boots, floral, fonzie, garage sales, gifted, leather jacket, OOTD, target, thrift

Boho Biker: what I wore on a rainy garage sale-ing day

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wore it like this most of the day

sans jacket

all buttoned up
So I figured out I was in Fonzie attire, started doing the fonz, and things went downhill from there. lol. Just picture all these with me saying “ayyy”.

Dress: Thrifted  Jacket/Belt/Tights:Target  Boots: Gifted
I wore this outfit on my rained out 100 mile garage sale adventure. I wasn’t really sure what to wear to it then I remembered this dress. I got the dress during the fall/winter at Goodwill and forgot about it until I did some spring closet cleaning. I thought it was going to be hot last Saturday, but when I woke up it was cold and cloudy so I ended up adding the tights and jacket to warm it up. I’m not sure about the dress; maybe it needs a bigger belt or maybe I should leave it without a belt.  Anyway I’ll have plenty of time to wear it differently over the summer. I have to say I really like it with the jacket, I’ve always been a fan of masculine/feminine look but never really pulled it off until now. I don’t get to wear the jacket as much as I’d like so it was kind of a bonus that it kind of randomly got added to the outfit. I know you’re probably sick to death of these boots but I kind of love them. My best friend gave them to me because they didn’t fit her and I have to say I owe her big! I gotta find something to get her since these boots are so killer. Anyway this outfit turned out to be a perfect rainy day garage sale-ing outfit since it was stylish and warm. I can’t wait to wear this dress when it warms up, I’m already thinking up styling possibilities.

garage sales, Minnesota, road trip, travel

A Soggy Empty Handed 100 Mile Garage Sale

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A couple months ago I was talking to my mom about my desire to visit Tennessee for it’s huge flea market every summer. Then she reminded me that there is a 100 mile garage sale close to home, in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I quickly looked up the sale and found out it was May 4-6 and knew we had to go. My mom has a co-worker who goes to these garage sales every year and gets a hotel room in one of the towns so she can visit as many sales as possible. We were contemplating doing the same but it didn’t end up being feasible, so we decided we’d head down on Saturday for a day trip and see what the garage sales had to offer. I watched the weather closely and it seemed like it was going to be around 70 with the possibility of rain. So Saturday morning we got up early and headed down to Red Wing.

Our route

 The 100 mile garage sales run along the Mississippi River on both the Minnesota and Wisconsin side. In Minnesota it runs from Red Wing, MN along Highway 61 and ends in Winona, MN. In Wisconsin it runs from Prescott, WI to Fountain City, WI. We were thinking of going on both sides of the river but ended up only doing the Minnesota side.

The route for the Minnesota side of the 100 mile garage sale

When we got to Red Wing we were raring to go, we drove around mostly gawking at beautiful old houses and stopping at a few sales. We had stopped at a sale on the Wisconsin side of the river before we got to Red Wing, but it was small and full of mostly kids stuff. Being the collectors we are we were looking for well priced antiques and cool older items, not kids stuff or clothes. But like garage sales everywhere the proportion of sales full of crap and those with stuff were were actually interested in was unequal and not in our favor.

Bridge into Red Wing

Downtown Red Wing

cool octagonal house that I didn’t get a good picture of

So after a little time in Red Wing we decided to head down to the other towns that also participate in the garage sales. So we headed down scenic highway 61 to check them out. Though we’d been to Red Wing a few times before we hadn’t ever gone down past it on 61. It was a beautiful drive full of lush bluffs and scenic views of the Mississippi. Finally we ended up in Lake City, MN a cute little town on the banks of Lake Pepin. Lake Pepin is a weird lake that is actually in the middle of the Mississippi River. We were driving along looking at the river and all of a sudden it got very wide and we were a little confused. Then we passed a sign that said Lake Pepin and remember from a college Environmental Science class I took that Lake Pepin is a Lake inside the river. The lake is beautiful and Lake City actually had some good sales. We drove around and went to a couple before deciding to head down to the next towns. We went to one other sale and then it started to rain.

Lake Pepin

More Lake Pepin

cool trees

The rain started as just a light drizzle and then slowly increased to heavy drops and then a torrential downpour. During that time we drove into Wabasha, MN and looked around the town. There wasn’t much to see but it was a cute town.

lighter rain
getting heavy
heavier

torrential downpour

While still in the midst of a pretty heavy downpour we got back on 61 and headed to Winona. When we got to Winona the rain had lightened up a bit, but the rain and later time meant most of the sales had ended. So, we decided to drive around Winona for a bit and look at the sites. Winona had cute Main Street with lots of brick buildings, the Watkins factory, lots of beautiful old houses/building and Winona State University.

Watkins Factory

street in Winona
The Watkins Manor House

On the Mississippi

We drove around Winona and looked at the sites, then headed back home.

Sculpture garden on the way out of Red Wing
farm on the way home
Country roads take me home

another farm!

Smaller wind turbine ( I just think they’re cool)
An oil refinery(?) in a suburb of St. Paul. I just think it’s cool looking.

Unfortunately we didn’t end up with any amazing finds but we did discover a part of our state we’d never been to before and will definitely be going back in the summer when it’s not so rainy. When we return I promise I’ll take better non-car pics. How was your weekend?

chairs, estate sale haul, estate sales, furniture, garage sales, haul, jewelry, Thrift Finds, thrift haul

A sale-ing we shall go

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I don’t know about you but  in my neck of the woods summer means a lot of things but mostly it’s prime sale season, garage and estate sales that is. While technically estate sales go on all year their prime time, at least in northern states, is definitely during the summer. My mom has always been a sale junkie but this addiction has reached new heights since she found estatesales.net, a website that e-mails you all the estate sales listed within 100 miles of your zip code. It’s a great tool that not only lets you know where the closest estate sales are but also provides pictures and descriptions of everything for sale. I find the pictures the most helpful as you can automatically eliminate sales. This allows you to save time and gas money only visiting the sales with stuff you actually like.

Estate and garage sales are a great way of finding lots of cheap goods, but when it comes to clothes they can be a crap shoot. Sales are a fairly easy goldmine for housewares with tons of dishes, kinck-knacks, furniture, bedding etc. But when it comes to clothes things are a bit more tricky. Since your generally looking through the stuff of one family, couple, or one person sizes and styles can be fairly limited. I look through the clothes anyway since, generally, there aren’t many for sale and you can sometimes find great vintage clothes at prices lower than vintage and even thrift stores.  Jewelry and other accessories, though, are plentiful.

If you’re searching for deals garage sales are probably your best bet. Estate sales are great but a lot of them are put on by companies that research and know the worth of the items, unlike Joe blow who just wants to get rid of some stuff. This isn’t to say you can’t get a good deal at an estate sale, just that you may be able to get better deals at garage sales.

Since I don’t have my own place, at sales I usually focus on clothing and accessories first then browse the housewares for good finds. This year I haven’t found  a ton of stuff, partly because of low funds and partly because I’m not really in the market for lots of housewares. Anyway I did find some cool stuff so I figured I’d share my sale booty thus far. First up is this vintage 60’s (I think) chair. We got this chair at a garage sale we stumbled upon while driving back from a rather disappointing estate sale. It was only 5 bucks and it’s in pretty good condition. I haven’t decided  what I want to do with the chair. I could clean it up and keep it as is or paint it, I’m still undecided. For now it’s become colonized by the kitties who have taken it up as one of their favorite new napping spots and coated the seat with a good spread of cat hair. Eventually it will go in my room but I just can’t bare to move this new cat obsession quite yet, so it stays rather randomly placed in our living room.

Second up is a random haul of cheap 80’s/90’s earrings. Recently I’ve been kind of into slightly over sized gold-ish studs that I think are sort of 80’s/90′. So imagine my luck when upon walking into an estate sale the organizers announce that in order to get rid of as much stuff as possible they’d take 5 dollars for everything you can fit into a paper grocery bag. After grabbing a paper bag I headed immediately to the bedroom and straight to the jewelry where I threw any earrings I found remotely interesting in the bag. The result was a rather impressive haul of cheap earrings that, along with the other stuff my mom later added to the bag, cost me less than 5 bucks.

All the jewelry I got at the sale

My favorites

Since sale-ing is sport I often participate in I figured this segment will morph into a regular feature on the blog showcasing  my good sale loot. Also, though I named estatesales.net this is not a sponsored post, that just happens to be the website I use. I’m sure there are other great sites out there so if you use a different one let me know!