Fun Announcement!

I am very excited to announce my new store at Etsy:

BookSeeDaisy

Since starting Wildflowers and Whimsy by TraciNicole I have noticed how excited I get at vintage and retro graphics and typography. My collection of vintage children's books and ephemera has gotten so large I decided it was time to share. I am really excited to have a store dedicated only vintage children's books and vintage ephemera. Don't be surprised if I list some amazing vintage Disney puzzles also. I just might have some here ready to be listed. BookSeeDaisy will always have great vintage paper goods and other supplies for your mixed media, scrapbooking, and collage arts. I've gotten just a small sample listed so far. Over the next few weeks I will be adding much more. You can expect the same great quality of vintage goods at BookSeeDaisy that you have found at Wildflowers and Whimsy by TraciNicole and of course, the customer service will also remain at the highest level.

Thank you so much for being supportive and encouraging over the past year!

Day Two, Just Getting Started

Sarah and I got up early on Saturday morning (early for us is 7 am). We had decided to hit a church garage sale we saw a sign for the evening before. I had expected lines out the door. It was not that busy at all. In fact, I think there was only one other person in the place. I think I picked up a couple of books at this particular stop. After that Sarah wanted some coffee so we headed over to the Eagle's Nest Coffee shop. Cute coffee shop. Small town America really has some great coffee shops. This particular coffee shop had these really cute monkey breads that were in muffin cups. I love that idea. We also went to a garage sale under a huge bridge that crossed the Mississippi. The woman lived almost under the bridge. I laughed about worrying it would fall but she thought that was crazy talk and didn't seem to think it was even possible. I decided to not go into the history of big bridges in Minnesota with her. I mean, really, I only know of one bridge collapse in Minnesota so she was probably right.

On this day we crossed over into Wisconsin. We took the big bridge the garage sale was under and passed over into Nelson, WI.

Nelson had a lot of garage sales. The town was pretty busy and everyone seemed so nice and happy. The first place we stopped at I scored an antique crock with a metal neck. I had never seen one like that before and I really liked it. I also got a vintage toy tool box. It has the most wonderful vintage patina on it. My favorite sign of the entire trip was this one:



One of the garage sales in Nelson, WI. This little town was so beautiful. I took a lot of pictures on this part of the trip. The bluffs around that area are enough to make me want to go back for a visit. I could take pictures there all day.At the stop in the picture above, I got some really wonderful vintage tins. I am really into vintage tins for some reason. I love the graphics on them and the fact you can use them for storage forever.


Then we had lunch at this great place in Nelson. The inside is really unique and the food was pretty darn good. It was the perfect place to stop and take a rest. After lunch we hit more of the Nelson garage sales and there were plenty.


After we left Nelson, WI, we headed south on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River. There were not as many garage sales during this part of the drive but I got some really cool pictures.

I am going to post them on my Flickr photostream.

Hopefully we will get some sunshine today and I will be able to take sneak peak pictures of my vintage finds.

100 Mile Garage Sale 2010! Completed My Rookie Year!

Last Thursday I set off for a weekend I had been looking forward to for a long time. My friend, who I have known since (I believe) before kindergarten and I had been planning this trip for months. Neither of us had been up to the 100 Mile Garage Sale before, so neither of us knew what to expect or what the heck we were doing. We were rookies in every sense of the word. We chalked this year up to being the one where we would get the lay of the land figured out. I was overwhelmed by the idea of 100 miles of garage sales and it took me a week to settle on a good driving route through the towns participating in the 100 miles of sales. Finally after researching maps I decided we would go up to Red Wing and work our way back south via garage sale hopping. Thursday night (next time I might go up on Wednesday because a lot of people started their sales on Thursday) we arrived in Red Wing, MN.

Friday morning we were up early and ready to hit the garage sales. Our first stop was a Caribou Coffee drive thru. We needed our coffee fix before socializing with the locals and checking out their junk. Those Red Wingians have some great junk! Our heads were spinning at the site of all the garage sales. Both of us were shocked at the amount of sales in the town. We were even more surprised to see tour buses coming into town. I didn't take many pictures this first day. I think I was feeling a bit like a "kid in a candy store". I do regret not getting one thing I saw that day. A set of four vintage french bistro chairs. They were black and metal and industrial chic and dang if I didn't pass them up. Tomorrow, I'll tell you more about the weekend. Tonight I have a lot of vintage goodness to sit in the middle of and get ready for listing in my shop.