Sniff. Our last flea market of the season...

The true end of summer always comes for us on the day of our last flea market of the season (which was last Saturday). It's kind of bittersweet, because on one hand, I breathe a tiny sigh of relief. They're done. We got through five of them. No more manic rush to get ads done, posts posted, emails blasted... But mostly, we love hosting these markets, and love seeing what people bring, and love the fun days that they always are. And I'm really sad when the season is done. Flea market days are always great for us inside the shop, too. Funny that we always worry that if we have more and more great vendors, the shop sales will suffer that day. But the opposite happens. We were swamped on Saturday, and very happy.

I love how our markets have evolved from a few vendors on the lawn (ten+ years ago), to a full-blown market with people spread out all over our back gardens and down the side (where the canal used to be). The September market was a wee bit smaller than earlier ones (just in number of vendors; there's always someone who can't make it at the last minute), but I have to say, the quality of the finds was outstanding. There were a couple of dealers who shopped the market and drove away with carloads of good stuff. That tells you how good prices were...

We have to give a big thank you to our fabulous vendors. They did such a great job, always! And don't be fooled by how fun this looks. It is hard, hard work. You have to find the goods (believe me, standing in line for three hours – starting at 5am – waiting for a questionable garage sale to open is not as romantic as it sounds). Then you restore, fix, price, organize, box up, pack up, load the truck. On flea market days, setup starts at 6:30am at Pomegranate, and you have just a few hours to unload, unwrap, merchandise it all, and make it look cute. Reverse process at the end of the day. We so appreciate all their efforts!!

We'll post next summer's flea market dates on our website sometime in late February. You don't want to miss a single one! Meanwhile, here are a few snaps of some of the offerings from our September 15, 2012 market.