2015, bookshelf, industrial, junk bonanza, lamp, mid century modern, Mod, vanity, vintage

Junk BoNaNzA 2015!

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I’ve been to the Junk Bonanza a couple times now (in 2012 and 2013) but had to skip last year since both my mom and I worked during the festivities. This year we both had time to go the first day of the event and were pretty pumped. Though we don’t always come away with things there’s so much cool stuff to see it’s always worth a trip. Plus, the things we have picked up there are pretty awesome and some of our favorites. This year we went on the first day and boy was it busy. The first main room was super crowded and it was a bit hard to make your way into different booths as you were kind of swept forward with the crowd. Luckily the other three rooms were far less crowded. There were a lot of cool pieces but I left empty handed again this year as I had a pretty small budget and didn’t see anything I needed within it. When I go to any sort of antique/vintage event I’m always looking for things that are unique and hard to find at Thrift stores, estate sales, flea markets and/or really cheap vintage stores, so I sometimes come away empty handed if I don’t see anything amazing that I can afford. It’s still fun to browse though and you never know what you’ll find. So here are a few of the cool things I saw while walking around the bonanza.

 I’m really into these old organizational and industrial pieces but the majority of them were out of my price range. 
  It’s this guy cute? I have no idea where I’d put him but I like him/her.
This vintage kids ride was really cool. I think It was for sale but I have neither the money nor the space for it. 

Cute yellow chair.

This booth had a lot of cool mid century modern pieces. 

This cute lamp for example. 

My favorite from this booth though was this mod/ MCM birdcage. I’ve never seen one before and I kind of love it.  I Kind of regret not going back for that one. 

Burnt out (I think) Light bulbs! these were super cool and I’m sure some crafty person could make something awesome out of them. 

This booth had some cool Mid Century Modern lamps. These were nice, but i’m at a point where an atomic lamp has to be “can’t live without it” cool for me to pick it up. These I could live without. 

   

        This vintage horse head mount thing was pretty cool. It would be pretty awesome in a kids room.

                                                  Skeleton keys are just the coolest

     Cool vintage daybed 
I actually really liked this picture and it was only like $22.00 but I didn’t end up coming back for it. 

Pretty sure this lamp is made of an old plant stand and a vintage industrial mixer blade, kind of awesome.

Cool Tripod floor lamp 

How cool is this huge radiator cover? 

BABY!
Santa and his roller set beard. 
More cool industrial pieces. 

50’s Doctors Cabinet. 
Giant Diaper Safety Pins. 

This beer sign was pretty cool but I see them a fair amount at Estate Sales so I passed.

I love a good vanity and am currently obsessed with a few Mid Century ones I’ve seen on the interwebs. This one was really cute but I’m not big on painted wood and it’s not the vanity of my dreams. I do though love the Mongolian lamb fur they upholstered the seat in. I’m semi-obsessed with some pillows from West Elm made of the same material, but they’re so expensive!

As and avid thrifter I thought this booth was a bit silly. Any thrifter worth their weight knows you can find silver pieces like this for (i’m assuming) much lower prices at literally any thrift store. I was pretty much just baffled at this booth. 

An assortment of cool rotary phones. Back when I was a kid we had a few of these and they always made you feel very fancy, like the number you were calling should be more important because of the dramatic way you dialed. But nowadays these phones would just be catching dust in my house. The only vintage phone I think I’d buy aside from an Ericofone (like the one Roger Sterling had on Mad Men) would be one of those clear plastic 80’s/90’s phones. I was obsessed with those and never had one. Someone needs to make a phone cover for cell phones like that, I’d buy it in a minute. 

Pretty Lampshade. 

Cool vintage Christmas set up and awesome car grille. 

I really loved the lamps in this booth but they were way beyond my price range, very cool though. 

The people at this booth made this old stove into a kitchen island. Isn’t that the coolest idea ever? The great thing about Junk Bonanza is even if you leave empty handed you get to see a ton of cool DIY’s. 

Can you spot the sneak peak of my Junk Bonanza OOTD?

These display cabinets were pretty amazing and reasonably priced, but they were still outside of my price zone. I’m also looking for more closed storage pieces as opposed to these lovely display pieces. That said if I had the money I’d totally have gotten them. 

Isn’t this the cutest bookshelf? It would look awesome in a kids room. The good news is it’s a totally do-able DIY piece if you really like it. 

These hands were pretty cool but I have no need for them. They could make really cool Halloween decorations though. 

That’s it for this year’s Junk Bonanza, even though I walked away empty handed I saw a lot of cool stuff and will definitely be back next year if I can. 

2012, haul, junk bonanza, thrift haul, vintage

Junk Bonanza

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 Last year my mom and I found about a local event called the Junk Bonanza. It’s basically just a big bi-annual antique,vintage, retro, and re-purposed three day shopping event.  We found some good stuff at pretty decent prices last year so we decided to go again this year. I had to work the first two days of the event but Saturday I closed so I had some time to browse and shop. We got there around 11/12 and the place was pretty packed. Things were pretty congested when we got through the gates but it got better as we went. This year it seemed like a majority of the booths had  re-purposed and/or shabby chic type items. Those items were ok but they’re not really my style. The shabby chic stuff is a lot of painted furniture (mostly in white, grey and pastels), a distressed look (real or faux, genearlly faux), and florals. It’s generally pretty feminine.

Example of a Shabby Chic-ish booth. loved the blue jay picture

 The re-pourposed stuff is kinda cool. There were definitely some really cool re-purposed items, but generally I like things to be kept the way they were.

Baseball bats and balls re-purposed into American flag wall art.

 There were definitely some serious trends going on. The “paint something with chalkboard paint” trend has apparently taken off like a rocket, there was a whole booth full of stuff painted with chalkboard paint.  Every time I saw chalkboard paint I thought of the Portlandia sketch “Put a bird on it!” except it would be “make it into a chalkboard!.” I don’t hate that trend, It’s just not for me. I’m not a huge fan of the look of a dusty chalkboard (you know after you erase whatever’s on the chalkboard) and constantly wiping down something seems like it’d be annoying. But I have seen it done really well. Anyway there were also a lot of vintage biology posters for sale. I like them but I’d like to find one super cheap, preferably in a thrift store.

some vintage biology posters for sale

There seemed to be a lot fewer antique/vintage booths, which was kind of a bummer. There were a few cool booths, one in particular was really cool with lots of mid-century stuff. My favorite booth had this slightly creepy monkey blowing bubbles that I kind of wish I had bought.

He’s kind of ragged and creepy, yet adorable. I mean he’s blowing bubbles!!! aww. 

 There was also a cool Heywood Wakefield side table in that booth that was cool but I didn’t see the price on it. There was also this really cool giant malt mixer.

I have to admit I kind of wish I had gotten this guy. His face is so funny and very expressive. But he wasn’t in the greatest condition. Maybe next time. 

 I love old portraits, I thought these were pretty cool. Look at all the cool 40’s (?) hairstyles!

You don’t see many plus-size mannequins, so I thought this was pretty cool.  But, if I read the tag right they wanted like $1000.00 dollars for it, way outta my price range.

 This sign was really cool too. I love the colors, but it was a tad out of my price range. But, it’s from a local vintage store so If I start to obsess I can always go there and see if they still have it, or some other cool signs.

 A cool mid-century light. I love mid-century lights but now that I have a few I’m looking for lights that are a little more unique/cool or that I can’t live without. The lights in this booth were cool but fairly similar to the lamps I already have.

Anyway,  we walked around for a bit and saw some cool stuff but nothing we couldn’t live without. So after  we made the rounds and saw all the booths we left empty handed. It was fun to see all the stuff people had for sale and some of the re-purposed stuff. But, I didn’t see anything really unique. Most of the stuff I saw has been trendy on a lot of design/ vintage blogs for awhile. But it’s always fun to see cool vintage stuff. I have kind of a hard time at vintage/antique type stores. They have lots of cool stuff, but for me one of the best parts of getting vintage stuff is finding it in a thrift store or at an estate sale. There’s just a high you get when you find it “in the wild” that you don’t get in antique malls. But antique fairs/malls etc are great for finding stuff that is harder to find in thrifts like vintage lamps, some vintage furniture and signs. There are also some vintage/antique stores that have pretty good prices. But in antique fairs/malls you just don’t get that same high and I always think in the back of my head that I cold find that item for cheaper in a thrift store. Nonetheless I do love browsing antique/vintage stores, though it can be a bit overwhelming, even if I don’t tend to buy as much.  All in all it was a pretty good time and we’ll probably be back next year.

         

20's, 50's, 60's, atomic lamps, dental cabinet, haul, junk bonanza, lamps, metal cabinet, pin up, thrift haul, vintage

Junk Bonanza

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          So as I mentioned two weeks ago I went to the Junk Bonanza, which we randomly heard about through my mom’s co-worker. There were tons of vendors from all over the upper midwest and was full of cool stuff. Unfortunately I’m a bad blogger and didn’t take any pictures while there, I’ll try and work on that. Basically it had a flea market type set-up with lots of different vendors that, I believe, were all antique dealers. There was a lot of distressed shabby chic-esque furniture, which really isn’t my thing, but there were also a lot of other cool stuff including mid century and art deco items. A lot of the stuff was a bit too pricey for us but we did get a lot of cool ideas for using vintage items in different ways, refurbishing old furniture and checked out some really cool antiques. Aside from what we bought there was a really cool old dental cabinet that looked exactly like this, it had tons of little drawers with cool ceramic organizers. It was $2100.00,  a little out of our price range, but it was really really cool and while drooling over it we thought of a million cool ways to use it. We’re seriously still drooling over it, maybe one day I’ll have the money to get one. Antique dental cabinets, who knew?

        Ultimately we did end up buying some stuff including two really cool atomic 50’s lamps, a 20’s metal cabinet and a pin-up photo. I love 50’s and 60’s era stuff and I’ve sorta started collecting 50’s and 60’s lamps. A couple years ago I stumbled upon two retro 50’s atomic lamps and fell in love. Now I’m sort of obsessed. I’m always on the look out for cool 50’s and 60’s lamps at garage sales, estate sales, thrift stores and any antique stores. So far I’ve only found ones that really appeal to me at antique stores and estate sales, which depending on the pricing at the store/sale can be a good or bad thing. All in all it was a pretty cool experience and we’ll definitely be back next year.

20’s Cabinet:

Cabinet closed with 20’s vignette (picture, bowl and lamp) that my mom styled. 
close up of vignette
cute feet

50’s Lamps:

ceramic deer in vessel. I think they look like they’re at a Drive in movie, but maybe that’s just me.

ceramic cat I bought recently in hopes it would bring me some job luck, jury’s still out on whether it’ll actually help.
close up of lamp trim

lamp base

Pin Up (possibly NSFW):

Black woman pin up

And finally I thought I’d introduce my other cat Diamond. When I was taking the above pictures she was sunbathing on the floor so I snapped a few pictures of her.