Thrift Finds

1. Fire King Blue Heaven Plate. How cool would it be to have a whole set of these plates? pretty awesome right? I don’t find this pattern much, but I love it and it’s my second piece with this pattern.

2. Assorted Early American Pyrex Fridge’s. I never have luck finding fridges even though I think they’re soo cute! I went to the Salvation army a few weeks ago and found these bad boys. The big one is the only one with a lid but I can always look for lids. I’m pretty neutral about this pattern but I like it enough, I have a small mixing bowl in the pattern and the price was right. So I got them.

the little ones even have kitties on them!

3. Light Blue Pyrex Fridge. I found this at the same salvation army as the early American fridges above. It doesn’t have a lid but I loved the color so I had to get it.

4. 50’s Made in Japan Poodle Card and Pen Holder. I’m always looking for cute made in Japan ceramic figurines, so when I saw this I kind of had to get it. I had no idea what it was when I got it, but I looked it up and it’s a pen and card holder. I think there used to be an eraser on the dogs head, you can put cards/letters in the spring-y part and pens in the back.

5. Relco Asian Ceramic Figurines. I found these at Savers a couple weeks ago when they were having a 50% off sale. Of course they weren’t on sale, but I got them anyway. I think they’re supposed to be bookends but there not heavy enough to actually be bookends. So they’re more decorative than anything.

6. Haeger Nursery Planter. I don’t have a baby boy and I’m not pregnant but I loved this planter too much to leave without it. I love the sort of art deco style of the animals and it’s just super cute.

** This week I’m linking up with Her Library Adventures’ Flea Market Finds again, so go and check out the cool stuff other bloggers found!

Taliesin Trip Day 2 part 2 and Day 3

     After Taliesin we drove around a little bit and ate Lunch. Then we went back into Richland Center to go to a few thrift stores. One of the few perks of having a hotel in Richland Center instead of Spring Green was that our hotel was near a Goodwill. The Richland Center goodwill was actually a pretty good store. Here’s what I got:

1. Donkey/mule/ Horse (?) planter

2. Vintage Floral Print

       After that we went to another Thrift store in downtown Richland Center which was pretty good too but I’m pretty sure they only took cash and I didn’t find anything I was willing to try and find a cash machine for. When we were on the way to the downtown Richland Center thrift store we saw a sign for a historic site that my mom remembered was supposed to be kind of cool. so we drove around Richland Center trying to find this warehouse building and gawking at old houses. When we finally decided to turn around a go back to where we saw the sign first we happened upon the building.

       The Building is the A.D. Germen (pronounced Jarmon) warehouse. My mom was convinced it was a Wright building so we took out the Frank Lloyd Wright and Prairie style in Wisconsin Book and it was. Wright was notorious for having money problems and owed German money. Instead of taking money. Germen agreed to have Wright design him a new Warehouse.

close up of the Mayan inspired concrete blocks.

This was the first building in which Wright utilized his Mayan Revival concrete design. Wright has a bunch of Mayan Revival houses in California that are really cool, they’re some of my favorites of his designs. It was a pretty cool building and it was cool to see the beginning of Wrights Mayan Revival designs.

 The building is not currently in use, It seems like it used to be open to tours but no longer is. It is also in a bit of ill repair, though that kind of makes it cooler. It would be kind of interesting to do some urban or I guess rural exploring in there. Hopefully someday soon someone will buy it or use it for something.

        After we gawked at the warehouse we decided to go to La Crosse. We hadn’t really planned what to do after Taliesin, but since it was only tuesday and I didn’t have to be back to work until Thursday we decided to go to La Crosse, stay there for the night, explore the city Wednesday morning and then go home. So, we drove on a very scenic highway to La Crosse where we searched for a cute motel to stay in. My mom and I are always attracted to old 50’s motels so we searched around a bit and decided on a cute motel. It looked cute on the outside but the inside wasn’t as cool and retro as we had hoped. It was nice and clean though so we decided to stay.  This hotel proved to contain a few comedies of error. First we had a little mishap with the air conditioning . The first room we stayed in the air conditioner didn’t work at all and this was during a very hot and humid heatwave where air conditioning was necessary. So we changed rooms and the second rooms air worked but it didn’t get real cold like a good air conditioner. By then we were too tired to complain and it was working well enough that we just lived with it. The hotel had been remodeled but it seemed like it had been remodeled cheaply. You could tell the shower had been glued over the previous one and when my mom tried to adjust the shower head it fell off, which wasn’t great for my shower after hers.  Anyway despite all that the guy at the front desk was at least friendly and nice. I guess the motel used to be super retro with pink bathrooms and the like but the bathrooms were in such illrepair that they had to re-do them.

         Wednesday morning we checked out, got some breakfast and drove around a bit. With the Frank Lloyd Wright in Wisconsin book we located a few of his houses in La Crosse and looked at them. Then we went to a big antique store that was nice and had some cool stuff. My problem with antique stores is that unless they’re very well priced or I find something I’m absolutely in love with (and it’s in my price range) I can rarely pull the trigger and buy something. I usually look at all that stuff and think I could get a better price if I found it in a thrift store and then just get overwhelmed by all the stuff in the store. It’s almost too much. Anyway after that we did a little thrifting at a salvation army we had passed the day before. That Salvation army was pretty good too. Here’s what I got:

1. Siesta Ware Tiki Mugs. I thought these were pretty cool, I like the colors and the Hawaiian-esque details.

2. Fire King Blue Heaven cinderella bowl. For vintage dishes I generally go with pattern & color than brand. I’d seen this pattern before online and knew it wasn’t Pyrex but I love it anyway and think it’s really cool. So I got it.

3.  Blue Pyrex Divided Dish. My Pyrex/ vintage kitchen wares search has cooled off in recent months, but this divided dish was in such good shape and had such a bold color I had to get it.

         La Crosse was actually a really cute town. It has retained a lot of it’s older buildings and is definitely a place I’d go back to. Anyway after thrifting we decided it was time to go home and we drove off into a thunder storm. We got about halfway home before it started to really rain and we had to pull over. Thankfully the rain stopped after awhile and we finally got home. So that was the end of our Taliesin Roadtrip. I’ll probably post a couple outfits from the trip on Saturday so watch out for those and have a great weekend!

Memorial Day Thrift Haul

Sooo I bought a couch. I know what your thinking, why? why did you buy a couch? Well it’s cute and mid century and I got 50% off, it was only $30.00. I wasn’t looking for furniture but I was at Savers memorial day and they announced that all furniture and electronics were also 50% off until 5pm. So, I casually wandered over to the furniture. I saw a cute mid century highboy dresser but it was painted black and I don’t really want to refinish a dresser I’m not in love with. I continued walking around and  looked at the chairs and couch’s and then I saw it.

Originally it was $60.00, still a pretty good deal, but with 50% off it was only 30 and It was really tempting. So I thought about it but there was one hitch, It’s too big to fit in my tiny car. I called my mom to try and get her to talk me out of it, but she didn’t. Unlike the Salvation Army, Savers doesn’t hold an item for you for 3 days, you have to pick it up the day you buy it. Savers should really think about changing that. So after lots of back and forth with my mom, circling around the couch like a vulture, giving the evil eye to people who looked/sat on it, we finally got a friend of the family to come with his van to help me get the couch home. He was across town and after the guy helping me told me why they don’t hold furniture I was super anxious about my couch. He said people take off the sold tag, buy it and the original buyer is left high dry and out $30 bucks. Luckily no one did that and my couch made it home safe.  Anyway I promise no more big furniture purchases, unless it’s Brasilia I don’t know if I can say no to that. Anyway from now on if it’s not Brasilia and I can’t fit it in my car I don’t get it. This works since what I really want to find is some cool storage so I can get rid of these two plastic storage bins in my room. Isn’t it cute though! When I looked at it part of my rationalization of buying it was that it could go in our TV room. Currently we have two chairs in there but they’re not very comfortable and we’ve gotten kind of sick of them. So, when we eventually clear out the chairs and ready the room it’ll be in there. 

I also got these cool tiki style cups/goblets. I looked them up and I guess they’re from Party City, I knew they weren’t old when I got them since they’re plastic and say made in china. Vintage or not I still think they’re cool. I’m usually looking for vintage tiki stuff but these were cheap and cute so I figured what the hell. I always thought I never found any good tiki stuff at thrift stores, then while searching for tiki stuff online I found out I’ve been seeing it a lot and just didn’t know it! So if your into something it never hurts to google/ebay it.

I did find a cool Cynthia Rowley kimono-ish top but I put it and the cups down to measure my car and when I got back it was gone. I found the cups again but the shirt was gone. Maybe next time. I didn’t really find anything else memorial day, I only ended up going to two stores. I was planning on going to more but I started late and the whole couch debacle took up a lot of time, by the time I got the couch home most of the other stores I was going to visit were closed. Did you find anything good this memorial day?

*Also, I decided not to post the photos to the photo-a-day challenge everyday and instead will do a roundup of the weeks pictures every Saturday until the end of the month.

** Also linking up with Her Library Adventures’ Flea Market Finds .

Thrift Find of the Year?

Last wednesday I went to the dentist and the dentist is near my local thrift route. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to go thrifting or not and sort of went back in fourth in my mind but decided to go. Savers was having a mothers day sale which was 30% off clothes, accessories (not jewelry) and bedding. I went to Savers and didn’t find anything good but was kind of in the groove and decided to go to the other three.
Goodwill was OK, I found a cool piece of comic book art that someone made. The frame is crap but I thought the art was actually really good and nerdy. I’ve recently been looking more for cool art at thrift stores but haven’t had much luck. So I liked this enough to get it.

 After goodwill I went to the Salvation Army, I didn’t expect to find anything since though it’s on my route it hadn’t heeded any great finds. so I was browsing and went to the furniture section to see if I could find anything cute and mid century. I didn’t really see anything but I did see a dresser that looked kind of like campaign furniture, but wasn’t. So I went over to look at it and then when I saw it wasn’t campaign I looked to my left and recognized a distinctive handle of … a Broyhill Brasilia dresser! I almost couldn’t believe it, I looked it over to make sure, grabbed the whole tag (apparently you’re only supposed to get the bottom of it) and giddily sped to the register. It was $79.99 but with tax it came out to $85.00! I’ve been stalking Broyhill Brasilia online and recently saw a local vintage re-seller sell a credenza for $400.00. And on Craigslist I know mid century dressers are listed for around 100.00 to 400.00, So I knew it was a steal and I was getting it. It needs some work, someone decided to paint the top and it has a few nicks here and there but I still love it! Anyway, I was so full of adrenaline after that I couldn’t look around anymore. I quickly browsed the dresses and purses and then decided I just had to go and call my mom to tell her. Unfortunately she was at work so I left a message and decided to go to my last thrift store despite my adrenaline high.

We haven’t moved it to my room yet, it’s kind of heavy, but this is what it looks like.
Oh hey there Oliver.
 

After that high I calmed down a bit and decided I should finish up my round and go to Value Village. I figured with the Brasilia find I was on one hell of a roll and shouldn’t stop the momentum. Thankfully Value Village didn’t disappoint and I found some cool 70’s canisters. I’ve wanted some of these ugly kitschy canisters for a while but never bought any. These were in good shape and pretty cheap so I decided to get them. The middle one doesn’t have a top, despite my searching, but I figure I can use it as a planter or vase or something.

I’m linking up again with Her Library Adventures’ Flea Market Finds, so check out all the other cool vintage finds over there too.

Mid Century Estate Sale Goodness

          As I mentioned before I haven’t been thrifting as much in the last couple weeks in part because of a sweet mid century estate sale I saw posted on estatesales.net last week. I’m a sucker for mid century anything and once I saw the pictures online I knew I’d have to go. I was mostly interested in a pair of mid century Reglor Lamps that had the original shade. I got up early the first day of the sale to try and get the lamps but by the time I got there they were gone. Everything was reasonably priced but all of the lamps were a tad out of my price range. They had a lot of cool mid century lamps but they were all around $125-150.00, not bad really but I was only really ready to pop on them if they were under $100.00. We  were also planning to go to a big garage sale the next day and I didn’t want to spend so much money on a pair of lamps. The woman running the sale said that sale was just the tip of the iceberg that in two weeks there would be another sale of even more stuff. I guess the owner was frequent estate sale attendee and ebay-er, my kinda guy! But he has so much stuff he decided to sell some of it, awesome. So since there’s so much stuff I may end up getting some cool lamps at the next sale. We did end up with some cool stuff anyway. Most of it is actually my mom’s, she went with me to the sale and I bought her some stuff as presents for Mother’s day and her birthday which are both coming up. Anyway here’s the cool stuff we walked away with.

1. This Snowflake Pyrex casserole with lid and cradle. My Pyrex enthusiasm has waned in the past few weeks. If I find a cool pattern/color for a good price I’ll pop but I find myself passing them up more and more. This was only $5 bucks so I figured I’d get it. Plus it’s a color and pattern I don’t have and haven’t seen in a thrift store.

** Also Peggy and I have the same casserole

image via Tom and Lorenzo

2. This restaurant style coffee pot.

3. This cool Mid Century light was the item I got my mom for mothers/her birthday. It goes with our living room and she really likes it.

yup it lights up

4. Probably the coolest thing we got was this fish TV lamp. They had about 7 or so of these at the sale in various colors. We’ve seen various TV lamps before but never these funky fish, so we had to get it. It’s pretty cool right?

The fish illuminated!!!!
one of the marbles fell off

This week I’m also linking up with Her Library Adventures’ Flea Market Finds and Apron Thrift Girl’s Thrift Share Monday so you can check out what other bloggers found recently. Did you go to any sweet sales last weekend? Find any cool items?

Thrift/Estate Sale Haul

       One of my New Years resolutions was to read more, I’m even trying to do the 50/365 challenge this year (read 50 books by the end of the year) so I’ve been going to the library a lot more recently. Since I’ve been going out randomly during the week to return or pick up books from the library, I decided to visit some thrift stores while I’m out and about. I don’t expect to buy things and mostly just browse to see if I can find anything cool during the week. I haven’t really found anything amazing yet but I have found a few good things. I did though find a semi-cool mid century side board but it seemed cheap-ish so I passed on it and then I saw it on a local vintage re-seller’s facebook page. I’m not sure if I regret it. It did seem cheapish, it didn’t have a lot of storage, but it was kind of cool. I dunno next time I find some cool furniture I’ll definitely be thinking about it more. Anyway here are some of the things I’ve found in the last few weeks from thrift stores and estate sales.

      One of the pretty sweet things I found recently was this Green Wheat Pyrex dish. Though I didn’t find the cradle or lid it originally came with, It’s probably my favorite Pyrex find so far. It’s a little scratched and isn’t exactly mint, but it’s so pretty! Now I just have to find the lid and cradle it originally came with.

           
            I also found some cute vintage shoes! I don’t have any qualms about buying shoes from a thrift store, I’m not much of a germ-a-phoebe and as long as they’re in good shape I’m willing to buy. The only problem is there seems to be a lot fewer shoes at thrift stores in my size. So far I’ve only found two pairs of shoes (these included) at a thrift store. This can be kind of annoying since I’ve found some designer shoes, mostly Salvatore Feragamo, in thrift stores but they’ve all been too big. Anyway I found these nude (vinatge?) pointy toe shoes a couple weeks ago and kind of love them. The pointy toe classic pumps have been all over the runways of late, and I really like the way they look. They have a nice classic silhouette and the heel isn’t too high so I can wear them more often.
  

       I’ve also found some good things at Estate sales. I had seen this snack set at another estate sale a couple months ago but it was gone when I got there. So, when I saw that this snack set was still available at a recent estate sale I had to get it. I like the cool retro floral design on it. I think the “flowers” kind of look like a certain weed though, which is fitting since I bought it on 4/20.

At the same estate sale I found this Early American small Pyrex mixing bowl.

That’s all for now. Until next time, Happy Thrifts!

 

Pyradical

   
       Since venturing in to the wide world of Pyrex and other retro cookware (but mostly Pyrex) I’ve been amazed at the wealth of knowledge available through blogs on the subject. For example I know of five blogs devoted solely to Pyrex. It’s nice for research purposes, most of the work is done for you, but still a bit odd. Every time I visit one such site I imagine a person out in the world with and encyclopedic knowledge of all things Pyrex. Said person is like half human half Pyrex fact spewing robot, they can spot Pyrex from a mile away and bark out it’s model number in a nano second. Kind of like that 80’s show Small wonder, except the person only knows about retro cookery.
        Anyway I went to the second day on an estate sale last Sunday that had pictures of two pieces of Pyrex online. One was a small pink one that I was more interested in but was gone by the time we go there, the other was the piece above. I actually kind of like the piece it looks oddly good in our living room and it strays a bit from the traditional Pyrex designs. I got it for 3 bucks and that included it’s shmancy warmer, score. After that we tried to find a thrift store we had passed earlier to no avail and then went to a thrift store we knew how to get to. I got a few tops there and vintage jacket/sweater. A pretty good thrift day. I’m definitely going to go back to visit the two thrift store we saw near the estate sale. Thrift stores in the suburbs/ outer metro can be gold mines.

EPIC Thrift Haul!!

So I had kind of an epic thrifting day last Thursday. Even though the Savers I visited has been open since like October I hadn’t visited until last Thursday. It wasn’t for a lack of want, just that it’s a bit far away from my usual thrift haunts and my house. Anyway after reading positive reviews on yelp I knew I had to go and give it a shot. Since both my mom and I were off last Thursday it seemed the perfect day to check it out. I wasn’t really expecting to find anything and spent most of my time looking through the clothes. Towards the end of my visit I was browsing quickly through housewares to see if there were any cool Pyrex dishes or something and there they were, two Cathrineholm pots! I had seen the pattern before, most recently on Rachel from Smile and Wave’s post about her thrifting trip to the Ozarks,  and knew they were cool and vintage. So I giddily took the biggest one and rushed to my mom to show her my bounty. Surprisingly she had no idea about Cathrineholm enamel ware, but I knew I was going to get it so I made her guard it while I tried on the small pile of clothes I was hanging onto. Later that night I went on ebay to look up the dish and found it selling online for $50-75.00, I paid $8.00. I had no idea they were so expensive. Immediately I lamented leaving the other pot. Sometimes I think too practically, ” I don’t really need two” etc.  I knew I had to go back Friday and see if the smaller pot was still there, and it was! Anyway it was a pretty epic find in my book and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna start collecting Cathrineholm from now on. I’ve seen a ton of cool ways people decorate with them on pinterest and I’m sold.

Anyway aside from the Cathrineholm I also found this large Pyrex mixing bowl. I’ve kind of started collecting Pyrex but I’m trying to limit it only to patterns and colors I like. I don’t want to become a crazy pyrex hoarder, I don’t have room/money for that.

And this cute made in Japan ceramic deer.

This haul was a bit out of the ordinary for me because I’m usually thrifting clothes and accessories, I rarely if ever get home accessories. I’ve been making a more concerted effort though to look through the home goods aisles more frequently and with a more discerning eye. I read some thrift blogs and people find amazing stuff in the home goods sections so I knew I needed to browse those more and branch out from just clothing. Guess all that “hard work” has finally paid off. In any case I’ll definitely be paying the cathrineholm Savers another visit soon, on the list it goes.

Sorry for the lack of outfit posts. I did wear clothes last week but nothing especially interesting. It’s been unseasonably warm around here (yay) but I hadn’t really put together any good warm weather outfits and couldn’t for the life of me think of any good outfits before I went thrifting. It seems in a pinch I’m not especially creative with outfits, but making lists of outfits and having them at my disposal when I just can’t think of a good outfit seems to help.  So a couple days ago I made a list of a some good warm weather outfits so I should have more outfits to post soon.

Shop Your Home

        Shop your home is a phrase I first heard on the Nate Berkus show a few year ago. It refers to changing up your interiors by moving furniture and home decor items from their current locations to different areas of your home. It also refers to re-discovering things packed away in basements and storage. I’ve done this a few time in my house. I found a few bedside tables to put in my room a few years ago and dug up some of my mom’s vintage clothes. Anyway, we recently had another shop your home moment when my mom brought up the above planter from the basement.

 After my our mini road trip to Red Wing Sunday my mom dug up this little gem. A few weeks ago we went to an estate sale that had this planter (though a bit bigger) as a lamp. While at the estate sale my mom exclaimed she had a very similar planter at home. We didn’t end up getting the lamp. They wanted around $250.00 for it and that’s just out of my price range. So, the next day I tried to find it but had no luck.  Thus, I was super happy when my mom brought it up from the basement Sunday. I’m kind of obsessed with it. I just have to figure out where to put it!

Tang also likes the planter.
Have you ever shopped your home? What did you find?

Junk Bonanza

          So as I mentioned two weeks ago I went to the Junk Bonanza, which we randomly heard about through my mom’s co-worker. There were tons of vendors from all over the upper midwest and was full of cool stuff. Unfortunately I’m a bad blogger and didn’t take any pictures while there, I’ll try and work on that. Basically it had a flea market type set-up with lots of different vendors that, I believe, were all antique dealers. There was a lot of distressed shabby chic-esque furniture, which really isn’t my thing, but there were also a lot of other cool stuff including mid century and art deco items. A lot of the stuff was a bit too pricey for us but we did get a lot of cool ideas for using vintage items in different ways, refurbishing old furniture and checked out some really cool antiques. Aside from what we bought there was a really cool old dental cabinet that looked exactly like this, it had tons of little drawers with cool ceramic organizers. It was $2100.00,  a little out of our price range, but it was really really cool and while drooling over it we thought of a million cool ways to use it. We’re seriously still drooling over it, maybe one day I’ll have the money to get one. Antique dental cabinets, who knew?

        Ultimately we did end up buying some stuff including two really cool atomic 50’s lamps, a 20’s metal cabinet and a pin-up photo. I love 50’s and 60’s era stuff and I’ve sorta started collecting 50’s and 60’s lamps. A couple years ago I stumbled upon two retro 50’s atomic lamps and fell in love. Now I’m sort of obsessed. I’m always on the look out for cool 50’s and 60’s lamps at garage sales, estate sales, thrift stores and any antique stores. So far I’ve only found ones that really appeal to me at antique stores and estate sales, which depending on the pricing at the store/sale can be a good or bad thing. All in all it was a pretty cool experience and we’ll definitely be back next year.

20’s Cabinet:

Cabinet closed with 20’s vignette (picture, bowl and lamp) that my mom styled. 
close up of vignette
cute feet

50’s Lamps:

ceramic deer in vessel. I think they look like they’re at a Drive in movie, but maybe that’s just me.

ceramic cat I bought recently in hopes it would bring me some job luck, jury’s still out on whether it’ll actually help.
close up of lamp trim

lamp base

Pin Up (possibly NSFW):

Black woman pin up

And finally I thought I’d introduce my other cat Diamond. When I was taking the above pictures she was sunbathing on the floor so I snapped a few pictures of her.