Thursday, December 27, 2012

Church Bazaar

A few weeks back, my mom mentioned that her church was having a Bazaar - there would be a small selection of goods and baking for sale as well as a nice hot lunch served. Since I have read about all the wonderful things people have found at these bazaars, I asked if I could join her.

I am SO glad I did! Here are just a few of the awesome things I brought home that day:


This stoneware bowl is crazed and old but in great condition - how could I NOT get it when it was a mere dollar?


When I peeked into the inside of this clock, I spotted the brass gears and thought it would make a great piece for parts... until I got it home, wound it up with the key and realized it works! And chimes on the hour and half hour!

What a fantastic addition to my studio! I just ADORE it!

Oh and it was a dollar too!


When I spotted some transferware on another table, I saw a sign that said $5. I assumed that was for the teapot.

Nope.... ALL this was $5.


I told my mom that they should have priced these things much higher -- I know I still would have bought them!

Oh, and the baking I brought home was delish too...

:)

Sharing with:


The Thrifty Groove

Friday, December 21, 2012

The Last Vintage Ornies

...at least for THIS year, that is ;)

Yep, I made the rounds to the local Goodwill and Value Village this week on a final hunt for some vintage ornaments. Goodwill had all Christmas stuff 50% off, so everything was ridiculously cheap. I remember my parents having that Greeting Card holder set; to find one still in it's package was a very neat find. The birds were especially cool; love the real feathers - I think I'll save the pink ones for Valentine's Day!

I loved what Jo-Jo did with her vintage Christmas light bulbs; but since I couldn't find our old ones I picked some up at Goodwill for a whole 90 cents....


And since I gave daughter the gold blown glass tree topper I found a few weeks back, I was really pleased to find a silver one for our tree at Value Village for $2.49! The label behind the old Bay price tag says it was made in West Germany.

Speaking of silver, of course I couldn't just leave these behind. I really didn't care that the coffee pot lid was broken; I didn't want it anyway since this will be used to store art supplies / tools!


Each of the three silver bells rings differently - and sound beautiful when rung all together! Pretty nice find for a dollar each. They are now adorning our tree; after the holidays I plan to move them into my studio.

I found the creamer below in the kitchen section of Value Village and then in the bathroom section, I found this bowl... they look like they belong together!


It never ceases to amaze me how many times it takes me to see everything... case in point, I must have gone up and down the aisles four times before I spotted these two birdcages! Doh!


So back to those Christmas lights -- I was going to glitter them like Jo-Jo, but when I simply added them to my silver bowl it seemed a great way to show them off... so for this year at least, this is how I am displaying them.


Maybe next year I'll get out the glitter...

Happy Holidays One And All!!!!

Sharing with:

The Thrifty Groove


Saturday, December 15, 2012

Christmas Decor

As promised, here are a few shots of my living room decorated for the holiday season featuring a few new "old" items I've gathered over the past few weeks. (Yes, there are two cats and a dog in the photo - only Dakotah is missing... this area is a favorite napping spot).


Our floor to ceiling tyndall stone fireplace was draped with the usual greenery, but instead of hanging small ornaments from it as I have done in past years, I added my antique horse / oxen yoke to the mantle and hung two stockings from it's rusty hooks on each end. A few thrift shop felt cardinals and some large pine cones are all that's needed to finish it off.


Oh, that framed piece is a two layer cross stitch I did many years ago; it only comes out at the holidays...


... along with my cross stitch Santa hanging in the entranceway.


Of course I couldn't wait to add my antique sled to the fireplace display... I attached some rope, greenery, antique wooden skates and the old authentic sleigh bells.


Even those $ 10 antlers got a sprucing up with a suede cover, rough rope and a few gold ornaments to celebrate the season:


I've finished my baking and decorating, my cards are in the mail, the turkey is in the freezer - now I can concentrate on finishing shopping and starting wrapping... whew!

Oh, you want to see my cards for this year? Well I made 30 of these:


The stamp is from Stampendous, and when I saw it earlier this summer, I just KNEW I wanted to use it for this year's Christmas cards. I used Copics to colour it in, added a trim using a Martha Stewart punch and a small baker's twine bow.


The "Special Delivery" was cut using my Cricut; it is from the "Sentimentals" cartridge -- a perfect saying to add since that is the name of the stamp!

Now where's that shopping list I started?

Linking up with

Funky Junk Interiors


Saturday, December 1, 2012

Antique Show Treasures

A couple of Fridays ago, a co-worker stopped me in the hall to ask if I was going to the Antique Show that upcoming Sunday. "Show? What show?" I asked... I didn't have a clue and it was only two days away. How did this happen?

I texted daughter and we made our plans. I love these big events, but you have to be there when the doors open. It's always packed with shoppers so we have gotten quite efficient in our attack plan: we split up, do some fast rounds of the tables to pick up the best stuff, then meet up to discuss and point out items we think the other person might still be interested in. We also make a few trips out to the car so we aren't loaded down with bags.

Here are a few smalls I was able to find. Four insulators, including a beautiful turquoise one! A pocketwatch, old needle case, Staffords Violet Stamping Ink bottle in the original box, two early 1900's dumbells (I'll be writing about these later), an old bank money bag and an Edison Recorder box.


For $5 each, I added to the two Pie Birds I have already; now officially it's a "collection" which numbers 7:


Two printer's trays... since they were different and only $10 each, I couldn't pass them up:


These antlers were the first purchase of the day, a mere few minutes after arriving. At only $10, they were a great deal compared to the set I nearly bought a few weeks back priced at $55! I have since covered the base with suede and wrapped in rough rope. They now grace the wall near the Christmas tree, resplendent with gold ornaments hanging from them!


Speaking of Christmas, when I spotted these antique wooden skates, I KNEW they would be perfect to hang on my old sled:


Along with these antique bells on an old leather strap. This is called the "rump strap"; the part of the bells laid over the hindquarters of the horse and the sound they make is incredible... nothing like the cheap knock-off bells; you'd swear a sleigh was coming when these are shaken.They too now adorn my sled, propped up beside our fireplace (I promise, photos of that will come soon):


This great old piece of wood and steel is an antique yoke! Used for mules, oxen, or horses for plows and buggies. I am sure the fellow who sold it to me (for only $15!) was wondering what the heck I wanted it for... it's huge and heavy, but it fit perfectly on my mantle and now has two stockings hanging from those great old rusty hooks!


After Christmas I plan to make it a permanent wall decoration.


After we got home, I found the exact same yoke online, for $75 that was well over 100 years old. Awesome...


Yep, it was a great show; even daughter picked up some really cool vintage goodies for her home too.

Lucky for us the people at work know I love to shop for the old and rusty!

Linking up with:



Thursday, November 29, 2012

A Vintage Christmas

This year I've been adding a few vintage items into my Christmas decor... previously I really didn't have a "theme" per se, other than my growing collection of reindeer. Wherever I traveled, I would be sure to pick up a deer to add to my tree or home somewhere during the holiday season, but those were all new items.

That has definitely changed this year. I'm loving the look my antiques and thrift store treasures are adding to my holiday decorations... while shopping for antiques for my studio, I've picked up a few older reindeer over the past year or so too:



I found the cutie with sleigh on eBay and it arrived here at the "Christmas Capital of Canada" (yep, Winnipeg's official title!) from warm, sunny Florida literally minutes ago!



And here are some recent finds at my local Goodwill and secondhand shops.

These great felt and feather cardinals from Goodwill...


... hiding inside a huge bag of greenery, bird's nests and pine cones. Two dollars for it all. They look great tucked into the pine boughs on my fireplace mantel.


The beautiful wired ribbon was 50 cents a roll. I also discovered these two treasures from Christmas past:


I was looking for a new (hopefully vintage!) tree topper for our smaller Christmas tree this year. So awesome to find this old blown glass topper in perfect condition, still in it's original box for a mere dollar! Then of course I HAD to bring home the little reindeer for only 49 cents; still encased in it's plastic bag...

These are a great addition to my other blown glass ornaments I got free this year at a local second-hand shop (see more about them HERE).


My next post will feature the wonderful treasures I found at a large Antique Show a few weeks back, and then I'll follow it up with a post on how I'm adding some into our living room holiday decor.

Sharing with:


The Thrifty Groove

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

White Wreath

With the advent of Pinterest, I have found so many wonderful projects I've wanted to try my hand at: the latest being a white pine cone wreath with red cardinals. Isn't this beautiful? I pinned it from Diedre's Simply Simplisticated blog. Her's was incredible too.


I already had collected a few pine cones used in my autumn decor last month; but not enough for a wreath. So I ventured out to my backyard where we have over 20 pine trees; I knew there were plenty of pine cones just waiting for me out there!

Only I had forgotten one important thing; it had snowed and my treasures were now completely hidden from view under a blanket of white... so I was only able to gather a few that had fallen on the tree boughs.

* Sigh *

Then I realized my cones were not elongated like the original.  

Oh well...

I had already picked up white spray paint, three cardinals and some red berries at Michaels, so I was determined to still create something.

Using a wreath base I found at Goodwill, here's my version:


I will admit this wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.

After about four or five coats of white spray paint (spraying everything in a box in the basement since it was -30 with the windchill outside), I gave up... the cones and wreath were just soaking the paint up and not turning the nice bright white I wanted. I finally resorted to hand-painting the cones with watered-down white acrylic paint to get them looking white - ish.


And because I made the mistake of painting them BEFORE I assembled it, my hot glue was not adhering correctly; the cones were falling off once the glue hardened.

Gad.

Thank goodness I just bought a whole new tube of E6000 glue - it did the job after I held the cones in place for a few minutes to set.

The birds and berries were just wired into the wreath, and a wire was attached to the top for hanging.


I do like the partial wreath design; my take but not a direct copy of the Pinterest inspiration.

Hopefully if you want to make one of these beautiful decorations, you'll learn from my mistakes!



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