I want to start off today's blog with a sincere thank you. I can not express how much it means to us that our family and friends support us in this venture. Nor can I thank enough those customers who come in and buy our lovingly purchased, cleaned, rehabbed and up-cycled pieces. It reaffirms that we are doing something right. That others see the life left in vintage items and will love and cherish them as much as we did when we picked them. Bill and I don't buy anything that we wouldn't put in our home. In fact it's a struggle to put our finished product into our jeep and bring it to the store... because we have soooo much of our hearts in these. (It's also a struggle to get some of the items past my mother who will scoop much of what I grab up if I let her... I've learned to show her small things only... because getting the larger things to California can be challenging.)
Every time something larger sells, I reconfigure the layout of the booth. I find themes/vignettes and end up spending hours there instead of the 15 minutes I'd given self to add a few smalls and fluff it. Today was one of those days. We now have a travel corner. Trunks, suitcases and valise's... my love for these makes complete sense, since travel is what I do for a living. I LOVE finding the old bag tags on pieces... our newest trunk has a Delta tag... I think the green trunk has an Eastern tag... I know whatever tag that one has is a long gone airline... On our shelves in the main area of our booth we have an old medallion tag for Delta, along with airline shot glasses... and one of my favorites is the airplane slippers... check them out, they're right next to the blue enamel pitcher on the bench. That's when the skies were much more luxurious for sure.
I also have a weakness for hand painted china. I have zero talent in drawing and painting, thus I appreciate the efforts women put into these pieces long before I was born. China painting was a 'respectable hobby' for women from 1880-1920. Some painted pieces for fun, others to make pin money. Some items were displayed and other items used, like the set of 6 individual salt cellars seen in the picture to the right. I'm going to veer right off subject here for a moment... and talk about how much time these women took in setting the perfect table... today we tell the kids to grab a plate and a napkin and eat... then, you had your own salt cellar, cups and silver for each type of food or drink might be served... crystal and silver knife rests... etc... we're losing this art in our age of computers and smart phones...
Returning to the subject... everything that could be painted was... tea strainers... jewelry boxes, hat pin holders, salt shakers, bells, and sugar shakers to name a few. Each painstakingly done with exquisite perfection. It's hard for me to pick and choose when I find a sale full of these beautiful pieces of art.
We do have some newer decorative bits... I kinda like fun fillers and couldn't resist the feather balls at an estate sale recently. I tried to grab just a couple, and ended up with them all... along with some hand painted balls from Africa, that I threw in with my hand carved gourds from Kenya. They called to me and I hope they'll call your name too...
I usually blog around a project, so I'll throw in a quick one for the piece I put in the booth today. It was a drop leaf table but it was pretty banged up and had some broken pieces on the leaves. My husband and I both thought the legs were sexy though so we grabbed it from a friend. We had planned to attach it to a door for a hall tree but as we got it apart we both agreed that it needed to just be reinvented into a hall table. All the wood on the table is original. My very talented hubby took the three pieces from the table top and grabbed the one piece still in good condition. He cut it down to fit the legs attached it to the top and re stained the entire piece. One of it's side drawers was missing a knob so we put on vintage looking glass knobs. The piece came out gorgeous!!! It's perfect for your foyer or den... or even possibly as a small desk in a teenagers room for their laptop.
I'll end this as I started this with a thank you again... from our house to yours... happy junking and safe summer travels...
Salisbury Cathedral pitcher
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