A Few Thrifty Finds

Ok, anyone still out there? I have been MIA for only 2 months or so! If you are still reading this, thank you!

I was cleaning/sorting my vintage and thrifty junk finds, and I was struck with the need to capture photos a few of my recent treasures.

I found this sweet little set of 4 pink glass dessert plates for $2.00. The cutie-pie grapefruit pincushion is an etsy find from a year or two ago. The store is SeaPinks and it has the most adorable offerings for handmade felt pin cushions.

This little wall hanging I found so sweet. It has 2 to 4 layers to create a dimensional effect. Even the little bee and flowers have an extra layer. 

This was intended to show the details, but it was difficult to get closer without reflecting off the glass. I also have a thing for velvety ribbon, so this little piece totally charmed me.

This find was at a random stop for an estate sale sign. The ladies running the sale were making great deals on everything because the sale was thrown together very last minute by the homeowners. And, sadly, the house smelled like cats had been living there without people. Yuck! There were lots of diamonds in the rough, but nothing worth bringing home with that smell.

I did pick up a pewter water  pitcher and the ladies through this book in for free when I picked it up (it does not smell, thank goodness - except for that old book smell). It may not look like much to anyone else - other than a vintage children's book. But to me it is a childhood memory. My grandparents had us over every Sunday for dinner. They had remnants of toys and books from my mom and her siblings. Not a lot, but back then we made due with our imaginations and the front yard.

In the old books my grandparents kept was a set of Peanuts books from the early 60's, this one included. The books had very retro covers with bright bold pages inside. In this one, each new page started with "Happiness is...". Similar to our imaginations, the list was all very simple things, like a warm puppy, a thumb and a blanket, and playing with friends. So simple, and so true.

And my last item of the day~ I almost fell over when I saw this beauty. It was working perfectly as a display stand for some vintage gloves, jewelry and odds and ends. A four-tiered silver-plated server. I assumed that it was NFS, but was so pleasantly surprised that it had a price tag - a very reasonable price tag. It could use a good cleaning, but I love it just the way I found it, too, with all its patina. I need to decide what to use it for first. Wouldn't this be great to hold craft supplies on a desk?

I hope to be posting more frequently! But life as a momma bear can be pretty darn unpredictable.

Until then... Happy junking treasure hunting!

Thrifty Find: Royal Kent China

I just found a gorgeous set of Royal Kent china at Goodwill this week. I couldn't pass up such beautiful and classic china for the price. I got 54 pieces for $28.00! I just think it is crazy the amount of quality that can be found for so little money. 

It inspired me to start getting ready for hosting Thanksgiving dinner. This is an old bookcase that I use for extra surface in my dining room when we host a lot of people. It's one of those pieces that you've had forever and you don't LOVE it, but it's practical. 

{Please excuse the photos, the weather has been overcast around here all week. And I do not like using flash at all. So, I did my best with natural light and brightened them up a touch in photoshop.}

Told you it was dark outside (this was mid-day, too!) I threw in a few pumpkins for color. I adore white pumpkins, but unfortunately, our local farmers did not have a plentiful crop this year. The handful I picked up have mostly rotted by now, with the exception of the two shown here.

Normally, I am not a very gold kind of girl. Silver, preferably antique, is my thing. But the gold rim was so pretty on this set. Not heavy or overpowering.

Is it just me, or do these photos with the pumpkins look like something from a 1980's Better Homes & Garden magazine shoot? 

Not for their styling or expert photography - hee hee - but for their coloring {soft and washed out}. 

A few pieces from the set were missing, which doesn't bother me a bit. But there were 8 berry bowls. I love berry bowls! These would be perfect for holding jewelry on a vanity. Very shabby chic.

I didn't find the cream and sugar pieces for the set, so I added some mismatched ironstone to the display. I prefer my ironstone as mix and match actually. 

I used a small collection of vintage doilies as a makeshift runner. I'm still not feeling 100% yet, so this is as far as I have gotten with my inspiration I mentioned in my last post about decorating with doilies. :)

The set I found included 8 demitasse cups and saucers. I love teacups, but demitasse teacups are so stinkin' precious! This pattern is so dainty, that the diminutive size makes it so much more pronounced.

This photo is much larger than actual size, but it shows more detail of the pretty raised scrolls. Whether you prefer tea or coffee, this cup requires pinkies in the air. Wouldn't you agree?

Funny thing - I realized after I set it all up and snapped a few quick photos, that I was less concerned about my 3 year old breaking anything - and more concerned about the dog licking the plates on the lower shelves! Agh! So, they are now stacked on the top until turkey day arrives.

Further inspiring my doily obsession was this beautiful glass platter I also found at Goodwill. Look at that intricate white doily pattern! And the gold trim works perfectly with my new-old china! As I was paying, the clerk at Goodwill said to me, "Wow, you came in on the right day!"

Yes, ma'am. Yes, I did. :)

Have you had any great thrifty finds lately? Or a new inspiration to get you started on your holiday decorating?

Sometimes I link up with the following fabulous linky parties: The 36th Avenue, A Ruffled Nest, At the Picket Fence, Atkinson Drive, Be Different Act Normal, Between Naps of the Porch, Beyond the Picket Fence, Blissful & Domestic, Bowdabra Blog, Cheerios and Lattes, Coastal Charm, Common Ground, Country Momma Cooks, Crystal & Co (The Mommy Club), The Dedicated House, DIY Show Off, Elizabeth & Co., Embracing Change, Faded Charm, Family Every After, The Farmhouse Porch, Finding Fabulous, Fine Craft Guild, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Free Pretty Things!, French Country Cottage, Ginger Snap Crafts, High Heels and Grills, Home stories AtoZ, House of Hepworths, I Heart Naptime, Lil' Luna, Ladybird Ln, Life on Lakeshore Drive, Little Becky Homecky, Mandatory Mooch, Milk & Cuddles, Mod Vintage Life, My Repurposed Life, My Romantic Home, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Nap Time Crafters, The Nature of Grace, Nifty Thrifty Things, Not Just a Housewife, One More Time, Primp Your Stuff, Redoux, Savvy Southern Style, Shabby Art Boutique, Simple Home Life, Six Sisters' Stuff, Skip to My Lou, Someday Crafts, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Stone Gable, Tatertots and Jello, Thirty Handmade Days, Timewashed, Tip Junkie, Twigg Studios, Uncommon Designs, Under the Table & Dreaming, The Vintage Farmhouse, ...

Mother's Day Goodie Bags

This past weekend we spent the majority of our Sunday in a cold hockey rink. Not that I'm complaining. I actually love to watch my son and his team play.

And I really love to see my husband coach the team, too. Literally. See him. He is very animated on the bench. Not in a Bobby Knight sort of way. Just very excited. Everyone comments on how exhausted he will be afterwards.

As head coach, my hubby had to go to a meeting with all the other coaches in the league to plan the team's game schedule. He likened this to being on the floor of the NY Stock Exchange. (Although, I'm not sure that means the same thing as it used to mean.) It is just a bunch of coaches scrambling and telling each other no. He was mortified to realize he was left with a double-header on Mother's Day. He knew he was in big trouble. He was able to reschedule one of the games, but the other coach wouldn't budge. So...

Hubby and the assistant coach devised a plan to give the moms flowers and chocolates from the boys on the team. I thought it was so cute. But in true fashion, when I realized he was going to buy the 4 piece boxes of Whitman's, I started my own devising. {Not that there's anything wrong with their idea!} I came up with a little something for the boys each to hand their mom with a tulip before they got on the ice.

Here is what I came up with for a small gift - a token to say thank you to the moms for making time in their Mother's Day to drive their sons to a freezing hockey rink {and incidentally, watch them lose} :[

I used a simple, resealable clear bag (I had extra lying around) - though I'm sure sandwich baggies would do just fine.

An award ribbon diecut on my Cricut on team colored royal blue cardstock tops a paper doily folded over the top of the bag. (Pretty sure these doilies were in a pack of 30 from the dollar store.) I printed the "#1 MOM" from Microsoft Word 12 per sheet and cut out with a circle punch.

Contents of the gift bag included: different chocolates in various blues, a scroll (see below), and a Hershey's bar wrapped in a photo of the team during a huddle before a game

The other moms went crazy over this. They loved the personal touch! And to think I thought of it at 10pm the night before the game. Super simple, though - I cropped a photo to the right dimensions 

{read: trial & error - could have saved a sheet of paper or 2 had I actually measured the candy bar!}

and printed 6 per sheet. I cut them out leaving ample space above and below to wrap around and adhere with double-sided tape {my absolute craft necessity.}

This shows the open side on the bottom - I didn't adhere too stringently in case they wanted to keep it.

The scroll was from a free printable from A Proffittable Life that I found (again - 10pm the night before, while the photo wrappers printed). I did tweak the blue a bit to better match our team color, but I thought its sentiment was perfect. Boys don't want to give a foofy {actual word?} poem to their moms. This was a manly decree! It lets them feel like they are powerful like kings, presidents, moms!

What? Well, it's true. We are typically the rule makers and enforcers. 

I printed 3 to a sheet as a 4x6 in my photo print program and cut them out. Had I been making just one, or if it had been for a party favor and I had more time I would have trimmed with precision on my paper cutter, but this was now getting late on Saturday night - so they got the old, try-to-cut-a-straight-line-with-junk-drawer-scissors treatment. I wasn't sure how to keep them from getting bent in the bags, 

so I decided to roll them up like scrolls and tie with curling ribbon. 

My husband felt so terrible that I spent the night before Mother's Day working on the gifts for myself and the other moms. But as we often say in this house, "It's just who I am."

~ All images were taken by me and can be found on my Pinterest boards. ~