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

Junk Bonanza Antiquing Trip Day 4

After two days of 6 am Wake up calls, we all got to sleep in until 7 am today! Yea!! First stop on our agenda was the Secret Destination that won't be much of a secret after this post.


After months of digging and lots of driving on the pre-trip, we discovered:


THE COTTAGE HOUSE, 4304 Chicago Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55407 (612) 825-4934.


They welcomed the Red Shed Girls with open arms....






The Cottage House looks like a small house with a little white picket fence out front. They hold a once a month occasional sale each with a changing theme (dear to our hearts, because it is just like the Red Shed!). They completely rework the entire building including painting the walls, and sometimes the floors. Boy is it worth a trip!


Once you get past the front arbor, the bargains start to appear.....

Owner, Ted is a talented designer and artist, and one of the nicest men you will ever meet. Here he is with one of his vendors, Linda, who I think looks like "Rainbow, My Painted Pony". She and her friend Judy have a great eye for display. Country Western music serenaded us as we shopped.

As you go into the cottage you realize that it is actually very large, with a second story, a huge covered back yard and a second building in the rear! Eye catching displays are in every room and cottage antiques overflow in every corner........

I hate to even mention the prices...Let's just say that if we had a semi-tractor trailer instead of a U-haul, it still would have been full!

You may recognize the Globe turned pumpkin below. Ted designed it and it was featured in Country Living. Of course, this pumpkin is now on it's way to live in Texas!

Thanks so much for the wonderful goodies he provided from his friends at Firefly Bistro, which is where we also had lunch.

Our next stop was Hunt and Gather. Once again we were greeted like ROCK STARS!

Hunt and Gather has such great displays and collections! The Red Shed Group just went nuts! More flash cards, lots of movie marquee letters, and so much more. My photos did not all turn out, but I will have more posted soon.

Here is one cute lampshade display....

Our last stop after lunch was Guilded Salvage. Oh my goodness, I thought the ladies would have a heart attack when they walked inside! We were again greeted by Scott......Christina and Ellie, the circus dog, who helps check out.....

There were gorgeous architecturals as far as the eye can see...

Everything is very well organized and reasonably priced. We were truly only limited by the shrinking space in our van. Scott had items marked with "Red Shed Girls" prices. It was so sweet! I'm not sure there is a corbel left in Minnesota.


Why is there no place like this in Texas? (or Colorado, Oklahoma, or North Carolina), the girls were asking.
Believe it or not, this was the last stop on our trip. We were going to go to a flea market at 6am in the morning, but by this time, only GiGI, our turbo-shopper was even remotely interested.

Here is a photo of the packing process of our van. You can understand why no one even wanted to look at a flea market!

One last farewell dinner at Bacios and it is off to the airport tomorrow morning (we get to sleep until 9! Michele and Kay are driving the U-haul back to Texas and they will be back to the Red Shed in Grapevine, Tueday Morning. Would anyone like to come help unpack? PLEASE?

Another great end to a fabulous day of antique shopping in Minnesota. I hope we have been able to educate our dear customers and readers on why this is such a great destination and trip. I will try to post again tomorrow if possible, but stay tuned for more photos and adventures from the trip, as the other participants photos are loaded. Visit Margo's Junkin Journal or The Blessed Nest blogs in a day or two for photos and trip adventures from another point of view.

• Thanks SO MUCH to all of the GREAT ladies who joined us. It was so amazing to have a dozen woman, most who have never met, get together, get along, and take care of each other for an entire long weekend of shopping, junking and antiquing. Thanks also to Ki for sponsoring the Junk Bonanza, which was a Huge success and inspired this trip. Be sure to visit her blog and her new website at http://www.junkrevolution.com/.

**Update...Last we heard our U-Haul drivers Michele and Kay had stopped at Diamond Jim's Casino in Iowa....that's the last we have heard from them!

Junk Bonanza Antiquing Trip Day 3

Sleep & Early the Red Shed Girls were up and raring to go junking. We started with Sweet Donna, the owner of Sweet Salvage in Buffalo, MN. She opened up the shop just for us, and I'm sure she was glad she did!









One of our favorite shops in Buffalo is Second Hand Rose. They are so sweet and greeted the Red Shed Girls with coffee and tea , cookies and bagles.The dear owners Barb and Rose are just the cutest and nicest things! They are the epitamy of "Minnesota Nice" They have an adorable shop and their occational sale was LAST weekend, and they opened just for us. Not only did they have great treats.....

They even made us a package of Surprise gifts,just for the Red Shed Girls! They were oh-so-cutely in black and white paper.

Second Hand Rose is a great shop and it is run very well. We saw a lot of great things there:

Christy found this wonderful carnival wheel...

This was our best VALUE for the day. A fabulous painted red refridgerator. Guess what the price was?....FREE!!! All we had to do was take it away....easy!

Theresa and her sister Pat run The Atelier and The Porch. The shops are precious and the people are so Nice! They sent us COUPONS and then catered to our shopping and our bellies with cheeze, crakers, cookies and WINE!(and apple juice). It helped us rejuvenate. And we found lots of cute things at their store.

This unbelievable farm work table was at a THIRFT Store, would have loved to take it home, but the van was getting a little full

Kelly found a crocheted blanket.


Margo helps load the truck. There a photo of the Hall Tree that we bought. Its made out of architectural elements, and its fabulous! Too bad it doesn't fit in the van!

Great Black Box going to live at the Red Shed
This is Marge with Margo. Marge owns Yesterday's Charm and sells these Great wood gear molds. Margo saw a picture of them in our pre-trip blog has been losing sleep over them. She finally decided to get THREE!.
We tried not to shop too much, but oh well.............

The van was loaded with care....
THere goes that great refridgerator! Its OK , nobody can pack like a Red Shed Girl.

The cute flash cards that Stacy bought are SOOO true!

She brought them to our slumber party with our Surprise and VERY FAMOUS guest, Ki .

She signed books for everyone, and gave good hugs, this one to Michele Jones.

Now that we have had our hugs, its off for a few winks and on to Day 4! Sure glad we evacuated from Texas to Minnesota! Stay tuned!