Win a trip to JunkFest!!

If you've never been to JunkFest....here's your chance! ND Tourism, in conjunction with Country Living Magazine (yes, Country Living!) is offering a vacation package for 4 nights in our great state of North Dakota! Two of those four nights include lodging at the Carrington Inn & Suites, a private tour of the beautiful Dakota Sun Gardens Winery, and passes to the 7th Annual Autumn JunkFest & Flea Market!! But wait, there's more! Those passes to JunkFest include exclusive early-bird shopping (beat the crowds!) AND 2 stylin' junk totes filled with goodies!

Also included in the prize package is 2 nights lodging at the scenic Lakeview Meadow Resort, Jamestown, a historic tour of the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Site, $200 in travel vouchers, as well as food vouchers for some fabulous area restaurants!

What are you waiting for? Even if you're a ND native, this would be a great girls' getaway weekend! Who doesn't want to be wined & dined and sent home with some great junk in their trunk?!

For more information or to enter, click here......but don't delay....sweepstakes deadline is Monday, May 23rd!

Vintage dessert cups on a tray

This year JunkFest was a huge success, in large part due to our wonderful flea market vendors. I managed to sneak away during the sale in our building to check out the MANY vendors overflowing the fairgrounds. I was just thrilled to find seven of these vintage dessert cups and wanted to share my find with you today. Aren't they pretty?

The cups are two pieces. I was told by the vendor the base is to be placed in the freezer so on hot summer days the ice cream won't melt as quickly. I love that!

So charming, don't you think?

I also found this drawer front, but not sure what it came off of. When I was digging though my stash while decorating for Christmas, I was stoked to see the numbers on the drawer were a "25". I hadn't remembered that! How perfect to use during Christmas in some way?!

(I also love the cool hinges).

I decided the drawer would be a neat "tray" for the dessert cups. I think I will fill them with a couple different dips or small cheese balls. My JunkFest buddies will be over soon for a little Christmas cheer...wonder what they'll think of my new "tray" and cups?

I can always cover up the "25" with some cute scrap booking paper when used for other occasions, right?

Hope you all have a nice week; attending lots of parties and are all ready for the Christmas Holiday! Enjoy!

Junking in Colorado

After JunkFest '08, I was able to take a little trip to Colorado with my Mom and my sister to see some family in Denver. As with every roadtrip I've ever been on with those two, this trip was not without it's "Oh crap, now what?" moments! Driving through South Dakota we found a junker's heaven hot-spot that managed to put us behind schedule by almost 3 hours. We loaded my suburban to the brim with rust, cast iron, chippy old barnwood doors, windows and everything in between. I'm not exaggerating when I say I almost had to leave my two passengers there because I needed room for more junk!

Now for the "Oh crap" moment.....back on interstate and recounting every wonderful piece that I purchased, my junker's high is quickly deflated when my vehicle starts making a noise that I can only describe as something I don't ever want to hear again. Fortunately, we were near our exit where we would be driving through some of the most desolate, god-please-get-me-outta-here, get-outta-town-before-dark "communities" in the state. After stopping at the exit off ramp, my suburban no longer had the will to continue this journey (too much cast iron in the back? too many passengers?) As with any Murphy's Law situation it was closing time at all the local garages in town, but I managed to get to a gas station where the service station attendant was cousins or brothers or something to somebody over at the only car dealership in town. They were nice enough to wait for me as I tried to "drive" my vehicle to their shop. As LUCK would have it, they determined that my transmission went out and since they were a Buick dealership, and I drive a suburban...they couldn't help me. So....after calling roadside assistance, waiting 4 more hours for the tow truck, driving back to the nearest town with a Chevy dealership (100 miles!) and getting a room for the night, recalling my fabulous purchases of the day just didn't hold the same steam it had earlier!

Lucky for me, my travel companions kept their sense of humor, which really comes in handy for those "Oh crap!" moments. Day 2 had us renting a car since (of course, Murphy's law) parts needed to be ordered for the suburban and it was a FRIDAY.....you get where I'm going with this? Skip ahead a day or two and we've made it to Denver, where my brother offers to take us for a scenic drive through the mountains. We get to a little town called Morrison and I instantly spot this incredible looking junk place! Do we stop? You bet we do!!

Is it open? Of course it's not! Lights are on inside the rickety little house...every door locked (I checked every door and window!) but no sign of human activity anywhere. Disappointed, but undaunted...I did a little peering here and there to see just what I was missing out on...plenty!

I did have to remind myself of the finds I had waiting for me in my defunct vehicle....and of the finds yet to be had at my next destination....Littleton's A Paris Streetmarket! I happened upon this website while googling flea markets in Colorado and was thrilled to find the date of the next sale coincided with our trip! It was located in the parking lot of a shopping center...one day only...tons of vendors....and me in a rental car with just a little trunk space!

I decided against these "half-naked" manequins, since I was already so short on passenger room....so I let them go to some other lucky shopper.

I did manage to find a few goodies to stuff in the rental car and bring home. But, they're out in my junk building, which is blocked with snow....that's another post! The lesson in all of this is three-fold: You don't have to be Irish to be hit with a "Murphy's Law" kind of day, find your sense of humor in those "Oh crap!" moments, and if you need a rental, make it a van or a truck!

What do you get when you mix an old typewriter stand with a section of rusty springs??

A really cute wine cart, of course!! :)

Andrea and I joined this piece together a long time ago. We sold it at the Shady Hollow Flea Market in Detroit Lakes. A lady fell in love with it as soon as she saw it! We held it for her while she ran to get her husband...then, you guessed it, he tried to talk her out of buying it!

Well, we explained to him that it was inexpensive,unique and portable...it made his wife happy AND it held wine for gosh sakes. He wouldn't budge. SO, WE TOLD HIM THE TRUTH: ....that men really weren't allowed at our booth!! She smiled, paid us, and happily carried it away.

Men...they usually don't get the junk culture, but you gotta love em anyway! Lynette

What's it all about...?

For those of you who are new to this "JunkFest" thing, I'd like to share a few photos from last year's sale. Because I'm new to Blogland, and the world of computers for the most part, I have not been able to figure out attaching a slideshow to my post, so you'll just have to scroll down and view the photos one at a time! This is just a small sampling of what our sales are like. We started out small with our first sale, held in my garage at our home in the country. The turnout was wonderful and we had a steady stream of customers all day. There were only two negatives: the wind (did I say country? I meant "wide open prairie!) and the parking. We did not take into consideration the fact that it was harvest and there would be farmers trying to navigate their farm machinery down the gravel road past our house. Then again, we did not anticipate the need for overflow parking....causing customers to park their vehicles single file down both sides of the road. The only casualty was my white mailbox, which was still standing, but with a fresh new "scraping" of John Deere green over the top! Our sales have since been held at our local fairgrounds and we have included a flea market. The four of us junk girls occupy the largest building on the grounds, and the flea market vendors (there were 50 last year!) are located in two other buildings and outside the grounds. And of course....we have food vendors! Gotta keep that shopping energy up!

The last photo is of our "staff," our wonderful family and friends that volunteer to help us pull this thing off every year. Without them, we could never do this on our own! Who knows, maybe next year we'll do more than just buy them lunch!!