Watches, Pens, and the Craft of Analog Living
Ellen Ashford · July 31, 2026
The Watch Under the Rhinestone Brooches It was a Sunday in late October, cold enough that the vendor had draped a moving blanket over the folding table legs, and I almost didn’t stop. The glass case was full of costume jewelry — clip earrings, rhinestone brooches, a string of plastic pearls with a broken clasp. … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 28, 2026
The first thing I do at any garage sale is look for the shoebox. You know the one — taped shut, written on in marker, usually sitting under a card table next to a broken clock and three paperback thrillers. Last June, I paid three dollars for one that said “PENS + STUFF” and spent … Read more
Ellen Ashford · July 24, 2026
The best Parker 51 antique shop find I ever made cost me eight dollars and smelled faintly of old rubber and dust. It was sitting loose in a flat wooden drawer at a shop in Mineral Point, Wisconsin — the kind of place where a display case of arrowheads shares a wall with 1970s Reader’s … Read more