Huntin' Stuff

For part of vacation I visited my parents in Springfield, MO. One day my mom and I hit the "antique" stores. I put antique in quotes because although that's what they claim to be, they tend to be more flea market, but you can truly find some awesome treasures...and some crazy, weird stuff too.

Springfield has a ton of these stores and each one has hundreds of booths/vendors. I think that's why the prices tend to be reasonable. Here are my tips so you don't blow your budget on stuff that you don't need no matter how cool.

1. Think about what you want before you go. Plan to look for certain items.

2. Decide how much something is worth to you before you see it. This day I wasn't going to spend over $20 on any single item. You may want to just plan a general spending limit.

3. How will you use it or where exactly will you put it? If you can't answer that, no matter how much it hurts, it's best to save your pennies for something better suited to you and your needs.

4. Be flexible. Maybe you were looking for glass, but you found and fell in love with lanterns. If you know you love it and how you will use it, jump on it. It may be the only time you come across it.

I really had to be flexible because I didn't find much from my original list, but I'll show you what I got in a bit, first I'll show some stuff I passed on because that's fun too.


This fan was cool, and at $12, in my rules for the day, but I just couldn't make up my mind. 

I knew which room to put it in, but not where. Slight pangs of regret, but I'm coming to terms.


Seriously, a shelf of glass casserole dish lids with no casserole dishes. Who buys that?

(Watch. Now that I was snarky somebody is going to come up with something wicked cool to do with those. So it goes.)


This milk delivery box was cool, but I really had no use and it was $24, I think.

And this is why these stores are just plain fun and mildly crazy:

Deodorant? Right there next to Raggedy Andy. Now who is going to an antique store for deodorant?!


I should have lugged this bad boy home for Mateo's office. That would have been great.  ;) And, yes, it's full size.

My oldest loves trains. It started with Thomas and now we are building a model railroad (just giving you a heads up if you have Thomas lovers out there).

I found the motherload. Old tickets.

A conductor's case with all the tools.

Conductor's hats. But I had to walk away. The prices were $100/each ticket, $1200 for the conductor's case and $300 for a hat. Firm.


Alas, I couldn't afford or bring home this church pew:

Some lanterns that were slightly above my set budget, and at the end of the day so I'd already spent enough:

Same for this scale.

Really, it is so much fun to poke around and see what you can find, even if you leave it behind.


So what did I come home with? A modest loot. I snagged some mason jars with glass lids, two of which were blue glass for $3.50 a piece.

This is a juice bottle from Kraft. 

Probably something you had to send for. It has measurements for mixing the juice concentrate with water. I just liked the shape and color. I'm a sucker for jars, bottles, and pitchers.

I have wanted a wire basket. This is to transport whipped cream. I have an idea on how I'm going to use this, you'll just have to wait and see. :)

And brass skeleton keys. This one was not what I expected, but I was drawn to them and knew exactly what I wanted to do, so at $6 I grabbed them.

At one of the store I cracked up at this most awesome sign:

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