Estate sale goodies!

What a lovely weekend I've had! My dear Dad came to visit for a few days, we attended a pair of graduation parties where I got to visit with my extended families, the weather was finally WARM (albeit super-windy), there was outlet mall shopping, a kid-free getaway night at a nice downtown hotel for FREE, a late dinner at a fancy restaurant, pretty shoes, an unexpected estate sale, and the LOST finale. Whew! I don't know that we could have packed in any more goodness if we'd tried.

I haven't even unpacked the goodies from Saturday's surprise estate sale, but I wanted to show you what I found last week. Even though I had the kiddos with me, I was able to hit a few estate sales and came away with treasures, such as:

vintage Christmas goodies including two neat corsages (LOVE the pink & purple one!), a strand of glass beads and neat shaped ornies

vintage candles (the altar boys are Gurley, don't know about the angels & snowman--Standard Oil, maybe?)

Vintage Christmas seals, twisty foil, garland, and a Christmas card file box that contained a card that made me laugh out loud (click to enlarge so you can read it)

More vintage Christmas, including a couple of tree toppers for my collection

Vintage earrings for crafting, pipe cleaners (etsy-bound) and gold glitter

A cute aqua blue tablecloth (probably headed to etsy

 A picnic or beach towel with bright happy toadstools (headed to etsy)

And this darling bag made of a vintage tablecloth and a chenille bedspread

So if that's the loot I found with two kids in tow, can you imagine what I could have scored if I'd been solo? I actually would have bought more boxes of vintage Shiny Brites, because the price she quoted me when I got to the checkout was even cheaper than they were marked--but my arms were full of Octo-Baby Porter and trying to carry boxes of fragile glass ornaments likely wouldn't have ended well. Oh well, I found lots of good stuff, we found a fun new park for Maren, and we all got out of the house, so I'm not going to worry about the what ifs! Plus when I've just had such a good weekend, it seems more than a bit ungrateful to complain! 

Did you find any *good junk* this weekend? What did you think about the LOST finale?

Weather, more about decorating above your kitchen cabinets, and thrifted vintage pottery

They say in Colorado if you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes, an adage that has proved too true this week. Over the past 48 hours we've had sun, rain, warm, cold, fog, hail, a tornado warning, and even snow. No kidding! The tornado warning was exciting: we'd gone to visit The Mister at work for Take Your Kids To Work Day and were summarily ushered into the first floor hallways by uniformed men with guns...okay, the uniformed men with guns part was not all that scary, since The Mister works at the state National Guard HQ and such a sight is pretty commonplace. :) But the strangely colored clouds and downpour that accompanied the tornado warning were enough to scare Maren, who hasn't forgotten last year's tornadic experience.

The kitchen cabinets project from my previous post is still in the early stages. Right now is probably the hardest part for me--deciding what can stay and what has to go. Deciding which of my hard-won thrifted vintage treasures has to go is like deciding which children to give up! Okay, I'm being melodramatic, but really, I love all that *junque* and it's going to be a tough decision. Obviously the Jadeite stays, but the other items will be require more pondering. I do want to highlight Kayla's brilliant suggestion, in case you didn't see it in the comments: in our area, it seems we are getting new phone books delivered every few months, so Kayla uses those to elevate items atop her kitchen cabinets. I think that's such a great idea, and now I can't wait until we get phone books again, so I can go ask my neighbors if I can have their books!

And for pretty pictures today, how about some of my recent thrift finds?

Both of these items are from my small-town thrifting in February. There's a thrift store I frequent in Alamosa that skims any old or interesting donations so it can price them higher and place them in the "boutique" in the back of the store. I understand they're doing this to make money for their charity, but the result is that most of the dishware/knick knacks that actually make it to the "thrift" section of the store are pure junk.The old white flower pot was in the "boutique" portion of the store; it's got a lovely crazed finish and a great fluted pattern. It was originally marked $6.00--a price I would have willingly paid--but the cashier knocked it down to $4.00. That makes the price of the pink striped Pyrex bowl even more ridiculous--it was also $6.00, but it was in the "thrift" section of the store, and that price is downright astronomical for that area. Stupid, but I wanted it BAD--pink Pyrex, hello!--so I paid even though it was overpriced.

The next items I found last week when a kind friend arranged a playdate for Maren with her girls, a move that very possibly averted a domestic incident as it was Week 3 of off-track and following a weekend that The Mister had to work, so I hadn't had any kid-free time in days and days and days. I made a beeline to the thrift for some therapy and found this gem:

I've been looking for one of these beautifully-colored vintage pottery urns for ages, and I regularly covet them on blogs and in the pages of magazines. I was SO excited to find this one in a beautiful shade of blue! It's not the aqua blue that I usually look for, but it's a gorgeous color and will look pretty with the other pottery I have in shades of turquoise and pale green. There are a couple of large chips but I can just turn them towards the back. This has to be one of my favorite finds in a long, long time.

Also that day I found this sweet vintage handpainted Noritake sugar bowl (can't decide whether to keep or sell) and this fab pale green Bauer planter. It also has a large chip, but again I can turn it toward the back and no one will be the wiser. I've been looking for more green/aqua dishes for a future project in my master bath, so this fit the bill nicely.

The lousy weather & a traveling husband means there will be no garage or estate sale shopping for me this weekend. We'll likely stay inside where it's dry and cozy--goodness knows I have a million and one projects I can be working on around the house. What are your weekend plans?

Giveaway winner and Thrift Thursday finds

And the winner of the Everyday is a Holiday cupcake cards is...

Debby from The Gathering Nest! Yay Debby! Send me an email with your mailing address using the link over there to the left and I'll get your cute cards in the mail to you! Thank you all for your comments.

Today I also have a few recent *good junque* finds to share.

This cool vintage tinsel tree was from the awesome estate sale I blogged about a few weeks ago, but I forgot to include the photo then. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the tinsel is a mix of magenta and orange, and the branches are actually loops. It sits in a glittered white wooden stand and is marked Italy. It came with one lone glittery bird still wired to the branch--wish I could have found the rest of the flock! This will probably end up in my etsy shop around the holidays because it's neat, but doesn't match my decor.

This jewelry set was a find from a small-town thrifting trip back in January. I bought it right before I took my blogging break so I never got around to sharing it, but I LOVE it so much that I just had to show it off! The bracelet is one of those funky hinged cuffs, and is made of brown plastic and set with dozens of gorgeous aurora borealis crystals. All of the crystals in the cuff and the matching earrings are intact and have their iridescent finish, which is rare for a piece with that many stones. It's gorgeous and was a steal at $7!

This last item was actually gifted to me by a sweet friend. She was changing her decor and remembered that I love old stuff, so thought I might like it. She was right! It's now displayed in Porter's bedroom, where I think it works well with the other vintage space-themed items, and the bright primary colors are just perfect!

I was able to get out and do some thrifting yesterday, thanks to a kind friend who invited Maren over for the morning to play with her girls. Found some good stuff, and when it's all washed/ironed I'll be sure to post it!

Easter egg swap & more estate sale goodies

This post comprises the extent of my Easter decorating this year. Pitiful, I know--especially since I adore my Easter decorations, so it's a shame not to be able to enjoy them. I'm going to blame the two weeks of chaos around Maren's birthday: by the time they were over, I was tired of messes and there was only a week left until Easter, which just wasn't enough time for me to get everything out.

Good thing I participated in Shara's Egg-stra Fun Swap, because they will have to stand in for the decorating I didn't do! I received my swap items yesterday and opening that box of goodies was most definitely the highlight of my day. Such lovely work from everyone! I'm just tickled. Now that boxes are being received, I think I can safely show my contribution to the swap:

I saw these beautiful golden eggs and remembered that I had some sheets of (imitation) gold leaf stashed away in my craft supplies. I covered papier mache eggs from Hobby Lobby with spray adhesive, then gently applied the gold leaf to each one. They're accented with a belt of white or cream velvet ribbon and one of my stash of pearly vintage earrings. The eggs turned out much simpler than I had initially envisioned them, but I think they're pretty. And using up the gold leaf that I've been toting around for oh, at least 10 years now yet again justified my tendencies toward pack-rattery.

I did manage to find two Easter decorations at the estate sale I posted about yesterday. I know there was more good stuff, but that's all I could manage to wrestle past Porter's grasping arms and get safely in my bag.

This basket came wrapped in its original cellophane wrapper with a tag from a place called Blum's in San Francisco. Googling (or Topeka-ing yesterday) turned up that Blum's was a bakery/restaurant in among the fancy department stores that closed in the mid-1970s.Why the owner never removed the cellophane (and petrified piece of candy I found inside) after 30+ years, we'll never know.

I bought this for the bunny pick that's tied to the basket. The basket itself is a bit much for my taste, so it may end up in the ol' etsy shop. Here's the bunny pick closer up:

What I will ever do with it, I have no idea. It's cute, though! The only other Easter item I bought at the sale was one lone pink Gurley bunny candle.

We're planning a low-key Easter weekend around here. Maren has been sick since early yesterday morning, The Mister has been late getting home every single night this week and I because Maren's off-track from school, I haven't had the opportunity to do any shopping or errands without the kids and I'm going a bit Mommy-crazy. The Easter Bunny visits our house tomorrow morning, the day before Easter, and I still need to find a basket for Maren and get the eggs filled. It may be a late night for this Bunny!

Thrift Thursday--JUNK HEAVEN estate sale edition

A couple of weeks ago I saw an estate sale listing that sounded like JUNK HEAVEN. The ladies running it said that the house was so packed it took them two weeks to go through it all (double the normal time) and posted teaser pictures on Facebook that had my mouth watering! Only problem--it was WAY across town (we're talking a 45 minute drive) and ran Wed-Fri 9-2 pm so there was little chance I could get a babysitter for the kids so that I could go alone. I was disappointed but pretty much resigned myself to not going.

(embossed aluminum Baby cup, vintage birthday candles, minty green velvet ribbon with beads and sequin stars)

Thursday morning I had to run an errand that took me halfway across town. I was already far from home, Maren had movies to watch and we'd all been fed, so I decided--what the heck--and we drove to the sale. Going estate sale shopping with my two children in tow is not my idea of JUNK HEAVEN. It's somewhere SOUTH of that, if you know what I mean. But sometimes, you have to do hard things to get the good junk, so I put Porter in the Snugli strapped to my chest, grabbed Maren's hand and a reusable shopping bag and headed into the fray.

(Ovenex starburst loaf pan, yummy vintage ornaments)

The organizers weren't exaggerating--it was JUNK HEAVEN. The house was packed to the gills, even towards the end of Day #2, and the prices were CHEAP! There was a ton of holiday stuff, vintage clothing, sewing junk, etc. And did I mention it was cheap? By the time I got there everything was 20% off of the already low prices (especially for a professionally-run estate sale).

 (Assorted vintage Christmas goodness)

Shopping with the kids--well, it was a pain. Porter was like an octopus, grabbing everything within reach of his chubby little arms. Maren complained and asked if it was time to go approximately every two minutes. I'm sure if I had been by myself I could have found a lot more goodies, but as it was I felt like my loot made the hassle worth it.

 (cute vintage pumpkin, handmade felt cowboy boot Christmas stocking with "Donny" in tiny silver rickrack, wide satin ribbons)

When I came home I stashed the bag under my desk and launched right into my weekend birthday-party-and -houseguest-marathon, so I didn't get to pull it all out and look at it until today. And these pictures don't show everything I picked up--one item is still at the dry cleaner, I have Easter stuff to post tomorrow and I still have to air out the mother lode of vintage Christmas wrapping paper I found, because it's so musty that the smell just about knocked me over when I opened the garbage bag I brought it all home in (if that gives you any clue to how much of it there is!) Finding all that good junk made me excited for yard sales season to begin!

Black and white and tan all over

I don't tend to gravitate towards neutrals in my decorating--my front room walls are deep red, the family room is navy--and although I love the serene visuals of all-white rooms I see in magazines, that's just not practical for my life (and to all those people who say all-white homes with kids and pets are just SO simple and livable and easy--I say, liar liar pants on fire).

So it's different territory for me to be in a black and white phase in my front room, the location of the hutch from yesterday's post. I was feeling it even before Christmas, when the lovely creamy package I received from Kelly in the Sparkling Winter White swap really spoke to me in the midst of the the colorful Shiny Brites that spell holiday decor in my home. Even though I decorated with traditional reds for Valentine's Day, I couldn't shake the neutral color scheme rolling around in the back of my head, so as soon as the hearts and cupids were put away, I broke out the beige.

I kept the mercury glass candlesticks and white pillars from Valentine's Day, but replaced the red ribbons and heart ornaments with strips of burlap (left over from my cork board makeover) and various black and white ribbons from my stash.

I filled one glass jar with old spools of brown and black thread, and a larger apothecary jar on the other side with Styrofoam balls that I wrapped with jute twine while I watched ice skating on the Olympics.

I saw that idea somewhere on a blog but I can't remember where to give credit, I'm afraid. They were easy enough (various-sized thrifted Styrofoam balls, a $1.99 ball of jute and a tube of special glue for Styrofoam) and kept my hands busy. I had planned to make more of the larger size, but once the twine was glued on they were too big to fit through the opening of the jar! The little white ceramic birdie was from JoAnn's before Christmas.

On my little white dresser I have a few more silvers and whites, nearly all thrifted. The silver bowl atop a silver tray is filled with dried white beans that support an antique photo of a baby in a white knitted snowsuit & hat, a card of vintage black buttons with the greatest "Paris" graphic, and an old silver baby cup.

The large jar holds a grouping of white balls of crochet thread, all of which I purchased for a dime or a quarter apiece at one of my favorite small-town thrifts in February.

Next to the jar are two thrifted, lidless silver sugar bowls. One holds a collection of silver spoons, and the other holds the one thread ball that wouldn't fit in the jar!

On my white bench I have a skinny metal basket filled with an antique ironstone pitcher (bought to sell someday, but I love it too much right now), my two silver trophies and a pair of candy apple-red frames that add a fun surprise of color in all the neutrals. I found the frames on clearance for $1.20 each at Hobby Lobby (cheaper than the thrift!) and they still lack photos in them more than a month later. Whoops.

The last bit of my neutral decor is on the round table in the room. I haven't had my beloved (thrifted for $9, and YES you may be jealous of me) cloche out for a while so it was high time I used it again. On the zinc platter is a crocheted doily The Mister brought back from Portugal, an old ironstone bowl filled with Scrabble tiles, and a nest containing a sweet silver mercury glass birdie. To dress up the cloche itself I used scraps of black and white ribbons (to mirror those on my candlesticks), jute (to mirror the jute balls), a tiny silver spoon, a chandelier crystal, and a curtain ring clip attached to a vintage-style flashcard that I bought from Andrea a few years ago.

The neutral thing won't last forever with me--I'll be back to my favorite bright reds and turquoise blues soon enough, but it's nice to try something new for a while, isn't it?

Tuesday Thrift Finds

Treasures from a few recent thrifting jaunts:
Vintage tablecloths (jadeite green and a faded cross-stitch pattern) and a great vintage green floral dishcloth,

A BIG stack of vintage hankies, a piece of matte white Hall (edited: It's actually HULL, not Hall) pottery, and a 'yard-long' photo (that one was purchased at an antique store, I wasn't lucky enough to thrift it).

Good junk!

Yes Heidi, there is a Santa Claus...

...I know this because who else would have left all these treasures at the thrift for me to find on Tuesday evening, and at 50% no less?

The biggest, fluffiest bottle-brush wreath I've EVER seen...A kitschy-cool plastic wreath in non-traditional colors...
Two unused linen tea towels, still sporting their labels...
A length of vintage patterned yardage...
Felt + beads + sequin goodness...
Vintage plastic ornaments, perfect for next Christmas when I'll have a 15-month-old little boy on the loose...
A bag full of the type of vintage ornaments that make you literally catch your breath and sprint to get the bag in your cart before anybody else spots the treasures therein...

Ornaments that will make it hard to decide whether to keep or sell...
The most perfect shade of aqua... (speaking of which, did you see this? WORD.)

And tarnished silver for which the cashier gave me 50% off, even though it isn't strictly Christmas decor...

The Fat Man came through for me this week in a big way, and I hope he pays a visit to you tonight!

It's Rednesday and Vintage Christmas Monday (two days late)

I've been out of town so I'm a bit behind at blogging. Actually, I'm a bit behind in life in general right now, but I'm doing my best to get out of the weeds...

For Sue's Rednesday party, I have this to share:a vintage Rudolph story book that I bought on Monday at an antique store. It's not in great shape (taped spine, ick) but it was el cheapo and it's cute and I can read it to Maren. It's flanked by two vintage flocked red reindeer, both found this year in my thrifting.

I'm two days late but I'm going to join Joan's Vintage Christmas Monday for this week anyway. These photos are of some of the vintage Christmas lovelies at my parents' house. It's fun to share an addiction, although I suffer a far more severe case than they have!

I believe this neat Santa candy container came from a garage sale, lovingly stored in its original box:

Another set of St. Nick and his coursers, this one I found at a thrift and gave to my dad:
This snowman ornament belonged to my great-grandpa and my dad found it in his shed. It has a hole in one side (about 1.5" diameter) and was found with red cellophane sticking out of the hole. We can't figure out what it is--does anyone have any ideas? My first thought was a candy container but it seems a bit impractical for that because the hole is so small. We're stumped!

I bought this tree topper from an antique store. Love the graphics and bright red and green!
And some favorite ornaments from the tree: