A Day on the Road Antiquing

My son is a collector, he has a great interest in old tools and likes to go to antique stores and resale shops looking for great finds. I often tag along to see if I can find any vintage linens and quilts to make things for my Etsy store. I like to look for things that have been stained or torn. This makes them perfect candidates for upcycling. It also makes them cheaper.

Yesterday was my only day off from the "job that pays the bills" it's also Friday. My son calls me in the morning and says he took the day off to spend with me (yeah!) and wanted to know if I wanted to go antiquing. Of course I said yes and we jumped n his car ready for the adventure. We drove out of St Louis and headed towards the Missouri countryside looking for antique malls and shops.

We drove for an hour and a half to the furthest place we wanted to check. We had never been in this direction before so we did a lot of searching on our phones to find the places. We found and explored about 3 antique malls, another antique shop as well as a thrift store, a craft store and a general store in one of the small towns we stopped in. We also had a great lunch in a small place called A Taste of Home Cafe in Steeleville, MO. It was so good I thought I'd give it a plug. If you're ever out that way check them out. We were disappointed that several places we looked for there were closed for the winter. We were both exhausted by the time we got home.

Here's the big haul I made, not a lot but still have some things to work with. Watch Deb Upcycles on Etsy or these pages to see what I do with them. I also bought some fabric for my supply shop, but I already had it bagged up before I thought to take pictures.











My son was also very pleased with the trip he found a wood plane that he didn't have that he said was also a great price. I don't get it, but it makes him happy.

My Weekly Thrift Shop Run

 I find my "second chance" craft supplies, fabric and patterns, as well as my clothing and linens to upcycle in all kinds of places. Thrift shops, yard sales, estate sales, auctions, friends and family and more. The thrift shop pictured above, though, is a weekly stop. They have patterns and fabric for sale on a very regular basis. They bag up their fabric, yarn and other craft supplies in large bags and it's often a guessing game as to what is in the bag. I can spend several minutes per bag trying to determine if the bag is worth buying.

They have a system of coding everything by color. After a number of weeks they start reducing the items. I don't wait for the fabric and patterns to be reduced or I would miss out on a lot of good stuff but when I'm looking for items to upcycle, I look for the items that are 75% off for two reasons. One, because it's a lot cheaper and two because it's had awhile to sell and hasn't. These are usually the items that are worn, stained, have buttons missing or other problems and this makes it a prime candidate for upcycling!

And this is the haul for this week, lots of patterns that I'm listing now on Deb's Patterns. A bag of fabric and another bag of buttons that I still have to go through and take pics and list on Deb's Crafts. A couple shirts for pillows or whatever, a beach wrap with messed up fringe and a stained damask tablecloth, all candidates for upcycling, watch Deb Upcycles for the results once I figure out what I'm going to make.