Antique-ing I Will Go

It's been a long time since I went to an antiques market...well, it's been exactly a year ago. Last spring I attended the Petaluma Downtown Antique Fair, and decided to return again this year. I love Petaluma -- it's such a quaint, vintage-y type of town -- and the weather was beautiful, starting out cool, but rising to the 70's by 11:30am. Lots of great vendors. I could spend all day rummaging and routing around in the cast-offs of our great society. (Why is that? The comfort of childhood nostalgia? A collage artist's eye for variety?) I only had a few hours in between dance classes, and boy that was not enough time! There were twice as many vendors this year as last. And it was well attended -- lots of buyers in the vendor stalls and "grazers" moving from stall to stall.
Luckily, I scored big very quickly. First was a Samsonite ladies' beauty case -- a soft teal green with beige trim. The latches worked and no scratches -- $18 -- which is quite the deal! I spent 3 times as much on a caramel-colored one I bought on Etsy. This one will be my traveling art box, the other my makeup case! At the same vendor I picked up a lovely wooden box with metal leaves on the top for $3.
My next buy was absolutely a once in a lifetime. I still can't believe it. I happened apon a vendor who had alot of old photos crammed willy-nilly into cardboard boxes. I sat down and started looking through one of the boxes and found an album with old movie star studio shots, including Dietrich, Garbo, Lillian Gish, etc. Some of them were signed even! I was looking for suitable photos for my next round of oriels and I found some absolutely gorgeous photos. I am really looking forward to making pendants with these glamour girls!