Pink Gooseberries Complete!

This is the entire group of American-made Pink Gooseberry Pyrex. * aaaahhhhhh....Muppet dance*

 My pink gooseberry Pyrex collection is now complete!

The smallest two (501) refrigerator dishes were among my very first pieces of Pyrex, and my first pieces of pink. I've built this collection up over the last 3 years, but stalled on finding the largest refrigerator dish - the very last one I needed.

Finally I gave in and bought it online. Story of my life. And of course I'm trying to buy high demand pieces at a time when prices are climbing to all-new highs (the fact that it's tax refund time probably isn't helping, either).

But nothing, I repeat, nothing compares to pretty pink Pyrex, and a job well done. Now I can rest on my laurels, knowing that I have saved a sweet grandmothers Pyrex from falling into the well of obscurity.

Or something like that. Haha, I get downright imaginative when it comes to finding excuses reasons for buying more Pyrex!

And I just have to show you my two favorite brand-new kitchen towels! The one behind is a new Fiesta official go-along "zig-zag" towel. Not pictured, but I have a new, striped Fiesta dish drying mat that coordinates with the towels. Works great. All these new Fiesta linens are showing up at Kohl's, Dillard's, JC Penney, you name it. Great colors, and seem to be nice quality. Can you tell I'm a fan? :-)

The towel in front was purchased at TJ Maxx and I just HAD TO have it. It features the lovely Cathrineholm (the pink leaf mixing bowl, bottom left) ((OH TO have that actual bowl in real life!!!!!*swoon*)) as well as the lovely green leaf teacup and saucer, bottom right - "Bersa" pattern by the maker, Gustavsberg, designed by the iconic Stig Lindberg.

This little tea towel is likely as close as I will get to either one of these dreamy (and pricey!) pieces.


And my apologies to any commentors, I've had to add a captcha to my blog comments due to a sudden influx of spam comments. I hate to do it - they are annoyingly difficult to read sometimes. If it doesn't help cut down the spam-bots, I'll take the captcha off and just continue manually deleting the fake comments.

Hope this doesn't deter any REAL people from leaving lovely comments! :-)

Hope you are finding thrifty treats & treasures!

Valentine's Day

It's a bit late to be sharing Valentine's Day goodies, but better late than never, right? :-)

Hubbie and I spent the day a couple of hours away at an antique district we've only managed to visit twice since spending our honeymoon there 7 years ago. On the way out, we stopped at a Dillard's where I bought two sets of modern Fiesta small mixing bowls - better known as "Prep bowls". Ivory, and they were on clearance for 14 dollars a set. Found that out thanks to one of the Fiesta facebook groups - love it when we get a tip-off on a good sale!

I expected that deal would be my Fiesta mixing bowls for the day. But whoo-hoo, I was happily wrong!

These 3 vintage Fiesta mixing bowls came to 38 dollars total. Sweet!

Now, the ivory bowl (a size 3) is the only one truly in good condition. The Green #2 has been completely cracked and reglued. And the small yellow #1 has a lot of chips around the very bottom.

The yellow #1 is a duplicate for me. Both are seriously damaged, but I love them still. The new one is the older style with the inside rings.

Vintage Fiesta mixing bowls. Both of these are yellow #1 bowls, but the one on the right is slightly older and has the inside rings. The backstamps on inside ring bowls are a bit plainer. Both are in poor condition, but I love them anyway.

 And now I can do this! A nest of the first 6 bowls. Just missing the very gigantically large #7 bowl. LOVELOVELOVELOVE.

I have two extra bowls that currently don't have nest mates. My ultimate dream is to have a complete set of seven, with the inside and outside bowls being turquoise (my favorite vintage color), my almost perfect red #5 in the center, and one each of the remaining colors - all in excellent condition. But if I also end up with a hundred chipped and flawed ones, as long as I haven't spent too much money - I will love them too!

And finally, I added a new Fiesta heart bowl to my tiny collection of two. The first one was Marigold, bought last year on our anniversary. This year, Flamingo on Valentine's Day. If we go back on our anniversary this year, they should have the brand new color, Lapis, available. They've also announced a larger size heart bowl just a few days ago at the Chicago Housewares convention.

If both sizes are being produced, I may keep adding to my small bowls - which are more keepsakes to me - I might buy the larger size to use. We'll see when they hit the stores some months from now :-)

Fiesta heart bowls in Marigold & Flamingo

So there's my belated Valentine's Day post. And I totally forgot to photograph or mention that I bought a partial Lilac place setting. My first Lilac! Dinner plate for 10 dollars, salad plate for 8, and a saucer for 2.50. All of them in used, but still nice condition. They are all in regular rotation, but I won't use a knife on them.

Oh, and I have to share this: My poor husband. Poor, poor man, married to crazy dish lady. I scolded him but good the other day. Why? Because he dared to warm something up in the microwave on same lilac dinner plate I had just bought the day before. Visions of lilac shards and terror danced in my brain as hubbie's hands go towards the microwave oven controls.

Have I mentioned that I've now scared him away from most every type of dish in the kitchen besides corelle/corningware? Perhaps the only thing left in my kitchen that I don't have some weird use regulation for? Just when he thought that new Fiesta was safe for every use, I go and buy some magic color that will make me screech like a banshee if he even touches it. Now, when he sees the lilac dinner plate has come up on the top of the stack, he skips it and gets the one beneath it.

Poor, poor man.

Hope you are finding fab, affordable finds and tasty treasures!