workin' for the weekend

(i had intended to post this yesterday, but the husby (a term i'm attempting to coin to replace 'hubby') and i got in a little too late. oh well- that just means two posts today!)

i woke up wednesday morning intending to take the finishing photos of the bedroom redecorating project i've been working on and post the whole process here. upon opening the curtains however, my plans changed as the sky was totally overcast and the natural light coming into the bedroom was not nearly bright enough to make for good photos. what to post, what to post?

i needed to prepare some things for dear darling (my little vintage goods business) anyway, so i decided to share that process with you all. hopefully it'll make for an interesting post? comment and let me know!

now i know that owning a vintage business seems like the most glamorous job in the world right? okay, well maybe not quite. but it's actually a bit more dirty work than most people realize. here's a typical day preparing things for the shops...

any 'booth day', as we call it around here, starts with this old safe deposit box. this is my essential supply kit- everything i need for tagging items is in here, as well as things i use at the actual shops.

our cute tags! gotta love the look of manila shipping tags. classic.

pricing, cleaning and tagging items can get a little lonely. thankfully i have mike and frank from 'american pickers' to keep me company while i work! (if you haven't checked out this show- you really should! so interesting and entertaining. melissa (my dear friend and business partner) and i really should be the female version of these guys! travelling around the county digging through peoples barns? dream job!)

there's usually a big pile of stuff in the kitchen when i start. someday i hope to have a studio or office where i can store things and work. until then, the kitchen will have to do!

now the dirty work begins: cleaning things. it's important to me that all the items in our shops are clean and in good condition. i mean, if you wanted to deal with cleaning things after you purchased them you could just go to an estate sale or thrift store right? you come to shops like ours to skip the work of all of that!

(what is happening with my hair in these pics? yikes!)

sometimes there are items that involve a bit more work than everything else. this bag is a great bag, but had a lot of issues. i'm not really sure why someone would write their contact info on the front of a bag, but that's what the previous owner did. on the upside, the lady at the estate sale gave it to me for free since it was in such bad shape!

in addition to the pen, the bag was pretty dirty on the outside (though very clean on the inside). i was pretty sure i could get it clean when i brought it home, now to find out for sure...

my weapons of choice: citrusafe (it's meant for grills, but it's great on any kind of grease or grime. plus, it smells great and is environmentally friendly), and goo gone (great for getting out sticky residue, crayon, etc). let's see if they can help me salvage this bag...

after a lot of scrubbing and scraping- tah dah! looks pretty good eh?

even the pen came out-yay! funny enough- i already own a bag almost exactly like this! mine isn't quite as nice (this one has a fabric lining and an inside pocket).

after everything is cleaned up, it's time to take photos for our facebook page. this day was not a great day for that, due to the lack of good natural light inside. the photo is not great, but isn't this little dress coat cute?

awesome green suitcase pair. these are headed to our fremont shop.

and that is a day in the life of a vintage goods company! it's hard work, but someone has to do it right? now i'm off to an estate sale (definitely the more exciting side of this business!). happy friday everyone!