hope you’re having a great weekend! we just got back from a junkin’ trip in minnesota called junk bonanza. mario, paula, and myself flew out thursday to minneapolis to be in line at junk bonanza early friday morning for our early bird tickets into the show. this was such a fun trip just to go and shop for junk with some of the best prices – i’ve wanted to do this trip since i attended my first junk bonanza a couple of years ago during scrapfest…
the place was packed with amazing booths filled with the most unique treasures from days gone by. what i love about junk bonanza is you never know what you’re going to discover in any of the numerous rooms filled with junk vendors from all over. there are so many things everywhere for your eyes to take in, junk hanging from the ceiling, junk piled high on vintage cases, crates, and furniture, but the best part is ALL the junk is for sale!
we had quite the strategy planned: we were all busy searching through boxes of ephemera, vintage photos, digging through bins of trinkets, and as we filled our bags, mario was our “runner” making trips to the car to unload so we didn’t have to stop for a single minute – thanks again mario, you’re the best! we spent two days at junk bonanza with a couple of side trips to small towns in minnesota to check out the local antique stores. we found some of the most eclectic goods to use as inspiration for new products, new booth props, and of course a few things to keep for ourselves. we filled our sporty dodge charger rental car (with the most comfy seats ever) and then loaded the luggage carts at the hotel to bring everything up to our rooms to try to pack in our suitcases. it’s so fun to takes trips like these with friends – as you can imagine there were many laughs…
of course not everything would fit so we made a quick stop at the u-haul store to pick up a few boxes to ship some of the larger things home. i picked up this awesome vintage mannequin on a metal stand, some cool wooden drawers, an amazing vintage bagatelle game, and this hand painted store sign. our hotel room was packed with good junk, so thankfully once again mario and his handy shipping services got everything packed up, labeled, and ready to get picked up at the hotel by fed-ex (including the cool rusty step stool he was sitting on)…
so this morning’s challenge was to get everything put away that i was keeping in the house. i made myself a promise a couple of years ago that any new junk i acquired i would have to find a home for it within 24 hours, or it doesn’t stay – simple as that. if it doesn’t fit in the house, i’ll just end up using it as a booth prop so it works out either way. i thought i would share some photos of what i got and where most of it ended up:
this black hutch was a previous booth prop from cha, but now it’s in my living room with cubbies filled with found objects…
this vintage box of gilding powder had the best graphics so i had to have it. we also found several tiny flower frogs (the little metal pin object holding the photo) and old bottles…
i’ve always wanted a small tin globe and found the perfect one measuring about 4 1/2″ tall. i also found a tiny book and another trophy for my collection…
check out this amazing framed vintage photo of a group of gentlemen from a church meeting in 1921…
how cool is this truck? it’s green, chippy, and the perfect display for my vintage baking tin filled with trinkets…
i just loved this wooden cheese box and this set of shabby white dishes – a great display…
one of my favorite finds from the trip was this cabinet case with vintage labeled drawers and a really neat hand painted “visitors register” sign…
here are a few cool things we found for the idea-ology booth at cha including some vintage paintings, a tin sign, and a small scale…
of course much of our attention was focused on gathering lots of cool ephemera, old letters, photos, and other small bits of nostalgia for new product development – stay tuned…
now the next challenge of finding a place for the bigger stuff when the boxes arrive, but then again, i love a good junk relocation challenge almost as much as i love shopping for it…t!m
