Vintage jewelry grab bag, and other estate treasures

Last week I had a chance to visit an estate sale; it wasn't the usual estate sale, though.  Instead, it was the sale of a woman who made a living doing estate sales.  She passed away late last year and her family is liquidating her business -- and some of her own beautiful things -- this month.

I have the feeling that the best of the sale items are going out in an invitation-only sale; at least, I overheard references to things being carried out by the armload "last night" although we were there on the first day of the sale.  Still, I found some wonderful things!  Like the rhinestone beauties above.

This was the fun part, though: they had two tables full of costume jewelry and you could fill a plastic bag for just $5!

I wanted this necklace, with its colored fresh water pearls, and that was worth $5 alone, to me.  So, the rest was gravy:

Here are just a few of the pieces; the big green button in the lower right corner was a bonus!  I am not really sure what that oval shaped thing at the top of the photo is, but to me it looked like it could be decorated to look like a bird cage!  I fit two of them into the bag of jewels.

This is probably my favorite piece of those that were in the grab bag.  The reason I like stuff like this is because I've gotten the bug of repurposing it -- making it into charms, and/or combining chains into new creations.  I also use it in my altered art.  And I love to gift pieces of it, too, in swaps.

We visited another storefront estate sale the same day; there I found some other fun things, like that bird tin mold; the little round object marked $2 is a very Mad Men accessory: a pin that you can attach a pen or other little tool to, with a retractable chain that winds up inside the circle. 

A fun stainless "tray/basket" with little ball feet and ends, some decals, and pretty wooden spools of quality thread...

This beautiful long gray Madeira runner that has been the background for some of the jewelry I showed you was just 50 cents, because of that hole in the middle of it.  I love it anyway, hole and all!

Daffodils etched on red glass -- I love it despite a couple of scratches!  It was $1.

They were giving away some fabric remnants for free -- I had to have this steamboat print.  The background of the fabric is pink.

And you must know by now that if it's me at an estate sale, there must be some old dishes!

Sigh...it was a small, but lovely, haul!