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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Treasure Island Flea Market

This past weekend, while working on getting back into our non-jetlagged selves, we paid a visit to the Treasure Island Flea Market.  For those of you not familiar with the Bay Area, Treasure Island is located in between San Francisco and Oakland, California.  For years it served as a military base, but now holds many things, including film studios, housing, and during the summer, a monthly flea market.

A view of San Francisco from Treasure Island

One of the things that I was most excited to see, was the booth from Mena at Sew Weekly.  Alas, she was under the weather so was unable to make her debut performance there.  We kept on with the journey and made it to the flea market just in time for its opening on Sunday.

It was a quiet morning so I didn't feel rushed as I perused the various vendors.  There were some fun antiques and a lot of vintage clothing, but I was more interested in hand-crafted goods, fabrics and patterns.  The flea market didn't disappoint and I left with some new items, and discovered a few fun vendors.

The first vendor that we found was The Sparrow's Nest.  She had some whimsical stamped items such as clothespins, stationary and tin items.  She also had resin floral hair clips (which I've been obsessed with recently) and vintage buttons that she made into hair accessories.

Vintage buttons made into hair pins

Her booth had beautiful items and displays - which was actually how her clothespins became popular.  She said they originally had used them in their displays but had so much interest from people that they made enough to start selling them.

Sparrow's Nest clothes pins

Another display at Sparrow's Nest
Another vendor that I loved was Ants Accessories.  She had beautiful sewn items including bags, coin purses, and pin cushions.  I've been looking for a pincushion as I've just been using a little metal tray, so I was excited by her selection.

Coin purses by Ants Accessories

Some of her pincushions in various ceramic mugs and bowls
Oh, and did I mention the food vendors?  Food trucks have been a big trend in California (and maybe all over?) recently and there were plenty on display at the flea market.  BBQ, gourmet waffles, noodles... you name it!  There was even a fresh, mini donut stand.  You could watch the donuts being dispensed into the fryer where they would then be removed and covered with your own custom toppings.  Yum!



 As we were leaving the flea market, one more vendor had me poring through her tables - La Maison Violette.  She had various vintage and reproduction fabrics and linens.  I picked up a little over a yard of fabric - which will hopefully become a cute blouse.

Just one of the piles of fabric at her booth

Some lavender satchels
It was a good day and a nice start to my flea market season.  I'm a little late to flea marketing this year... I've been unmotivated to wake up early on a weekend and make the trek out to our local markets, even though there can be so many good deals.  This was a good kick to get me going.  Now if I can just convince the hubby to come with me...



1 comment:

  1. I love flea markets! When I lived in Florida my Grandmother and I would hit the flea market to get crafting stuff.

    ReplyDelete

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