There was a Monday estate sale 55 miles from me — my first estate sale of the year. The day was dreary, drizzly, cold, and getting colder throughout the day. What drug me out of my warm house besides the dopamine high of shopping an estate sale? These Yaffa DoReMi hooks.
They were in the estate sale pictures and were screwed into the wall, high above the closet doors. I knew I couldn’t reach them without a ladder, so I got my husband to ride along. He stuck a sold sticker on them until he could get them down while I shopped.
Note: Links are affiliate links.
A lot of people don’t know about these and that they sell pretty well. Although, I suppose depending on where you’re trying to sell them. eBay seems to be a race to the bottom, but I sold one on Etsy last month for $32. And… confession here… I kinda scrubbed it with a Brillo pad and took off some of the sheen, especially in one particular spot. This was fully disclosed, well not the part where I did it, and pictured it as best I could. Buyer was happy and said “great shape” and “as described.” Had it been pristine, I’d have put a higher price on it, but not to go over $45-50. I’m listing these for around $40 or so. Two are not marked Yaffa. They have no mark at all, so that might bring the price down a bit.
Let’s start the sales reports again, shall we? I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth and I’ve been well. I just haven’t been actively blogging in a while. I’d like to change that and get back to my roots. What better way than to re-start with the always popular sales reports?
2024 was a weird sales year. Not good at all. We all blame it on the economy, the election, things going on in the world, whatever, but no matter what else is going on, it always boils down to having what someone wants when they want it and at the price they’re willing to pay. I dunno. Maybe it was a combination of all that.
If you’ve read my reports before you know I’m not a prolific seller. I don’t have hundreds of items listed. I got up to almost 300 items last year, but it quickly dropped back. The most I’ve had listed at any one time this year is about 240. I think December started with that. My Etsy shop is justvintage2 if you care to look. So let’s get started!
*You can click on the links and pictures to see the original listing. These ARE affiliate links meaning, I might get a tiny percent of anything you might buy from Etsy for a few days.
Vintage advent calendar with the design of an Ellen Clapsaddle painting or postcard. Cost: $4.00 Sold: $45.00
3 small brass pots, collected from different estates and with different amounts of patina Cost: $5.00 Sold: $35.00
18″, white, Yaffa DoReMi coat hook. I found this at the most expensive estate sale company in our area on half price day. Had they known to look up the value, it would have been at least $20. Cost: $2.00 Sold: $32.00
And finally, on December 31, this Fontanini carpenter sold for $19 with free shipping. He’s been hanging around for a few years. I’m so glad he found a new home!
Cost: $1.00 Sold: $19.00
So there it is. I hope you saw something you might not have thought about picking up. Like maybe the Yaffa DoReMi coat hook? I just saw the pictures for an upcoming estate sale that has three! I hope to be able to get them, but they’re high on the wall where most people would need a ladder, so there’s little hope for me as short as I am, but we’ll see. Annndddd…. I might have just given away the secret.
Would you consider pinning this on Pinterest with the image below? Thank you for reading!
Decorating for Easter with vintage Easter decor and collectibles. Vintage Easter items, pre-1960s can be hard to find. My collection is small but fun. Quite a few are incorporated into my normal decor and showcased in this blog post.
This post has been in the plans for several weeks, but I just couldn’t get decent photos! So I gave it one more try, played with filters to get the colors right and here we are. I hope to inspire you to rescue the vintage Easter items from the attics, basements, and ultimately landfills. Because when they’re gone, they’re gone. Start your own collection if you haven’t already!
The post is picture-heavy. My apologies. I’ve tried to get them as compact and fast loading as possible.
Before we get to the nitty gritty, let’s just put this right here.
~~~~~~“He Is Risen”~~~~~~
The only two paper mache bunnies in the collection. I’d love to have more!
The basket on the right is a cottage cheese container from the 1960s.
I made the baseball skin, cabbage bowl basket several years ago and showed how here.
Two of my more unusual collections: Wire Easter egg dippers and the wax crayons from egg dye kits.
How adorable is the wooden bunny pulling the wagon? It’s a particular favorite.
Now, let’s move to the shelves in the living area:
The bunny in the box is my earliest memory of an Easter basket toy.
He’s a little worse for wear these days, but then, so am I. If only we could turn back time. And now that you’ve seen that black and white picture, you know I’m officially old!
Moving on…………
Now, a few other areas.
The tin Peter Cottontail crank toy (Turn the crank and it plays Here Comes Peter Cottontail) is another early Easter memory. The one pictured isn’t my original toy. The original probably went the way of a yard sale around 1973, but I was thrilled to find this one at an estate sale some years back.
What do you do with a nearly a hundred, good, old, hard plastic Easter eggs? Why put them in a bird cage! That doesn’t look like that many, but I counted as I put them in. I don’t remember exactly, but it was surprisingly close to 100.
There is actually more. I could have kept going, but this post is long enough already, and as I said earlier, picture-heavy. So I’ll call this one done. Hope you found some little bit, some tiny snippit of motivation or inspiration!
These fabric pumpkin bowl fillers are fun, easy, and inexpensive to make! I saw these done by the fabulous Melissa Marro of Vintage Bee Designs (You can watch her ~video here~. ) They’re toward the end, but it’s all worth the watch.) I did mine slightly differently from hers, working with my “less than” talent and what I had on hand.
You’ll need:
Fabric for pumpkins
Fabric or ribbon to tie around the stem
Thin quilt batting
Something to use for the stems such as sticks from the yard, some type of finial or, I used these wood sticks from The Dollar Tree However, I can’t find them on Dollar Tree’s web site and didn’t see them the last time I was in the store. But Amazon has plenty of choices! Here is a link to craft wood stems suitable for pumpkin stems on Amazon. (Affiliate link)
A pattern for the pumpkin or maybe you can draw it free hand. I sure can’t. I found a pumpkin pattern from Silhouette Studio and cut it out of cardstock
Something to draw or trace your pattern. I use slivers of Dove soap on the fabric and a black marker on the batting.
Pinking shears
Glue – whatever kind you prefer
Sewing machine. Although, you could stitch by hand or glue the stitching lines, but the results won’t be the same
I’ll bet you have most of that on hand. I did have to go buy the sticks from The Dollar Tree. We live in a new subdivision that is devoid of trees. I’d have had to get some exercise and walk a good bit to find any sticks. Yeah, yeah. It wouldn’t have hurt me to walk. But I didn’t.
Find your pumpkin pattern. I made mine in two sizes, 5″ in diameter and 4″ in diameter. Since my freehand drawing stinks, I used a simple design I found in the Silhouette store, but you can also find one using a Google search and looking in Images. You can get as detailed as you feel comfortable, but for this project, you probably want to keep it really simple. I used this SVG file from Silhouette Studio. It seems to be called Pumpkin Basket. If you’re familiar with SVG files, you know you can separate, or ungroup, every element, so I singled out one pumpkin and deleted the rest. Then I singled out the inside lines. This is what I had to work with:
Draw your outside shape on the fabric, then place the lines on top and trace them. If you use something like I did, you’ll have to finish the tops of the lines. If that makes sense.
Trace the outer lines of the pumpkin on some thin batting. I advise cutting a bit smaller than the pattern so you don’t have much, if any, batting showing after sewing the edges together.
Place the batting between the layers of fabric. You’ll have to kind of feel to see where your edges are and readjust. This does not have to be perfect! You’re not making an heirloom quilt here. It’s just seasonal bowl fillers.
It’s time to sew! Sew the outline first, leaving a hole at the top large enough to fit the stem in. Then sew the center lines. Again, don’t worry about perfection. I know, I know, it’s hard for some of us, but just relax and do it. I promise, when you get them out next year, you’ll wonder why you stressed about perfection.
Trim around the edges with pinking shears. Another option would be to fray the edges if your fabric is willing.
Poke that stem in and glue tight around the fabric edges. I didn’t get a picture of this, but I think you can figure it out. I did have to saw off my sticks a little. You really don’t want it to go too far into the center of the pumpkin. You want it just far enough to be secure. Maybe about 3/4″-1″ into the pumpkin. How much you leave sticking out the top is just a visual thing. You’ll have to be the judge here. And yet again, it’s not a science.
Rip strips of the bow fabric. Trim off any realllly long strings, but leave most of the strings that naturally happen. Or if you choose ribbon, cut it. I used about 22″ lengths ripped to about 1″ wide. I didn’t try to get the wrinkles or twists out. Just let them be natural. Tie them tightly around the stems. A simple shoe tie bow is fine. Or if you’re a talented bowmaker, use that talent! You might want to use a dab of glue on the tie. I skipped that. And you’re done!
I hope you enjoy making these fabric flattie pumpkin bowl fillers. Another use would be to string them and make a fall garland.
Hi! I'm Wanda, the owner of Just Vintage and this is my blog where I talk about buying, selling, and decorating with all things vintage. I want to help you learn what to buy for resale and maybe give you inspiration in decorating, even if it's what NOT to do.
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