Kitchmas Bubblers 2019

These bubblers were my favorite crafty endeavor for the holidays this year.  I have been collecting up enough candelabras and ornament bits to make them all summer and then had a vintage pop up shop to sell them back in September.

The idea for these started last year when a friend of mine bought me a big bag of bubble lights from a pound sale at Goodwill.  There were a lot of broken ones in the bag but I was able to salvage enough to craft up 8 sets of candelabras.

Like I mentioned earlier, she and I had a vintage yard sale back in September. I decided to save my vintage leftovers from the Punk Rock Flea Market last year and also made these bubblers and a few wreaths to sell.  I sold nearly all the Xmas crafty stuff since I was only asking 10 bucks each for them.  From this sale a long saga has formed.  So I have to tell you all about it because it's become a legend in a way around my house and between us and our friends that did the sale with us.
So, Mr. Husband and I go to a lot of estate sales and we run into the same 5 people all the time.  They are : weird dude that only wears sleeveless shirts and no shoes, short stern lady that looks like another person we met at another sale, guy in pale jeans and generic white tennis shoes, Hawaiian shirt guy, and crabby faced lady.  Yes, these are their "names".  They have to be all re-salers.  And you would think at this point we would have become friendly with one another but these people are a bit cut throat.  When I advertised for our vintage sale of course I did a fun craigslist ad and hyped it up to be the sale of the century!  Ha, ha, so that meant all of those Estate Sale 5 came by. The only one that bought a lot of stuff was the crabby faced lady.  She grabbed up 3 candelabras and a set of vintage Kromex containers.   When she brings them to me she doesn't even open with a friendly hello.  She says "I do re-sell.  Can I get a better deal on all of this?"  The total would have been 45 bucks but I said I would sell it all for 35, which was a bird brain thing for me to have done.  I just wanted to get stuff sold and I am sure I paid less than 35 for the total of those items, but still, ugh! Mr. Husband even helped her carry her stuff to the car.  Between us and our friends we made a total of nearly 600 bucks.  Not too bad, since we didn't have to pay for a booth rental at a flea market or drag all of our stuff to a location and then set up and break down a tent.  As I was packing up I realized that some things were missing.  Things that I didn't remember putting out for sale, but did remember pricing them.  An apron, a belt buckle, a plastic chef memo pad holder....possibly more.  Then it came to me!  I had packed a bunch of stuff in the Kromex containers!  We were all helping each other set up so I wasn't the one who placed the containers out that morning, Mr. Husband had and he didn't know.
So Crabby Face wound up getting even more out of me for that 35 bucks.  Now here is where things can go a few different ways.  She finds the stuff but can't return it to us because she doesn't remember where we live.  I can see that.  But remember I said earlier we run into her all the time.  I'm not saying she should keep these things in her pockets just in case either.  So the next weekend I am out estate saleing and sure enough I run into her twice!  She doesn't even say one word!  I think maybe she hasn't discovered the extra items yet.  Then the next weekend I run into her again, literally.  I was walking through a tight kitchen at a sale and we came face to face, eye to eye!  She says nothing!!!  Not even excuse me, pardon me, hello, or f*ck off.  The next weekend (third after the sale) Mr. Husband and I decide to hit up a few antique malls. I notice one booth is setting up vintage Christmas already even though it's the middle of October! Cool!  Hey, and there are my candelabras...for 20 bucks each!  As a matter of fact the owner of the booth was right there..Crabby Face!  I sent Mr. Husband over to check the booth out in detail because I didn't want to make a scene.  He went over there and made eye contact with her and she didn't say a word.  We decide to hit up the rest of the shop on the opposite side for a bit to give her time to clear out.  And lo and behold, in another booth over there were my Kromex containers!!!!  I am pretty naive when it comes to vendors I guess.  It never occurred to me that someone would have more than one booth, especially since they are so damn expensive.  So of course I opened and checked the interior of the containers and EMPTY!  The items I was missing were not for sale in the booth so I don't know what that old crab did with them.  She may even have another booth at another antique mall.  About a week before Christmas Mr. Husband and I stopped back by this particular antique mall and all 3 of my bubblers were gone, sold.
On the tags of her booth had her name, Hope.  My friends we did the sale with went the extra step and even found out her last name and her facebook where she puts up stuff she is selling, keeping an eye out.  Either way it goes it was really bad business of her.  Especially since my friends work for an estate sale company and she will be not getting any deals from them since all of this went down!

Like I mentioned earlier, this whole saga has now become kind of a legend that we all have fun with.  We'll ask each other if we've had any Crabby Face sightings over the weekend.  I kinda have been planning on really over doing being friendly to her next time we run into each other because clearly that is not her thing.  Big smile and a warm hello, and saying "Smile! It increases your face value!"