Projects

Seems like I have bought quite a few "project" items lately. All of these were found in the last month or so at yard sales or thrift stores.

Vintage School Desk - desk & base to be spray painted.

This cute metal cabinet. It is a nice petite size. This will be spray painted & a new decal added. Might use this as a night stand in my daughter's room - or maybe not. I also thought this would be great in a play kitchen. Purpose to be determined later.

Cart with wheels. This was also only $2. Not quite sure why I bought this other than it was a good deal. I keep seeing similar style carts from IKEA on some of my favorite blogs. I plan to paint this a cute color and then either use it as a bar cart or craft cart.

This "chippy" mirror. The mirror has a lot of silver showing through but I am going to keep it intact. I am also not going to touch the frame - love the distressed paint. I plan on putting window screen over the mirror and using this to hang necklaces and jewelry.

And the best for last - this amazing metal glider.

This will take some sanding and painting to bring it back to life. I have a major soft spot for vintage gliders. I love them! I was very excited when my husband found this for sale online at great price.

Lots to do - but at least these are fairly easy projects to accomplish. I will show the finished results when complete.

KayteeJane

Button Boxes

I love old buttons. I use them in many craft projects as embellishment. I look for them all the time at yard sales/estate sales and will buy them if affordable. Usually I find them in a jar or a bag - all for one price. Recently I lucked out and found these boxes filled with buttons. 

This triangle-shaped box shown below drew my eye instantly and I just had to buy it. It is filled with several beautiful red and green buttons. Vintage red buttons are my favorite. The box intrigued me because I recently bought another one like it that was green and the clear lid had a ballerina on it (much like the rose in the box above). I asked the lady selling this box if she knew anything about these. She told me that these triangle boxes were used to store ladies hankerchiefs. I love that! I have a large collection of hankies and I can see how great this box would be to store/display them on top of a dresser. The clear top would show off some of the lovely designs on the hankies. I think I will actually use this box for that purpose. I will have to show pictures when I get around to that. I also love the red & white marbling on the side of the box. I am a softie for red and white.

I love when I find things from the past that give us a glimpse of life in a specific era. A time when ladies used cloth hankies, embroidered them, cherished them, and displayed them on their dresser. Ladies after my own heart.

KayteeJane

Retail Therapy

I have been engaging in quite a bit of {vintage} retail therapy these days. This may or may not be a good thing, but it sure does feel good when it is happening. The up side is that most of this stuff was purchased for far less than new retail - so of course I can justify buying it in that case right?

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment which just happened to be located right next to a St. Vincent de Paul store {oh how convenient!}. So after my appointment I decided to reward myself with a stop there - just in case there was any Pyrex to be found. I lucked out! I walked out with 6 pieces of Pyrex plus some other stuff.
Here is my cart while wheeling through the store looking for treasures:

 Once home and washed up:

I can't believe my fortune at finding an almost complete Butterprint "fridgie" set. I have all of the pieces now except for the lid to the loaf-shaped one. I also bought some Butterfly Gold fridgies. This isn't one of my favorite patterns but I really like the small ones. I was able to find 2. Because I bought those I didn't want to leave the loaf-shaped piece behind. I don't know why I do this - as if the item has feelings or something - but at $1.99 I figured I would buy it and either gift it to someone or use it in some way.

Speaking of "fridgies" I have been using the small ones as bowls. I have a lot of them without lids. I do use these with lids to store leftovers, but I find that they make such a nice sized bowl and so cute too!

I also found some more milk glass. I think I have a problem when it comes to this stuff. I already had the bowl shown to the right. I use it to hold fruit. When I saw the mate I decided I just had to get it. The metal tray in the background was also found at this same trip. It was 59 cents.

Here is a picture showing a corner of my kitchen where most of this stuff sits ready to be used. I do use everything that I find. If I don't it goes. Period.

I also found this. If you have followed my blog for awhile you may have seen my pictures of another of these vases in pink that I received for Valentine's one year. There were two of these in white on the shelf. I bought them both! One is to keep and one to sell on etsy.

To top this day off Hubby found these two bowls at a church sale that he stopped at on his way home from work. What a coincidence! I didn't already have these two. I prefer this style of bowl to the princess style. I already used these for serving last night's dinner.

More finds from the same church purchased earlier:

Lastly I found this "fairy light" a few weeks back at a Salvation Army store. I have been casually looking for one for a short time. My mom had some of these when I was growing up with an owl face. Not sure what happened to them. Recently I saw people on Instagram post pictures of their fairy lights. I was inspired to try and find one for myself. I was super excited when I found this one.

 It looks so nice when lit. 

I hope you don't think of me as a hoarder! I promise you that I am keeping things in control!

Thanks for stopping today! I appreciate all of you for visiting!

KayteeJane

Recent Pyrex Finds

The Pyrex Gods were smiling down recently when I found three "new" Pyrex pieces to add to my growing collection - and all in one weekend.

Pyrex Butter Dish - I have been wanting a Pyrex butter dish for some time now. I only use butter these days - not margarine, so having a butter dish is a very practical item for me. Of course I'm not going to go and buy a new one from Target if there are vintage Pyrex ones available. That is just not me. They are listed on ebay all of the time. They aren't incredibly pricey - but as with all breakables - the shipping is costly, making the overall price higher than I wish to pay. Plus I am always hoping to find one at an estate sale or something. I guess it is the junker in me. The rush you get when you find something on your wish list and pay practically nothing for it can't be beat!

In the end I finally found the butter dish at an antique store. Amish Butterprint is the pattern I was looking for as it is one of my favorites. The price was more than I would have paid from a yard sale but still less than ebay, which made me happy. I am smitten with it! It is already being used in my kitchen.

I also scored this great baking dish. I only paid 50 cents for it. Yes, I said 50 cents! This has to be the find of the summer. It was purchased from an older gentleman at a garage sale being held at a senior living center. Now I usually don't go to those kind of sales. I guess I just assume that once a person moves to a senior living home they have downsized and don't have much to sell. Well I was proven wrong! This was made in the 1950's. It is called Desert Dawn. It has a slight reddish speckle on top of the pink background. I brought it home and worked hard at cleaning it with Bar Keepers Friend and a toothbrush. Now it is as good as new. The perfect size for brownies.

Also on this same day I found a pink Gooseberry bowl. The largest in the set of 4. This is my first bowl in pink Gooseberry. It is "minty"! This was bought at a junk/thrift store. This will be the beginning of my search for the remaining bowls in the set.

I am in love with all of finds and feel pretty lucky to have found them all within one day.

KayteeJane

Vintage Children's Picture Books

Hubby was at a thrift shop recently (without me) and found these amazing children's picture books from 1949. I wanted to share some pictures of them with you. Each page is as charming and vibrant as the next. Since I love most anything from the 1940's and also children's toys & books these were a great find.

The covers:

Some of the inside pages:

 

And my favorites:

Tails Waved - Love that!!!!

If it wouldn't destroy the book I could see framing some of the pages. 


Sometimes you can find some real gems at the thrift!

KayteeJane

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KayteeJane