Thrift roundup

Haven't been out thrifting much lately, though I have picked up a few things most times I've stopped in.

This yellow Pyrex Desert Dawn baker is a duplicate for me but I was not going to pass it up. Bakeware seems to be in high demand these days (and pricey!), so I'll scoop up every thrift find I can.

Felt like I'd hit the motherlode the other day at GW. This is also one of the Goodwills I suspected only sold damaged stuff in store and shipped off everything else. Well, for whatever reason, I found 3 pieces at once, all between 3-5 dollars, in nice and shiny, undamaged condition.

A ReStore find and another piece of Pyrex from GW. Couldn't believe it.

Also picked these up, a White Lace bowl for my mom and a Corningware Floral Bouquet baking sheet for myself.

And finally, my one antique store purchase, the pink lidded Kromex grease jar and salt & peppers. I need a product to shine these guys up with but all the things I've tried either don't work or carry a warning about using them on aluminum. Anyone know any tricks?


That's all my treasures for now. Hopefully I'll be dragging out my Christmas stuff any day now and feeling a little more in the Holiday spirit.

Hope you're finding thrifty treats and treasures!

Happy Thrifting!

Long time no post

Long time, no update. I've bought things here and there but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, most Pyrex I'm finding is too expensive for my humble budget and I'm finding myself staying home more and more when I could have been out hunting.

These two terribly DWD bowls are my first Pyrex thrift store finds in a while. I've suspected for a while that this particular Goodwill only put out on the shelf pieces that were too damaged to send on to their online site or whatever GW heaven they send all the good stuff off to. I was okay with paying 3.99 for the dots bowl because the damage made it look pink like the poor pink mixer I didn't want to buy so much. But my husband encouraged me, thinking I'd have not-buyers regret. All in all, he was probably right. So it came home with me as well.

The solid pink is so damaged, the white looks like water damage - or whatever it is - on top of the pink, but that's not the case. It's been dishwashed down to the white underneath the paint. Not much hope for saving it. Chances are good it's going home to my mom to use as a cat bowl.

But the "pink" dot bowl, I like it the way it is. I haven't oiled it to see if it would make it look any better. I tried using a touch of Bar Keeper's Friend to a bad place with a silver utensil mark but it just made the orange start showing through. So I think I'll use it just the way it is.

And then yesterday we went to a few antique stores. I cracked a joke about us not finding anything after visiting at least 3 stores. Something like "It'd be nice if I could find a treasure to make all this walking around worth it". And very shortly after that I found this nice, shiny orange dots bowl for 9 dollars! Yay!

What a difference in the color! And this nice shiny orange dots technically completes my dots bowl set, since the one I was using was also dishwasher damaged. Good deal.

And since I'm not finding much in the way of glassware these days, I thought I might add in a few non-related things. Hope my dish friends don't mind. :-)

My husband is a record and toy guy. His finds sometimes completely trump anything I'm finding out in the world, but he's pretty much stopped blogging ever. I'd like some of that stuff (including non-vintage) to see the light of day. I enjoy looking back through my blog and seeing when I've bought things. After 5 years, I've started to completely forget where I've bought things and when, so having a record of them is pretty cool.

For now, here's my vinyl purchases over the last 6 weeks or so.

I love Lana Del Rey. I don't care what you say, lol. This album was fun to go hunt for because it came out on mine and my husband's 10 year wedding anniversary. How often do you get to buy an album called Honeymoon release on your 10 year anniversary?!

I'm not a big rap fan, generally. But Run the Jewels stomps the face off what passes for rap these days. I really, really, really hope that the limited vinyl Meow the Jewels is pre-ordered for me very, very soon. (Hint hint to all my blog readers who are my husband).

And finally, I have those things I habitually hunt for in the used section of a record store that I don't really think I'll find. The Cure is high on that list. This is the original 1987 version, not the Record Store Day version from 2013, though I must note with some dismay that the RSD version (that I don't have) is selling for 3x +  the original.

Ah, vinyl records, another collection I totally can't afford to keep up with.


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Anyways, hope you're finding cool junk out in the world.

Happy Thrifting!

Re-Ment miniature Hazel Atlas Ripple

I've seen pictures of these miniatures online for probably 5 years now, but I only very rarely buy anything online ever. So these sweet miniatures went on the back burner.

But mine and my husband's anniversary was coming up and I wanted him to order me something I wouldn't normally buy for myself, but was still thrifty enough that we'd still have all our pennies and dimes to spend on his week-long vacation, which would hopefully include trips to antique stores we'd never been to before.

So these Re-Ment figures suited me just perfectly. Here's the box:

and the contents:

(had to include the little foldout booklet!)

And here they are, stacked up sweetly. So cute! And really well done for such tiny things.

And here they are, worked in with my Fire King and the actual-sized Hazel Atlas Ripple.

The best scale shots I managed to get out of my wildly out of date camera (that also hates my dark house).

I am attempting to refrain from trying to buy a whole stack of these dishes to match my hoard stack of their real life counterparts. They are just so cute and precious.

There are other odds and ends in these sets that I want too. Mostly the pieces that resemble Pyrex bowls and Fire King mugs. I don't know if that will happen anytime soon, but there's always Christmas :-)


As for our actual anniversary, we had a good time going outside our normal areas to shop. Found some incredibly expensive stores, expensive furniture and of course, expensive Pyrex. I bought a few pieces that complete (or nearly-so) patterns for me, so I'll get around to posting them in another post.


Hope you're finding thrifty treats and treasures!

Happy Thrifting!

Thrifty Treasures

Headed up the other day to a large area flea market that is an hour plus drive from home. Hubby didn't find many goodies that day, but I got what I felt like was a pretty good deal on a grouping of Fire King Jadeite. 25 dollars for two Swirl mixing bowls and a batter bowl, all in nice condition.

Picked up another Hazel Atlas pink Ripple saucer from another vendor for a dollar. Some day I will have a pink set pieced together to go with my turquoise.

This next grouping of dishes was bought at two different GW's on two different days, and has a few things in common. Each dish was 99 cents, and they aren't marked, which is, I believe, the entire reason they ended up being cheap. The Fire King Azurite Charm plates are the dinner plate size. It's been several years since I've added a single piece to my Charm collection, so to add dinner plates for a song was a very nice surprise.

The FK Jadeite saucer is the ubiquitous Jane Ray, but I'm never going to pass on thrift store jadeite.
And the white sugar bowl is MacBeth Evans Depression Glass in the American Sweetheart pattern.

Almost all my American Sweetheart (pink, clear, and Monax) has come from thrift stores for a dollar a piece or less. With this particular sugar bowl, it's not particularly valuable in itself, but the lid for it is rare and can sell for hundreds of dollars.

And finally, these canisters came from my very favorite antique store, nicely priced at $9.95. But what made my day most of all is that I didn't have this matching Cookies canister. So cool that even the lettering is also white like my flour, sugar, coffee & tea set.

The tea canister with silver lettering is a single for me, so I'm definitely going to be on the lookout for its silver-lettered siblings.


Hope you're having a fabulous Labor Day weekend!

Happy Thrifting!

127 yard sale - Everything else

Major 'grail' status achieved! These green Hocking canisters were one of the items I was most wanting and looking for on the yard sale. Neither had lids when I bought them, the ones in the picture are from my lid stash. I actually think the one on the right is the right lid. I'm not sure about the other, I'm thinking Jeannette for some reason?

When I picked them up to ask about a price, the guy said "I'll give them both to you for 10". I couldn't buy them fast enough!

Now I probably shouldn't have bought this mixer, but it's in beautiful shape, I got it for a good price, and I have its pink sibling. Am I collecting stand mixers? Yipes. It even came with booklet, which I've totally misplaced at the moment. I haven't even plugged it in yet. Hope it works as good as it looks :-)

And everything else here was what I'd consider a true yard sale price. Mostly 50 cents or less, and a few dollar items.

Yellow Riviera platter, two Carnival saucers to go with my matching teacups, a couple of vintage Fiesta bread & butter plates.

Sweet milk glass pieces.

Paid 5 dollars for this Chein moon globe, which I knocked over before I could even buy it. The guy said it had been happening all day. Poor globe! Bought it anyway. I'll just pretend they're craters. Lol.

Stanley Home Products Cookies canister ( needs re-lettered ) and Country Calico tins

And a little bit of canister love. Less than a dollar bought me my first  (unmarked) Stanley Home Products Cookies canister  (and a big wave and thank you to Farm Girl Pink for solving the mystery of where these canisters came from. Read all about it here.)

This in my first cookie canister. And the first time I've seen anything in a solid white colorway. There is but the tiny-tiniest little hint of silver pant on the lettering, so I'm going to use the same silver pen I bought at Hobby Lobby to do some restorative work.

This was a final stop at some antique stores on our way back home. Can you guess which of these set is NOT Lustro ware? If you said turquoise, you are correct! They are marked Sterilite but boy they sure do look identical!

And a final thing. A real Would You? or Wouldn't You?

Would you pay 5 dollars for a set of desireable dishes if after going through them you realize that every single one of them is chipped in a major way or cracked? Would you be sad, say your goodbyes and walk away? Or would you be trying to figure out ways to re-use or re-purpose? Or would you be content just to use a/o display them as-is?

Well, I bought them anyway.

Franciscan Starburst. Every one of them chipped. Moderate to bad chips/cracks. And not a lot of minor damage pieces.  As of right now, I really don't know what I'm doing with them. I'm thinking I may just try to display the ones with chips on the underneath, which are still perfectly useable, and think about repurposing the plates with damage on the face/surface. Thoughts, anyone?

That's most all the loot from our yardsale adventures. As usually, I feel like I'm missing out on posting half of what we find due to the absence of my husbands part of the goodies. (He's a toy, vinyl record, games, books guy). And he actually found a fair amount of stuff this year, for once. So we were both pretty lucky.

Hope you're finding great Summertime treasures!

Happy Thrifting!

127 yardsale - Pyrex

This was our second year checking out the deals on the 127 yard sale, but it was the first time we had the time off to do more than one day.

We headed out on Thursday, the first official day, and got absolutely poured on! Many of the vendors closed up on account of rain. But I'm glad we slogged though (my tennis shoes are still wet!), because I'm sure I wouldn't have found this beauty by Friday:

First time I've ever seen the white rimmed blue Americana. When I picked it up and saw the 10 dollar price tag I was elated.

And the ladies we bought the blue bowl from also sold me this 3-bowl Woodland set and two other bowls. That green Spring Blossom II bowl completes my set. My husband also bought a 1987 Michael Jordan cardboard standup. Thankfully the rain let up long enough for us to get it in the truck. It's rare enough these days my husband and I both find things we want, but to find them in the same sale is pretty rare.
 

More cheap Pyrex! The delphite blue completes my chip and dip set, minus the ever-lovin' bracket that is almost never with them.
 

I had a few 'grails' in mind to add to my collection, one of which is Hazel Atlas pink ripple, in practically any piece. I did find a single bowl and also a solid white one. Trying to hunt down the pink piece by piece reminds me of just how lucky I was to pretty much an entire set of turquoise all at once.

The turquoise Pyrex pieces are pretty much all the turquoise I saw along the way. They were not super cheap, but not terribly priced, either. The pink and green Vitrock pieces are duplicates for me but they were also cheap and cheerful roadside finds.

All of these items except the Corning Ware were all super cheap bundle price deals, probably a quarter apiece, I'd say.  I was happy to find a Spring Blossom soup plate - wish there had been two! And the Heather Corningware is one of the only times I've ever seen that pattern or shape. It was a thrift store find along the way, and my husband found records for 10 cents apiece there as well, so we were glad we made the detour.

I have lots more finds for another post. And I'm exhausted!

Hope you're finding thrifty treats and treasures.

Happy Thrifting!

Lucky Day

Seriously, yesterday was my lucky day.

At my first stop, I picked up this poor lidless LuRay pitcher from one of my favorite flea market vendors. It's the first piece I've added to my inadvertent collection I bought all at once as a boxed lot. I joke that me finding good deals is like the 50 cents that will make me spend 50 dollars, because I'm downright compulsive about putting sets together once I find a bit of something I like. I don't just want a piece or two, I want ever color they came in!

But that was just the beginning of the day. Next find was this dreamy turquoise canister set

I'll be honest, they have numerous cosmetic issues. The coffee canister is cracked, they are all stained and discolored even after a nice soak, and the lids are a marriage of two different sets (and I'm not entirely sure which ones are the right ones).

But I still love them. Completely and utterly smitten!

They are marked Cols. Plastic Products, which if I'm not mistaken, stand for Columbus Plastic Products of Columbus, Ohio, parent company of Lustro Ware.

Here I've taken a picture of the largest and smallest canisters from my new turquoise set with my marked red Lustro Ware canisters. Interestingly, each of the red canisters are one size larger than their turquoise counterparts.

Then at the next stop I found only my second new in box Pyrex!

I picked this up for the nice price of $15.00.

It looks like it's never been used. And even has the care booklet.

Quote from the CARE section:

"PYREX (c) ovenware is dishwasher safe; however colors or decorations on the outside surface of the ovenware may fade with repeated washings."

This is the first acknowledgement I've seen from Corning that dishwashers can indeed fade a/o ruin the finish. (Which, unfortunately, all us collectors have witnessed firsthand in thrift and antique stores all over)

And a detail I never realized before. This 474 casserole since it was sold as a single is the darker shade of gold from this version (Butterfly Gold II). When the 474 was a part of the 3 piece set, it was the lighter yellow shade. Meaning there are 3 different Butterfly Gold 474 casseroles.

As my husband and I were heading home (with one last stop at Goodwill in mind), I was just saying how awesome today was. I found really neat things, but I stayed on budget and felt like I still had a little change in my pocket for next time. We stopped at GW, walked though all our areas of interest and were fixing to walk out empty-handed when a worker who was stocking the shelves rolled out with a new cartful of goodies. I couldn't believe my eyes.

A vintage forest green Fiesta coffee pot for 2.99.

And it cleaned up perfectly. Absolutely mint. And probably the most flawless piece of Fiesta I have.

I am truly amazed. The coffee server and mixing bowls are my absolute favorite pieces of vintage Fiesta. This is my third coffee pot, and amazingly enough, the second one that's come from a Goodwill. My other is a yellow with a broken finial I picked up for 5.99.

Such an awesome day, with fabulous treasures!

Hope you are finding splendid treats and fabulous goodies!

Happy Thrifting!

Antique store finds

Hubs and I decided to go impulse shopping the other day to one of our only-once-in-while antique store shopping destinations.

I picked up these duplicates because I hoard all the pink I can afford. This 402 bowl bridged two of my other bowls together, so now I have another pink bowl set.

And as for the space saver, I'm probably under the influence of the quantum leap in prices that SS seem to command these days. So if I find one with a lid in a pattern I like, priced for less than the going rates these days, I'm probably going to buy it. Just wish it had been the larger size one I'm still missing.

I might be silly for picking up this jadeite grease jar as well. It has a crack in it and the wrong lid, but I thought it'd display nicely with my shakers so I picked it up. And my cheap and cheerful find was an instruction manual for a 1970's era Sunbeam stand mixer that I paid a whopping thirty cents for in a going out of business booth.

This lovely daisy casserole doesn't have a lid, and this friendship lid has no base, but you never know when you'll find the missing pieces. I sure would love an opal lid for the daisy piece. I have it with the clear decorated lid, I'd like to have both versions.

More cheap and cheerful finds. The Pyrex was just a few dollars each and so was the little dots glass. My dots glasses collection is coming along nicely!

 

And finally, I bought a blue lotus plate at the flea market for two dollars, then turned around and bought a complete set of four at an antique store. I am one bowl away from having an even dozen of these snack sets.

I collected this pastel vitrock before I ever bought my boxful of LuRay pastels, so it hadn't ever occurred to me that they are the same colors. These dovetail quite nicely with LuRay, especially since the Anchor Hocking pieces are mostly serving and accessory, and the LuRay being the dinner service itself. I know that Anchor Hocking made lots of go-alongs for Fiesta, so it would certainly make sense for them to also make go-alongs for the popular pastel rival LuRay.

Had to use the flash to get a picture in my dark house.

Oh, and I also picked up this magazine on the way out of an antique store. This is the July 6, 2015 issue. I believe you can read this article online on antiqueweek.com but I think you have to sign up to access it.

Hope you're finding fabulous treats and treasures!

Happy Thrifting!