Community Sale

It's that time of year again for a community-wide sale I look forward to all year. The hubs and I have gone for at least the last 5 years running, but only last year did we buy the preview tickets that scored me one of the most exhilarating one day hauls I've ever found.

I was worried this year's sale couldn't possibly live up to the expectations I was trying not not to have. But happily I found some super great stuff!

Friendship lasagna pan for 2 bucks! Yes please! I'm half ashamed to admit this is my 3 one of this piece. (Does it make it less bad that I paid a lot for the two I had already?) And I have to tell this story here because I think it's so cute (and frightening to me at the same time).

Two years running, my husband has gone off in a slightly different direction than me, and both years he had his hands full of Corningware when he was standing right in front of awesome Pyrex I wanted and he just completely didn't see it. Last year it was two pink gooseberry round casseroles and this year it was this lasagna pan.

I had the buggy, and when I came around the corner, I saw my husband loaded down with Corningware in his hands, and directly in front of him on the table was this dish. And right smack in between us were two adorably cute Millennial kids that looked like what I think of as the quintessential young Pyrex collectors. I literally almost shoved into them with my cart, because I am that insane person who could, in court, plead temporary insanity for Pyrex.

Out of the way Millennials!

I have officially declared my husband to be "distracted by Corningware". When I tell him this, he gives me the most sad, guilty, tried-my-best expression and I feel like I am scolding a puppy. My life, I tell you what.

Lids that are like gold! Space saver lid for two dollars, two large refrigerator dish lids and one medium for another two bucks, and 4 dollars for the Spring Blossom large oval casserole.

Toy finds. Small bundle of Fisher Price Little People for two bucks and an old tin toy house trailer for a buck. (I later found a car that may or may not be the right one for it that didn't make its way into this photo session. So yay for making a 'set'!)

My husband picked these up. No idea why. Just thought it was precious that he wanted little elephant salt and pepper shakers. Love.

Then finally on the way home I stopped in Goodwill and found the McKee sailboat measuring cup for $1.99. Just when I completely give up on GW, I find one awesome thing that just keeps me coming back for more. In truth, I probably benefit most from all the other pickers in town being somewhere else! Had to take a picture of it with my only other ships piece.

I'm very pleased with what I found. By all in all, things have definitely seemed to change. Prices are creeping up for just basic things, like lids. There was more Pyrex at this sale, but it made its way into other peoples carts before I ever saw it. There seemed to be far fewer vintage items, more new stuff. In a way, I was glad I don't collect as broad a variety of vintage stuff, because items like lunch boxes and thermoses were priced at full antique store level.

These days, I feel like everyone I see is a picker of some type. Some faces I recognize after years of seeing them around once in a while but not connecting the dots. Lots of folks seem to show up for these sales only to sell their wares in a yard sale at antique store prices. Which is why I'm not wild about yard saleing around my area.

I'm not kidding when I say that around where I live, you can often find a better deal in a nicely staged, air conditioned antique store than you can a yard sale or flea market. The store dealers (at least, SOME of them) seem to want to move items, keep their booth rent paid, when lots of the yard sale folks seem content to put a ridiculous high price tag on their items and move them around from yard sale to yard sale, never selling them. I've seen Pyrex bowl sets at the same yearly yardsale with the same taped on price tag for at least the last three years running. It beats me why people are like that.

But then again, with prices rising like they have, maybe eventually that will be what passes for a fair price. Ugh!

All in all, I'm happy with what I found. Even if it didn't quite live up to the hype of last years craziness, it sure did let me down gently. Lol!

Hope you are finding fantabulous treasures where you are!

Happy Thrifting!

Recent finds

Finally it seems Spring has sprung, and the world of vintage goodness is opening back up again. I added two expensive pieces to my collection lately, both of which I'd never seen for sale before, so I splurged on them.

The Verde baker was a hard one to pay $ for, but I think I'm secretly wishing to be able to have the complete stack of these bakers. Still missing even after 6 years of hunting in the wild is Butterfly Gold and the Rust colored one. And they'll probably be a billion dollars each when I do find them, lol.

And this Spirograph base is such a pretty color - much prettier than how it looks in this picture. Killed me to pay 38 dollars for it, knowing that the chances I'll ever find the lid are slim, but no way could I have left without it. It turned out to be my only purchase of the day I spent in numerous antique stores and large flea market, so it didn't really hurt that I'd spent most of my fun money on a single piece.

And yay for all thrift store finds! My husband found this Daisy oval casserole for me at GW for $3.99. Happy Happy! The unmarked yellow canister is a duplicate, but I couldn't resist it for 99 cents. Each of the Hazel Atlas pieces were also 99 cents. I'd never seen this yellow and pink colorway before. I have a stray pink and black plate from this same line, so I suppose I'm very slowly collecting the different colors.

Technically, this is my husband's find, but he never blogs. Plus, I was the one who insisted he couldn't leave without it, I'll take the blame. This was a GW find for $14.99, which I thought was an ok price, but my husband thinks is gold and diamonds money, so I had to pull the trigger for him. He's collected Fisher Price stuff for a few years now, along with vinyl records, and coupled with my Pyrex addiction, we've done nothing but watch the things we collect and love go up and up in price. I suspect many of you feel my pain there.

The only new addition here is the Glasbake Have a nice Day mug. It's in rough shape, but was too cute for 99 cents, same day I bought the little Hazel Atlas teacup & saucers. It looks just fine with my other dishwashy tulip mugs.

I bought these for my mom. Both are Jeannette glass but different patterns. The large bowl is Iris & Herringbone, the small bowls Floragold. She collects carnival glass and I thought this would dovetail into her collection quite nicely. It was 5.99 for the 6 pieces, which I thought was a good price.

An antique store find and a little oddity. I was super happy to grab up this pink 503 refrigerator dish for 15 dollars in an antique store. Wasn't so long ago that 15 dollars for this piece without a lid would have seemed kinda expensive to me. Now I'm like OMG THAT'S SO CHEAP.

And these little mugs are Butterfly Gold, but marked Termo Rey made in Brazil. Oh I miss Corelle Corner! I know absolutely nothing about how these knock-offs came about. The glass itself is much more similar to Fire King than Pyrex. Another odd Butterfly Gold that I'm keeping for myself. (Sorry, mom! Lol!)

And finally, my one score from a Friday spent yardsaleing all day. I spotted this from a moving vehicle in the bed of someones trailer. It was filthy black and behind a tub, to boot, so how I saw the thing at all beats me. Best part is the guy sold it to me for a buck! Cheapest Pyrex I've ever yardsaled!
And it cleaned up great.

Well, there's my finds for now. I'm hoping to yardsale again Friday. Fingers crossed for some awesome loot!

Hope you're finding great goodies where you are!

Happy Thrifting!

Cabinet Update

 I finally got my cabinet painted! But I'm not a good blogger, so it didn't even occur to me to take a "before" shot. This is the closest I have to one:

Once upon a time I think this hutch was a blonde or light brown. But ages ago someone painted it white and it seemed to eventually end up in storage where the color didn't exactly age well.

I painted it semi-gloss white on the outside and about as close as I could get to turquoise Pyrex or Tiffany Blue as I could find. I'll update this post (hopefully) when I remember to get the paint details off the can. *UPDATE* My color choice was Behr Island Oasis from Home Depot *

I did actually take a turquoise refrigerator dish to Home Depot with me to have color matched - something I've wanted to do forever. But alas, the scanner just wasn't helping me out. Light passes through the glass, so the color it kept matching was quite a bit darker and greener. The paint people behind the counter didn't have much better luck either.

Funny thing was, I think the universe was pretty bent on me having a decent match after all. Right beside me (literally, to my right as I stood at the counter feeling disappointed I couldn't get my fridgie matched) was one lone paint sample of a color that looked remarkably exactly like my refrigerator dish. I requested a small can mixed up in semi-gloss, used a Christmas gift card to pay for it, so I literally got it for free. How cool is that?

Here she is all filled up!

Hard to get a picture of it all at once. It's in a small room with an awkward furniture arrangement, so my pictures are all angled and cut off.

I filled it up with some of my very favorite things - and this time I decided on whim to highlight my Fire King collection.

Once I finished painting and hubs & I got it where I wanted it I started filling it up. First thing I put in was my brand newly-acquired pink Sunbeam stand mixer. I knew I wanted my collectors books in beside that, and as luck would have it, they fit perfectly.

Next, I knew I wanted my collection of Hazel Atlas Ripple. And the one thing I knew for sure was going on the top was my Fisher Price light up globe. I have to stop myself from collecting globes, I have nowhere to put them! And now my pink and turquoise canisters have a home! I love it so much!

In the same room, I've been playing around with even more shelves and displays. I didn't think I owned enough Jadeite to make a decent looking display, but I mixed in green depression glass, Delphite and 3 shades of blue Fire King. I really like the way it turned out!

The jadeite shelf is directly above this one, which is housing (most of) my original 6 colors of vintage Fiesta. I haven't actually arranged these yet, they are just stacked by color, but I still like the way it looks all together.

One of these days I'll take a pic of my Pyrex shelves. But right now they are a total jumble.

I used to have my Pyrex mostly on display on the shelves and kept duplicates in the kitchen as daily users. Sounds completely practical, in theory. But in practice, if I wanted to use something I didn't have in the cabinet, I needed to go get it from another room and wash it first. Meaning I tended to use the same pieces over and over again and some of my very favorites just sat on the shelf in another room collecting dust.

So what I did was basically switch out about a hundred pieces. It was a job and a half. Now my kitchen cabinets are full of my favorite Pyrex, washed and ready to go - whether I have a duplicate or not, and my shelves are full of duplicates (both good and bad) and not-as-loved. This may be the incentive I need to divest myself of some overflow.

I've been doing so much Spring cleaning and organizing lately! I feel like these displays are my reward for a hard work and a job well done, and I am enjoying them tremendously.

Hope you are enjoying some nice weather and finding awesome junk!

Happy Thrifting!

A few thrift finds

Fisher Price Discovery Globe

Now I really thought I'd read about these on Apron Thrift Girl. But when I looked for it, I must have skipped over it. Of course it's quite possible it was one of her thrift share links I was actually reading.

Either way, I was glad I read it, because I knew even from a distance exactly what this was and that I totally wanted it.

It cost 3 bucks from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

And instead of describing the features, I'll just post this youtube video about it. Who the heck knows why someone filmed this. And added music also? Perhaps a very thorough ebay seller? lol I clicked on it hoping it was an original commercial, but alas, no. Still totally worth posting though :-)

 

Out of sheer Pyrex desperation, I bought a piece of Forest Fancies.

Yes, Forest Fancies. You do realize what a sad I have, when I'm super-dooper-whoopered up over a lidless piece of Forest Fancies with no lid and with silver metal utensil marks on the inside. AND it was 2.50.

As in, two dollars and fifty cents. Which is exactly two American dollars more than I was really willing to pay for it.

But I still bought it anyway. Because I'm a desperate Pyrex fiend and it's been probably 3 or 4 months since I last found ANY piece of decorated Opal Pyrex in a thrift store, in ANY condition, at ANY price.

Oh, and that loverly Snowflake Blue casserole didn't even come from the thrift. It came from the Antique Store next door. No lid, 7 dollars. Which is about 5 dollars less than what a decent piece of Pyrex seems to go for around here. And considering I could totally see Goodwill charging 6.99 or more for this exact piece, I'm counting this as a thrifty score.

It's a brutal, brutal Pyrex world out there, kids. People are cray-cray. Charging Mondo-Buckos for my once cheap-and-cheerful Pyrex friends.

In fact, it's been so bleak, I've been cheating on Pyrex.......With Corning Ware!

The top dish was my thrift find. Two dollars, and it came with a lid.

Now that's more like it.

These are the patterns I like most. From top down, Floral Bouquet, Wildflower & Country Festival.

I would also gladly take a few other patterns such as Meadow. And probably others, I'm sure.

Most other Corning Ware collectors I've seen are all about Cornflower Blue & Spice O Life. Neither pattern does much for me. But these more recent & kitchy lines match or are good go-alongs with several Pyrex patterns, so they stay. God help me for all the various dishes I have! :-)

Finally, this was neither a recent score nor a thrift find. But at 3 dollars, it's my favorite piece of Corning Ware.

It's an employee gift - Greencastle Plant Family Day 1974. (Sorry for the crappy pic!)

Corningware from before I was born! (Which is incidentally about the closest I'm going to get to telling my actual age. The number is indeed higher than the maturity level, I assure you. Haha.)

This piece is called a Petite Pan, and it's the smallest size of the two. It holds a whopping 1  3/4 cups. I think this size is adorable. I think of them as Corningware fridgie dishes. :-)


UPDATE:

Here's the original commercial for the light up globe. And I TOTALLY REMEMBER THIS. Whooooooo!