot better. 

I know it seems out of place for me to be writing about this pet fiasco on a blog about treasure hunting and reselling but it DOES relate! The cellophane that Scout consumed was the backing from the adhesive on a plastic book mailer/envelope that I had used a few days earlier to ship something to an eBay buyer. So our family has suffered even MORE injuries from the treasure-hunting/resale business. 

This is getting a little long, so check back in a day or two to hear about the second part of our Grass Lake adventure! 

-Sarah

Yesterday I decided to tag along with Adam and our friends Asif and Pedro to the annual Motor City Comic Con. I debated at first, but then decided that the experience would probably be blog-worthy AND also just simply eye-opening. I was not disappointed. 

The three dudes I tagged along with are all fans of their own nerdy things (Legos, comics, Transformers, Harry Potter, video games, etc. etc. etc.) so they were not strangers to the nerdiness of what awaited us. Now remember, I’m a librarian so I’m not a stranger to nerdiness either. But this was just different. 

When we arrived, I was quickly overwhelmed by the amount of stuff to look at. 

Right away, StylinOnline.com caught my eye. How could it not?

I was also quickly frightened by some of the stuff on display. This, for example, greeted you when you entered the convention: 

Ok, you’ve convinced me, dungeon master. I will not obey. 

Anyway, it ended up being a very fun and interesting experience. I am actually a fan of a few nerdy things (Harry Potter, etc.) and I like some comics. I also like anything where people go ALL OUT, so like I said–great venue for seeing such things. For example, one of the first things I saw was this guy: 

Who doesn’t love an Animal/Stormtrooper mashup? Speaking of mashups, these nerds LOVE mashups. Even Adam, who carefully selected his Alfred E. Neuman/Misfits mashup tee to wear to the event.

I actually made fun of this before we left, and sure enough, he got lots of compliments from other nerds. Way to go, Honey! 

The one thing I quickly learned is that the people who dress up for this event really enjoy having their picture taken with you. Here is some proof of that: 

(Does he know that Alice isn’t a Grimm tale, or is this some other sort of weird mashup?)

Ok, the Tauntaun didn’t explicitly say he wanted his picture taken, but he enjoyed it I’m sure. 

I have no idea who all of these people are supposed to be (except sexy Wonder Woman and sexy Captain America) but they were pumped to be photographed. Mad props to the dressed up child in the middle. 

Another popular theme, besides mashups, that was ever-present at this thing, was steampunk. 

That is a large selection of protective goggles with various mechanical wizzligigs and doo dads attached. Perfect for your next steampunk adventure or gathering. 

Besides seeing lots and lots of this

I did see a lot of cool old stuff. 

Remember the Get Along Gang?! Love those guys. 

I loved that cover!

So let me tell you about my history with Freddy Krueger. When I was a child, I was an absolute p*ssy (sorry fellow feminists, but I can’t think of a more accurate word)! I was afraid of everything, including bugs, fire, and PAPER BOYS. The people who lived next door to my grandparents had kids our age, so when we were little, my brother and I would play with them a lot. When the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie came out, I’m sure you can only imagine how terrified I was of good ol’ Freddy K. Well these kids knew it and would torment me, telling me that Freddy was going to be hiding under my bed, etc. 

Can you blame me for being afraid to fall asleep?! 

Anyway, flash forward to college. I took a film class that was called “Horror, Sex and War” and featured films from these genres. One of the ones we watched was the first Elm Street so I had to confront my fears and face Fred. It ended up being really cheesy and dumb, and I actually went on to become totally obsessed with horror movies for a while. I’m still a fan but I’ve reverted a little to my fearful ways.

Back to Comic Con. How about I tell you what I purchased? Well, one of the first things I wanted was this HP themed “always” tee: 

Sold by evietees from Brooklyn! She was super nice and had some other pretty awesome HP themed shirts as well. I also picked up some Domo earrings, a Beavis and Butthead keychain, a cute necklace from Lydia’s Vintage, and a Harry Potter lego man. My favorite find, though, was this Six Feet Under themed poster made by Adam Heath, who was a super nice dude. 

I am obsessed with this poster and can’t wait to frame and hang it somewhere. Good thing I was at Comic Con with a bunch of other nerds because I totally missed this booth until Pedro wanted to swing back by and purchase a Zelda poster. 

After about 3 hours of walking around seeing more boxes of comic books than I ever want to see again in my life, we decided to call it quits. We were all starving, so we toured around the Novi, MI dining scene. After joking about eating at Hooters (I would NEVER, fellow feminists), we decided to go to a place called the Tilted Kilt that looked like a pub. When we got to the door, Adam said, “Uh oh… I think this might be Irish Hooters.” Sure enough, it was Irish Hooters. While my veggie wrap was pretty delicious, it was served to me by a young woman wearing a sexy schoolgirl outfit who talked in a porno voice. 

All in all, a memorable day. 

-Sarah

P.S. Names I had to look up while writing this post, in order to spell them accurately: Alfred E. Neuman, tauntaun, Freddy Krueger. 

Update from Erin: I don’t have a problem with Hooters.  Just FYI.  And I was a Women’s Studies major.  So send me your Hooters coupons y'all.