Red Shed Girls & Friends in Paris

Our Paris Flea Market Shopping Trip 2008 was wildly successful! Everyone said it was the best trip they had been on in their entire lives! (Just wait until our 2009 trip!) What is not to love? Great company, fabulous architecture, flowers in full bloom, and Fantastic French Antiques! We wanted to share why we loved our Paris trip so much. Of course the company was the best!

From left to right, Michele, Lana, Theresa, GiGi, Jodie, Lynn, Valarie.

We arrived at the fabulous Hotel Littre, and our huge rooms. If you have ever been to Paris, you know how rare, cool, large digs like this are.








We got out our maps and within minutes we were headed to our first Antique Street Fair....

Oops, maybe we had a glass of wine first, but then we went straight to the antiques.

Here are a few things that we loved....

The next day was a little sight seeing around Paris. You can see why we adore this city! The weather was perfect and the flowers were blooming!

The following day it was off to shop at Marche aux Puces Saint Ouen, the oldest and largest flea market in Paris. Here are some of the eye candy displays .....

Do those Angel Wings look familiar? They were about half the size of the pair we had in the shop and they were 300 Euros a pair! ($550.00).



The next day we went to the Vanves flea market, much less formal....here is an idea of a display at Vanves....
This is a perfect example of what fun "JunK" you can find at a French Flea Market. Love the gorgeous concrete statue, thrown on the ground near a barbecue grill!





Here is Gigi, geared up and ready to go....

So what did we buy? Everyone focused on the following criteria:

*A specific thing we collect.

One person was looking for antique crosses, another antique pharmacy bottles & equipment, French linens were EASY.

*Things that are uniquely French or have French writing.

*Things that were not too heavy and easily packable.

*Unique or Beautiful things that we could not find in the US.

So here are some examples.....

WWII wire casts. We loved these and wished we had bought more.

Gorgeous French Documents from the early 1800's

To the right is a French Porcelain Milk Pasteurizer. I pulled it out of the dirt in front of a truck. It has a terracotta container on the inside that lifts out. It is TOO gorgeous now that it is cleaned up! (so I broke the "not too heavy" rule)

The canisters below held original recording cylinders from the French Opera House. They were marked with the song titles and where they were recorded.

Above you will see metal first prize ribbons for French food competitions, fabulous bone brushes with a glass holder, French antique canvas maps, wonderful monogramed french linens, and the person that can correctly tell me what the small cloches were used for, a couple of hundred years ago, will win a prize (we do know the answer!).




These are just a few examples. To see all of our Paris photos and most of the things that we purchased follow THIS LINK.







To see some of the treasures we purchased in Paris and have for sale at the Red Shed go to http://www.redshedonline.com/ and go to "Current Inventory".







Now remember the pretty room at the beginning? Here is an "after" picture. Yes, we had a lot of fun....





Now, how to get it all home safe and sound?




Our final night we had the the very best seats on the front of the Bateaux Parisian Dinner Cruise. The boat has a glass ceiling and all of the gorgeous buildings, bridges, and monuments were illuminated in all their glory as we floated down the Seine. This may seem kind of silly, because I just got a new camera and I didn't know that you can't hold it sideways when you are taking video, but hopefully this will give you a small idea of the magic of Paris.









If you read this whole blog, THANK YOU! It was our first effort, and we have yet to figure out how to space the words and photos properly, but at least we can only get better!



Please send us an email if you would like to join our Paris Flea Market Trip in 2009, details will be on our websites for the Red Shed Antiques and Riverside Travel in the near future.