Middle of winter estate sales + me + cash = AWESOME.

I was just starting to get a little itchy - I hadn't been to a garage or estate sale since the beginning of November, and every week my search on Craig's List and the local papers were turning up NOTHING. But then, last week, there they were - FOUR estate sales! I could hardly sleep the night before, woke up on my own 45 minutes before my alarm went off, and left the house 20 minutes earlier than I had to... A little pathetic. Just a little.

Anyway, I was a bit rusty - my mojo wasn't 100% with me, but after 6 hours I did manage to bring home a decent amount of goodness! I went to all four sales (one twice) and two locally owned thrift stores too, which didn't disappoint, unlike the bigger stores I went to last week out of desperation. I'm ready to give up on the big stores completely - their prices are just too high on anything that I am interested in, the cheap gem is getting more rare by the minute!

Anyway, enough rambling, I actually snapped a few photos of my haul to share with you all :D

First, my absolute favorite score of the day - you may remember this glass popcorn bowl set from my 70's Typographic Kitchenware post a while back... I almost did a cartwheel in the middle of the thrift shop when I saw it! And oh, how I want to keep it - it has EIGHT little bowls plus the big bowl and they are all in excellent condition... But, of course, it will be up for auction in the near future!

These vintage Coke glasses are actually juice sized - I think they are a bit harder to find than the larger bell shaped glasses (I actually have a set of the larger ones up at auction right now). I got a total of 24 of these juice glasses - not too shabby!

These smiley face mugs I believe are McCoy pottery - Will keeps trying to steal them, and I keep putting them back on the inventory shelf. If I can't keep the popcorn bowls, there's no way he is keeping these mugs!

The Spice Of Life pattern mixer I haven't seen before - I couldn't pass it up, a Corning Ware pattern with the typographic bold print on the side? Perfect!

You know what this little guy is, don't you? The guy at the estate sale called him a bear and I was like oh no - it's a Monchichi! He doesn't have a tag so I am not sure if he is definitely the Monchichi brand or not, I'll have to research around some and try to find out - but how cute is he? There was no way I was leaving him behind!

The corn dolly spoon rest I just love, I have a thing for figural spoon rests anyway, and I hadn't seen one like her before...

The sale where I got the Monchichi actually had a doll/stuffed animal ROOM - I was in there for quite a while! This Bradley doll has a different look that most of the Bradley's that I have seen before, plus her original tag, so of course I had to get her!

I also got this smaller, more typical Bradley doll at the same sale. The red leather 80's bow purse came from the thrift store, and the metal box came from another estate sale - I bought it with the vintage industrial trend in mind!

Here are the stuffed animals that I chose from the sale with the Bradley dolls - there is Dakin, my favorite, and also Antics and a couple of other brands, mostly from the 80's...

I'm sure I've mentioned before my eternal adoration of Calvin and Hobbes - and my goal to thrift every C&H book that is available. I have a list, out of 17 I have 4 left to get. I didn't have my list with me, so when I saw these I scooped them all up with my fingers crossed! Of course I ended up having them all already, so these will be listed soon - unless they turn out to be in better condition than the copies I already have, I haven't checked yet... ;)

All the winter coats at one of the thrifts were on sale - I scored these two with faux fur collars - yes the one on the left is long and all suede! *swoon*

I also grabbed this pea coat - the wood buttons sealed the deal!

My biggest score besides the popcorn bowls is a large set of this gorgeous platinum trimmed Amcrest Sussex china - it was literally all displayed in a large china cabinet at the first sale I went to, you could tell it was the "good china" only used for special occasions. The price was a bit too high, so I left it behind and went to all the other sales, then went back once the first sale went to half off prices, hoping it was still there. I was holding my breath walking in - but there it was! Lots of serving pieces, and not many pieces of this pattern available online right now, so I should do very well with it!

There are a few other little things I bought that I didn't get into the photos, but this is the majority of it.. not bad for the middle of winter! And my favorite estate sale lady, Holly, told me she is having a sale this coming Saturday that is actually really close to my neighborhood - I told her I will be there with bells on! ;)