First Saturday - the best day of the month!

I really look forward to the first Saturday of the month - it's flea market time!

Today I wore two hats.  I was a vendor (a rare occurance, because I hate sitting around waiting for buyers to come around) and I was a buyer (a much more natural occupation for me, haha).

SWMBO and I dragged ourselves out of bed early to go set up - it was rough going because we went to the Washington Nationals game Friday night, expecting it to be Strasmas - but the young phenom's Major League debut was postponed until Tuesday.  Anyway, the game was still fun, the Nats won, the Friday night post-game fireworks were great, it was hot and humid (feels like August already).  But today we were already whipped by the time the flea market opened at 7 am.

We managed to sell some stuff and make a few bucks, and we also managed to keep most of the cash in our pockets.  But I still got picked up a few cool items.  And that's what your waiting to see, isn't it????

So, here we go.

We're lucky enough to have two fireplaces in our house.  When we made an offer to buy it, one contingency I put in the contract was to keep these fireplace andirons in the living room fireplace.  I need to shine the brass, but they are very danish mid century, aren't they?  I wish I could find fireplace tools that matched them, I suspect there is such a thing.

So this morning, I stumbled upon this next set, which came with a cheese-a-rific grille, the kind that has the chain link curtains that never slide right and won't stay open or closed all the way.  You know what I'm talking about.  I don't have the grille unloaded from the truck yet, but trust me, it's not a keeper.

Here they are in their new home.  (In the picture is the old grille I plan to keep). BTW, the big R was a gift from my nephew Dave - stainless steel from an old sign, one of the many great auction scores he's made over the years.  Thanks again Dave!

Next up, a new tiki mask for the atikitomic screen porch.  This dude has horns too.

Next, the guy set up next to us had this little guy, who looks like the grand nephew to the other toucan we have on the porch.  Natch, I had to get him for $1 American!  (I'm kinda kicking myself for not getting the paint-by-number Jesus he also had there, but I know buying that would have gotten me into trouble so I left it for someone else to take home.)

Anyway, this little ceramic toucan is a perfect fit for our empty cat-shaped bird cage, don't you think.  The look in his eyes is perfect.

I also got a few American-forged wrenches - can't have enough tools, and they were a great buy at $1 each.  (Sorry, I'm not taking a picture of wrenches).   Also on the tool front, I picked up this vintage tire pressure gauge.  This will go into one of the tool boxes in either the Comet or the Park Lane convertible. I love the checkered flag graphic and lettering on the face of this thing.  A steal at $2.

Last, I picked up this set of wooden trays with cocker spaniel puppies - my sister loves and owns cockers, so this buy was a no brainer at $3 total for 8 trays.

Pretty grumpy looking bunch of puppies, aren't they?