2022 Vintage and Upcycled Christmas Booth Tour

My booth is stocked with festive vintage and upcycled Christmas decor. Here’s a peek at what’s there — or at least what was there when I flipped it for the holidays on Monday. Things have already been selling, and I expect a lot more will go on Saturday (November 5, 2022) when the mall — Brown Street Emporium in Oconomowoc — has its big anniversary sale.

My booth is Number 28, which is toward the front and center of the back room. Just look for the Wisconsin Magpie sign hanging across the front of it.

I made the signs and the stockings. The rest of my inventory is a mix of vintage and upcycled decor.

The stockings are made from an old textured bedspread. Sewing is not exactly my forte, but I had a vision for these that kept nagging at me. Eventually I gave in and decided to give them a whirl. Thankfully I found an easy-to-follow tutorial online and was able to crank out the four stockings relatively easily.

I made the sign with the “Silent Night” lyrics on it out of an old beat-up chalkboard. As for the white Christmas trees, they were both summer garage sale finds, although they both had cheap plastic stands on when I bought them. I removed the original stands and cemented the trees into a couple of urns I had around the house. The concrete adds a lot of weight to the bottom of the trees to keep them stable.

The little green tree above is just sitting in the silver trophy. No concrete needed on this guy. It’s stable enough as is, and this way, the tree can be removed after Christmas and you could put something else in the trophy for the rest of the year.

The black cabinet that the white trees are sitting on started out looking like this. A week before I reset my booth for Christmas, I knew I was going to need more display space for all the smalls I wanted to bring in, so I ran out to a thrift store with $20 in my pocket and a promise to myself that I was going to come home with some kind of bookcase/hutch/cabinet that I could use.

I repainted the cabinet, and my husband helped me put the doors on. I also asked him to put the cabinet on wheels, to get it up off the ground, so it was a closer to shoppers’ eye level and easier for me to move around my booth, but it was a little tipsy on the wheels, so sadly, they had to come off.

The cabinet is not for sale. At least not for now. Maybe if I find a replacement for it, I’ll put a price tag on this one. But for now, I need it to display all of the lovely, kitschy vintage Christmas decor I have for sale.

I put all of my more classy (i.e.. the black and white and brass pieces) in a white bookcase that I already had in my booth.

I found this little rocking horse at a thrift store a few months back. It was a cheap unfinished pine piece when I bought it, but I had a vision in my head of it painted and distressed with a string tail and a wreath around his neck for Christmas. I just love how he turned out.

Meanwhile, this duck was just the opposite. He came from a thrift store all painted and perfect looking, and I felt the need to strip the paint off and get him down to the raw wood. If he hasn’t sold before I go in to my booth next, I think I’m going to put a small evergreen wreath around his neck yet, like I did with the rocking horse.

I also have a couple of pairs of ice skates that I upcycled into winter decor by adding a cuff of faux fur trim and some greenery and berries. Aren’t they the sweetest?

Alright, that’s all I have. It’s only a 5′ x 7′ booth after all. If you want to see booth updates as it gets closer to Christmas (and afterwards), follow me on Instagram or Facebook.

— Lisa