The Longest Yard Sale 2012

August was pretty busy, ya'll. I went to the Longest Yard Sale in the World. (You know - the garage sale that takes place on the first weekend in August and stretches from Michigan to Alabama? I've actually been twice before. I'm pretty much an expert at junk.) Spending four days straight looking at treasures is pretty much the stuff that genie lamp wishes are made of, in my opinion.

This year I roamed the outer fields of Ohio and Kentucky with four other ladies with impeccable taste:

There may have been a little worry at first that we'd all be competing for the same treasures, but I think it speaks well for us as civil human beings and for the immensity of the Yard Sale that we managed to come home without any missing limbs or bloody scratch marks from trying to claw finds out of eachother's hands, AND we still ended up with a luggage rack that looked like this:

Maybe you want to know what is inside all of those suitcases? You and the airport security both want to know. I'll tell you as long as you don't unpack my suitcase and hold everything up while laughing and showing it to your buddy who is working the x-ray machine.

There were old forgotten treasures like viewmaster projectors.

Pretty collars and pins and other things I like to wear.

And, maybe I picked up some decorative baby toys that I got a preemptive kick out of as I imagined future children using their iPhone to look up photos of what a telephone switchboard would have ever been used for.

(I posted a few more pics on the AHV blog if you'd like to keep looking at old things.)

One new addition to this year's adventure was a quick stop at Dollywood, aka the most patriotic and tacky of all theme parks, hidden right outside of Knoxville, TN.

There are a lot of all-American bald eagles around. While waiting in line for roller coasters, you felt a little like you were in a motivational calendar.

The sign posts in the park actually didn't give you any direction, but you did feel good about yourself as you wandered aimlessly in search of a bathroom.

There was also plenty of Dolly paraphernalia to peruse. Her hair reached epic proportions in many of the photos, and there was evidence of her being BFF with a lot of other famous people (like Rod Stewart, who incidentally in the 70s was dressed like every blogger in 2012).

Indeed, the whole experience left me motivated (to pursue bigger hair and more sequins in my life).

A Hanky Pahnke Party

I'm a little behind in updating over here, but I had to share the details of a bridal shower that I helped throw for my dear friend Emily last month. She happens to be marrying a dude with the last name Pahnke (pronounced "panky") which means that OBVIOUSLY I was going to take full advantage of the giggle inducing surname and throw her a "Hanky Pahnke" party. I decided to take the "hanky" part of the party theme and run with a vintage hankie angle, because although I wanted there to be people throwing underwear all around during this party, I still wanted them to be doing it in a classy setting.

First, THE INVITES! I pulled out my trusty gocco and screened the pertinent information onto a bunch of frilly vintage hankies. Then I packaged them into velum envelopes so that the recipients could get a sneak peek of their individual cuteness and the post office workers could feel a little jealous:

Next, THE DECOR. We pretty much hung a hankie onto anything that was hangable. Vintage handkerchief buntings! Vintage handkerchief chair backs! Vintage handkerchiefs underneath all the milkglass serving dishes! I started worrying a little about overkill, but I think the fact that every hanky was a little different made it just feel nicely themed with just a hint of feeling like you were living in your grandmother's dresser drawer.

And it didn't hurt that the food was really pretty too:

For the entertainment portion of the evening, we threw a white elephant underwear exchange. Perhaps my favorite gift that was opened was the Buty Panty (aka the generic version of the Booty Pop) which calls itself a "natural looking padded panty preshaped with contour foam to resemble a curvaceous bottom." Needless to say, this was a hot ticket item.

You couldn't expect us to keep the whole thing classy, right?

Resolved - Taking Care of Business

You might know that I run a little online vintage shop called Animal Head Vintage in my spare time. I really enjoy it, but lately, the problem has been the "in my spare time" part of that sentence, since I don't find myself just sitting around with nothing to do very often.

February's resolution has been to spend a little more time on the shop, figuring out what is working, what needs to change and what I honestly have time/space for in my life. I think some of the goals I made this month while "taking care of business" can be applied to any personal project that you're working on, so I'm listing a few here.


1) Focus

I'm a list-maker by nature, but am not always great at prioritizing my list. I check off the easy ones first because they don't take as much brain power to complete and steer clear of the big stuff that I know needs to get done but that I dread. Or, I allow myself to get distracted by other things (like checking my RSS feeder 17 times a day). And then, at the end of my days, I feel like I've never stopped working but somehow don't have as much to show for it as I'd like.

GOAL THIS MONTH: Choose two essential things every day to finish, and don't do anything else until they are complete.

That means not checking emails first thing in the morning, or keeping Facebook open in the background and keeping one eye on your friend's feeds. This means not just "taking a quick 5 minute break to look at Pinterest" that will probably turn into at least 20. I know. It can be extreme, but its a good exercise in focusing on just doing one thing at a time. I didn't realize how quickly I could become derailed, and how long it takes to mentally get back on track.

Its amazing how much less scattered it can help you feel when you eliminate as many distractions as possible and just focus on being really productive for at least two important tasks a day.


2) Do What You Love

At Alt this year, Sarah of Sarah Jane Studios said "Do what you love. Delegate the rest." I've never had a problem spending time on the shopping portion of keeping up AHV ... but the photographing, listing, shipping, etc can get a little tedious...and honestly I don't have time to do it all by myself. I want to spend more time doing what I actually like to do and am good at, and less time with the tasks that are necessary but time consuming.

GOAL THIS MONTH: Figure out how to delegate at least one time-consuming task (and not just delegate it to a husband who is too nice to say no)

I've started experimenting with outsourcing my photo editing, and I'm already hooked on this idea.


3) Try New Things (and then don't be afraid to get rid of what doesn't work)

It goes without saying that if you keep doing what you've been doing, you can't be surprised when nothing changes. It makes sense to try something new, find out what's actually working, then focus your energy there and cut out the rest.

This meant spending some time doing boring things like tracking visits and page views and sales (which is funny, since any "business" ought to be doing those things all the time anyway, but my hobby didn't ever get the same scrutiny). In truth, this idea ought to apply to everything we spend our time on - we should always be evaluating whether the things we are spending our time on deserve the time we are giving them.

GOAL THIS MONTH: Try 3 new things. Evaluate. Adjust as needed.

I figure that there are a lot of things that I could be doing to take my shop more seriously, but this month I'm looking at:

1) Listing Frequency
I'm experimenting with how often to post new items, and when to list (as well as evaluating search terms, etc)

2) Advertising
I'm giving Etsy advertising a try to see what kind of new eyeballs it might bring, and researching other types of advertising as well.

3) AHV Blog
I keep a AHV blog dealing with shop updates and vintage finds here, so I've been experimenting with more frequent posting, and hopefully producing more content out for the world to find on Pinterest and other internet searchings.


It feels good to spend a little time figuring out how to use my time better.

Now let us all go forth and be more productive.

***
Instead of taking on a whole list of resolutions at once, I'm focusing on one life improvement a month in 2012.

See January's resolution - DO MY HAIR