"IF IT ISN'T MAKING DOLLARS THEN IT ISN'T MAKING SENSE..."

Ever since I can remember Matt has stored all his change in an old jar. After a few years it's been pretty beat up and dingy. Not only that, but wherever you put it it just never looks nice since it is what it is...an old, dirty jam jar. About once every six months he remembers about it and takes his coins down to Coinstar. It's like a pay-day because he always comes back to the car with a grin and a receipt and asks me how much I think he's earned. Well, after lugging the old coin jar back and forth between every apartment we've lived in, you can imagine how heavy and breakable this thing is and just how much I dislike it.

Yesterday Kelley and I turned a random corner and there was quite a large garage sale in a long driveway. The house was nicely manicured and it was an older home which was a good sign. There were many antiques and trinkets but I settled on a small gold art stand since I always buy them to display decorative picture frames on. It cost me a whoppin' $0.25 and then I went to go meet up with Kelley who was sifting through some antiques. All the sudden she found a treasure in the form of an old post office mail safe! It was perfection and we immediately knew that we had to buy it for Matt. I was beyond thrilled because finally he could save his change in something that was practical and easy on the eyes.

The inside is still functioning and none of its parts are missing. Someone built the antique safe into a wooden frame, but it has a coin slot on top to put coins through and you can turn the lever to open the safe. On the back there's a document of authenticity which states that this safe is from an Texan post office in 1870.

It was a very rare find and Matt and I have always been obsessed with old postal equipment. Now we have a new storage solution for Matt's change...and the best part is that it fits in perfectly with our home.

"THE HARDEST BUTTON TO BUTTON..."

About twice a month on Friday I sit down with my laptop and open up a Craigslist tab, a new Microsoft Word page and iTunes to compile my bi-weekly Garage Sale Hoppin' list. It's comprised of what I think will be the best of the best garage sales the following morning, and since time is of the essence when it comes to garage sales, I don't like wasting gas driving around and looking for the jackpot. Many of the garage sale postings are a waste of time and effort, and from the ones which include photos you can generally tell the good from the bad. If there are pictures of a lot of electronics, tools, or baby things I skip those since I'm not in any position to buy anything from those genres. I use my go-to keywords: antiques, vintage, old to filter out any sales that won't interest me and can usually narrow it down to the few that I feel are most worth my while. Although I always prefer estate sales over garage sales, they are harder to come by the further away from the Bay you are located and even if you do score, the items are generally pretty cliche and beat up. This isn't to say that I haven't gotten lucky before in my area, but we all know the best estate sales are in Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda and Piedmont. This is no secret.

This morning, and by morning I mean 7:30, Matt's mom and I met to go garage sale shopping in town. She was a woman on a mission whereas I never really know what I'm looking for until I find it. Here's my mental list of things that I am always looking for because you can never have enough of the following, and any other antiques that I find are cherries on top:
1. Antique buttons
2. Doilies
3. White candles
4. Distressed picture frames
5. Mason jars

I can pretty much do anything with any of the above items and am always happy when I come across some unused white candles or beautiful antique buttons (more on this project in a future post). But today was very special because I found a button that should be on a Top 10 list of antique buttons. Call me crazy, but there is something so sentimental about buttons that I truly love. I do have a craft project in the works with buttons but still need many more until I reveal it. For now, I will show you my most prized button...I paid a whole quarter for it.

This button was in a massive pile of random buttons, pins, earrings, pendants etc. But I didn't care, I stood there and sifted through all the junk to find this treasure. Of course, I have no idea who the woman in the photos is, but it's extremely aged and I'm very curious as to how the button was made.

I know, I know, why do I have an entire blog entry dedicated to one button? I can only justify this by saying that it's very rare to find such a tiny, nostalgic photo, much less trapped in a button forever. I'll put this little one to good use and file it under one of my favorite garage sale finds to date.

"MY ONE NIGHT STAND...AND DRESSER"

The first step towards recovery is to admit you have a problem. Although Matt has pointed out on numerous occasions that I change my mind far too much and suffer from buyer's remorse, I've never been willing to acknowledge these claims until recently. Each time I organize and clean our bedroom I have an urge to rearrange our vignettes and/or redecorate our entire bedroom. Do I have a problem, well...the short answer is yes. While financially no one could possibly be able to afford to redecorate their home every time a new color becomes trendy or they fall in love with a contemporary style, I stand by my belief that you don't have to spend a lot of money to change the look or feel of a room. As I read other blogs, thumb through magazines and watch interior design shows, my mind is simultaneously brainstorming new ideas and reconsidering past choices. I spend a lot of time conceptualizing anything from how the photo frames in our entry room are arranged to exactly how I'd like our nightstand and dresser displays to look. While I don't enjoy too much clutter on bedroom furniture, I think that each should display some key items: lamp, books, picture frames and some sort of trinkets. I've always loved pulling colors out of a focal piece of art and accentuating it through toss pillows, book spines, throw blankets, candles and flowers. Since we currently don't have any art in our master bedroom (I know, big FAIL on my part) I had to use as a source of inspiration. Our bed-sheets and shams are gray and our furniture hardware is chrome so I decided that the main colors of our nightstand and dresser vignettes would be gray, mauve, silver, white and brown.
The swing arm lamps were a birthday gift from Matt and lend our bedroom a special kind of hotel room/weekend getaway feeling. At first I was going to find a pair of stationary lamps for the nightstands but soon fell in love with the swing arms at Home Depot. They have been a great addition to the bedroom especially for late-night reading or watching movies on the iPad.
The other accessories are a result of my hoarder-like tendency to accumulate books, a photo taken by a friend in high school of my favorite songwriter, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, and a small set-list from The Wooden Birds show at the Rickshaw Stop. No, I didn't elbow or push anyone to get it...it just happened to be laying on the stage after their performance and I casually took it as a memento. As for the clear potpourri jar, I have been searching for those little pastel breath mints in white to combat morning breath, but have yet to find them. The skeleton key was a treasure I found at Ross for a bank-breaking $3.99 and the jar was $0.50 at a thrift store and has a very unique, Anthropologie-ish design on the top.
I've always had an extremely difficult time finding the perfect photos for my ever-growing collection of picture frames. That is why you see two empty picture frames (which I'm terribly embarrassed of). If you're wondering about the JFK sculpture, ever since I can remember my mother has been obsessed with all things Kennedy and this head was gifted to me. I used this dresser as an opportunity to incorporate some bright colors into the room and settled on artificial magenta peonies and a pink candle. It's not exactly the right shade so I'll be replacing it as soon as I find the right color. But my favorite piece is our framed John Vanderslice set-list which he signed with my favorite quote, "There's a sweetness in the worse things." I'm not too sure about how long these particular displays last as I already have my eye on some other photo frames and will more thank likely find some new accessories to replace the current ones with. It's not like I enjoy changing my mind all the time, it's just that there are too many beautiful things out there ready for me to find and fall in love with.