A Small Rummage Haul

A few days ago, I managed to steal a few moments to hit a church rummage sale. This particular sale is one of my favorites, but I must say, this time around the finds were fewer and farther between. I had fun and scored a few treasures, but let me put it this way: I didn't have to make two trips to the car or anything. (Always the sign of a great sale!)

Here's what I found: a precious vintage style baby's wool felt cap, with a label inside that states it is handcrafted by Canadian eskimos. A rather sweet find! Too bad my babies are too big to wear this darling little cap.

At the holiday table, I uncovered a ratty plastic bag with several vintage cookie cutters inside, yay!

These old fashioned paper cutouts were also hidden among the holiday treasures:

And I couldn't resist this old nativity scene with miscellaneous wisemen (but probably should have!):

I picked through an entire shoebox of uninteresting Christmas ornaments and came up with just one I wanted to take home:

The dishes and kitchenware table was woeful this year. All I found was this colorful vintage tin.

The toy table proved a little more rewarding. I found another old Monopoly game, with all the silver game pieces, houses, hotels and dice. Unfortunately, the board and paper pieces were musty and stained, but I really only wanted the hardware anyway. Nice find.

 

Someone had placed these vintage (c. 1980s) Wilton cake decorations among the toys, but I have a sharp eye and knew just what they were! 

And finally, I picked out these two pieces from the frame department. I have since removed the mirror from the scrolled piece and painted it a bright pink for my daughter's room. It looks so cute I am probably not going to replace the mirror--I bought a paper mache "C" at the crafts store and we are going to frame her initial instead. The second frame will probably be used in my own bedroom makeover...if I ever finish my children's rooms, that is!

Thrifty Little House on the Prairie Party

Earlier this week, I gave you a glimpse of my daughter's recent Little House on the Prairie party. I had a ball putting the party together, challenging myself to make like a pioneer and scavenge, re-purpose and borrow as much as I could. The end result, I hope, was a party that celebrated creativity and resourcefulness--two traits that Laura Ingalls and her family embraced out of necessity, and traits that I try to encourage in my own children. It also didn't hurt that the vintage and borrowed goods loaned a very authentic feel to the party. Following is a resource list, organized by activity, that demonstrates how thrifted items can be used to create magical special events:

PIONEER DRESS UP

vintage prairie-style clothing and accessories, including sunbonnets, aprons, skirts, and blouses (all thrifted except for the bonnets my daughters wore, which were originally purchased on etsy for Halloween costumes and a couple of the aprons, which belonged to my grandmother)

WASHING DAY

wash tub and doll clothes (thrifted), wash board (consignment store), drying rack (already owned), miniature wooden clothes pins (already owned)

SEWING LESSON

large-eye needles (borrowed from younger daughter's preschool), pre-printed cotton napkins (thrifted gift from friend), embroidery floss (already had but easily thrifted), vintage embroidery hoops (thrifted and already had)

CANDLESTICK PAINTING

wooden candlesticks (thrifted--I think I got a giant bag of these for 50 cents!), acrylic paints (already had), paintbrushes (already had), mason jar for water (thrifted), vintage muffin pans to hold paint (thrifted), vintage bark bowl to hold candlesticks (thrifted), vintage pottery bowl for paint water (thrifted)

PEG DOLLS

assortment of wooden doll bodies (already had, originally purchased from Casey's Wood Products), assortment of trims, laces, fabrics, and ribbons (already had and thrifted), small bottles of Aleene's craft glue (the best glue for fabric crafts, in my opinion), vintage pipe cleaners (thrifted), acorn caps (collected in the woods last fall), crate to hold scraps (saved from box of clementines), pedestal stand to hold scraps (thrifted), vintage gelatin molds to hold peg dolls (thrifted and inherited from my grandmother), calico table covering (thrifted)

MEMORY GAME

small rag doll (already had but originally thrifted), vintage ring (received as a gift from friend), tea cup and saucer (thrifted), glass bottle with cork (thrifted), metal jacks (thrifted), small silver trophy cup (re-purposed Christmas ornament from my collection), image of a young Laura Ingalls (found online), large Indian head penny (already had, was mine as a child), vintage silver tray (thrifted), twig pencils (purchased at HomeGoods), handmade paper (thrifted)

DINNER TIME

small metal pails (purchased from dollar bin at Target--I had originally wanted to use tin pails that I thrifted, but ended up needing more than I had so decided to purchase new for this party and save the thrifted ones for my younger daughter's version of this party), food (thrifted--just kidding! all fresh food, each pail held an apple, bag of pretzels and a turkey sandwich), gingham pail liners (Target dollar bin), picnic cloths (canvas drop cloths, already had)

BIRTHDAY CAKE

vintage candles (thrifted, they were the hard to find skinny candles that fit the vintage candle holders I love), vintage floral candle holders (thrifted), vintage plates (thrifted), silver cake knife and dessert server (thrifted), cake stand (from my collection), vintage cake decorating press (thrifted brand new in box)

GENERAL STORE

wooden nickels (already had wooden disks, used paint we already had and then glued on pictures of my daughter taken at Old Sturbridge Village, hand painted "5 cents" on each one and then coated with Mod Podge), General Store sign (re-painted and re-purposed sign that was originally used at daughter's Mermaid party), props, including vintage mail cubby, vintage tin kitchen canisters, baskets, wooden boxes and crates, tin milk jug, and tin wall decorations (thrifted and borrowed from around the house), vintage picture frames (thrifted), small wicker baskets (thrifted), wooden rulers (purchased from Casey's Wood Products), wooden slates (also from Casey's), slate pencils (thrifted chalk), glass apothecary jar candy holder (borrowed from my house), tin coffee pot to hold candy sticks (borrowed from play house, originally thrifted), candy bags (already had in kitchen stash), metal scoops (thrifted), candy (purchased new, of course!), raffia (thrifted), and sewing kits (new Ball canning jars, thrifted aida cloth, new quilt pins, thrifted vintage safety pins, wooden thimbles purchased at Casey's, needles from my own stash, homemade directions and pattern for stitching top of jar, vintage buttons from my own mostly thrifted collection, and thrifted Pottery Barn labels)

Pulling together a party from vintage goods is so much fun I can hardly stand it! And lest you worry that I bought a bunch of stuff just for one afternoon, I can reassure you that most of these things will be used again for future parties, find a home (or return to their home) in the dress up bin, or be re-purposed into something completely new. This party also created very little trash (just the food wrappings really) and was super easy to set up and clean up. And most importantly of all, my little girl was beaming with joy. Next up, a vintage baseball party to celebrate my son's big day--stay tuned! In the meantime, I'm linking this up to the party at Elizabeth & Co.

Vintage Party Ware!

The other day, I decided to tackle organizing my two drawers of baking supplies. When we moved in last summer, the last thing I wanted to do was carefully sort out the sprinkles from the vintage cake toppers from the cupcake wrappers. So all of this stuff got packed into two large drawers along with cookie cutters, rolling pins, and icing bags. Needless to say, it was a big mess.

My spur of the moment organizing was inspired by this find:

A couple of boxes, one unopened, of vintage birthday candle holders. I pick these candle holders up whenever I see them, and I'd say I now have enough to celebrate my 100th birthday, if I am blessed to have one. But I had never found any still in the cute little retro boxes!

Since I have parties on the mind due to all the planning I've been doing for my daughter's upcoming pioneer party, I thought it might be fun to share some of my other vintage birthday finds.

Among the vintage cake toppers in my collection are these football players, which I found at a rummage sale last weekend:

And then there are these All Stars, ready to take the field for my son's July baseball birthday festivities.

 

And these carousel ponies:

And these dwarves, which are actually from the Snow White cake I had for my own 5th birthday. I still have most of the dwarves but sadly, the Snow White was stepped on many moons ago and didn't survive. She remains on my "Most Wanted" thrift wish list. You can frequently find Snow Whites on ebay (yes, I am embarrassed to say that I've looked!), but I have never seen the exact model that I had on my cake.

And these pretty pink ladies, who I think are meant to be bridesmaids:

I also have some vintage birthday candles; isn't the packaging cute as a button?  I'm really tempted to open up the box of Capri candles to peek at the vintage party game ideas.

To go with my cake toppers and candles, I also collect vintage paper party supplies. I have a slew of invitations, a couple of paper tablecloths, plastic cups, napkins, and some groovy divided paper plates from the 1960s. That collection could also use a little organizing, but I'll save it for another day. Right now, for some reason, I feel the need to go and bake a cake.

Thrift Therapy, Part Deux

Here are a few more treasures that were uncovered during last weekend's thrifting adventure. I am still going through everything that I purchased and figuring out what I will do with each and every piece. Some have already found their place in my home, some will be reworked and repainted and will then re-emerge to claim their rightful spot, and some will be tucked away for another day. I've been having great fun today transforming a few of the treasures and I will share the before and after shots soon.

It is no secret I love to bake, and a natural extension of that passion is a collection of vintage cake toppers and decorating implements. (At least, I think its a natural extension--I know some people may not agree and may actually think I am nuts! You know who you are...)

I found these delightful ladies at a large outdoor flea market, mixed in with a bunch of ragged vintage Christmas decorations. I thought they were adorable. I think they might be 1950's bridesmaids but I am not sure.

 
Now, I mentioned they were mixed in with a lot of Christmas decorations...you didn't think I left them behind, did you?

I love these angels and have a few of them already. I guess now I am a full-fledged collector of paper cone angels! I don't think the bottle brush tree is vintage but it was cute so I took it, too. Hiding behind the harp is a little plaster cast angel. She will look sweet in one of my miniature nativity scenes that I set up this time of year.

After I paid for the Christmas stuff and cake toppers, I took one last look at the messy table. Covered in white fuzz, this adorable little stuffed deer peered up at me and I just couldn't leave him behind.

I tried to research him on the web when I got home. I never found an exact match, but I suspect that this is a vintage Dakin deer from either the 1950s or 1960s.

Also at the same flea market, I found two of these vintage Wedgewood plates. The shady dealer claimed they were 1840s, which I doubted (turns out they date to the 1880s), but for $4 for the pair, I couldn't resist. I had been hoping to find a few more plates to hang on my dining room wall. Because they are going on the wall, I didn't mind the single tiny chip on each plate. I did mind when the dealer tried to steal $20 from me, but unfortunately for him, I was paying attention and he was unsuccessful. But it was a good reminder that one must be careful when paying with cash and when dealing with people one does not know.

I have a few more finds from the trip to show you, and also some thrifty transformations that I've been working on. Check back soon!

Neither wind, nor rain...

Just like the postman, nothing can keep me from my work. And my vital and serious work is unearthing treasures. Even though yesterday was rough going around here with Hurricane Sandy wreaking havoc in our backyard, after a day and a half cooped up in the house with the kids, I had to get out for a spell. So I went to the closest option I have, taking all three kids with me. I had to bribe them with an ice cream treat but you do what you have to do...and I needed a fix.

I didn't uncover too many treasures today, just enough to make it worth the effort of getting all the kids dressed and in agreement. My favorite find, believe it or not, was this ceramic turkey. It is actually the salt shaker from a set of Thanksgiving S&Ps, but was missing both its mate and its stopper. Neither of those things matter to me, however, because I am going to fill in its holes and age it into a Pottery Barn-ish Thanksgiving decoration like I recently saw done on a very lovely and inspirational blog. (I need to learn how to link to other posts in the most proper fashion! It's on my to-do list.)

Then, I found this copper pedestal. The color was a bit too bright and shiny for my taste, but I loved the shape and size. I've been wanting one of these to use as a base for a fall floral accent for the second grade parent potluck I am hosting in a couple of weeks. I spray painted it antique textured bronze when I got home, and I think it turned out perfectly. I will post an "after" shot once I create the floral arrangement to go in it.

Then, another awesome score. As you may know, I simply adore vintage sewing notions and almost always snatch them up when I spot them at sales and thrifts. I found this trove of buttons, trim, snaps, and a red velvet tomato pincushion, all packaged sweetly in this beautiful wooden tray.

I also found a few goodies to add to my ever-growing collection of vintage cake decorations. I am not sure how old these are, since I have recently seen some new old-looking ones in the party stores, but they did look old and seemed to be of better quality than most newly manufactured ones. I am busy planning an old-time baseball party for my son's fourth next July, so these will be put to great use!

And just to keep the kids happy, the Thrift Gods provided for them, too. We found a brand new American Girl book and tiny jack-o-lantern treat buckets just the right size for their dolls. We used them tonight when we went to a Trick Or Treat party. Much cheaper than buying the American Girl doll-sized Halloween costumes that they really wanted!

Until next time, may the Thrift Gods be with you, too...