Last week I sold this stunning pink onion bud vase pair. And I had absolutely no idea where they were!!
As a buyer, you see the listing. You never see what happens next.
It is not all about the early mornings at the market, the thrill of spotting something extraordinary in a crate of chaos, the satisfaction of a clean photograph or a well-written listing. Nobody tells you about the days that follow a sale when you cannot put your hands on the thing you just sold.
Let me walk you through how a piece actually moves from market to listing — because this is where the chaos lives, and where the story makes sense.
It starts at the market. I find something. Sometimes I share it on Instagram straight away — an unedited, unfiltered find, still dusty, still full of potential. People love those posts, and honestly, so do I. There is something honest about showing a piece before it has been transformed.
Then it gets packed away. Why? Because my photo station — a dedicated space in my shop that depends entirely on natural light — is almost always occupied. Washed pieces waiting to be photographed. Pieces that arrived before the light was right. Pieces that need a second look. New finds cannot jump the queue, even if they are washed and ready for photos.
So the process goes: source, tease on Instagram if the moment is right, pack away. Then, when time allows, I wash in bulk, photograph in bulk, wrap and pack away again. I download the images to my PC, but the editing, the research, the writing — that could happen anywhere from three days to three weeks later, depending on what else is happening.
In the meantime, those clean, ready-to-list pieces live in crates. Crates that get stacked. Crates that get moved. And when I finally list an item and go into the shop to attach the sticker to the physical piece — sometimes the crate it is in is not where I think it is.
That is exactly what happened with the bud vases.
I listed them. They sold. And then the scavenger hunt began.
You see, when you have limited space, you try to squeeze as much into a crate as humanly possible. These small pink vases were left over from a July sourcing run, but the July crates were already full to the brim. So, I had a "clever" idea. I tucked them safely into an August crate instead, and neatly labelled it JULY / AUGUST CRATE. Problem solved, right?
Wrong. Because that specific crate then got stacked at the very bottom of a heavy, five-crate tower.
When the order came in, my brain only remembered the word "July." I searched my July stock up and down. Nothing. Panic set in. I then proceeded to unpack and repack 70 unlisted crates — I kid you not — convinced they had vanished into thin air.
After sweating through the entire backroom, I finally went back to that original five-crate stack, hauled them apart, and looked at the very bottom. Murphy's Law: it is always in the last place you look, sitting inside the custom-matted hybrid crate I had entirely forgotten creating. Wrapped carefully. Completely unharmed.
The relief was physical.
Full transparency? The bud vases had to wait a little longer than expected because I was up on the roof cleaning the sheets when the order came in. I saw the notification, thought “new listing, no problem” — and climbed back down to find them. Famous last words.
Here is what that experience reinforced for me:
The find is only half the job. The other half is the system that keeps the find safe, traceable, and shippable. Every piece needs a home in your storage, a label that means something, and a process that does not rely entirely on memory — because memory, under pressure, is unreliable.
Slow down. Label properly. Perhaps keep those listings in draft format until you have indeed placed the sticker in the correct crate, lol. Trust the process you build, and keep building it.
The vases are gone now. In the hands of someone who clearly has excellent taste, and a whole lot of patience. Thank you so much for your support!
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If you want to follow the real story — the finds, the chaos, the process, and the pieces — subscribe to the Curator’s Vault newsletter. Every Thursday, straight to your inbox: new arrivals, this week’s Vault theme, and the occasional behind-the-scenes moment just like this one.
— Ina Lubbe, Purveyor of Vintage Treasure
Shift2ThriftVintage • Est. 2024 • Curated Vintage, South Africa • shift2thriftvintage.co.za
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