Browse, Drool and Buy!

Mes amies, today's post is not my standard postcard post. 

I'm actually listing photos of items I hope to sell in my own little space in an antique mall. 

I haven't met the owner of the shop yet 

except online and on the phone, 

but I already like her A LOT because she is beyond nice 

and considerate to the extreme.

Many antique shop owners will not rent a mall space 

to someone who isn't local. 

I've been told by others that it just doesn't work out. 

One's space needs to be tended to

 as items sell, the space spruced up and kept fresh. 

However, Billie, the owner of Cottage in Vancouver, Washington,

 is agreeable to the idea of letting me share in her business 

despite my being an out-of-towner. 

She just opened her shop this past Tuesday 

and it is the culmination of a lifelong dream for her. 

She sells antiques and vintage items,

everything from shabby chic to industrial. 

I'm excited for her!

 IF you live in the Vancouver area, 

I hope you will visit the Cottage!

With gasoline edging toward $5 a gallon and 

Vancouver being about 70 miles away from where I live,

 it was her idea that I send her some photos of items I have.

And then we can figure out how to proceed. 

I may indeed need to wait until I move to the Vancouver area

 (that may happen by the fall ... but with The Hubby

one never knows for SURE what life will bring:)

But ... if I can set up a little shop space now, 

I could sure clean out my closests!

Figuring out ways to display and sell some 

of my  8,000+ postcards 

will be a challenge, but I'm hoping that the 

altered book format will be the answer.

STILL working on that!

I know that presentation is important and these are just "photos," 

but .... imagine, if you will, a cute little beige vanity 

with drawers brimming with goodies ... 

or a large shabby chic shelving unit 

with the glass doors opened wide, 

each shelf filled with treasures.

 Would these items beckon you?:)! 

Vintage metal letter holders are tres shabby chic decorated with beaucoup de French ephemera!

 The sign is a reproduction but the enamelware is the real thing, circa 1930s.

 The black round box is from the turn of the century. It's a paper mache powder box lacquered with gold oriental designs. The Victorians were obsessed with Japan and China the way I'm obsessed about France...

 I don't know who made the drunkard's path quilt, but the other patchwork quilt was made by a woman born on a boat cruising down the Missisippi River. Her name was Lucy and she was my grandma! Oh, and that bear. We don't dare call him an antique cause he dates from 1956 and that's when I was born:) The fellow I got him from said the bear was won by his daddy at a carnival and was given to his mother when they were first dating. Don't stories like that breathe life into such inanimate objects?!.

 Did you ever collect these dolls? They date to the 1960s and '70s when gas stations used to compete to woo customers with bonus gifts. Whoa, those were days, eh?!

 You may recognize "my" book of travel labels. They are sitting in a 1920s magazine rack.

The gold and brown souvenir book is from 1889 and those round brass looking "coins" are souvenirs that folks could buy and have dated to commemorate when they visited the Eiffel Tower!

Let's see.. and then there's the French enamelware kitchen rack, the framed Art Nouveau perfume labels, the records I'm going to turn into decorator bowls, the vintage French key chain fobs, the antique crumb duster set, the wooden shoe molds.... Hmm... I might be adding some more photos:)