Buys And Dolls

I was truly raring to thrift this weekend (I'm training Ruby early), but after promising my neighbour that I'd join her at the zoo on Saturday morning, I was fearful that it was going to be a no go. As we drove to the zoo I bit my lip as we drove past so many garage sale signs, including one that read "Huge Estate Sale." Eeep. I rarely venture to the sales on Sundays, because there's hardly any point, but my curiosity got the best of me and I dragged Ruby to that estate sale. All I can say is "wow."


Estate sales kind of get me down. While they offer terrific thrifting opportunities, it's also really sad and often creepy to dig through a deceased person's stuff. The woman who owned the stuff from this particular sale was particularly interesting -- according to her daughter, the lady spent the bulk of the past 30 years doing crafts (yah!) and sitting in front of the TV, ordering dolls from the Home Shopping Channel. After rummaging through her craft stuff (nothing piqued my interest) and books (I snagged some old Golden Books for Roo) I ventured into the basement of the house, where, in a small room, at least 200 dolls were still up for sale. Two hundred. It was one of the most glorious/most depressing things I've ever seen. Piles of dolls, and not even necessarily collector's dolls, mostly unclothed, stacked in an unfinished basement. I let Ruby choose one doll (after rejecting her initial choices because I was afraid they'd come to life in the middle of the night and kill me in my sleep). Ruby's doll is named Anya (she came with a little name badge) and she's part of a set released to celebrate the birth of some quintuplets that were born in Ontario in the '80s. I also picked up a suitcase of Barbie clothes (for the future), a suitcase of doll's clothes, a little doll's cradle and then got the hell out of there.


I also managed to find some crockery this week, after lamenting to Leena that Pyrex is getting so hard to find. At the aforementioned estate sale I got a nice divided depression glass plate (which Leena herself tried to buy on Saturday, but at that point the woman was asking three times as much as she gave it to me for). Not satisfied with my haul, I went to the Sally Ann on Monday and found a boon of Pyrex. I ended up with two casseroles (one in Verde, one in Butterfly Gold) and a covered Verde divided serving dish. I also found a really sweet glass chip 'n' dip set with a cherry and gold leaf pattern. Score!

W.I.P. Friday and Bonus Thrift-o-rama!

I joined a postcard swap hosted by the lovely and talented Andrea and I'm feeling like I've so little time to cut and paste. But, I managed to get four of my 12 cards done this week. The very loose theme of the swap is "summer," and I've taken on a mini-theme of "summer reading," taking most of my material from this really weird kids book that I bought at a garage sale last week. I kind of like them.


Speaking of garage sales, there has been a very tiny bit of thrifting over here. Ruby likes the adventure of hitting the garage sales, since there's usually a toy or two to be found, so we hit the road on Saturday without so much as a map or a newspaper to point us to the goods. When I was a kid I was obsessed with Royal Doulton-style figurines, so I've decided to start Ruby a collection of prissy ceramic dolls for when she's older. Hence the fancy porcelain lady you see. Then, just today, I happened upon this milk glass pie plate, which is exactly the kind of thing I go nuts for. I'm finding the milk glass pieces few and far between in garage sale land, so I was happy to snap it up.


And, from a church garage sale last week, a couple issues of McCall's Needework & Crafts -- one from 1963, the other from 1966. Check out the Wilma Flintstone chic!

Groggy Monday

There's a bit of sleep deprivation going on in our house today. How did I give birth to such a willful and stubborn child? Wait... don't answer that.

Although last night was rocky I did manage to score some time for myself this weekend: dinner out with the girls and a morning of shopping with my friend Mark. While I failed to find a spring jacket at Winners (damn you, trendy trench coats! I want something different and it's just trench, trench, trench everywhere) we did stumble across an awesome moving sale. There was a ton of crafty stuff, but the lady at the sale told us that the contents of the house belonged to her very ill mother, who was being transferred to a care facility. I don't know -- there's something so invasive about garage sales anyway, and I just couldn't bear to take this lady's craft stuff, even though she probably can no longer use it anyway. I don't know if I'd want someone rummaging through my half-used skeins of yarn if I was ailing. It's silly, I know, but it just seemed too personal. If I want to be a hardcore thrifter, maybe it's better not to ask questions.

I did take some books off their hands though, and this little Fire Kind casserole dish. There were mountains of other vintage cook books, including a Better Homes And Gardens library, but I just chose a couple of craft books and some Pilsbury bake books. I already am building a Family Circle Illustrated Library Of Cooking and I didn't think Aaron would appreciate another full set coming home with me. Speaking of which:

I also managed to score some more Family Circle books at the thrift store this week. I'm working my way up to try making that wiener tiara this barbeque season.

Sailing Season

Spring is making a tentative entrance here (though I'm not kidding myself -- there'll be plenty of freak snowfalls well into May), which means it's time to scan the streets for garage sale signs as I drive around on the weekends. I love garage sales. I haven't hit a whole lot of them in recent years since we didn't have a car for most of our time in Toronto and Ruby is just getting old enough to accompany me or stay at home with Aaron while I dig for treasure. I was pretty excited to see a moving sale poster in the hood when we came home from my sister-in-law's birthday party on Thursday, so Friday morning Ruby and I were off for the first sale of the season.

The great thing about our neighbourhood is that it's populated by older people, many of whom want to cash in on the city's super hot real estate market (prices have more than doubled in the last two years -- it's crazy) and move into condos, so they need to get rid of a lot of stuff. The house we went to on Friday was awesome -- an early '60s mod two-level split, inhabited by a woman who very proudly told us she was a great-grandmother. Most of the stuff was inside the house, which meant that we got to see the interior -- it was so cool. I kind of wanted to ask if she'd already sold the house too, but with prices like they are, it was probably going for about half a million dollars. Like I said, crazy.


Anyway, she had plenty of cool old kitchen appliances and furniture, but I promised Aaron I'd stay practical, since he hates the excess stuff in our house. I picked up this great Blue Mountain Pottery vase (we do actually need vases), mostly for the nostalgia factor. Blue Mountain was huge when I was a kid and I fondly remember a pair of ceramic dogs that lived in our living room for most of my childhood (my very non-nostalgic father long ago threw them out). I also couldn't resist this ceramic tray, because of it's overwhelming housewifey-ness. It's got a recipe for Ham Salad on it! I don't think I'll ever be able to bring myself to actually make ham salad or to serve it on the plate, but a girl can never have enough serving trays.


But, the true treasure was this 1957 issue of Family Circle, which the lady gave to me for the amazing price of absolutely free. Look at the smiling lady and her delicious cake, made completely out of pre-packaged foodstuff. It's a real gem, lots of thoroughly disgusting recipes, a fashion spread, mothering advice... but the ads are the best. My favourite advertises "And my doctor agrees that Jell-o is just the thing for babies" and features a six month old babe eating sugar, food colouring and gelatin. My crafty side wants to carve this thing up, but I think I'm going to leave it as-is for now.

Pyrex It To Me!

I don't know why, but I've had the itch for Pyrex lately. Now, I'm not a huge thrifter. I loooove thrift store finds and I'm always envious when I go into the home of a hard-core thrifter, but I've never had the patience to really really get into it. But, maybe it was my sister-in-law Erin's recent gift of some milk-glass mugs, or perhaps it was our trip to her house when I basked in her own Pyrex shrine (she easily has 100 pieces -- no kidding) that has given me a huge urge to accumulate stuff. Either way, I've been meaning to get out there thrifting and today I finally got around to it and hit gold!


Before we moved, Leena found a couple of awesome Butterfly Gold Pyrex mixing bowls for me, which I love and use daily. Today at the Interfaith I snagged two Butterfly Gold teacups and a oval covered casserole! So matchy! I was really out for some solid refrigerator boxes, but I'm always up for adding to a set.

So, thrifting. I think I'm up for resuming a solid garage sale regimen come spring. Anybody with me?

Self Portrait Challenge: Resolutions Week #4

I resolve to use the good cups.

That's right. Why drink out of a cruddy I Heart NY mug when I can be sipping tea out of an antique tea cup that was owned by Aaron's Grandmother? In my books "good cup" can mean a piece of priceless china or a Pyrex mug, either way, I have plenty of trinkets that give me pleasure and I should be putting them to their proper use. If they break, at least they were broken in the name of good tea.



Speaking of which, I briefly mentioned a treasure trove of items that were given to me back in early December, but I've been negligent in posting more. Pictured above is part of a tea set that Aaron's old piano teacher Elinor passed on to us after she moved into a senior's complex and needed to clean out the contents of her house. The set belonged to Elinor's mother and hasn't been used since her death in the early '90s (I know this because of the newspaper it was wrapped in). My goodness, it's a full Royal Albert Blossom Time tea set, complete with 16 cups and saucers, snack plates, the tea pot, a plate for the pot, creamer and sugar, a tray for the cream and sugar and a platter for treats. It's amazing and beautiful. I tend to go for less fussy '60s and '70s era collectibles, but this is a dandy that I will treasure forever. Thank you Elinor!

Home From The Holidays

We didn't actually go anywhere over the holidays, but with Aaron taking a blissful week off, we're kind of feeling like we're finally returning to real life. Mind you, the social madness of Christmas/New Years is coming to a slow halt -- last night Aaron ditched work early so that we could go to a hockey game (ah, our poor Flames were robbed by a trio of bum refs) and tonight we have a birthday party to go to. Still though, I figure it's about time that I show off some of the craftier gifts that showed up under our tree. Not to gloat, of course, but I think it's nice to share these kind of gifts on the blogs -- I know seeing what some of you out there received has already given me ideas for next year. All in the name of anti-consumerism, of course.



Today I'm focusing on Aaron's sister's girlfriend Erin (who would be Aaron's sister-in-common-law), who is an incredibly creative girl. She's an artist and an expert thrifter and thus an amazing gift-giver. For Aaron and I she whipped up a really cool oven-mitt pad with a matching dishtowl (which didn't photograph well). She's also a big pyrex collector and as difficult as it is for her, she's decided it's time to thin out some of her collection. So, we now also have a gorgeous set of orange and white pyrex mugs, which is one of my favourite Pyrex patterns.



Again, not photographing well, this other thing is a magnet from a series of her works of art. I love these things -- she basically lacquers bits of found paper onto a juice can and puts a magnet on the back. They're all one-of-a-king and really amazing. I think she sells some of this stuff in and around Vancouver, so look out for it.



And finally, check out this gift for Ruby. It's a beautifully embroidered dress/tunic that she'll be able to wear either over pants or tights forever. A great thrift find that really came from the heart. Thanks Erin!!

Well, I'm back to the grind. I recently realized that I haven't printed any of the photos from the last year and a half of Ruby's life. So, I'm uploading about 800 photos (I'm not kidding) to the photomat so I can make the poor kid an album. New parents, I'm warning you. Don't let your digital photos linger for this long. It's a killer.