Kids Vintage Book Review: The Plant Sitter

I love picking up vintage childrens' books! Today I am featuring and reviewing one of my fun finds: "The Plant Sitter."

"The Plant Sitter" is about a boy named Tommy who starts a plant sitting business. His parents are quite surprised when their house starts to look like a jungle! One night Tommy has a dream that the plants grow so large that the only way to water them is with a hose through the chimney. Later in the dream the walls of his house fall away and all that is left is a giant house shaped plant! What will Tommy do?

"The Plant Sitter" is written by Gene Zion and illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham. This author/illustrater team also brought us the 'Harry the Dirty Dog' books. It was published in 1959. It is relatively hard to find (a lot less common than the 'Harry' books). According to Good Reads, unlike the 'Harry' books, which have been released upwards of 19 editions, the Plant Sitter has only two editions: one in 1959 and the second in 1976.

I think it is a fun and creative story about injenuity! The words are big, easy to read and follow along with.

 I also love the illustrations - but I may be a bit biased as I have some childhood nostalgia for the Harry the Dirty Dog books. They are in three colors: lemon yellow, cerulean blue, and grass green. Each picture has a sketched texture and fun quality to it. 

If you like vintage kids books like I do, come by my Etsy shop and peruse through what I currently have on hand. This copy of 'The Plant Sitter' is also available here for purchase or just to look at a couple more photos: The Plant Sitter at ManateesToyBox Etsy shop

Action Figure Explosion

This last weekend I made the single most expensive purchase I have made at a garage sale. I purchased someone's entire (well, nearly entire) collection of vintage Masters of the Universe, She Ra Princess of Power, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I didn't buy any of the vehicles or play sets because I simply don't have the room.

You know what was great about this purchase? All of the action figures came bagged separately - and most had with them a back-card cutout, weapons and other accessories. After looking through many of them it looks like all of the weapons and accessories were bagged/sorted correctly. It is pretty impressive!

Here are the TMNT figures: ALL of them from 1989 to 1992. A complete collection! Amazing! I am enjoying the novelty of owning all of them at one time.

And here are the MOTU/She Ra action figures: they were much less complete, but still quite the haul!

I've taken some better shots of a few things:

Here's Lifeguard Leo! He has a lifesaver on his back that you can fill with water. When you squeeze it, he spits water out of his teeth! I'm also amused by how each of the accessories are named. Examples: "mutant megaphone" and "sloppy soda". Note that the umbrella handle is actually a sword!

It's been fun going through all the Ninja Turtles. I remember a  number of them from childhood. I never had any, but lots of the neighbor boys did. That and we'd pretend to be the ninja turtles themselves, fashioning weapons from sticks and other toys. I was always Donatello. 

I thought these ones were interesting. They're like Rock'em Sock'em toys, but with TMNT - and you use a gun to make them move (strange!).

My Garage Sale: A Small Affair

As you can see, I haven't posted in three whole months. I think I was a bit tired after my listing challenge in February, and then in mid-March I got a full-time job! I'm a scientist for an agricultural branch of a large company. Crazy! My thrifting adventures have decreased, and so has my free time in general. I still have lots of fun inventory, so I am still enjoying listing things in my Etsy shop here and there.

I also moved a week ago. Because of this I decided early in May that I would have a garage sale. I set out some boxes and started filling them up with things that I had around for awhile that I didn't want to move if I didn't have to.

 My husband put an ad in the local paper for me, and I made some signs and set up the sale. This was the second garage sale I've ever had. The first I put together for my family a couple years back. So this was the first garage sale that was all my own stuff. It was a pretty small sale, but I still was able to sell quite a few things. Most of the remaining items I just took to the local Goodwill. It felt good to unload some excess!

It was supposed to lightly rain for part of the day so I set up everything in the garage with a few boxes sitting out on the drive way. 

I don't really have much furniture or extra tables for displaying items, so my husband borrowed a table from someone and the rest of the items I put on boxes or shelves. 

I read up on some garage sale advice online and from other blogs. I wasn't able to take advantage of all the advice, but I did the best I could with the time/resources I had. Here is the advice I followed:

• Price everything. (Personally I get annoyed when nothing is priced and I have to ask about lots of things.)
• Use painter's tape for price tags. (It isn't pretty, but it comes off items easily and it is good if you don't have much time to make price tags. I didn't put it on older paper items like book dust jackets. I put those in plastic bags and put the tape on the bag.)
• Make simple signs with big letters and a big arrow for direction. (Who doesn't hate tiny signs that are illegible?)
• Don't use a money box - keep your change in a purse or pack on you at all times. (Probably not a big concern in small towns haha, but better safe than sorry.)
• Stay firm on prices early in the day. Be flexible near closing time if your goal is to move things out. At the very end I told people that everything was half-price. Stuff that was too expensive at 50 cents is suddenly affordable! lol (I didn't have many big ticket items - most things were $1.00). 
• Greet people as they arrive and always thank them for stopping by. :)

Week 4 of the February Listing Challenge

My goal was to list (or have listings drafted) for at least 75% of my unlisted inventory and sell 25% of all my inventory before shopping again. I wasn't able to get all of those things listed in the month of February, but I have made a lot of headway and only purchased 3 items this month (and already sold one of those three items). I say that is pretty successful!

Here are my final numbers for the month:

Items listed/drafted:
Week 1: 42
Week 2: 38
Week 3: 8
Week 4: 46 (45 pictured below)
Grand total for Feb: 134 new items listed in (or drafted for) my shop!

Week 1: 14 items sold

Week 2: 2 items sold

Week 3: 17 items sold

Week 4: 16 items sold

Total sold on Etsy February 2012: 49!

Fashion Star Filly & My Little Pony How-To: Loose Ringlet Curls

Here is another 'before and after' that I was pleased with. I had a pretty nice looking Fashion Star Filly named Dara - who is this absolutely gorgeous emerald green color. Her mane looked fine and needed very little primping, but her tail looked like a matted mess. :(

With just a little bit of work, her tail is now in lovely silky loose ringlets!

Try it yourself! This is the method I use on Fashion Star Filly, My Little Pony and some doll hair:

What you will need:
- comb
- conditioner (an inexpensive or store brand will work just fine!)
- water
- markers or pens (pen for slender curls or marker for thicker curls)
- alligator hair clips

How to:
1. Wet down the hair with water - but do NOT get the tail wet all the way to the tail hole. Vintage My Little Ponies for example have metal washers that hold the tail in. If it gets wet it could rust and look quite unsightly. I don't know if Fashion Star Fillies have metal tail washers, but better safe than sorry.

2. Add a small dab of hair conditioner to the tail (or whatever hair you are working on) and work it in with your fingers.

3. Comb the hair gently and work out the tangles. If the hair is seriously frizzed and not just really tangled you will need to use a different method, because this won't tame really bad frizz. I will post a tutorial on how to do this later.

4. Rinse the conditioner out of the hair (again, don't get the tail hole wet). At this point you could just let the tail dry, but I like to style it and add curls.

5. Decide how many ringlet curls you want and how tight or loose you wan them. I decided on three loose ringlet curls. To do this I first split the tail into three sections.  Then I wrapped each section smoothly around a thick marker and clamped it down with alligator hair clips. If you want more slender ringlets use a slim barreled pen.

6. Now just let the horse (or pony, or doll) sit for 1-2 days (I usually leave it for 2 days to make sure it definitely dries and stays).

7. Remove the alligator clips and carefully slide the ringlet off of the marker or pen. Voila! Beautiful loose ringlet curls!

These ringlets won't stay in forever, but in my experience they last quite a while. I like this method because there is no risk of heat damage, it is fairly simple, and the curls look nice.

There are other methods that are more permanent but you have to use boiling water to permanently alter the shape of the hair (remember - it is plastic). I don't usually use the boiling method, but other collectors swear by it.

Puppies and Flowers: Final January Thrifting Report

Here I am still posting about my thrifting finds from January - all the way at the end of February. I spread out talking about my finds from the end of last month because I am still on my thrifting hiatus to get caught up on listing the items I already have.

This is the last pile of goodies left from January. I already talked about the toy finds here and the book finds here.

I picked up a few items thrifting that I wouldn't normally purchase - clothes! I found two cute vintage kids clothing items that were adorable and one even had a Monchichi character on it! I bought the new Finding Nemo swim shorts because they are new with tags and thought I would try to sell them on eBay (which would be new for me). It is probably the wrong time of year to try and sell those though.

This vintage corduroy baby outfit was one that I couldn't pass up. I loved the little white puppies embroidered on it! The outfit is available for sale in my Etsy shop here: Vintage Baby Boy Romper 6 Mo in Blue at ManateesToyBox on Etsy

Sweet 1980s Cocker Spaniel Mug:

And this retro sheet has some crazy colors! Aquamarine, lime, and avocado!

If you're interested in hearing what other people have found on their thrifting adventures please check out ApronThriftGirl's Thrift Share Monday! Also linking up with Her Library Adventures Flea Market Finds!

Before and After: Paradise

I enjoy making things look pretty again. Lots of times it really doesn't even take much to take something scraggly looking and make it look sleek again. Take for example this So-Soft My Little Pony named Paradise. All she really needs is a light cleaning and her hair combed down.

Voila! She still has a bobbed tail - but much prettier now!