freshvintage

Pert N' Perky

We just ended a fun-filled week-long visit from my in-laws. This is the first time my husband has seen his mother on Mother's Day since he moved here from Seattle nine years ago. It is always nice when they visit, because I become a tourist in my own neighborhood...we went to Winterthur (the DuPont Family's measly 175-room country estate), the Herr's Potato Chip Factory and the 1704 Brinton House. And the best part? They are antique dealers, so we have the perfect excuse for visiting lots of antique stores & yard sales while they are here.

We went to an estate sale in Wilmington, DE that I read about on craigslist. It was a small house, but we were able to find a few goodies, including the blue & white chenille bedspread and the blue tin picnic basket. My husband, Chris, gets full credit for finding the tin basket.  He went to the basement first, and when I walked down the steps a few minutes later, I found him holding the basket. "You like this, right?" I jumped his bones right then and there. The ten piles of vintage Playboy Magazines certainly helped set the mood.

I won these little hand-painted shop signs on eBay last week. I don't think you would find the green sign in stores today. It says "Child's Pert N' Perky Dresses".  It just doesn't sound right.

My favorite find of the week...five old ledgers from a general store in Bridgeport, PA. I bought these in a great antiques store called Royal Port Antiques in Salem, NJ. The store is owned by the nicest couple, Suzanne and Michael Cooke. In 2003, they bought and renovated a huge abandoned warehouse and turned it into Royal Port, which specializes in Early American antiques and architectural pieces.

Do you remember my brush with movie stardom when I sold an umbrella to a Movie Props Guy at Renningers? That's peanuts compared to the Cookes. Did you ever see M. Night Shyamalan's The Village?  Many of the houses in the movie were furnished with pieces from their shop. They also provided furniture for M. Night's new movie, The Happening. This one isn't a movie, but it is just as cool...Urban Outfitters, Inc. has a new home & garden brand called Terrain. It is basically an Anthropologie store with plants instead of clothes (Joy talked about it here). And, lucky me, the first Terrain store just opened about 20 minutes away. It is a sight to behold. Anyway, the Terrain designers just bought some pieces from Royal Port to use for their funky displays. Bottom line...go to Royal Port Antiques if you are ever in the Philadelphia area!

I talked to the Cookes about my blog, and convinced them that they need to start their own. I'm sure they've got tons of cool stories to share. Get on it, Michael!

            @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

On a totally separate topic, I'd like to thank a few swell people who said some really nice things about me. I know, I know...some of them said these things months ago, but better late than never. Thanks to all of you!

Stash Studios

Reclaiming Miss Havisham (she has a new blog here)

Sandra from Find and Go Seek

Special thanks to JUNKMARKET's Sue & Ki, and their manager, Tim, for interviewing me for their American Junk Club newsletter. It is really an honor for me. I've been following their junking adventures ever since the first time they were in Country Home. I don't have a link because the newsletter is available to club members only, but here's where you can sign up: American Junk Club.

Pendulous Busts

My neighbor, Mike, gave me a tip about "two old cash registers" that he saw in front of a house about two miles away. Mike was already ranked high on my list of favorite neighbors because he owns a Tastykake route. Every so often, a few boxes of Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes or Butterscotch Krimpets fall off his truck and land right into our house. And since he started doling out junking tips, he is now unequivocally at the top of my fave neighbor list.

I knew exactly which house he was talking about, because the owners have been cleaning it out for a few weeks, and I've seen junk on their curb a few times. I immediately drove to the house, and spotted two old adding machines next to a bunch of trash cans that were packed to the gills. I took the adding machine that appeared to be older. I did some research, but I can't find the same type of machine. So, I don't know how much it is worth (and even if I did, I wouldn't tell Mike).

But that wasn't the best part of the trip. In one of the four trash cans filled with crap, there were piles and piles of medical journals.  Most of them were Journals of Obstetrics & Gynecology from the 1920s and 30s. I decided that I would only take them if they had funny pictures that I could share with you, my dear readers. You must know I love you...I will dig through the stinkiest trash if it will get you a laugh!

So, here they are...

I would make my husband wear this to bed if it would prevent him from pissing all over the toilet seat in the middle of the night:

WHO asked for this?  I sure didn't.

I hear that this one is a real page-turner (as long as your goiter doesn't get in the way):

But seriously, who would sign up to be in the Association for the Study of Goiter? If I was a doctor, I'd sign up for the Association for the Study of The Eradication of Periods or the Association for the Perfection of Breast Lifts. Goiters? Not in my top ten list.

Oh boy...where to start with these two ads? Make sure you click on the photo for the full effect. You'll see phrases like "vaginal jellies", "douche powder",  and my favorite...

"RAISES SAGGING, PENDULOUS BUSTS".

Party Girls & Out-of-Town Junk

In honor of my mother's birthday, we had a girls' day/night out last Saturday. Eleven of us piled into a rented mini-bus and went on a wine tour in Berks County. We hit Clover Hill, Vynecrest and Pinnacle Ridge. Erin and I made "Girls' Day Out" gift bags for all of the lovely ladies, which included chocolate, mints and condoms (you never know). I didn't take a picture of the bags, but this photo graced the front of it:

What a bunch of wild and crazy gals!!! That's me (Little Lord Fauntleroy) with my three sisters and two of my cousins. Pardon the Paris Hilton crotch shots. It's just a shame you can't get a good look at our Smurfette underwear.

We all stayed at Erin's house, which presented the perfect opportunity to hit a bunch of yard sales and new-to-me junk shops during the hour-drive to her house on Saturday morning. On Sunday morning, we made a "quick" trip to Jake's flea market (located 20+ miles beyond anywhere you'd ever want to be).

I'll admit it - it was actually worth the trip.  Here's $50 worth of junk from Erin's neck of the woods (Gilbertsville, PA and vicinity):

Yea!! Another Watt loops bowl to add to my collection. This is the biggest one I've seen so far.  I also bought the milk glass soap dish and tumbler.  It is a really pretty quilted pattern with beads. 

I'm totally digging the child's lawn chair. It is on the verge of breaking into a million pieces. Looks good as long as no one sits in it.

I bought five early reader books from the fifties. I'm guessing that Tom and Susan are the poor man's Dick and Jane.

The bucket once held some type of toys made by Amsco from Hatboro, PA.  Anyone know what was in there?

I found three of these old receipt books from Reliance Eggs in Souderton, PA.

This is Dorothy Mae Sass' history notebook from 1932. On the cover, she drew a ship (complete with a little sea monster in the lower right corner) with crayons. I only bought this because I love the name "Dorothy Mae Sass".

It is filled with pages and pages of class notes:

Here's my big find of the day: a four-foot-long mantel mirror. The guy who sold it to me at Jake's told me that he used to sell mantel mirrors for $100 a few years ago, but now he hardly gets anything for them because they are no longer in demand. Okay, maybe not in Bumf*ck, PA, but other people seem to like them. 

Last but never least...my favorite combo: paint-by-numbers and The Last Supper. 

Da Vinci was a dilettante.

The family that eBays together...

The mermaid glasses that I talked about here are now for sale on eBay!

And, if you are in the market for a funky retro martini set (or just want a laugh), take a look at my Father-in-Law's latest eBay listing. Yes, I am his only daughter-in-law.

As I have mentioned previously on this blog, my in-laws are antiques dealers in Washington state. My father-in-law, Jim, recently started selling antiques on eBay. This created such an excess of fodder for my blog that I don't even know where to begin. He seems to use the titles of his auctions as a contest to see how FEW words he can use to describe the object he is selling. He had an auction for a beautiful green Moorcroft Pottery covered bowl with hibiscus flowers on it. The auction title can be up to 55 characters long. What does my father-in-law put in the title? "Moorcroft bowl".  Nothing about the flowers or the lid or the fact that it was in mint condition. But then he sold it for $94, so I guess I can't mock him too much.

A few months ago, Jim had an auction for an antique miner's candlestick, known as a "sticking tommy". The next day, another seller put up five of the same style of antique candlesticks for sale. 

So, my no-nonsense father-in-law saw that the "sticking tommy" market was now flooded, and proceeded to go to an auction of the other seller and click the "Ask this seller a question" link. He sent the seller a message that read, "You idiot! Haven't you ever heard of supply and demand?"

While I would have never sent another seller a message like that, I can see his frustration. For anyone who sells on eBay frequently, you would know that it isn't too smart to put on several items of the same style at the same time. Potential buyers assume that there are a lot of that item in the market, so they won't bid as high. That seller was essentially screwing himself out of higher bids.

And the seller's response was exactly what I would have predicted: "Who the F*CK do you think you are? You can't tell me what to sell!"

The Freaky Yard-Saling Neighbor

I hope I didn't accidentally sell my soul to the devil after those three four five glasses of wine with my neighbors last weekend. The past week of junking has been stupendous. Between the huge old basket, the robin's egg blue rocking chair, the quilts and the paint-by-numbers, I'm a little worried that, in a drunken stupor, I may have promised some sexual favors to satan in exchange for cheap antiques. It is all so blurry.

I actually bought more than the $100 worth of stuff that I photographed for this post, but my neighbors came over while I was taking pictures, and I was embarrassed to bring out the other stuff. They all think I'm a yard-saling/blogging freak, so I didn't want to make myself look any worse.

Hiding behind that aqua shelf in the lower right hand corner is this homemade navy blue wooden toolbox with a leather handle.  It has two lift-out compartments. I love the look of it, but I realized today that it smells like poop. Yeah, that's what I said. Poop. What could someone have possibly used this for that would make it smell so awful? Maybe the previous owner whittled small animals from dried feces, and kept his carving tools in this box? Who the hell knows. Anyone have any other guesses?

Here's a Louis Sherry candy tin, a set of painted Hazel Atlas jars, a round grater and an old panda planter.

I bought so much at one lady's yard sale that she threw in the pink chamber pot free of charge! She had about five of those old chamber pots. She should have busted out the Sharpies and made a sign that read, "Spend $20, get a free shitter!"

As my dog-loving and -wanting husband will attest, I am not much of a dog person. But these were too hard to resist. And so much easier to take care of than the real thing.

I bought this quilt during a lunch-time trip to the fancy-schmancy thrift store that I talked about here.  The tag said "$12.50  - As is".  I opened it up and expected to see a giant hole in the middle, or maybe a big disgusting blood stain. Nope. It is just a little worn here and there, but it is otherwise in beautiful condition.

I bought the yo-yo quilt top at a different thrift store. The woman who rang me up was maybe - oh, jeez, I'll take a wild guess - 117 years old.  She thought it was from the 1930s.

Everything in the first photo is sitting on top of this huge metal under-bed storage box. It is a little bent, but I've never seen anything like it. It has an embossed rose on the top. 

I spotted this box filled with junk at a yard sale. It originally had a big ugly lamp in it, too. The homeowner told me he would take $2 for the whole box. He looked a little annoyed when I told him that I didn't want the lamp.  'Well, it still costs two dollars!"  Whatever, sucker.

Most of the silver was made by Colonial Silver Company. It is quadruple-plated, which apparently doesn't mean that it was plated four times. But I don't understand it enough to explain it here, so I'll let Abe do the talking.

Can you see the monogram? F-S-Mac-F. Hmmm...Fergal Seamus MacFarland?

The copper pan ALONE is worth at least $25 on eBay.  It is by Philippe La France.

Alas, my neighbor spotted it while I was taking pictures, and I gave it to her. She's been thinking about buying a set of copper cookware and was shocked at how expensive they are. Who's the yard-saling freak now, byatch?!

Sparkle, Shine & Boobies

I snagged a great deal on a shoebox filled with chandelier prisms at an estate sale. The homeowner said she had collected them over many years. There are a few older ones that appear to be "sun-purpled", since the color is not uniform throughout the crystal. Some glass made between 1860 and 1915 was manufactured using manganese, which caused the glass to turn purple from prolonged exposure to the sun. Apparently, some rabble-rousers have been artificially purpling glass dishes & serving pieces to make buyers think that they are old. This has caused quite a shit storm over here.

Should I make a mobile out of all of my shiny, sparkly things? I can hang it right next to my grater mobile.

Can you see the seaside hotel on the fork in the next photo?  Anyone have any idea how I can find out what hotel it is?

These knives are made by Landers, Frary & Clark.  I'm still trying to figure out if the handles are bone, ivory, celluloid or bakelite.  They have light-colored streaks in them, if that helps anyone narrow it down.

Tin reflectors for Christmas tree lights:

No, this big old copper colander is not from Dehillerin in Paris.

Damn.

I found this pair of tall mermaid tumblers at a thrift store. I don't really know anything about vintage glasses, but I had a feeling they were worth more than I paid for them.

I couldn't find them on eBay, so I did a search on PriceMiner.com. PriceMiner is a paid antiques research service. Usually, I just do a search for completed auctions on eBay, but it only gives you results of auctions that ended in the past  two weeks. I signed up for PriceMiner, since it gives you results from more websites over a longer period of time. Anyway, I found a set of four mermaid glasses that sold for $50 on eBay last year. Yeah!!

The mark on the bottom is an "F" inside a shield. This is the symbol for Federal Glass Company, which was founded in 1900. Federal Glass is most well known for the depression glass that it manufactured from the 1920's to the 1940's.

And now it is known for boobies.

Crazed

I told myself that I wouldn't buy any more train cases. But, I rarely find them in black, so I was obligated to buy it. It is from the American Tourister "Tiara" line. Oh - and if you really want to see someone with a train case obsession, check out these photos on flickr.

The label on this hanging light says "Hotspot Electric Co. Phila, PA". I think I'll make a fabric cover for the cord and hang it over the desk in my studio (aka "the spare bedroom").

"

The plastic bags at the bottom of the first photo contain a bunch of dollhouse furniture. I think that some of them are by Marx, the company that made tin dollhouses (like this one that I bought a few years ago).

Wait - who is that? Right there...next to the toilet?

Oh. That's just an undead pink zombie girl. She came back from the dead because she needs plastic surgery - someone chewed off her nose.

Also included in the bag of dollhouse stuff were a set of little plastic dolls with sleep eyes.  This one has a crazed look on his face.

A look that screams, "I just chewed off my sister's limbs. And I loved every minute of it."

Whoops! She's back up. I guess she was just playing dead.

They are just so precious. I wonder if they socialize with The Doll Family.

I will slap you

There was only one estate sale in the area last weekend, so I ran into local bloggers/dealers Dona & Connie while I was there. They packed Dona's truck to the brim. I walked away with just a few things, but then noticed that the house across the street was having a sale, too. While I was paying for my pile of stuff, the homeowner's son walked into the garage, looked at my pile and asked, "Is someone really buying this stuff? Why would someone buy this?".  In my mind, I told him that someone would buy it because his mother is a sucker and was selling it all for a pittance. And then I slapped him in the face (in my mind).

Here's a white matte pottery planter, five apple green shutters, a pink apron, set of six floral-painted tin coasters, and a daisy throw. Does anyone know if that type of flowery knitting or crocheting has a name?

I found these at a thrift store. The heavy mother/baby statue appears to be a garden ornament. It is made from cement (or plaster?), and then painted to look like wood.

I have a feeling that the lovely ladies at the thrift store thought this pitcher was a Made-in-China castoff from HomeGoods. God, I love when people are wrong.  I think this one's an oldie.

 

And for something vintage-inspired, but not quite vintage...here is the new lamp over our kitchen table: the Porter Pendant from Pottery Barn. It has an adjustable cord and weighted pulley that let you adjust the height.

And the part that I am most proud of? Chris and I actually installed it ourselves. My whole family just pooped their pants from the shock of it all. I don't do electricity...ever since I stood in my brother's bedroom with a flashlight while my dad asked me to "keep an eye on that broken outlet while I go to the basement and flip the breaker". He wanted to see what would happen. Well, I'll tell you what effing happened. The outlet exploded in my face and my brother's bed caught on fire. I took my fried bangs, hauled ass out of the room, and ended up in the fetal position next to the front door. Thankfully, I was just far enough away from the explosion that I wasn't burned.  And there wasn't too much damage to the house because my dad ran upstairs with a fire extinguisher. My dad, the accountant: not the handiest of men, but at least he was prepared.

Junk Beautiful Book Review & Alltop Design

It isn't officially released until tomorrow, but I got my hands on a copy of the JUNKMARKET ladies' new book, Junk Beautiful. Their second book has 204 big pages of original ideas on using junk to transform rooms into beautiful and creative spaces. The book has nine chapters of makeovers, each in a different area of the house. The design and instructions are fun and lively, and the photography captures every vintage detail.

The book is filled with great decorating ideas for entire rooms, as well as detailed instructions and photos for each project. After finishing the book, I came away with a list of items that I often see at thrift stores and estate sales, but never would have purchased. Now, I have a reason to buy chicken feeders, casters, antique hand drills, camp toasters and so much more.

My favorite chapter is the "Laundry Lounge", where the junk gals transform a dingy laundry room into a bright & vintage-inspired craft room/laundromat. And that's where you'll find my favorite idea in the whole book: a croquet set used as a broom holder. I used to pass over croquet sets at yard sales because they are missing balls or mallets. Not anymore. Now I'm determined to find out if my Swiffer Wet Jet handle is the same size as a croquet mallet.

Sue & Ki will be demonstrating their junk style on the Today Show on March 27th. Don't forget to watch!

~~~~~~

I have some great news to share. The freshvintage blog was added to a new website called Alltop. The site is a summary of the most recent posts from the top blogs in a wide array of categories, such as sports, parenting, music, movies, education and wine. freshvintage is listed in the Design section, along with many of my favorites: decor8, Design*Sponge, Design Mom and Sk*rt. You can think of Alltop as a dashboard for stories from sites that you love, as well as sites that you've never heard of.

Alltop was created by Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur, speaker, eight-time author and all-around super-smart internet guru. Guy also created the site Truemors. His blog is one of the top 100 most-read blogs in the entire universe! Guess what mine is ranked? 62,410!  Maybe being on Alltop will give me some street cred, so that I can at least break into the fifty thousands.

[Have a blog? See where yours ranks on Technorati by typing your blog's web address into the search box.]

Loops & Labels

I bought most of my finds last week from a fancy-schmancy hospital thrift store. You can tell that they have rich donors and consignors by the bag that they gave me for my purchases:

 

I had the kids with me when I went to that store, which is always a challenge. Luckily, they were both in a happy mood. While Finn quietly played with the toys, Maeve followed me through the store singing "Sixteen going on Seventeen" from The Sound of Music. My petite three-year-old turned a few heads when she clearly belted out the lines:

I am sixteen going on seventeen
Innocent as a rose
Bachelor dandies, drinkers of brandies
What do I know of those?

She'd better damn well know nothing of them ever.

Now, on to my finds for this week:

• FiberCo LaundriPak box. This was used to ship your dirty clothes home to mom. It originally had a strap that would be wrapped around the box.
• Black floral biscuit tin. This is the third one that I've bought with this pattern.
• Baby quilt with circus animals
• Wooden chair/booster seat
• Photograph album
• Green Bingo cards
• Two Watt Pottery covered dishes

Yes, I bought more Bingo cards. I had the itch after I found the white cards last week, so I bought these from eBay. There were nine different designs included in the lot of 128 cards.

I never realized that Bingo players suffer from triskaidekaphobia. This bingo company doesn't make cards that start with the number 13:

I was so excited when I saw the two Watt pottery bowls at the uppity thrift store. I collect the Loops pattern in the pumpkin color, but this is my first set of covered dishes. I paid twenty for the two of them.

Here's part of my Watt collection, along with a McCoy fish pitcher (c. 1935) in the same pumpkin color:

The vintage white shelf is on the kitchen wall that is closest to my mandarin-colored family room. You can see four newly-framed apple crate labels in the background (and one in an antique frame under the shelf). My in-laws have given us so many of these vintage labels, and I have been waiting for the walls to be painted before I hung them up. They are all from Yakima, Washington, which is Chris' hometown. I bought these four black 11"x14" frames at Wal-Mart for five bucks each. 

I have five other labels hanging in different rooms in my house, and I have about 12 more labels that are sitting in an envelope.  I love the colors and the images. And the fact that they bring a little bit of Yakima into our house. I'm just worried that my house is going to look like an apple crate label museum if I hang them all up. I might have to start charging admission.