It was such a great Monday for me. I got the girls off to school and decided to take a little road trip for myself. In a short 35 minutes, I entered
Middlefield, Ohio, which is home to the fourth largest Amish settlement in the world. I love this town and will definitely miss seeing these hard-working families on a semi-regular basis following our move. I'll always keep the memory of the little blond boy with a "Dutch boy" haircut (who couldn't have been any older than five), walking a horse to its stall - very carefully following Dad's instructions. He had to have been one of the cutest little boys I'd ever seen.
I'd taken my girls to Middlefield quite often in the summers since they have one of the nicest "
spraygrounds" around. But I'd also taken small jaunts on my own to stop by some of the local consignment/junk shops there. Little did I know I had been missing out on so much.
Lucky me to have come across Middlefield Market today which is basically a flea market with junk and antique shops surrounding the venue. You can't get any better than that! The flea is open on Mondays 8am - 3pm and Saturdays 9am - 3pm year round. It is also home to Sale Barn Auctions.
Unfortunately I left my camera at home. You are actually stuck viewing photos from my phone...which does not have a flash. Ggrrrr! So many photos had to be left on the dark room floor. - This is what I could salvage. :(
I really loved this Coca-Cola sign. I'm not a collector of the brand, but even I can recognize a unique piece of collectible history. It was an enamel-coated iron sign that probably weighed a few hundred pounds...given its 5-1/2' frame. For $600, it can be yours!
Ahhhh. These printer typeset drawers were phenomenal! The colors were fantastic with all their greens, grays and browns. The wide variety of handles were pretty cool too. $10 a pop was as cheap as I've ever seen them before. Excellent value.
A neighboring food vendor saw my interest in them and filled me in on the whole printing and publishing trade in Cleveland. I found it fascinating since I'd never heard this information before. The older gentleman, claimed he and his high school classmates were required to take printing and type setting classes since there was such a big market for it back in the day. This lasted many, many years according to him. It's pretty amazing what you can learn at a flea market, isn't it?
Isn't she a beaut? This meter was one of the best pieces I came across all day. As a matter of fact, I originally thought it was a foreign meter which made it even cooler to me. Foreign, you ask? Yes, French. Do you see the word voila on the red tab? Me too. Never mind the English words you see all over the rest of it because it has to be French, right? That explains the $125.00 price tag. Time to move on...
It wasn't until I took the photo and started walking away that I noticed there was more to the v-i-o-l-a word than I originally thought. Let me see here...it says, (spell it out, please) V-I-O-L-A-T-I-O-N. Violation. Violation? OMGosh! Violation! Bahahhhhaaa! I cannot believe I thought it was French...as if when the meter time runs out in Paris this red tab appears like magic...voila!
And better yet...why, oh why, did I just admit this to all of you? Go ahead and laugh at me...I really deserve it. :)
Taking junk to another level.
This isn't anything new but I wanted to share how simple (and cheap) it is to shop thrift stores for Halloween or dress-up costumes. Daughter #1 (my 6th grader) will be attending her first Halloween Party/Dance this Friday and gave me some ideas of what she wanted to dress up as. Well I went to my favorite thrifting *haunts* and came across something FABULOUS for her - will share it in a later post. I also found my two other daughters adorable costumes as well. All the costumes you see above were $28.30 TOTAL - just under the $30 cost of ONE new costume. These tend to rotate around the family too which is an even bigger savings! 
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