Story Time with JillHannah and Antique Rolling Pins

Whenever possible, I go to garage sales, estate sales, demolition sales, etc.

I've heard of storage unit sales, where you buy the entire contents of a unit abandoned by its owner, so when we drove up to one of the addresses on my list of sales from the classifieds and saw it was a storage facility, I got excited.

Apparently a woman with multiple units had died and her next of kin didn't want or didn't want to deal with what she'd left behind. There were units full of depression glass, dolls, toys, books, magazines, artwork, and an altogether overwhelming amount of stuff. I could have spent a week in there, but I came with friends who insisted on seeing sunlight and having lives, so I had to hurry.

A week or two before the sale at the storage unit, I'd been at an auction that included lot after lot of antique rolling pins that sold for hundreds of dollars. I think some serious collectors came out and got into a bidding war to inflate the price, but that still was fresh in my mind.

When I saw the barrel of rolling pins at the storage unit sale, I got excited. Fat, skinny, colorful, I bought them all. My friends thought I was nuts.

I kept getting them confused when I went to take photos, having trouble remembering which ones I'd done already, etc. So I gave them names. Names come with imagined stories, and now they have lives.


If I'm the crazy lady with too many cats (or dogs) who has afternoon tea with her antiques before I'm even 30, slap me. Hard.

Please, No Autographs

I'm in the Storque! That's Etsy's blog/news thingy.
"Etsy Finds Decor: Romantic Curiosities"
They featured my vintage brass floral drawer knobs, And someone already bought them! My shop is exploding with views and hearts and another potential purchase.

I feel so famous!

You Little Twit

I'm trying to be a good little Twitter Twit again. Because someone told me to.

Yesterday I went to four (was it four? four sounds right...) estate sales. The best thing I got was the complete first season of Full House on DVD for $2. It's for my sister, who loved that show when we were growing up. She currently lives in Portland and doesn't read my blog so yapping about it in here won't ruin the surprise when the good people of the United States Postal Service deliver it to her door.

Full House for my sister, and a four-volume 1911 printing of Half Hours with the Best Humorous Authors for myself (the condition isn't good enough to sell, or that's what I keep saying so I have an excuse to keep it...I payed $5).

I'm trying to research this percolator thingy so I can actually list it:
This spring blue purse, too, but I don't know what it's called and i have woefully little information:

I Think I'm Funny: A Blog Diptych

For Want of a Platypus

I'm not usually an "ohmigawd I saw the greatest thing ever and I have to put it in my blog" blogger, but, well, ohmigawd.It's tsurubride's Gold Platypus Orwell Clutch. As in it's a purse. And it's leather. And it's gold. And it's a friggin' platypus. She has other animals and objects and things, but this one makes me do the toddler-at-the-grocery-store-check-out-"I want it"-tantrum.

My birthday is in May.


Special thanks to betsybensen for her "made you smile" treasury west that not only made me smile but introduced me to tsurubride and a number of other amazing Etsy shops. Pretty things are an excellent distraction from migraine pain.

I just got a warm squishy convo from a first-time Etsy buyer that's making me feel all happy inside. Feedback is nice and all, but this shined up my universe.

Globalized Business, Globalized Photo Props

Poking around on the Etsy forums again, I saw a thread from an Australian Etsian asking "How big is a dime?" (Spin-off thread on using props to show size can be found here.)

While the paint dries on our latest creations, we can sit at our computers and chat with people from every other continent on the planet. We simultaneously watch the sun rise and set during virtual lab critiques, turn to friends in another hemisphere when we need encouragement through our own difficult seasons, and find so much connection and familiarity in this enormous web of community and creation.

It's easy to forget that not everyone sees squirrels out their windows.
Uses a knife, fork, and spoon.

Buys ground beef and chicken by the pound and the rest of their meat in Spanglish.
Can prepare and eat an artichoke.

Thinks mailboxes are blue.

and money is green.

and a quarter is a coin.

and a dime is small.

I've been trying to photograph my Etsy items with related, universal-as-possible objects. I went on a salt and pepper rampage a few days ago. I'm not sure how helpful the salt and pepper piles are in terms of size, but it's a reference and it's better than US currency or (in my opinion) the ugly ruler photo many people take. I also used the salt and pepper containers from the store. How many countries get Morton Salt in a cylinder with a spout? I have no idea.
My rolling pins all got photographed with eggs in a bowl since that was the best I could come up with at the time.

Creativity and problem solving is a lot of what I like about the whole Etsy business thing, especially with the vintage shop.

What items are you trying to photograph in a way that demonstrates their sizes? What have you come up with in the past? Have any suggestions for anything in my shop? What is or isn't universal that surprises you in some way?

ART CREDITS: Mixing by nARTa available at narta.etsy.com
Irice Salt and pepper Shakers photographed by me and available at JillHannah.etsy.com

This morning, at an estate sale, I bought a Kitchen Aid mixer for $3. Yes, three dollars. It's little, it's older than I am, but it works. I could sell it...or I could have Kitchen Aid mixer. For $3.

I also went to a demolition sale. I wanted to buy all the knobs off of everything, but didn't. This house was beautiful. Why are they tearing down this house? So many nooks and corners to hide in, so much quality wood flooring. I wanted to take all the long, single beam wood hand rails from the stair cases and turn them into a crazy xylophone.

I'm much better at ideas than execution.

Showcase slot tomorrow. Am I ready? No!