Vintage Pasture Sale: Spring 2022 Review

We may have had a difficult start to our ‘show weekend’ but in the end the Vintage Pasture Sale was still a huge success! The rain and wind made way for sunny skies and YOU ALL showed up! I am breaking down the entire weekend here below just in case you missed all the fun on Instagram!

I spent the last few days out in a little pasture setting up for a local event that I have the privilege of participating in every year. It is called the Gypsy Junkers Country Fair but I always call it the Pasture Sale (what can I say, I am a creature of habit). It is a two day outdoor market where local dealers and artisans can sell their wears and creations. I have been doing this show for quite some time (click here to see the Spring 2021 event) and with the Fall 2021 show cancelled, I was so excited this year to get back out in the field.

Now, we were thrown a few “weather related curve balls” this weekend, but man we did have fun in the end! Below I am sharing the entire process from start to finish.

Making Decisions

The hardest part of doing an outdoor market is the inability to control Mother Nature and I always have that in the back of my mind when I sign up to do these events. I had been studying the weather forecast for days and days, hoping it would change. But in the end we realized, with pretty good certainty, that we were going to get some rain on Friday. I had high hopes that the rain wasn’t going to last a long time and that I could use things like drop cloths to cover my goodies but as we got closer to the show date it was evident that the rain was going to fall for hours and hours on Friday. By Tuesday I knew that I was going to have to shift my plans and prepare for some long periods of rain. Now, this is a “Rain or Shine” event and I have two really good tents that we have used in the past. But, this time around I had collected and curated so many great pieces for this show that I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to pack it all in. With the help of my friend Rob, who organized the whole thing, we decided to have a company come out and put up a 20 x 40 canopy tent that would cover my entire space. I have to say, it really saved us – I will get to that here in a minute.

The tent guys met me out in the field early Thursday morning and they got to work! Within about an hour, they put up the tent and we were ready to unload the trailer.

Unpacking The Weathered Wares

This part is always hectic because you have to move quickly and unload your things fast to make way for other dealers to unload as well. No matter how hard I try and organize it, there just seems to be piles of ‘junk’ everywhere when we unload. But, it doesn’t take me long to get things reorganized and to get going on the set up!

Plans Into Action

For me, it is important to have a good ‘map’ as to where everything goes. I spend about a week before the show looking at my inventory and mapping out where each piece will go.

I don’t want to move things around too much because it takes so much time to level and shim the big pieces. I ONLY have 12 hours to set up (we have to leave the pasture at 7pm) and I bring a lot of things, so I have to be as efficient as possible.

It also helps to have good helpers because I couldn’t do all of this by myself. For the past three events, I have had my ‘dream team’ which is my husband, my dad, and my friend Rob. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to do so much in such a large space in such a short amount of time. I am one lucky lady!

When It All Comes Together

When all the work is done, and you can just step back and look at how your empty space came together, that is the best part for me. I have said many times, that I look at these pieces as ‘art’ and I love putting them all together to create pretty spaces. This is the ultimate opportunity for me to do that.

I work all year carefully hunting and curating items JUST for this sale and when the work of setting it all up is done and the space is finally all put together …. it just makes me so so happy.

I really could write an entire post on HOW I set up for a sale – it takes a bit of time to do – but to me it is worth every moment.

We finished setting up by the skin of our teeth right at 7:00 – and I managed to get just a few pictures of what the entire space looked like.

Let The Shopping Begin – Day 1

Although we were expecting rain, we knew that the weather for the first few hours of the sale would be great. The sale was scheduled to open at 8:00, but by 7:15 I had a little line of shoppers beginning to form. I felt so blessed.

As soon as the clock struck 8:00 the shoppers got to it! It was so much fun to see what people were picking and to feel their excitement as they shopped. It filled my soul.

Oh NOOOOO

About two and a half hours into the sale, the wind began to pick up and dark clouds began rolling in. I can not quite explain how quickly the weather changed and although we were prepared for the rain, we were not prepared for what happened next.

Within seconds the storm rolled in and we were hit with huge gusts of wind – some measuring 40 miles an hour. We were hunkered down in my huge tent but suddenly I looked out of the window and saw my friend’s tent upside down. Her poor merchandise had blown over (many pieces broken) and was getting soaking wet. I ran out there with my dad and my husband and we tried to bend the tent back into place. The rain was falling and the lighting was cracking but we wanted to help save her things. She returned and by that time the storm had died down a bit – it was then that I noticed many, many tents had fallen, blown away, or were bent and destroyed. I was lucky, our canopy tent held up perfectly, but so many were not as lucky! If you look at the first picture above, you can see the brown tent in the background is all mangled.

Sadly, the rain didn’t let up at all. It came down so hard for hours, making the entire venue soggy and slippery. That along with the many mangles tents made it unsafe for shoppers to come out and so the owner of the event decided to close for the day. I stayed in my tent until about 3:00 because I was so worried that another gust of wind might come. It was a good thing I stayed, I actually ended up having to move many pieces to higher ground within my tent due to the ‘rivers’ flowing through the pasture and under my tent.

It was a long day for sure but I was still convinced that this was going to be a great show because Saturday was suppose to be nice and sunny. I went home cold and wet, but hopeful.

Here Comes The Sun: Day 2

I was there early on day two of the sale to asses the ‘damage’ and luckily was just how I left it Friday afternoon.

I got to work fluffing my space and by 8:00 the show was rocking!

As predicted, day two of the event was warm and sunny and just perfect all around! We were full of shoppers who were ready to come out and look around! Man the day went by so fast and so many treasures went to new homes! It was an awesome day!

Packing Up

This is always my least favorite part – but I am so lucky that I had some amazing help. My whole family came to help me, including my mom and my children. And can you believe that in an hour and 45 minutes were were all packed!

The tent company arrived just as we were finishing up the loading process – perfect timing.

Wrap Up

I love this show. It is an opportunity for me to get super creative with my displays but it is also a chance for me to get to meet and spend time with the friends that come and shop. I love that JUNK brings us all together.

Like so many other dealers who do shows, I work for a few months shopping for, cleaning, tagging, and packing up the many items I think my customers will enjoy looking at, admiring, and taking home. My main goal here is to hopefully inspire people to look at vintage items in the way that I see them – full of beauty and potential.

Thank you to everyone who came out and shopped – it means the world to me and my family (especially POPS). I love doing this and the passion and energy that you all bring (both in person and on IG) help to fill my tank and encourage me to keep on sharing. I appreciate each and every one of you!

P.S. There is a lot I videoed and documented the entire process of the Spring 2022 Vintage Pasture Sale in my Instagram stories and I just saved them all to a highlight button over there. If you want to see how this all came together then you can click here to view it and you are welcome to join me over there for more picking fun!