Thrifting finds

I stopped by my local consignment store last week and picked up a couple little items.

How could I not buy this vintage trinket box dotted with my initial (especially when it cost less than $5)? I think it will be perfect for storing jewelry or makeup.

I also picked up a large vintage scarf that reminds me of a combination of Brunschwig & Fils "Les Touches" fabric in red, Louis Vuitton's leopard print scarf, and Kenzo's tiger apparel and accessories. Once the scarf is all twisted and looped up, the bits of leopard peeking out should be a fun look!

Total cost: about $10.

And since we're discussing budget shopping, did anyone pick up some good finds at the Prabal Gurung for Target event? I got a pair of black sandals that will be much used this spring/summer, but the shoes I really wanted are only available online (here and here). My initial impression: the shoes ran a bit small (maybe 1/2 a size), and the clothes weren't really designed for petites. I did love the colors and patterns, though.

Vintage finds

Several of our local flea markets and antique malls are having sales this holiday weekend. I briefly ducked into a flea market yesterday after work and found a couple items, but I'm going back out today with a friend to do more shopping (looking forward to that!).

Here are a few items I found while browsing the aisles this week:

 I bought this set of eight vintage calendar pages from the '40s. Each month portrays a different fairy tale.  These would be so cute framed in a child's room--perfect condition, vivid colors, and only $1.75!

 I also purchased this vintage suede Ruth Saltz cougar bag for under $10. I'm gradually adding to my collection of vintage bags, especially ones with an animal motif.

 I did not buy this vintage snakeskin clutch but am thinking about going back for it. It's in really good condition and I love the black-green coloring.

This ethnic thread art is cute framed in bright red--not bad for $5!

I actually do like the upholstery on this wingback chair, especially the contrast welting, but of course it could be reupholstered as well.

 At $7,000, this ebonized cabinet goes in the category of "just dreaming," but wouldn't it be terrific for housing a large flatscreen TV?

 I do not know what this item is. The handwriting on the tag was illegible, but I love the cobalt glass. I am guessing this is for flowers? At least, I think it would look stunning filled with white flowers and sitting in the middle of a round table in a foyer.

I'm wondering whether I should return for this set of iridescent glasses and decanter. It's a different pattern from the iridescent goblets I purchased last week, but they might look good together.

A very pretty little kidney table, on sale for under $300. I love the details on this piece!

This pheasant weathervane would look terrific on a country barn or a more rustic homestead!

I'm looking forward to doing a bit more shopping today and then having the rest of the long weekend to enjoy! Hope you have a good weekend!

New finds in the new year

Happy 2013 to you all! 

I obviously haven't posted in FOREVER, mostly because I haven't had any time to do house projects or shopping (let me clarify: house decorating shopping; I've done plenty of Christmas shopping, and probably too much clothes shopping!). November and December are super busy for me because I'm on an academic schedule (final exams and grading and committee meetings and all that fun!), but the upside of the academic calendar is almost three weeks off for Christmas. We've enjoyed our vacation time, our first big snowfall, and of course holidays with family and friends, but now it's time to settle back into a more regular routine. I'm hoping to get back to blogging a bit more this year!

I thought I'd start out with a little glimpse of my latest thrifting finds. I swung by one of my favorite flea markets this week for the first time in months and was pleased to see a lot of new items in the booths. Here are a few things that stood out to me:

 

 Super cute set of miniature silhouettes (you can't tell from the picture, but they're probably about 4 inches high) -- I love the red strip in the frame ($25 for the pair)!

 Vintage adventure/detective books ($3 each). The bright covers on these are great, and I love this kind of book (I read so many Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy books when I was a kid).

 I really liked this set of solid wood, hand carved brackets ($20 $10). Once I realized they were marked down 50%, I scooped them up...more pics coming once I figure out a place to put them! :)

Christmas is over, but these vintage ornaments were really pretty ($16 for the set). The colors fade from pink to orange to red...really unusual combination! I would probably have gotten these if there had been some sort of post-holiday markdown (I am so cheap cheap cheap when it comes to thrifting!)

I loved the iridescent goblets that Jenny used to set her table on this Little Green Notebook post last month. When I saw that they were vintage, however, I figured I'd probably never get my hands on a set. So imagine my surprise to find a set of seven this week, for a whopping $4.

As with so many china and glassware items, they looked dusty and dingy on the shelf, but when I got them home and washed them, they looked great! I thought James would like them since he loves all things rainbow-y, but he just muttered, "Um, Mommy, those glasses are weird."

Grand total for this trip: less than $15! Happy New Year!

Vintage domino set

 We're not much of a board game family.  On the rare occasion that we do pull out a game, we usually discover that key pieces are missing, which leads to rummaging through the basement or cabinets, only to come up empty handed but with a brilliant idea: "Hey, let's not play a game right now!"  But knowing that fall is coming soon and that we won't always be able to go out in the afternoon or evening for a walk instead of staying inside to play a game, we're trying to get better at playing some indoor games.

So when I found this set of vintage dominoes at a flea market lately, I thought perhaps it would help us in our resolve.  James likes them because he can stack them like blocks or stand them on their ends before knocking them over, and I like them because they look nice sitting on the coffee table and because they seem vaguely educational (math skills, perhaps?).

The different carvings on the backs are really fun

 Vintage games are pretty common at flea markets and such, although they are sometimes better for collecting or displaying rather than actually playing (due to missing pieces or deteriorating condition).  However, I think these dominoes will get used a lot.

What games do you recommend?  The only one we really like is Trivial Pursuit, and we have a chess board out too, but I know that we need to try new games.

 

Limoges + chocolate

Just a couple shots of this cute little footed bowl I found recently at one of my favorite flea markets.  I love little dishes like this; they are so versatile, and since I buy mostly white pieces, I can also mix and match them easily.

It's marked "Giraud Limoges France," but I don't really know much about the company.  I suppose a little Google-ing could help.

Also, in case you're wondering, the candies are dark chocolate sea salt caramels from Whole Foods.  Yum!

Thrifted -- Demitasse cups

I'm pretty happy with these chinoiserie demitasse cups I found at a local flea market.  They are the perfect size for a little shot of espresso in the afternoon.

 

They also match this vintage tin tray I bought last summer.  We use the tray to corral all our coffee sundries on our kitchen counter.

The little things you handle each day--for me, that definitely includes coffee cups--should be pretty and contribute to the pleasantness of these daily rituals.  That doesn't mean they must be expensive.  These little cups were $1.50--for the set of three!

P.S.--If you like the print on the fabric in the last shot, Williams-Sonoma has aprons, oven mitts, dish towels, and table linens in the same print (now on sale!).  Look for the keyword "Pachar" (more options in store too).

Before and after -- watercolor painting

 I bought this watercolor at a flea market last week.  The tag taped to it read, "Woman in New York," which I think is probably incorrect, though I'm not exactly sure what the setting is.  I tried to research the artist but was unable to dig up anything definitive (the signature says "Marchetto," in case that name is familiar to anyone).

The frame was unremarkable, so I bought a new frame and decided to paint the mat with the same acrylic paint that I used on these etchings to transform the speckled gray mat into a matte ochre that brought out the bits of yellow in the dress worn by the woman in the foreground.  Below, the requisite "before" and "after" pics...

Before

After

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.  In its previous frame, all that gray made the watercolor look dull, but the new ochre mat and the wider frame together draw more attention to the painting's subtle colors, and I think the light blue wall color complements it well.  Total cost for this project: $14 ($6 for painting, $8 for frame and paint, both on sale at Michael's).  Not bad for a classic New York skyline!  :)

English silver and delft

I've been fairly successful in my thrifting adventures lately.  First, I found this English silver sugar and creamer set.  It was fairly tarnished but well-priced ($24 for the two pieces), and I liked the very simple design.

After getting polished a bit, it's looking much better.  I think the sugar bowl would be ideal for sugar cubes, so now I just need to find a set of silver tongs to coordinate with the set.

I also ran across this flower brick in a local consignment shop:

It was mislabeled as an incense burner, which might explain why it hadn't sold and was marked down to 25% off, but I was very happy to take it home for under $10!  This particular brick is only about twenty years old, handpainted by Deborah Sears of Isis Ceramics in Oxford, England, but based on a 18th-century original housed in the Ashmolean Museum.

Apparently, flower bricks were fairly common items in many 18th-century homes and were perhaps used for holding dried lavender.  I like the multi-functionality of this piece: it could be filled with potpourri, small flower buds, and/or a candle.  Sears' website suggests lining up several bricks along the center of a dining table and filling them with an assortment of flowers and candles.

It's made me want to research flower bricks more and perhaps even start keeping an eye out for older versions.  To me, the discovery of novel and unique pieces is one of the best things about thrifting!

China cabinet finds

Thought I'd share a couple finds from my flea market trip last week.  I'm always looking for pieces to add to my collection, and I usually gravitate towards blue and white and gold pieces (no straying from that trend here either!).  First I found this Noritake tray:

It has a gold and a platinum band around the edge, which I like since our Lenox china has a platinum rim, but I collect a lot of china with gold on it.  So this would work with both!  I think it'd be great for a sugar and creamer set, but I might also use it to store perfume bottles on my dresser.  This tray was marked down to $1!

I also got a couple blue and white Rosenthal cups.  The china is very thin, and I really like the matte gold handles.  These were marked 50% off, which was a really good deal!  The original price was $8 each, and the cashier remarked that they were "pricey," which I thought was funny (and indicative of why I shop at this particular flea market!).

A closeup of the gold detail inside the cup: 

Grand total for these three items: less than $10!  Good, right??



Brown and white toile

 

In flipping through the September issue of House Beautiful I ran across this set of dinnerware, a new Juliska pattern called "Country Estates."

It's very pretty stoneware, but pricier than I could afford for a whole set ($22-$175 per piece).  I might be able to swing a couple key pieces.  I particularly like this hostess platter:

The set reminded me a lot of this vintage saucer I found a while back:

I use it to store matchbooks.  My dad travels overseas sometimes for work, so I ask him to bring back matchbooks from around the world; it's pretty difficult to find matchbooks in the U.S. since so many places are now smoke-free.

As I am trying to spruce up the living room a bit, I also bought a yard or two of this brown and white toile fabric:

 A few weeks later the whole bolt got moved to the clearance aisle, and I briefly toyed with the idea of buying it and upholstering some walls (an idea I've wanted to try for a while).  I figured my husband might be a little leery of my arrival with gallons of starch, yards of fabric, and an internet DIY tutorial to guide my plans, so instead I stuck with the idea of making a couple small throw pillows.

I added some brown ball fringe to trim them out (DIY tutorial coming soon!).

Making these pillows, in turn, got me thinking about grander uses of brown toile, such as those in these rooms:

Traditional Home

 via ArchitectsForLife - kind of a greeny-brown

Heather Chadduck

Colefax and Fowler toile via Cote de Texas

I do like other colors of toile, but I always come back to brown as the one I could probably live with the longest (ok, maybe blue too...).  I also think that toile looks good on a big scale, and I admire those people who can swath an entire room in the stuff: wallpaper, bedding, even lamp shades.

For now, I'll stick with my flea market china and my little throw pillows.  And maybe I'll start saving up for some Juliska.

Serendipity

I was walking quickly through a thrift store in December when a little oil painting grabbed my attention amidst the plastic shelves of NASCAR souvenirs and lacquered brass candlesticks.

As soon as I saw it I scooped it up, immediately liking the simple wooden frame and the pretty colors.  Only when I was wandering another aisle did I turn the frame over and see the faded sticker identifying the frame maker.  In turquoise capital letters:

SANTA ROSA BEACH

FLORIDA 32459

When I was a child, my grandparents lived in the Florida panhandle.  Specifically, in Santa Rosa county.  I remember visiting the beach: we would drive over in the morning with energy and a picnic lunch and drive home in the afternoon with stringy, salty hair, shifting around on damp, sandy beach towels in the warm back seat.  I remember the fun of arriving: padding fast over the hot blacktop in the parking lot, running across a rough wooden walkway that cut between the bluffs with their long, tan grasses, then finally slipping and tripping down the white sand toward the gulf.

So a girl from Mississippi, finds a painting of a beach from Florida, in a shop in Iowa...  I took my niece antique shopping and she asked me, "Why do people buy old stuff?"  This is why.

Little blue elephant

I was at a flea market yesterday and spotted this cute vintage blue elephant.  It would be a fun little accessory for a child's room, and I immediately thought of this room by San Francisco design firm Lotus Bleu:

 

Can you see why the ceramic elephant figure reminded me of this room?  I love the framed elephant print and the blue wall color, not to mention the printed window shades, the tole chandelier, and the pink and blue fabrics.  Plus, it appears to be not only pretty, but practical too: open floor space for playing, trundle under the daybed, kid-sized furniture, a useful hamper for clothes or toys.

 

And check out the cute matching bathroom:

You should definitely scroll through Lotus Bleu Interior's portfolio; they have a lot of great projects that I recognized, but I hadn't realized they were responsible for these interiors!

See their photo gallery HERE.

Have a great weekend!