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.  

It was marked $15 and also had a note on the tag that said it was a “Hazelle” marionette. I looked these up and it was sort of inconclusive in terms of value. I decided to pass. But in the event that you ever run into a Batman or Robin Hazelle marionette, be sure to snatch it up. 

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

Sarah and I are working on some longer entries about our recent adventures, but in the meantime, let me share some new fave finds with you guys.

My sister and I visited the Romeo Peach Festival a few weeks ago.  We’ve been going to this since we were children, and every year we always swear it is the last time we will go.  You see, the Romeo Peach Festival is a really good place for people (not me) to buy Confederate Flag t-shirts and marshmallow shooting guns.  It is no longer a good place to buy antiques or high quality crafts.

To be fair, my sister and I went because we were on a mission to find these peach cookies we had two years ago, which then disappeared off the planet.  Turns out that these cookies aren’t even part of the Peach Festival, but come from a grocery store just outside of town.  We found them living in their peach cookie heaven, and proceeded to buy about 26 boxes each:

Just kidding, we each only bought 1 box each, and then I b*tched the whole way home about how I was an idiot for not buying more.

Ok, so besides the cookies, I did miraculously find one good treasure at the Peach Festival.  Two guys were selling random junk in a booth and I came across this old ceramic walrus bank:

I KNOW, RIGHT?! That is the cutest chef walrus you have ever done seen.  I bought him for $5 and put him in the last available space next to my kitchen scale collection.

OK, so another recent fave find came from the totally random thrift store trip that Sarah and I took a few weeks ago.  You might remember that I snagged a ton of baby clothes, but the best by far was this vintage baby sweater:

What is so perfect about this is that we are naming the baby Everett, so the E’s on the sweater actually make sense.  Baby E is going to be stylin’ and profilin’ for sure.

The last fave find is also for future baby and I found it at the Ferndale DIY Fair.  There was a booth selling all vintage clothes and knick-knacks called Octopus Pie Studios.  I found this sweater and pants set featuring whales and sailboats.  Sarah contends it is for a baby girl, but I refuse to believe that.

 

It might be kind of itchy to wear, but that is the price of dressing so fly.  

If you have any “fave finds” you can share them on our Facebook page.  Post a pic and tell us where you found your treasure.

-Erin