Junk in the Trunk

I'm often asked where I get ideas for my characters and stories and the answer is always the same: junk hunting. Vintage items stir my imagination and I love it when I come across something with a story behind it.

My husband and I moved to Phoenix just last week and even though we were still unpacking boxes, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to check out the Junk in the Trunk Vintage Market that happened to be held the first weekend we arrived in town. Since it was Mother's Day I twisted my husband's arm to go junk hunting with me and he ended up enjoying it, too, mostly because his favorite barbecue restaurant, Honey Bears, was one of the food venders at the market. While he ate barbecue, I had fun shopping.

Here I am all excited before I enter the market. FYI...nothing I purchased fit into my free shopping bag!

The house hubby and I recently moved into doesn't have a kitchen island and since we have 4 bar stools from our previous home we were searching for a pub table or a piece of furniture that we could put the stools around. Hubby found this 1960-something "Brown" aviation table from a manufacturing facility in Tucson. The table was used to make airplane parts. The vender added the pieces of wood to the top of the rusted steel frame, then I stained the wood darker and presto-we had a home for the bar stools.

After that purchase hubby thought we were done shopping, but I sent him back to Honey Bears and told him to eat more barbecue. Then I found this heavy, rusted metal bucket, which I filled with fake flowers.

And then I came across a young couple from New Mexico who talked me into buying an old burlap bag, three stalks of cotton and some brown twig thing, which I put in my old galvanized milk can.

And my favorite piece of "junk" that hubby and I picked up in Texas at a salvage company is an old door . This is a screen door from a business in east Texas. I can only imagine how many people walked through this door over the years before the business closed down. I use it as a picture frame to display old family photos.

If you like vintage things and live in Arizona then you definitely need to check out Junk in the Trunk when it returns in September. Those of you who live in California...check out their website--they're coming to San Diego this summer July 16-17th.

Do have a favorite place you enjoy junk hunting?