freshvintage

Typewriter Tables, Pottery Marks & Wine in a Can

My husband, Chris, went to an estate sale on Friday while I was at work. He came home empty-handed. I went to the same sale after work (because it was only 10 minutes away and I don't fully trust his junk-hunting skills yet) and saw a typewriter sitting on top of this gray metal Sears & Roebuck typewriter table. The price was $35 for the typewriter and table, but I asked to buy just the table because the typewriter wasn't anything to write home about. The seller happily agreed, since it was the end of the day and no one else had shown any interest.

When I arrived home and walked in the door holding the table, Chris said, "Oh, yeah - I saw that there and I knew you would love it". He just assumed that the seller wouldn't want to separate the set. Now do you understand why I have to do a follow-up visit?!

Typewriter tables make great night stands. My son has an olive green one next to his bed. I'm going to use this one as a printer stand next to my desk.

Last week, I bought this large ironstone platter and tureen at a yard sale for $10:

At least, I think it is a tureen. I assume that it had a lid once - but it doesn't have a lip on the inside of the rim. Any ideas?

I love figuring out the age of these old pieces. Sometimes there isn't enough information on the maker's mark to do a Google search. So, I look to my favorite website for pottery marks: thepotteries.org.

When I looked at the mark on the bottom of the bowl, I determined that "Hanley" is the name of the factory town where the piece was manufactured in Staffordshire, England. The manufacturer is W & C - but that doesn't help me because there are many potters that start with "W".

I went to the W page in the Alphabetic listing section of thepotteries.org. I clicked on all of the manufacturers who had W & C initials and whose location was Hanley. Eventually, I found the maker: Whittaker & Company. When I looked at the other examples of the Whittaker mark, I learned that "Windsor" refers to the name of the pattern and that it is made between 1886-1892.

The mark on the bottom of the ironstone platter was much easier to research, since it had the full name of the manufacturer. I found it right away when I googled "Porcelaine De Terre" "John Edwards". Here is the result on thepotteries.org. I learned that this platter was made sometime between 1880 and 1900.

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Thanks to Grace from Poetic Home for featuring a few of my favorite vintage things on her blog. As I told her, I am happy to be a part of anything that has any references to The Sound of Music. And I especially love that she compared me to Conan O'Brien. That made my day! Be sure to check out the other bloggers in her Favorite Vintage Things Series, too.

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Since yard sales are scarce at this time of year, I've been trying to fill the void by visiting local wineries. Surprisingly, there are several in the area and they all have beautiful locations, fun-filled events and great wine, to boot. There is one winery called Paradocx that sells their wine in paint cans.

Isn't this the cutest thing ever?

It is equivalent to four bottles of wine and has a little spigot at the bottom for pouring. I bought the Barn Red variety, which is a Sangiovese/Cabernet Franc blend. They also make Whitewash, which is a blend of Chardonnay, Vidal and Pino Grigio - it has a white barn on the label. I opted for the red, since we have that big red barn in our backyard (which isn't ours, unfortunately). The can even comes with a wooden paint mixer, imprinted with "Paint the Town, Responsibly".

I can't wait until the weather warms up so we can sit on our deck and play "Pass the Can". It is so much classier to drink wine out of a spigot than a bottle.

Stool Sample

Sorry. I couldn't resist. 

I bought two stools at a garage sale last week:

The little one has a compartment that probably held shoe-shining equipment at one time.

I also found this glass cocktail shaker from the 1960s. Each hot air balloon has a drink recipe inside. And it even has the little chrome cap that is usually missing:

Here's the Martini recipe:

Speaking of drinks, I was so excited to finally use my pink cooler at our St. Patrick's Day party on Saturday. Doesn't it look so cute?

It was a little difficult to get a photo of the beer cooler by itself. My neighbors and Doug kept getting in the way.

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Other ramblings...

Ever since I bought those stools, I can't get the Stool Boom song from Waiting for Guffman out of my head. Here's the video, in case you aren't familiar.

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Have you seen the preview for the HBO remake of Grey Gardens with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange? If you haven't seen the original documentary, you need to rent it. Train wreck is an understatement. You can get it through Netflix, if you are a member. You can find more in the story of this mother/daughter duo here.

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I signed up for the BlogHer Conference in Chicago on July 24-25. Is anyone else planning to go? Rumor has it that there are only 60 tickets left.

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My mom was in the hospital for the past few weeks, which is why I haven't been writing much. She is at home now, and doing really well. In an effort to bring some humor to an awful situation, my family has been keeping a list of funny quotes that we've heard during the last month. Here's a stool-related one that I thought you might enjoy:

While talking to anesthesiologist before the first of five surgeries:

Doctor: Have you ever had any problems with anesthesia?

Mom: Well, there was that time during my hemorrhoidectomy when I lied to the anesthesiologist about my weight and I woke up in the middle of the surgery.

Lesson learned!

If you are new to freshvintage, take a gander at this post to find out more about my mom and her favorite stool sport.

And if you are already familiar with my mom, you know that she gladly gave me permission to share the above-mentioned quote. Any publicity is good publicity!

Beets, Bloopers & Bunny Cream at the Martha Stewart Show

Last week, my sister Erin and I, along with our friends Denise and Ellen, went to New York City in search of fame and glory. And to sit in the audience at the Martha Stewart show.

Our first stop was the infamous Tinsel Trading. We didn't buy anything, but is was fun to visit this store that I've read about in so many magazines.

Our next stop was Rockefeller Center, where we saw Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb during the 17th hour of the Today Show. We called our husbands and mothers, and they spotted us on TV during the Jeff Foxworthy segment.

You can see us a few times on this video. I'm giving the peace sign on the right side of the screen at 1:17 and again at 3:30. My friend Denise is on the left side of me and Erin is on the right. In a few shots, we tried waving Erin's long red hair into the air.

Then, I spied the next guest: Chris Isaac. And I squeeealed. Right after I took this picture during the commercial break, he spotted me in my Target red trench coat out of the corner of his eye. He couldn't wave back because he was playing his guitar, but he gave me a nod. I squeeealed again.

Does it count as an affair if Chris Isaac nodded at me and I didn't stop him and I liked it? I tried to tell him that I was married, but he couldn't hear me through the bullet-proof glass. And I guess he doesn't read lips.

After I broke up with him, we headed to Martha's studio.

The audience coordinators emailed ticket-holders a few weeks before the taping to tell us that the show that we would be attending was a celebration of the special Color issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine for May. Everyone in the audience had to wear solid, bright, springtime colors. We even had to respond to the email to tell them what colors that each of us would be wearing. Luckily, they still let me into the building even though I emailed them that I would be wearing pink, but I ended up wearing blue.

This food truck was parked outside while we waited in line. Everything on the truck was free! Cappuccino, brownies, smoothies. All on Martha's dime.

The set was remarkable. And so Martha. Clean, organized, colorful. The audience looked like so bright and cheery in our springy shirts. The audience members who didn't wear bright colors were given large, colorful shawls to wear over their tops.

After receiving the email about the show's theme, I was convinced that we would receive fabulous and colorful freebies. Maybe some aqua KitchenAid electric appliances or colorful cookware or even one of the spring craft kits from Martha's craft line.

I think I had set my expectations too high, and was a little disappointed with the taping. There were no celebrity guests, no chefs and no fantastic freebies. The show opened with a segment on beet varieties along with instructions for pickling beets. I don't know about you, but I don't have a particular affinity for eating nor pickling beets.

The beets were followed by a segment where Martha made a creamy jello strawberry shortcake concoction. The segment DID NOT go as planned. The gelatinous berry was supposed to set up inside an antique tea cup. Martha was then supposed to casually turn the tea cup over, and the 1970's-style domed jello was supposed to plop right onto a vintage porcelain dish. But it wouldn't come out of the cup. Or any of the cups. This went on for ten minutes. Even after she dipped the tea cups in a bowl of hot water and busted out the blow torch (seriously). She kept joking that this would definitely be added to the blooper reel.

The chefs in her kitchen watched in horror on the monitors. It was an eerie foreshadowing of the beatings that would surely ensue later that afternoon. Martha tried to laugh about the debacle, but it was obvious that she was fuming. It will be interesting to see if they completely remove that segment when the show airs on April 20th.  

That was followed up by segments on floral arranging and faux painting techniques. After the taping ended, Martha had a very brief Q & A session with the audience.

The audience wrangler, comedian Joey Kola, gave out some freebies to the audience if we screamed loudly and clapped at the precise time. I'm good at screaming, so I received a jar of carrot-flavored hand creme. Carrots are so hot and so sexy. I wonder if Chris Isaac likes girls who smell like a bunny patch.

 

By the way, you can find Martha on Twitter. It's strange to read her tweets to people like P. Diddy, Snoop Dogg and Perez Hilton. 

Oh - and I am occasionally tweeting as well. How about you? Leave your twitter name, and we can all follow each other!

We have a winner!

Congratulations to Heidi Kenney from My Paper Crane! You were randomly chosen by my children as the winner of the $25 gift certificate to Bake It Pretty. 

Thanks to everyone who entered! Stay tuned for my next post, when I'll recap my trip to the Martha Stewart Show.

P.S. Heidi is paying it forward with a giveaway on her blog! Take a look...