To Market, to market.

On a whim this morning, I hauled myself down to the Santa Monica flea market. I always think about going, and when the morning of shows up, I make an excuse and sit in my chair all day. Today, I have nothing to do until 5:30 and no Super Bowl plans, so I got brave and went! I'm so glad I did. Admission was discounted because there wasn't a huge collection of sellers today (the girl at the gate said "a lot of vendors were stuck because of rain" but I suspect "rain" on a bright, sunny day is code for "Super Bowl parties").

I was particularly taken with one man's collection of vintage prints. He's retiring from the flea market circuit and was selling everything for $10. I regret not buying more; he had a fabulous collection of architectural prints, old maps, Audubon-esque prints, vintage fashion magazine pages... A woman rifling through things next to me mentioned that hummingbirds were special to her. I had a print in my hands that I knew probably wasn't going to make my final cut, so I gave it to her; she was so moved she nearly cried, and when she mentioned my kindness (I didn't think I had done anything too spectacular, but I'm glad it made her happy), the vendor popped into his van and pulled out some even better hummingbird prints-- for both of us! This truck must have had a trap door to an alternate universe, because I have no idea where he was putting all of these treasures, but they were in there. And he could find them quickly. impressive!

Here's what I bought:

And a little something for my beau:

(he has a shark fascination)

Note to self, flea market shoppers: if you're going to take your check book, make sure it actually has checks in it! Nothing kills your momentum like having to leave to find an ATM.

My next stop was one of the stalls near the front that I peeked at when I walked in. The vendor had a very cool dress form that reminded me of a book that my friend Lizzie lent me, Recycled Home, by Mark and Sally Bailey. In Recycled Home, the decorators are all about decorating with "found" objects. While some of the rooms were very soothing, calm, chic, yada yada, some of them were SO undone that they looked like you might find a hobo roasting a squirrel on a stick over the fireplace. You know? ANYWHO, I digress. They use a lot of vintage dress forms in the rooms (ie. a bedroom would have a bed, a chair, and a dress form. That's it. I think the Baileys would have a coronary if they saw my room.).

This dress form was a little out of my price range, but I managed to talk the vendor down quite a bit, which I felt like was a real coup. Look, Miles-- I can haggle!  Here she is in her new home:

I think I'm going to put jewelry on her! And at Christmas time, we can move her upstairs, put a Santa hat on her, and pin our Christmas cards on her! Of course, this year we received 2 holiday cards, so we're going to have to make some more friends if that's our plan. But that's another post.