Every Monday there is a flea market about fifteen minutes away from my parents house. A few times this summer we would trek over there to see what treasures we could scrounge up.
If you are okay with sifting through junk and people watching some real characters this is the place to find a few gems.
We found this picnic basket amongst some bottle openers, old melon crates and antique benches. It is hard to look at junk, junk and more junk and then when you see something that is slightly interesting you don’t know if it is actually something nice or if it is just a nicer piece of junk than you are used to seeing.
This picnic basket caught my eye but I had to show it to my mom and Jared to get their opinions about it. We brought the girls so we had to perform musical chairs, trading off watching them at the park so we could all have a good look at the basket. Then we decided to make the purchase.
Jared is my bargainer. I am extremely horrible at haggling. I feel guilty and bad and start thinking about the people’s electric bill or the kids they need to send through college and finally end up paying exactly what the price tag said or even more. Well, not more but never down. So I have Jared do my negotiating for me. He is extremely gifted at this process. He decides before talking to the person how much he will begin at and how much he will be willing to spend in the end. And he faithfully sticks to these prices.
We bought a few things this day and each and every purchase ended just at we wanted. Perfect, thanks hunny.
This is the basket we bought: originally it was 19.50 but Jared haggled down to $16, and it even came with some super cute dishes.
- the cup nestles into the grooves on the plate
Aleah helped me clean up the basket. We used some lemon oil and rubbed it into the dry basket and made it look a great deal better.
If that flea market guy had rubbed it down with some lemon oil he could have charged at least twice as much. Sorry flea market guy.
Before-
During-
- look at all the dirt coming onto the rags
Before and After Tops
After-
What a great little worker
He Sowed She Sewed 
Ohhhh! You’re going to have so many special family picnics with that find! Nice work. Can I borrow Aleah to come polish a few things in my house? 😉
Of course you can borrow her! She needs a constant supply of jobs. Sounds like she could be of use to your hobby farm =)
We will have matching picnic baskets at our next camping trip! I love the dishes you got with yours. The memories that come with the purchase are part of the fun. I will always remember the thrift shop in Clinton where I got mine. 🙂
I have the same basket too – and dishes! They belonged to Pat’s folks.
Someday I hope to go camping with the rest of y’all and we can line up our matching baskets. Miss the Northwoods and camping trips and homeschool buddies.
I miss all those things too! I can’t believe you have the same basket and dishes, we definitely will have to have a picnic one of these days and all bring our beautiful baskets!