A Truly Nordic Antiquing Experience

This past Saturday I headed out to the Minnesota Antique Spectacular at the State Fairgrounds with a few gal pals. How did it go?  Well let's just say yer dern tootin' we sure were freezin' our buns off!

(I hope you liked my stab at Minnesotan Speak)

  Why?  Well it is mid April here in Minnesota...so of course it snowed, and it was FREEZING outside!  Heck it is snowing out today too, boo!  My teeth are chattering and my hands feel numb again as I look back at this experience. I knew it was going to be cold out before we got there, but the 20 mph winds didn't help much either. 

There were antiques and flea market finds galore, but I can't say the experience was spectacular.

On the bright side, I did buy one item!  Which made Alex happy too. I always get the "Now Carla, don't go crazy" warning from him before I head out to these kind of things (he knows me so well).  So I'm proud of myself for sticking to only one item I really loved!

 Also, I did learn a few things about 'junkin' while you are freezing....

1. Chances are you won't find a lot of good 'junk' because you lack patience to sift through all the real junk. 

2. Locate a hot chocolate or coffee stand immediately! This will help you maintain the feeling in your hands if you forgot gloves

3. Antique dealers will bribe you into making a purchase with Hot Hands Packets. Some even included Hot Hands with purchase (how dern Minnesotan is that?).

4. It is really hard to be creative. I am sure I could have found tons of items for neat DIY projects, but my brain was too cold to function

5. You lose the ability to have fun bargaining, people don't have patience for that either when their teeth are chattering

Tip #5 is illustrated in the image below.  My friend Ally snapped a picture while I was bargaining.  It didn't go very well and he looked at me like I was nuts. I only got him to lower his price by $2 but he included some ice cream cone shaped salt and pepper shakers (totally random but true).

However, he was really happy to make a sale since there weren't a lot of shoppers around. And, yes I know I look sort of like a trucker... I was SO COLD!  I wish I had gotten his business card, but again, my brain was too cold to function at the time.  He had a lot of really cool vintage styled items, I loved it all!

So what did I purchase?  Not sure!  But it is pretty neat and only $18!

I guess you can call it a decorative wall rack made out of repurposed wood trim.  I just thought it was so fun and unique, totally my style!

It has chippy white paint, vintage hooks and bead board.  It was way too cool to pass up!  The gentleman that sold it to me said he makes them using old pieces of wood trim then adds the bead board and hooks.  Could be a fun DIY project!

What do you think of my find?  I still don't quite know where it will live in our house.  It would be perfect by our back entry but it is too wide for all the walls (dern it!).  I think it might end up in our master bedroom once we finally get going on that project.  Our bedroom has a lot of walls in need of decor.  I might add small hooks to the center and use it to hang jewelry on?

If you have any other fun ideas for this let me know in the comments.  I'd love to hear them!