Why 'My Mink Betty'?

Why 'My Mink Betty'?
I'm not your common, everyday twenty-something year old and when I graduated from High School I got an equally uncommon gift. My parents found for me a beautiful 1940's mink stole at a garage sale. It had belonged to the woman's Great Aunt Betty who had married late in life to a man with money and had only allowed him to buy her this one luxury. The unusually styled stole has the name, Betty L. Jones, embroidered in the satin lining so that's what I call her. They never had children of their own and the mink was passed to Aunt Betty's niece and on to her daughter. Until it got to me, no one since Aunt Betty had worn it. Now Betty the mink and I go to the theater together on special occasions and I hope that someday I can take her to the Symphony or the Ballet. Although Betty hadn't been worn or loved for many years she was waiting for someone to love her again as are most other things I look for when thrifting.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

That 70's House

A few Fridays ago I went with my mother (who else?) to an estate sale about twenty five miles from our house. The sale was a crafter's dream. The woman who lived in the house was into EVERYTHING crafty. She had done Christmas bazaars for years and there were supplies and completed projects including plastic canvas, cross stitch, miniatures, tatting, and more plus the instruction books to go with all of it. Most of the projects my mother remembers from the early 1980s.

We spent a good amount of time outside looking through the craft tables before venturing into the house. As we stepped across the threshold we were instantly transported back to 1971. From the macrame lampshades to the various colors of groovy carpeting and window treatments, the house was a psychedelic dream(or nightmare).

This "groovy" window was in the second bedroom and had matching corkboard wall-art.


My favorite thing about this was that those corkboards were SO special that they weren't even for sale.

This owner had been quite the decorater. Every room in that house had it's own theme. The master bedroom was all red with crimson shag carpeting and fuzzy curtains with pompoms on them. I apologize for not taking more pictures, it really was shocking. Picture this: the last bedroom had a bright blue and green quilted curtain set and green carpet to match. I half expected to see Pete, Linc, and Julie hanging out on the back porch (bonus points for getting the reference!).

(Thanks to wikipedia for the picture.)

As we snaked our way through the house we had to stop constantly to look carefully at the abundance of things they had. We spent a fair amount of time talking to family members about the house and we found out it was built in 1971 (and apparently stayed frozen in time). They even had a rec room entirely in earth tones complete with a giant mountain scene latch-hook rug (which was thankfully also not for sale) and shag carpeting resembling chocolate marble cake with a strawberry swirl.

At first we thought prices would be really cheap as many family members said that prices were negotiable. After spending more than an hour perusing the entire house we went up to pay only to find out that the woman taking money was not flexible with prices. They had had an estate sale expert come in and price things for the family and she was not interested in bargaining down. Most things were unmarked and because we couldn't total it ourselves we simply took the price she gave us and after the half off it came to around $23.00; more than we had intended to spend but not bad.
Here's what we got:
A red Cosco step-stool
A rolling laundry cart (for the clothesline)
Blue baby shoe planter (pictured on the previous post)
A couple of books
Some housewares
And an assortment of craft and fun type items.

Out of the free pile we also got a bag of large plastic eggs from Legg's pantyhose - AND there's a pair in one! Score!

All they needed to be even more 70's was one of these in the driveway:


I apologize for not having more pictures of That 70's House. I wasn't expecting to start a blog any time soon.

What's the most ridiculous thing you've seen at an estate sale? Let us know.

I'm linking this post to:
Debbiedoos' Garage Salen Partay
(where I was featured for last week's post, Thanks, Debbie!)

3 comments:

  1. I have to say nothing compares to that! FUN FUN FUN...I would have loved to be walking through there. The cork board art I really truly loved. Ha Samuel Jackson had some hair in the 70's! Thanks for the smiles this morning, and for joining in on the party. Hope you enjoy some others as well...they will be sure to visit you. Debbie

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  2. I heart the 70's!! Love this post!

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  3. I was pretty young at the time, but I used to watch The Mod Squad!

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