French Market at the Red Shed Slide Show

What a great Sale! Thank you, Thank you, to all of you who braved the 105 temperatures to join us at our French Market Sale. We hope each of you love your little pieces of Paris that went home with you. For those of you who couldn't make it, here is a slide show. Its a long one, because I am just too tired to edit, but I think you can click and get a gallery view. Thanks to Michael Patras for getting up so early to take these great photos!

Paris Flea Market Trip 2009 & Christmas Clearance Sale Date

Be sure to mark your calendars! Saturday, December 6th will be the Red Shed Anniversary and Clearance Sale. We will have lots of wonderful & unique Christmas Gifts, plenty of fabulous decor to "feather your Christmas nest", and we are even having a true (and large) "Yard Sale" section, with some unbelievable move-em-out prices.

Spots are filling for our 2009 Paris Flea Market Shopping Trip. In order to confirm your space, you must mail your deposit, along with your contract to the Red Shed.
This is the BEST time in years to go to Paris! The dollar has a great exchange rate and flights are reasonable. Call the Red Shed Girls with questions and to check availability.
817-310-6006 or 800-209-0871

Paris Apartment Chic Sofa finds it's family, Truth or Fiction?

We have all been shaking our heads over this lovely Paris Apartment Chic living room set that is featured right now at the Red Shed. How it came together is just a little unbelievable.


Valarie and Michele M. found the couch at a little shop in another city. We initially didn't buy it though really, everything about it was perfect, Red Shed "Cottage Chic".

It had a gorgeous dark gray pantina. Heavy, solid wood, beautiful carving and just the right amount of shabby. Most of the caning is perfect and the center section of caning is shaped like a heart.


Fabulous lions paw legs...

Why didn't we buy it? I don't know, really heavy, didn't have the truck with us, we were in a hurry.... Anyway, it was just one of those things that we lost sleep over. After about a week I went to M.M. and said, look I am losing sleep over that great couch, and she said, Me too! We called the shop, gave her a credit card over the phone and arranged for pick up.
The next time Michele Jones came to the Red Shed, she took a look at the sofa and her jaw dropped. "Oh no! Do you hate it?"
She just started laughing and said she had the rocker and chair that matched the set exactly, and had kept them in her home for years because she loved them so much, and was not ready to part with them.
Both pieces need the caning redone, but she was right! They are a matching set!

So what do you think? Were they meant to be back together?
The fabulous sofa is only $399.00 and each of the chairs are offered at $100.00 each...as is.

MJ says that if she gets the energy to do the re-caning, she will just buy the sofa and keep the whole set!

Will you beat her to it?

Paris Flea Market Antique Shopping Trip 2009

All I want for Christmas is....
A trip to Paris
with the
Red Shed Girls!

Everyone keeps telling us that it is on their
"Must Do before I Die List"

It's once again time to join the Red Shed Girls for our annual

"Paris Flea Market Shopping Adventure"
April 29 - May 5, 2009

Last year all of our participants said it was the "Best trip they had ever been on!". We LOVE the Paris Flea Markets. This is "Thrill of the Hunt" at it's best! It's a GREAT time to go to Paris, with good exchange rates and easily available flights.
Your fabulous trip will include 6 days and 5 nights in the "City of Light", a private tour of Paris, 2 full shopping days at the Paris Flea Markets, a deluxe "Illuminations" Night-time Dinner Cruise down the Siene, Welcome Dinner, Presents, Special Parties, Lots of Laughs, Friendship, Junking Comaraderie and much, much more!

For prices and lots of details go to

http://www.redshedonline.com/

and go to "Paris 2009". You can also see the photos from our 2008 trip

(For Blog Journal see May 2008 in post archives)

Due to the success of last year's trip, we have had a GREAT response from those who are interested in this trip. We are only taking a maximum of 10 people, and will accept reservations only first come, first serve, based on those who get their deposits in to us. We look forward to hearing from you and please call or email us if you have any questions!

817.310.6006

For questions and more details

email
Valarie@Riverside-Travel.com
or
TheRedShed@earthlink.net

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.