Royal Wedding

I haven't paid any attention to the royal wedding plans. It was only yesterday that my curiosity drove me to wikipedia because I couldn't remember exactly how old Prince William was. I could remember the brothers being younger than myself, but not by how much.

There was a certain sweetness in discovering that Kate, 29, and William, 28, are the same ages as my husband and I were when we got married.

I didn't watch any of the event on television. The recaps were enough to be reminded of all the things I associate with royal weddings. Cinderella, The Sound of Music, Princess Diana & Charles, the whole larger-than-life grandness of a wedding so celebrated and elaborate that we can only see it in the movies or our limitless imaginations.

The only real surprise in watching the videos was the sweetness of it. The little tiny moments. The whispered words of William to his still yet-to-be-bride only moments before the ceremony began. He also appeared to be giving it a noble effort (pardon the bad pun) at making soothing small talk as they stood on the balcony before the hundreds of cheering onlookers.

She looked quite shy and self-conscious by so much attention. Who could blame her? Her smiles and laughs seemed like nervous ones, but she was still remarkably poised.

I couldn't help but marvel at how very young they both seem, but still looking so remarkably mature. I'm realizing how much is changing, socially and culturally, in my own lifetime and age group. 30 is younger than it's ever looked before. And this new royal couple is quite an attractive example of this new, extended idea of 'young adulthood'.

So I find myself wishing them the best, and hopeful that they can escape the troubled, tabloided, and sad fates that have rocked the royal family for so long.

Good Luck & Best Wishes to Kate & William!

Advertising

I found my first piece of Pyrex advertising the other day.

The hubs and I ventured to another new-to-us antique store just a few days ago. The store itself was essentially a bust. I immediately got the sense that they were shooting for a 'true antique' aesthetic. Very, very fine china (6 grand for a set of flow blue, any takers?) or hundred year old+ primitives.

In other words, no Pyrex. In fact, the only thing they had that I collect at all was a number of blue Cronin Tulip pieces, the prices of which left me a little agog. My husband commented that at 55 dollars for a blue teapot, my yellow ought to be worth at least 75.

(this idea warrants a winkie-face. I paid a dollar fifty for mine at a GW ;-)

But what we did find were several tubs sitting outside, filled to the gills with old magazines. A dollar apiece. My husband pulled out a number of Life magazines, ranging in age, with Johnny Cash and Charles Manson covers.

I flipped through a number of Good Housekeeping, mostly dating to the 1950's. I settled on 6, hoping that I might luck into some cool advertising. I've had the idea for a while that if I ever found any original Pyrex ads, I'd put them in some sort of sleeve and put them up on the inside of my cabinet doors where I keep my Pyrex collection.

And, lo and behold, I did.

This is the January 1954 issue, and it's got all the details of the Pyrex/Heinz 57 promotion.

I was especially excited to see this because I just recently bought this very piece. Wrote about it here a while back. And indeed, the color does match the "soft forest green" of the baked beans can.

The promotion itself was buy 3 cans of Heinz 57 products (Spaghetti, Chili Con Carne, Oven-baked beans, or Macaroni with cheese sauce) and this dish could be yours for 79 cents (regular retail 1.50).

Very cool!

Out of the 6 Good Housekeeping issues I bought, 3 have some Pyrex advertising. There are also ads for Fire King, Glasbake, Club cookware, a few pictures that feature vacuum coffee makers and a couple of Pyrex pieces in use for recipes. I intend to scan them all and post them. Unfortunately, since I've already found a couple of my photos being used on selling sites without my permission, I am planning to watermark the scans before I post them, so bear with me.

Repurposed

I have a confession to make: I've been watching Paula Deen's cooking shows.

I know. It's a shock to me too.

First, let me say, she (or her set designers) have awesome Pyrex. That was the first thing that got me hooked. I turn on the tv, and what do I see first thing, but a Spring Blossom bowl starting at me? This particular episode, lots of Spring Blossom & Verde. But if that's not enough, next episode, it's turquoise Butterprint and Horizon Blue. I'm all goofy and excited, and my husband is smiling the fixed glaze of a man's life changed forever.

Just kidding.
I think.

Anyhoo. In addition to the awesome Pyrex, I got sudden onset jealousy for her large glass containers she was using for flour & sugar. I poked around online for a bit, decided they were a tad pricier than I was willing to invest at the moment.

But sometimes, ideas twiddle around for a while, marinate and then -suddenly HELLO, I have an idea!

Just a few months ago, I rescued some old canning jars from our storage shed. After a lot of soaking and disinfecting, I was left with some pretty neat old jars. I really wanted to use them for something, but I had no idea what.

Then it hit me. Instead of buying glass containers like those I was admiring on Paula Deen's show, I'd see how these canning jars would work.All of these jars are vintage, I believe, with the one exception being the largest Ball jar. It's a full gallon sized commemorative jar I bought around a year ago. I had a full, unopened 5 pound bag of flour and this gallon jar held it exactly.

I love the humble 1940's feeling of these jars. They would look very at home in my 1942 Hoosier-style cabinet (if I ever get around to attempting to restore it). And I was very happy to be able to repurpose items that belonged to my husband's family.
And a final note. The lids are mixture of old and new. I had found a number of inserts, both milkglass and clear, for older style wire canning jars very cheaply in an antique store. I mixed and matched the glass tops with brand new rings. I was fortunate enough to find a variety of labeled tops, so some of these say Presto, Ball or Atlas, matching the jars themselves.

I did not mean to buy these dolls

But here they are. Part of the same boxed lot the parts for the Cory vacuum coffee maker came from.

And I'll be honest, I didn't like them at first. Partially, it was exhaustion from spending so much time at this auction. And more likely, I was so excited about the Cory parts, I barely noticed the rest of the contents of the box.

But these ladies have grown on me.

Two are already strung, like Christmas tree ornaments. I think I may do up the rest the same way and add them to the tree this year.I don't know how this lady here makes what looks to me like a form of corn blight look like a suitable dress, but she does. It's a talent, I think.

And these two sisters look like they are sharing a joke with one another. The one on the left saying something like "Oh yeah, well I'll put your eye out with this broomstick." And the sister on the right says "No way. I'll break you down with my dope breakdancing moves, sucka."

Or something like that.

The Perils of Collecting - Pt III

So far, this pseudo-series of mine is basically about the fact that I can't spell. One of these days, I might actually get around to posting some actual perils. But until then, nope, it's more spelling foibles.

(yes, I had to look up how to spell word "foible", lol)

You could say, these words are real JEMS:
(Oh snap. I am just bringin' the funny today. Bringin' it ;-)

Amethyst - For context, I was looking up Hazel Atlas Moroccan Amethyst. I misspelled both Moroccan AND amethyst. Huzzah.

Sapphire - This word continues to look wrong to me. Sapp-hire. Sap. Hire. I couldn't spell this word right in a Spelling Bee if my life depended on it.

Me: (shaking in my shoes) "Could you use it in a sentence, please?"

Super-Official Spelling Bee Person: "Sapphire"
"We've just received a memo from home office to do a new round of sapphires. Make sure they are real shmuckuses."

***
Okay. Enough Vaudevillian, knee-slappin' comedy for one day.

Happy Treasure Hunting!

At the auction

Went to my first auction the other day. It was exciting, and surprisingly exhausting. Apparently, just sitting around for 5 hours (!) was far more draining than I ever imagined. Well, in truth, I had absolutely no idea we'd be there that long. But at least now I can say that I've been to an auction, whether it was "one of the good ones" or not, and stuck it out - from the moment where furniture was sold at 500 dollars apiece to the final moments where entire table loads of boxed junk were being begged away at 2 dollars a table.

Hubs and I walked away with a tab higher than I'm willing to admit to, and we brought home:

3 turquoise Pyrex fridgies
1 upper chamber and glass rod to complete a vintage glass Cory vacuum coffee maker
a handmade cat-themed quilt (I'm still laughing over that one)
and the Mr. got a vintage checkwriter/money-order writer for his growing collection

Also in the mix: a Fire King casserole dish (which I gave to my mom), a large Pyrex Square Flowers fridgie, and a turquoise Snowflake Pyrex oval casserole (in a neat, aftermarket carrier).

My 5 dollars of fun in a boxed lot was the Cory upper chamber & glass rod, a collection of cornhusk dolls (that I'm liking more now than I did originally), two boxes of taper candles, a painted cigar box containing arrowheads and wooden clothes pins, most of a fondu pot (sans lid), empty glass spice jars and a travel neck rest. SO random!

Dad bought a table of junk for a couple of bucks. I suspect it was purely because two boxes were records he wanted to give to his son (Altogether now: aaawwww, how sweet :-). He's still working through the contents, but two of my favorites are a record of Robert Frost reading his poetry (that was recorded in his house in 1956) and the Breakfast at Tiffany's soundtrack. I probably won't be wearing these guys out playing them, exactly, but I think they're both charming additions to his record collection.

Lazy me just took some pictures:
Woo-hoo! These guys are kind of a holy grail of Pyrex to me. They're priced way out of my league on ebay, and I've never seen them for sale anywhere else. I'm missing the largest one to complete the set, but still, I say again WOOO-HOOO.

They have some baked in stains I don't know how to/if I can remove. I don't dare use Bar Keeper's Friend, because in my experience, the older pieces don't handle it well. It removes all the shine. No matter, I still thoroughly enjoy them.
A complete Cory vacuum coffee maker! Well, sorta. Top and bottom are a mis-match in model numbers, and I'm missing the plastic (bakelite?) lid that would go on top, as well as the piece you set the upper chamber into once the coffee has brewed. But the fact that I now have the 3 central pieces, complete with nifty glass rod filter (and my feeble attempt at a close-up)makes me happy. For a number of reasons, I've decided this guy is for display purposes only. I have my workhorse Sunbeam Coffeemasters when I need a vacuum coffee fix!

All in all, a pretty sweet first auction to go to!

I collect: Fire King teacups

First, I apologize. These pics were taken under less than ideal lighting conditions, and I'm entirely too lazy to try to photoshop them into submission, so they are what they are. I did however play with scrapbook paper to try to give a little nicer background than my sorta-scrappy hand-me-down (but still functional) kitchen table.

These teacups make me happy. But I'll be frank. I don't actually drink out of them. Like many items from this era, these guys just don't hold the half-gallon of coffee it seems to take to get me going in the morning. I do use a modern-made coffee cup by Anchor Hocking (the manufacturer of Fire King), but it is positively huge in comparison. It probably holds the same amount of coffee as all 5 of these teacups put together.

Ah, modernity. Not only is it making us fat, it's giving us unprecedented levels of caffeine buzz.The origins of these teacups is still a mystery to me. I have yet to acquire a Fire King resource book, so I'm going on what I've seen in online auctions. According to what I've read most is that these were giveaways in Mother's Oats boxes.

And I'm unsure if these ever had official pattern names. I believe that the teacups I have & show here were not full dinnerware patterns, with the possible exception of this blue pattern that coordinates very well with the Taylor, Smith, Taylor pattern "Boutonniere".Some of the other patterns available (that I don't have) are indeed full dinnerware patterns. These include "Wheat", "Forget-me-not", "Fleurette" & "Primrose" and quite likely others that I'm not yet aware of.

One thing I enjoy about collecting these sets is that I've reunited many of them from a variety of locations, and very inexpensively. In fact, the only pattern I bought together was when I lucked into a set of 4 of the Red Roses (very top picture) at a Goodwill. The rest have been purchased one teacup or saucer at a time, usually for no more than a dollar.

I also really enjoy the fact that these teacups have multiple colors and smaller, more delicate patterns. As a Pyrex collector, I almost forget this exists. I love my Pyrex, but it's definitely a nice change to have more colors and details going in a single pattern.

I think this is also the reason I find myself picking up certain Glasbake bakeware items, even when I have a Pyrex piece that is just as functional.

Anyways, I am charmed by these teacups. I hope to assemble sets of 4 in these patterns, and perhaps a couple of from the dinnerware lines, and I would consider my teacup collection complete. (I have to give myself some parameters here, lol. For my house, for my husband, limits, girl, must.have.limits...)

So much cute stuff - just not enough cute house to put it all in!