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.

St Louis' Festival of Nations!

The Festival of Nations is a yearly event in St Louis on the last weekend in August. I've been attending for three years now, since before I actually moved here. I would have loved to have gone both days but had to work on Sunday. They have music from all over including this Reggae band. We had been walking around for awhile and took about half an hour to sit and listen. They were awesome and although I was too tired to get up and dance plenty of people did.

If your trying to decide what this has to do with living green, I guess I'll have to come up with something. Hmmm, well I did park about a mile and a half away and take the shuttle bus to the festival instead of driving around, wasting gas, trying to find a closer parking space. Does that count?

I love listening to bagpipes and this man in the weird skirt (OK I know it's a kilt) was wandering around playing it. It was wonderful, we took the time to listen even though it was starting to rain.

   

There were plenty of venders selling items from all over the world. This booth was from a store here in St Louis called MacroSun International. I love the place and loved browsing their booth. The offer quality, fair trade items from India, Nepal, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan and Refugees of Tibet, Burma and Afghanistan. Their online catalog can be found at http://www.macrosun.com/.

 There was lots to do and lots to eat and lots to buy. Since it's so close to my birthday every year my son let's me pick out my present here. This year I went back to my hippie roots and choose this great handbag. Already thinking about next year. If your in the area next August you need to check it out.