Vintage Crazy and Not-So-Crazy Craft Patterns V

Here is the post that was promised a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about the not-so-great estate sale.  I bought a whole boatload of 1970′s (so not my favorite decade, as if you didn’t know) craft pamphlets and showed you a picture:

We won’t renege on a promise, so be careful of what you ask for.  Let’s start out with crafts that were shudderingly awful:

Can you imagine having the fantasy fur next to a lit candle?  Seems like a recipe for disaster to me.  But having the whole shebang go up in flames might be preferable to having fun fur flowers sitting on your coffee table staring back at you.

Flowers not your cup of tea?  What about:

Sweet thing?  Are you kidding me?  She is not bad enough to be good, and not good enough to be bad.  Sweet Thing sure wouldn’t be part of my Halloween decorations.

Just in case you’re not convinced, here she is in color:

I would rather have two of the rest of these craft projects than one of the Sweet Thing.  Heck, the Flaming Swords up in the right-hand corner would be pretty good dusters.  In fact, the only legitimate use for these fur flowers might be dusting:

 

There is a second Fantasy Fur pamphlet for Christmas:

But you will have to wait until Christmas to take a gander at the inside.  Just in case you think you dodged a bullet, here are some Ribbon Crafts:

 
Let’s just ignore the clown; there is enough horror without throwing it into the mix.  Since this is the graduation season, can you imagine the face of a high school graduate who received an owl or the graduate pictured on the back page?  They would have to be a master of diplomacy to compose a civil thank-you note that didn’t convey their intention to get rid of it ASAP!  The only thing that would make a ribbon-craft gift tolerable would be if it were stuffed with chocolate, or money as a second choice.  Thankfully, ribbon crafts don’t appear to be too durable, since we rarely see one in decent shape at garage sales or thrift stores.  Otherwise we might be photographing these every week:

 

I’m pretty sure that these crafts would NOT improve with time.

My favorite book (of this group) was so mod, that they had to say it four times:

Those little figures have horrible names like “Kissing Cousins” or “Kemo Sabe”, so the badness doesn’t stop at their looks.  Time to put them in the balloon and send them far, far away!

It’s hard to know where to start with this page:

The plaque in the background is awful, but I’m mesmerized by the expressions on the Claus’ faces.  Is Santa giving her the “come hither” look, is he irritated, confused, or plotting her demise?  What the heck is Mrs Santa thinking–has she been goosed, did she fart, has she been tippling, or hypnotized?  It’s hard to figure out what’s going on with those two, but I think some couple’s counseling may be in order.

Here is a sampler of different mod mod mod mod crafts that are in the booklet:

I’m not too sure that yarn beehives or dolls dressed in long dresses and muffs are the epitome of mod.  There need to be wild colors, and that dress had better be a mini to qualify as mod.  I’m not sure how the snails even made it in the mix–this is an old lady’s idea of mod!  At least they have Twiggy eyelashes!

Again, I’m having trouble discerning the “mod” quality of this fluffy kitty plaque:

It’s white, not wearing go-go boots, or a psychedelic ribbon.  If you take a look at the directions, you see that white mod yarn is called for–is it mod because it’s fluffy?

I bought this pamphlet solely because of those beaded go-go boots:

I would have been over the moon about those super-cool boots.  Reading the directions, I seriously doubt whether I had the patience to make all the flowers and then painstakingly sew the fragile beads to vinyl boots.  Even if I did, two of my younger sisters would have “borrowed” them and returned them in less than pristine condition.

I would have loved this jar and used it to keep my treasures together:

  I’m pretty sure my grandmother had one of these on her dressing table–empty and perfectly dusted of course.  I sure didn’t inherit those genes!

There is nothing too heinous in these bead books.  You could change up colors and lengths and make it work:

 

The part of these books that makes me smile are the pictures showing off the finished crafts:

I’m not exactly sure how a piece of hide, a wooden horse, or a woven hat make a perfect backdrop for ropes of beads.  This was the 1970′s, so things didn’t need to make a lot of sense.

However, the above tableau makes more sense than this picture:

That poor bird is never going to be able to fly with all those wooden beads weighing him down.  Beloved Husband theorizes that the beads are used by fashionable hunters to snare  unwary birds.

That’s it for the crafts.  However, I’m not done since my beloved Sister-in-Law has a submission for the post:

She got this from a great-aunt who had lots of cool and strange things.  I think it’s marked “Cechoslovokia” on the bottom; the mark is very faint and blurry.  I’m not sure why it’s decorated with delft-appearing windmills, but the kicker has to be the wiener on top!  It’s probably is supposed to be something else, but it sure looks like a hot dog to us.  The lid lifts off the casserole dish that also has the lip around the bottom.  All in all, it’s a mystifying piece.  If you know anything about this, please share the knowledge.

Thanks for reading, and as always, show us what you are finding.

Be Kind to Animals, Please!

Deb and I are both sort of animal nuts, and we buy lots of animal-type stuff, especially dogs and cats.  But, the following photos show that not everyone in the world has an animal’s best public image at heart.

Take, for instance, this first entry.  We had to spend quite bit of time just figuring out what they were trying to represent:

Is it a dog?  Is it a penguin?  Is it a penguin with a dog’s head?

Is it a bowling pin gone AWOL from the lanes and having an identity crisis?  No matter what, I am pretty sure some therapy is called for here.

Perhaps the above animal was forced to sleep on this pillow causing all sorts of weird mental anguish; we know this caused us some visual anguish:

Now, from a distance, it looks mostly harmless, in fact, a rather nice example of filet crochet, but once you get a gander at the fabric choice for the lining, it all goes downhill.

Now, I am a firm believer in making do and using what you have on hand, but I think I could have delayed finishing this craft long enough to get to the fabric store and make a better choice.  To add to the insult, it was made so well, and actually crocheted together over the pillow.  No chance of removing the offending fabric and replacing it with just about anything.

See, this rabbit agrees with us.  Either that, or he just naturally wears this stupid expression.  Now, come on, rabbits are cute and cuddly.  This one just looks like he is out to lunch, or maybe he has just had enough of folks pouring milk out of his head.  (Yeah, it was a pitcher!)

At least he hadn’t caught some rare fatal disease, like this poor fellow:

Really?  He is tacky and golden and then you had to give him a plague, too?  I don’t know what else could have caused those leprous cracks.  At least when you leave him outside and he develops cracks in the surface, you won’t even notice.  Of course, how are you ever going to know when it is time to throw him away?  Oh, I know–NOW!

If one animal is not enough for you, how about a whole ARK FULL?

The animals on here were not too bad, except for being that nasty resin stuff.  We were mostly amazed at just how many different animals they were able to cram onto one sculpture.

We were particularly amused by the lightning and the eagle on a spring.  But if you have an animal thing, there were probably two of them on here.

Another fairly heinous crime against animals is the shell mania.  At least if you are going to use the shells, try something decorative.  NOT this:

That hanging in my, of course pink, bathroom would be enough for me to start using an outhouse.  Better yet, maybe hang the clock in the outhouse!  It’s a long trek back up the hill, better know when to start.   If you must hang something up in the powder room, try this:

I loved the fact that they were still pristine in their box!  There were several things from this era at this sale, still neatly and tidily kept in their boxes.  I did buy some linens in the same condition, but that is for another post.  I did manage to leave the fish for someone else.  Think of it as catch and release.

These roosters are also having a little identity problem.  I don’t know what is with the dungarees, but it seems a bit ridiculous.   Plus teaching a rooster to smoke (a peace pipe?) is just plain animal cruelty.  At least they gave the control group umbrellas, but they were stuck with glasses.  Basically handicapping them all around.  I am pretty sure these are the dweeby roosters in the hen house:

Could be worse I suppose, they could be the donors of enough feathers to make these hats:

That’s a whole lot of down!!!  Apparently, the lady of the house had a thing against birds (Tippi Hedren?) or a thing for feather hats.  The hats were pretty amazing.  They must have been stored very well to be in such good condition after all this time.

Just thought we would leave you on a high note, as these made us smile.

If you are going to get married in Hawaii, on the beach, these are the perfect accessory.  Come to think of it, I could go for renewing my vows in Hawaii.  Should’ve bought them!

Here’s hoping your breezes are all tropical, till next week.

I Love Aprons!

Before starting the post, I want to remind you to enter our apron give-away by the end of May.  All you have to do is email us at TheSecondHandRoses@gmail.com.

Now, on to our regularly scheduled post.

Hi, my name is Deb and I am addicted to aprons.  It started about ten years ago, and the only thing slowing me down is storage.  I’m trying to be more picky about what I buy, but the truth is that I love them all!  I have thought several times that when it comes time to downsize (shudder) I should try and donate my apron collection to a fashion or clothing museum.

Why aprons?  I think it’s an off-shoot of my interest in fabric and linens.  I saw a quote about aprons in the excellent book, Aprons:  Icons of the American Home by Joyce Cheney, that struck a chord:  “Aprons are women’s voices that were mute”–Ellen Rulseh.  Most of my aprons are homemade, and they served a protective function, but their makers also made them beautiful, just ’cause.  I like the idea of taking something utilitarian and putting your own stamp on it, making it as attractive as you can.  It gives you some control over areas of your life that are repetitive, unappreciated, and just plain hard such as housework, cooking, gardening, etc.

The word apron actually was originally napron and mutated into apron (“a napron” became “an apron”).  Whatever they were called, they have a long history: “Cretan fertility goddesses wore sacred aprons; ceremonial aprons were worn by Assyrian priests, and Egyptian rulers wore jewel-encrusted aprons …”–Joyce Cheney.

Aprons were important layers of protection in jobs that exposed people to hazards, such as tanners and blacksmiths.  Also, consider how difficult it was to wash clothing, and how few sets of clothes most people owned in the days when fabric was handmade and labor intensive, and your clothes were made by hand as well.  Wearing an apron while doing dirty jobs only made sense.

These first aprons may have been used by servants while serving meals:

or they could have been worn by the lady of the house.  The cotton is so thin that you can see through it even when folded in half; I believe it is called batiste cotton, and it is so soft and fine that I don’t think it could be used for protection.  If you look closely, you can see that different strips of material were used in the construction of the longer aprons.  It was common to reuse pieces of cloth or old clothing in a new piece of clothing; fabric was too precious to waste.  Also, material didn’t come in the same widths as it does today, so necessarily, long aprons had to be pieced.  The lace is machine-made, but it’s still a nice touch.  I think these aprons are from the 1920′s, although this kind of fabric was used from the turn of the century to the 1930′s.

These next two aprons are also 1920′s and earlier:

The yoked apron on the right is very 1920′s in appearance; it has a narrow cut to match the dress styles, and it slips over the head and crosses behind without ties.  It was common to find embroidery on aprons of this era.  The apron on the left is probably older since it’s so long, or it’s made to look late 19th century.  The cotton is very fine, and the trim is handmade, but who knows for sure.  Here is a close-up of the edging:

There is no doubt that this next apron was worn by a servant or a waitress:

Cheney identifies a similar apron as commercially made in the 1940′s, but this one has a different style waistband, and the strings don’t tie, they are pinned together.  It was starched within an inch of its life; and I really like the tiny pocket on the left side of the waistband.

The oldest apron I own is made of changeable taffeta (shot silk) and handmade lace:

 
The tiny bib without a neck tie (you pinned it to your dress), and the incredibly tiny waist ties mark it as from the late 19th or early 20th century.  It was stored folded in half for a very long time, which has caused some fabric damage, but otherwise it’s in fabulous condition.  Of course, it came from a thrift store.

By far, the most common kind of apron in my collection are gingham with extras:

 
Okay, a polka dot snuck in, but the way the embroidery uses the dots is very similar to the chicken scratch embroidery (as my lovely mother calls it) on the gingham.  I only buy gingham that has been decorated; it’s even better when there is stitching and rick rack (see the brown gingham apron):

These are the epitome of a lowly fabric, gingham, being made lovely by lots of extra work.  The decoration does nothing to make it more protective, it’s done just to make life nicer.  These aprons were cranked out by the thousands in the late 1940′s through the early 1960′s by housewives, 4-H kids, and Home Ec students.  I have them in every color of the rainbow, and pretty much when one comes in, another has to leave.

Here are a pair of fun aprons from the 1950′s:

You can tell they are from the 1950′s because of the full skirt, bright colors, and trim–especially the metallic rick rack on the left apron.  What is so interesting about these two?

Reversible!  Probably a gimmick, but actually you could get twice the use from the apron by flipping it, and maybe they will match more outfits.

These next three aprons are examples of pieced aprons that make pleasing patterns:

In the picture to the left, you can see the center apron folded up, which is how it’s stored and ironed.  I’m impressed by how well the sewers matched up all the pieces; I wouldn’t have the patience to do that–it would make me buggy!  I think the polka dot apron is a survivor of the 1950′s and the zig zags are probably from the 1940′s.

I called this group the crazy pocket aprons:

It’s hard to tell, but I think that at least two of these (the striped ones) are commercially made.  The blue harlequin apron could go either way; it could be one of those printed kit aprons that you cut apart and stitch, or a store-bought apron.  Kathy has the road runners on pieces of fabric, so we think that someone bought these and stuck them on an apron because they couldn’t think of any other way to display them.

I bet you are now wondering just how many aprons does this crazy woman have?  Well, you should be worried because I’m grouping them in categories.  The next are some of my crocheted aprons:

I think that they are from the 1940′s and 1950′s; definitely the two center ones are 1940′s because of the colors.  These were pretty much the hostess aprons slapped on as the food was served, as an accessory.  They might give your good dress a little protection, but those holes will let a lot of gravy through.

These aprons are in the decorative category also; I think they are all handmade:

The left most apron is my hankie apron.  There are several ways hankies are used–sometimes as pockets, sometimes the whole apron is hankies, and sometimes just as decoration.  The organza fabric is a clue that these three aprons are decorative; organza wouldn’t stop water, much less sauces and that impossible stain, gravy.  The apron on the right is made of a ribbon-like fabric which you might not notice because of all the pom-poms.  I hereby assert that anything with that many pom-poms cannot be considered functional.

The reason this next set is in my collection has to do with the fabrics.  They are so fun, that they had to come home with me:

The three home-made aprons (orange & black, Mexican print, and barn dancing) are from the 1950′s because of the fabric and styles.  The Mexican print apron has a pocket that was carefully cut so it features a sombrero (see red arrow), while the barn dancing apron has the word HIS mysteriously applied in white letters (inside red circle).  It certainly looks like a lady’s apron.  The two bird aprons are from the 1960′s or 1970′s because of the fabrics.  The rooster apron (blue) has a million tiny pleats that were guaranteed to last, but didn’t hold up to repeated washings.

Besides wearing some of my aprons, I use them to decorate:

I made my valence by attaching aprons by their ties and pinning them.  I have quite a few Christmas aprons, and they are displayed in the kitchen and dining room during their season.

While I have tons more aprons, it’s probably time to look at patterns before your eyes glaze over:

These are from the 1940′s and 1950′s for the most part.  I like looking at the fabrics, poses, and the dress and hairstyles on the models.  I get these at garage sales and only rarely at thrift stores.

Finally, let’s not forget our dolly friends.  Kathy made me this apron for my birthday:

The patterns are new and are supposed to be Christmas ornaments.  Eagle-eye Kathy realized that they were fashion doll size and whipped this one up.  Sadly, Vero doesn’t look all that happy to be modeling an apron, but she’ll get over it.

Thanks for wading through this long post; it barely skimmed the surface of what I have stored away, which is a scary thought.  I haven’t forgotten that another installment of crazy vintage craft patterns was promised, so keep on the look out for that post.

Another Friday, Another Estate Sale

Oh boy–two estate sales in one month!  This one sounded even better than the first one; it advertised costume jewelry, linens, craft books, and much, much more!  You can’t even imagine how much stuff was in that house.  Sadly, the prices were nowhere near as good as the sale we went to a couple of weeks ago.  We were accompanied by a faithful reader, Connie; she picked a good day to shop with us because we also hit a really good garage sale.

Most of our pictures come from the estate sale–you had to wade through a ton of bad to reach the good.  Sadly, the costume jewelry wasn’t to our taste, to put it mildly.  We say “no thanks” to overpriced plastic beads and unattractive brooches.  Strangely enough, lots of the figurines, and some of the pottery and china were broken and poorly repaired.  That didn’t seem to affect the prices, which mystified us.  Beware, there is a truly horrifying clown in this post; I’ll put it near the end just to build suspense.

Here is one of the few figurines that was intact:

The clothing was Middle-Eastern in nature, but the androgynous figure seems fairly Northern-European in appearance.  For all of that, we thought it was cute and unnecessary, especially at $5.

The lady of the house was very crafty.  We noticed that she crocheted, sewed, and tatted.  There were a couple of sheet sets that were tatted all across the top sheet and on the edges of the pillow cases.  Did you notice all of the linens and doilies on the shelves behind the stunning (as in you will feel like you were tazered) wall hanging?

  
You can see that she had pretty lamentable taste.  I don’t know where you would ever hang that hot, crocheted mess–maybe on the inside of your pantry.  You sure wouldn’t want to stare at it on a daily basis.  Connie did come back and buy some of the thread for her mother-in-law; never hurts to butter up your husband’s mama.

It was appropriate that this poor kitty was directly across from the yarn:

Such an unfortunate color, not to mention the eye problem.  It was another of the few breakables that didn’t have a piece broken off and glued back on cattywampus, but really, would it matter if this thing had a chip or two?  You could hardly make it worse if you tried.  We apologize to the cats of the world for putting this picture on the internet.

The kitty picture reminds me of the decor of the house–Seventies!

 

Those hanging lamps were in several rooms, in various colors.  I’m not sure I had ever seen three of those lights in one fixture.  You know the decor is bad when all three of us looked at the chalkware fish hanging on the bathroom wall and said “Blech!”

Here is another one of those hanging lights, this time in the bedroom:

You would have to avoid that part of the room, or risk a concussion every time you walked around in the dark.  We saw a red light in the garage; it didn’t even slightly tempt us.

In the dining room, there were two Last Supper pictures:

One was huge and 3D; if that weren’t bad enough, the other picture featured a blond Jesus and the frame and mat are FUCHSIA!

We saw several terrifying craft projects, some just plans, others fully realized.  Here is one sheet of paper with two bad craft projects:

 
I suppose of the two, the beer can hat has to be the most egregious; luckily, the crafter must have given both of these items away.  We are very grateful that we didn’t get to see the finished project.

I did buy a whole slew of booklets; they will have to be the subject of their very own post, but here’s a glimpse of what’s coming your way:

Be afraid, be very afraid.  I think my favorite is Fantasy Fur Decor, but there is something for everyone in this pile.

Getting back to what we saw at the sale, here is a pipe cleaner craft that fails on every level except comedy:

Just in case you can’t tell, they are fish–yes fish with eyelashes, made with chenille pipe cleaners.  These fish made the repainted chalkware fish in the bathroom look like Renoirs.  I’m really sorry that I didn’t take a picture of those chalkware fish; especially after mentioning them twice.

I’m not sure, but it’s possible, that this scary doll is hand-made too:

I’m just hoping that it wasn’t propped up against the pillow of a child’s bed.  I would rather sleep on the floor than in a bed with that doll!

There was some vintage clothing at the sale, including hats:

I tried the green/blue hat on and I have to say it made me look like a female Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.  Not in a cute Tom Petty way either!  None of those hats work with my head or hair, so there they sat.  I encouraged another shopper to try one on after she called them cute; she did, looked in the mirror, and that hat was off in two seconds flat!

We thought this mod skort outfit was fun:

I think she made it herself, and did a good job of it.  I could see it working on the right kind of woman who had a sense of fun about fashion.  You could also pick up trash along the side of the freeway in it and be perfectly safe–it was that bright.

There were several tables out in the back–just in case you didn’t get to see enough in the house.  I ran into an old friend there:

It’s missing a few pieces (the ink pen tail, and sponge topknot) but that is the Poodle Pal from the vintage ads post.

This radio had been mentioned specifically in the sale flier.  We looked all through the house, and finally ran it to earth in the garage:

It’s pretty funny, but obviously well-loved and used.  It wasn’t for us, but we wanted to see it.  I’m not sure it would sell for $35.  Someone would have to be crazy about vintage radios, and not too picky about condition.

Finally, the moment you’ve been dreading if you have any sense of self-preservation:

I walked right by it without seeing it; Connie called me back over to take a good gander at it–so blame her.  This isn’t a child’s costume either; the suit that went with it was adult male size.  Can you imagine the shrieks on Halloween when the man of the house jumped out of the shadows with this rig on?  If it happened to me, even as an adult, I would probably have to run home and change my costume.

To make up for the estate sale, we went to a couple of garage sales.  The last one turned out to be the best.  We all were tempted by things there, and the prices were ridiculously low.  Kathy is going to ’fess up to her big purchase:

I can’t believe I just fling money around like that!  No, I don’t need another one of these, but heck for .25, how can you go wrong?

Well, that’s all for this week.  Keep your eyes peeled for another vintage crazy and not-so-crazy craft post in the next month.

I want to do an apron give-away, so send your name and email address to:  TheSecondHandRoses@gmail.com.  We’ll throw the names in a basket and let the Summer Intern pick.  Here is the picture of the aprons:

I’m keeping the top blue one, but there are four other lovely ones just waiting for new homes.  Send us your entry by midnight Friday, May 31st and hopefully you’ll receive an email from us saying “You’re a Winner!”

The Usual Friday Finds

By the title, you would expect something normal, but usual for us is pretty far out there, so I guess we did OK!

Do you remember those ads on TV for those “Starving Artist Sales”?  No painting over $20.  I always said there was a reason those artists were starving.  They forgot to keep their day job!  Well, these paintings must have been from someone who was down to their last bag of Ramen, and we know why:

At least they’re in ginormous frames (at least in regards to the pix, as they are miniatures)  so, if you were lucky, you wouldn’t notice the paintings.  What’s more, they are painted into the actual frames, so they are inseparable forever.

We frequently wonder why people are so desperate to decorate their walls that they will purchase just about anything.  I suppose nature abhors a vacuum, but really wouldn’t a blank canvas be better than this?

Flattened bamboo armor?   One, it wasn’t much good as armor, and two, what kind of statement can this make on your wall?  I made road kill out of an ancient warrior, and I got this as a souvenir?

I almost like this better:

Hey, I said almost.  We came across this hanging backwards on the shelf, and Deb may never forgive me for turning it over.  What we do in the name of blogdom.  I guess when the granny square potholder pattern gets old, you have to do something different with it.

While we are hanging things up, NOT, this one really had us scratching our heads:

The runners on this were hand-sculpted in 3D, and whoever did it, did a pretty good job, but it still begs the question, WHY?  If you actually got to pass the torch in the first modern Olympics in 1896, couldn’t there be a better keepsake?  And besides that, this was obviously made more like in the 50s, so we have no idea where they were going with this.  Any ideas would be appreciated, even snarky ones.

This next item just made us laugh:

Jim Beam bottles come in all shapes and sizes, and we are pretty sure the cat on the outside has been sampling the booze on the inside.  At least the cat was happy before they turned it into a bottle.

You would need some serious drinking, if you woke up and saw this on a face lying next to you:Sleep masks are all very well and good, but we are pretty sure we know why this one was never opened.  Hubby took one look at it, and threatened divorce, if he had to wake up next to it.   I also want to point out how delightful I look modeling it.  I am nothing it not humble.

We have highlighted tin can art in the past, and we found an actual example of it last week:

Other than the silver braid, it is not all that bad.  Rip the braid off, repaint it black, and stick a candle in it, and it could be pretty darned attractive.  Hey, maybe those fifties gals were on to something.  No matter what, it is not nearly as bad as some of the modern gilded stuff we have featured in the past.

This last discovery, I made without Deb, which just goes to show how often we haunt thrift stores, even without each other.  Anyway, I can’t decide if you are supposed to kiss him and make him better, (eewww!) or if someone already did, and this is the best prince he is ever going to be.  Either way, I demand a new frog:

Here’s “hopping” all your frogs are the best princes ever.  We have another estate sale coming up that looks really good, so stay tuned.  Hope none of us are disappointed, except in the best Second Hand Roses way.

Estate Sale Action

With all the snow, garage sales have been thin on the ground for the last couple of weeks.  However, we did go to an amusing estate sale Friday.  What makes an estate sale fun, you ask?  We love a house stuffed to the gills with interesting things AND reasonable prices–it doesn’t seem like too much to ask for.  Friday’s estate sale had it all, in spades!  We both had as much stuff as we could reasonably carry, and yet I spent less than $20 for my pile.  It’s not just the loot; we like to look at the house, other people, the decor–it’s all grist for the Second Hand Roses mill.

So here are the linens (and a couple of interlopers) that I bought:

I have a thing for aprons (I know, what don’t I have a thing for?) and especially the ones with stitching, rickrack, or hankies to dress them up.  These six aprons were $3; I only wanted two of them, but of course they were in separate bundles.  Hmmm, maybe they could be a blog give-away; we spare no expense for our loyal readers.  At the back of the apron picture there is a hand-woven basket with a lid; I think it was 50¢.  The Scotty linen napkins on the right came in a bundle of six, and are in good shape except for one which has some issues with the binding.  Sitting on the napkin is a stylized globe from the 1964 World’s Fair.  It is just the kind of little tchotcke that I can’t leave alone!  It will mystify the people who come to my estate sale and wonder what kind of lunatic collected all this odd stuff.

I did buy a couple of bags of jewelry:

I really wanted the 10x loupe in one bag, and there was also a nice necklace and a pair of pearl earrings.  In the other bag were the three pairs of old screw-type earrings that are decorated with jade, coral, and carved serpentine.  I’m not crazy about the serpentine ones, but of course they are in a 12K gold setting.  The dark green beads are probably jade too, which is one of my favorite stones.  So all in all, there was enough fun in the two bags to justify the $9 I spent on them.

We each bought a bag of birds that were probably part of some craft project, and I bought a bag of old cookie cutters because they had unusual cutters in them.  Kathy will have to tell you what she bought because I can’t remember.

(Kathy) Here’s a photo of the highlights: an orphan linen runner, a set of 11 cocktail napkins (where did that twelfth rooster go?), a basket (I wasn’t smart, and picked up a small one that was no help at all for shopping!), cloisonne beads, a couple of the birds from our respective bags, and a nifty leaping gazelle that is headed for wall decor in a diorama.  I am not showing the bags of fabric, as really who needs to know that I brought more of that home?

There was a cool china beer keg and mugs, which didn’t come home with us:

 
The price was right, but it just wasn’t our kind of thing.  You can see by the sake bottle next to the keg, that it was pretty small.  One bomber beer bottle and it would be full to overflowing.  It was obvious to us that the homeowners were crazy about Asian decor, but they had pretty lamentable taste for the most part.  Lots of the china was clunky, not valuable, or all that attractive.  There were a bunch of books on collecting Asian pottery, cloisonné, and china, but we didn’t see too much that floated our boats.  Probably some eagle-eyed shopper scooped up all the good stuff before we got there.

We had to laugh at this huge potpourri container in the bathroom:

The color sure isn’t in our palette, and those clunky decorations on the pot are the kiss of death!  We were trying to decide why they needed such a big (more than a foot tall) container of potpourri anywhere in the house–maybe they were keeping pet skunks in the spare bedroom.

This set was in the basement, which seemed appropriate:

I can’t think of a use for this pitcher and glass set, unless we’re talking white elephant gifts, or target practice.  That pea-green color just needs to disappear, the sooner, the better.

After all that fun, we headed off to Goodwill certain (mistakenly as it turned out) that we would stumble upon a great find there.  Of course we did stumble upon finds, but they were blog fodder:

Okay, this is really cute, but it made us laugh to see such a tiny hot pad, and that it was hung on such a huge hanger.  Hopefully it was just for looks, because 2 inch x 2 inch hot pad isn’t going to get you anywhere except the emergency room with second degree burns.

I’m hoping that this was someone’s first clay-shaping pottery class project:

If the color doesn’t put you off, than surely the subject matter will.  I really wouldn’t enjoy having a lizard’s business that close to my mouth, or his foot in the corner of my eye.  I don’t mind lizards in real life, but this mask just gives me the willies.

Talking about having the screaming meemies, what do you make of this?

Is someone out collecting four and twenty blackbirds for a pie, tired of The Raven croaking “Nevermore”, or rescuing a bird from the La Brea tar pits?  I just can’t get a handle on what is being portrayed here.  I like ravens and I didn’t even want to touch this one to move it on the shelf for a better picture.

We were amused with these glasses:

The second picture has a flash so you can see all the details on the walnut decoration.  Kathy was pretty amused by these, and there will be a bar in her new house; we ruefully decided that her husband would not be amused by this set of glasses.  Here in Colorado, we would probably have to oil the wood to keep it from drying and splitting.

While we didn’t buy all that much at Goodwill, you can see that other shoppers were having a whee of a time:

This is the person we always get behind when checking out–especially when we are hungry and cranky!

As always, thanks for reading!  For all of you moms out there:

Happy Mother’s Day

 

This Post is Un-Named

Ah me, Mother Nature has seen fit to bless Colorado with yet another foot of snow this week, but as I have already had Frosty Finds, I guess I needed a new title!  Somehow snow on May 1st has sapped out all my creativity!  But, at least it has not depleted our ever-changing supply of blog fodder.

There were some super-easy slam dunks this week.  I mean, how could we not take a pic of this poor girl:

That rooster has evil on his mind, but she is keeping a sharp eye on him.  If the rooster hadn’t been stalking her, we would be wondering what she is doing, but having seen the little devil creeping up on her, we now know why she is glancing sideways coyly.  She is waiting for the goose on the rear, or should that be rooster on the rear?

Nearby, we spotted this:

It has tusks, ram’s horns, and a heraldic shield, but other than that, we have no idea what it could possibly be.  If this were the scion of your house, would you advertise it?  We think not.  Just go out and get yourself a new family crest.  Perhaps a nice normal everyday unicorn.

We had hardly recovered from the end cap of the aisle with the above two abnormalities, when the next end cap, brought this:

Really, really bad monkeys.  This is not the least bit decorative, and when all is said and done, more on the offensive side.  If you don’t believe me, check out the side view:

Come on, monkeys in the bathroom?  Please, just give me a good hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil statue, instead of just a plain evil one.

I tell you, it was just one blow after another this week.  We haven’t had a really bad velvet painting in a while, but just to make up for it, here is a pair:

It’s kind of hard to see, but they were encrusted with glitter, as well as being on velvet.  I hope the bull wins.

Whew, we needed a break, and found it in the form of these next two signs:

I might add that the friend should be WILLING to SHARE the chocolate, or that would just be an exercise in frustration.  Luckily, Deb and I would easily share our last piece of chocolate on most days!

This sign made me giggle too:

I would have bought it in a hot minute, but dear hubby is not a cat person, and he would not have been amused.  Sometimes, shopping has to take a back seat to peace at home.

We were trying not to take a picture of yet another Last Supper, but really, how could you resist one in 3-D?

Then we realized the bad ceramics are still following us, and the boy in front was doing some serious photobombing.  It’s funny what shows up in our photos without us even noticing it.  Sometimes it even takes Deb’s better half to point it out to us.  I think we are just obliviously single-minded sometimes.

We were not so blind, that this didn’t catch our eye.  Particularly heinous examples of the genre.  For heaven’s sake, Hawaii is a fabulous place; bring back some pearls, or a Hawaiian shirt.  Maybe if the tourists would quit buying them, they would quit making them?  Nah, probably not.  Hang four and half everyone.  (Didn’t even come close to a 10!)

Here is a “lovely” example of bad ceramics.  The colors are so awful, we wonder what colorblind person bought it for someone as a gift.  This peacock has a bad case of jaundice, and no amount of tomato juice will cure it.  (I had to Google a cure!)

On a final note, we spent a bit of time trying to decide if this was an ancient Viking Ship basket, or just a really odd duck with earrings.  We’ll let you decide and let us know.

Till next week, have snow shovel, will go south till they don’t know what it is anymore!