Found while Flea Marketing

I finally got around to snapping a couple photos of my haul from Maxwell Street Days.

 A rosy hankie, rhinestone necklace (that needs a new chain to fit) and a tiny majorette for a future project.

Just a small gathering of a few of the many letterpress blocks.  Yes, there are more, and yes, I'm a bit ashamed to admit how many more,

Thrift Shops and Birthdays

It's been a busy week that started with a trip up to Port Washington to visit Beth in her new apartment, explore her new neighborhood, and hit up some thrift shops.  Downtown Port is quite adorable, and I'm sure Beth is going to love how walkable the area is because I know we both miss that aspect of Oshkosh.  We stumbled into a new little vintage shop called Mobocracy which had some great clothes and custom jewelry.

We did make it to the Saint Vinny's thrift store, but I only found one thing I couldn't live with - a floral enamel pot I plan to use for removing used postage stamps from old envelopes.

Then yesterday was H's birthday and we made and decorated some cupcakes.

The inspiration came from these frog cupcakes from a Disney Princess cupcake book and I think the girls made some adorable frogs.

But Miss H had some other ideas.

Today Tia is coming over for lunch and I'm planning a solo jaunt for some errands tomorrow and hopefully I'll have enough time to swing by another thrift store, what can I say - I'm a little predictable. 

Thrifted Finds

On the way home from work a couple weeks ago I stopped by a yard sale (the signs promised it was *HUGE*) and while there wasn't much that attracted me I did manage to come home with a couple of gems.

The young girl who had her own tarp set out with all her own stuff to sell had plenty of horse themed items.  I managed to spy a book by Margerite Henry, the Milwaukee native who wrote Misty of Chincoteague among many other horse books.  She worked quite frequently with illustrator Wesley Denis whose work I absolutely adore, so I picked up the well worn copy with binding falling off so I could pull out the illustrations inside.

And the simple loveliness of a couple of old milk bottles which I couldn't pass up.  I don't know what it is about the milk bottles that keeps attracting me every where I go, but at a quarter a piece for these two I didn't question it.  If nothing else they'll make adorable vases.

But now I must stop my blogging break to go unpack some more boxes!

Adventures in Thrift Land

Because we are terrible at reading calendars we mistakenly thought today was the 50% off sale at the Habitat ReStore (it's actually next Saturday) and made a trip out to Wauwatosa to see if there was anything we desperately needed for the house we're still trying to buy.  While there wasn't anything we needed to pick up for the house we did have some great little finds, and now I know where I'll be picking up a sink for my often dreamed of dark room.

I had a little thrill when I saw this box on the shelf among the other hardware.  Not only am I a sucker for great vintage packaging, but one of my littlest cousins is named Atlas and when we come across fun things with his name on it we like to pick them up to give to his parents and while these aren't exactly practical I also needed nails this size, so they had to come home with us.  I picked a couple other things, but since they're gifts I'll wait to share those.

After lunch we decided to drop by Goodwill where I found these fun little vintage ornaments.  I have a soft spot for Shiny Brite christmas ornaments, and while only the seven blue ones on the right are actual Shiny Brite, but for just 49 cents I can deal with a few duds.

Thrifted Finds: A $2 Trip

A couple weeks ago during a thrift run at the 91st Street Goodwill I came upon these three strange creatures that just couldn't be left behind.  Besides these three that I came home with there was a plethora of other generic ceramic items colored in varying shades of talent and once I came across plates with swatches of glaze and numbers written below I could only assume some paint-your-own pottery place had cleaned out its back room of unclaimed merchandise.

First there was this tiny elephant bank which I figured was a steal at 49 cents.

Next was another 49 cent bargain - the fish who is apparently an ash tray, and I'm not sure what I'll use him for, but he was just too intriguing to leave behind.  Perhaps I'll perch some small figurine on his lip, about to be swallowed whole.

And then of course there was the matador, in all his 99 cent glory, who put me up to my self imposed limit of $2.

These three creatures plus a lovely shade of red spray paint will make for some nice tschokies on the shelf above my desk.  I plan on putting the elephant bank to good use as a savings place for my travel fund change.  Hopefully the next trip he will help to fund will be a train trip someplace south with Jennie.