Ocean Grove Fall Flea Market 2017

Oh heyyyy! Yeah, I know. We said we'd be around more often. #life. What can ya do?

I know that as a small business owner having a blog is a great thing. You can share behind the scenes studio bits & show new designs or whatever. But for us the blog has always been more personal. It's something we did "for fun" and as a way to reach out to like minded friends...like you. Of course we'll still share some behind the scenes biz stuff, but today's post is all about fun.
So with that being said...we had some FUN this weekend and we thought we'd share! 

See this sleepy eyed duo above? Well they hopped the train to Asbury Park for the big Ocean Grove Fall Flea. If you are a long time reader you know that we have been going to the flea for years! Ocean Grove is a tiny town full of Victorian architecture, Bed & Breakfasts, candy colored tent houses, old time-y ice cream parlors and shops, set right on the Atlantic Ocean. It is a stone's throw from Asbury Park. Yes, Bruce's Asbury Park. Home of The Stone Pony. And both these towns happen to be a short train ride away for us, which makes for the perfect day trip.  

So once you get off the train you have to walk through Asbury to get to Ocean Grove. Which is perfect because Purple Glaze donuts is in Asbury. So we always stop in for an early morning sugar fix. 

Some friends had mentioned seeing one of our donut plaques hanging on the wall at Purple Glaze, and they were right! We didn't remember shipping a donut to Purple Glaze, so we asked them where they got it. Well it turns out that one of their customers, an 8 year old kid they nicknamed "The Donut Ambassador," gifted it to them. Love it! 

In addition to their already amazing menu, Purple Glaze offers Vegan donuts! And they are GREAT! We got a coconut cream with toasted coconut, a chocolate with chocolate glaze and peanut butter drizzle, a chocolate/chocolate with marshmallow drizzle, and a classic vanilla glazed. They were SO GOOD! 

After our donuts we walked over to O.G. and passed one of our favorite rows of tent houses. How adorable is this one? That vintage clown cookie jar is everything! It brings so much personality to the house. 

We all know Jenny & Aaron brake for pastels. Too bad these prices were kinda bananas for a flea market. $10.00 for the pink planter wasn't awful, but most vases were like $40-$65. I was hoping for $10 and under. 

Some of you may remember that my fave find at last year's Spring Flea was one of these vintage boxed shell collections. Well I'm still on the hunt for these and would love a bunch more of them. I was hoping to find one with a pink background or more of an aqua background. I passed on these two, but now I'm wishing that I grabbed this yellow one. 

How adorable are these vintage S&P shakers? If the pink ones were Atlantic City I woulda bought them. Yeah I know...I'm so particular. ha! 

Here's a happy Aaron holding a "bucket" of our favorite flea market beverage! Caribbean iced tea! It's so so tasty. It's flavored with all sorts of fruit and lemons. Pretty sure any of our Southern friends would totally be into it. Not sure if Caribbean iced tea is a Jersey thing, but if it is I'd say it's the closest thing to Sweet Tea we have! 

These guys in the kettle corn tent were working like lunatics! People love their kettle corn! 

Pretzels. We love pretzels. And yep... pass the mustard! 

 This gal woulda looked perfect in our vintage seashore bathroom, but $30 was too rich for my blood.  

Look at this BEAUTY! I think I made some weird sounds when I saw her! Perfect condition. I don't think it was ever used! They were asking $129.00, which I'm sure is "book value" but totally not in my budget. I really hope it went to the perfect home! Geez, she's a beauty! 

I'm a big fan of nuts. We have some vintage paper mache nut candy containers on our mantel, and I'm currently looking for a peanut cookie jar...or would it be a nut jar? We'll most likely keep peanuts in it for our favorite neighborhood squirrels. 

Of course I stopped. 

Vintage Christmas collectibles are some of our faves!! 

If you're at a flea market in Jersey nearly every vendor has at least one Bruce item for sale. Bruuuuuuuce. 

bebe bun. 

Faces of the Flea

We LOVE the postcard people. They've been setting up at the flea since the beginning. You could seriously spend HOURS digging through these boxes. Aaron was looking at old postcards of our town and I was looking at all the old Wildwood NJ motel postcards. My favorite!!

The skies were picture perfect! The bluest blue with big fluffy white clouds! 

I could do a lot with this house. That upstairs sun room is dreamy. Right on the ocean too!

Of course we had to stop at our favorite dog treat lady's table. Me & My Dog Pet Bakery. We've been buying from her for about a decade!! Everything she does is perfection! 

On the train on the way to the flea we decided that Squirrel items were at the top of our list for the day. Would you believe we didn't find one! Well, except for these treats. 

Yeah, squirrels...that's a blog post for the near future. The adorable little guys who visit our deck every day have us obsessed. Not kidding. 

These chairs made us stop in our tracks. So good, so weird, so retro. And anyone that follows @jengotch (stories) on Instagram would prob chuckle. ;)

I mentioned this in the previous post...I have always loved beach souvenir shops. Some of my happiest memories are of the Wildwood NJ boardwalk and those souvenir shops! Shell mobiles, sun hats, souvenir plates, photo albums, trinket boxes etc...

Right there on the OG Boardwalk is one of the BEST beach souvenir shops ever! It really has everything you'd want! T-shirts, towels, chairs, magnets, mugs, sunglasses, kites, shell decor...

seriously everything! 

Some of you may be familiar with this face, and for those that aren't, his name is Tillie! He's Asbury Park's mascot! A similar grinning face was once the mascot of Coney Island.  You can read a bit more about him here. 

Here he is painted on the Wonder Bar. How FUN is this building?

Madam Marie, an Asbury Park icon. You can read more here.

Cutest little boardwalk crepe shop. 

After the Flea we walked back over to Asbury Park to grab something to eat. Being that Asbury is super vegan friendly we had lots of choices. We were both in the mood for pizza so Crust & Crumble it was! We had the best vegan mozzarella sticks and some killer vegan pizza with sausage, cashew ricotta, mozzarella, pesto, marinara and roasted peppers. 

Then finished the day watching swan boats on the lake and eating chocolate chip cookies and this perfect slice of carrot cake from Twisted Tree Cafe. 

Here's a little video of our day.

The Ocean Grove flea market never disappoints. Even if you come home with barely any treasures, there's so much to do and see in OG and Asbury. Especially when the weather is as perfect as it was this past Saturday. 

Ok, hope to be back soon!

Love from the Jersey Shore, 

xo Jenny...and Aaron

We're still here

Me and Aaron are always trying to figure out the best ways to spend our time...well not our time really, but our energy. It feels like you're only allotted a certain amount of creative energy each day, and the trick is figuring out when and how that energy works best for you. Example...if we want to do a new painting and we want to organize the studio as well, Aaron will insist that we do the painting first because we'll be able to put our purest, cleanest, brightest energy into it. And then way later, after a long and challenging creative day we can organize the studio without the pressure of the new painting looming over us. Because when you're an artist, your next painting is the most important painting in your life. So every other task on that given day should come second. It seems simple, and you'd think after 20 years of being a working artist you'd have it all figured out...but nope. You're constantly re-writing and reinforcing your "rules".

Which leads me to this...this blog post that I'm writing after a million months of not blogging. This blog is something I really want to do...something that both me and Aaron really want to do. But we get lost in the countless other daily tasks and the blog gets tossed on the remainder pile. And I really wish that it didn't. Because it should be a priority. It's one more extension of our creative selves that we feel is pretty vital. 

So we're really trying to get a handle on the good things lately. Like taking time to go into the city, or go to an eatery we've been dying to go to, or just to walk up to the beach after we ship out that day's stack of packages. The beach is like a couple blocks away, and regardless of the current cold temps, it's the perfect place to hit the reset button and focus on a huge expanse of sky and sea and sand, rather than the screen of a handheld device.

We're not on the ocean, we're on the bayshore. So on calm days there's barely a ripple on the surface of the water and it's as close to silent as a beach can be.

Giant hunks of stuff like this are always washing up on the shore, and you wonder when and how this massive block of wood and metal broke off of whatever it was attached to. (note: when I was typing the previous sentence I said "hey Aar, if I'm talking about stuff washing up on the beach, what word can I use in place of "stuff"? And the bookworm instantly answered "detritus". To which I answered "well, I guess I'm sticking with "stuff."' haha!)

Ok...so we're constantly referencing whatever show we're currently obsessed with. Our fave show right now is Taboo on FX. Sooooo good! It's got Tom Hardy being his usual odd self...stalking around with fierce purpose, brooding, and half the time he's grunting instead of talking. Anyway, the show takes place in the early 1800s when the East India Trading Company pretty much ruled the world. So when we saw this giant slab we of course were like "hey, this thing could've broke off some East India Trading barge like 200 years ago."

Yeah, we're dorks...I never said we weren't. 

We always walk down to this giant storm drainage pipe because...well because it's there. No other reason really. haha! 

ps. giant platform boots aren't meant for rock climbing.

I love the contrast of the bright orange rusted rocks against the wintery blue monochrome beachscape.
Also, it's kinda hard to see in these pics, but directly across the bay is NYC. At night you can see it more distinctly...to the left is Staten Island, in the middle is Manahattan, and on the right you can clearly see the colorful blinking lights of Coney Island.
Our drive to NY takes a little under an hour.

When the tide is high these rocks are almost completely submerged.

I know our beach isn't the most exciting place in the world, but I don't know what we'd do without it. There have been so many heavy times, stressful times, and also perfectly pleasant times, when just a little walk up on the beach was exactly what we needed that day. 

Anyway, to get back to what I was saying about creative energy at the beginning of this post...I'm really gonna try to make this blog one of our priorities. Also we're gonna share lots more food and recipes. We actually just started a second Instagram account that will be dedicated to cooking, eating, health & exercise, etc... This will also give us an excuse to get out more and visit all the vegan food spots we've stalking.

Hopefully we'll have so much more personal interaction with you guys in the coming months. That was sort've our only New Year's resolution...just to get out there more, be more present, and don't let weeks slip by unnoticed. We're going to try to put the good things at the top of the list each day. 

xo Jenny & Aaron