New green Ball jars

I was wondering if you guys had seen these yet?

Apparently, this is the second color of a three color series they are going to do - last year being the blue re-do's that were only available in pint jars.

This time, they made both pint and quart, and I just now noticed the boxes carry the Made in the USA label, so that's always nice.

I'm not sold on the color. Put in a flattering light, I'd call them "Spring Green". But I really think of it as Easter Grass or Dill Pickle green - which is fine - but I woulda shoved Gramma outta my way to buy case after case of these jars if they were true Depression Glass green.

Here it is with last years blue perfect mason- style jar. I use these pints as drinking jars. I put a couple of the quarts in the cabinet for me and my husband to also use as drinking jars, but once I realize how kinda ridiculously big a serving that would be, I put a 'water-only' stipulation on them.

I got my hopes up dreaming next years color would be pink. That would be sorta the holy trinity of vintage colors right there, but my husband burst my bubble reminding me that it's more likely to be a yellow or amber jar, if they are indeed really modeling these after their original jars.

Way to go, hubs. Way to go bursting a girls dream like that.

Lol.

Anyways, I like these just for the sheer fact that I really do think I'm going to try my hand at water bath canning this year. Today's new stuff may pale in comparision to my love of the vintage, but I'd never can with vintage jars, so I'm thankful to have something kinda cool of my own for my first year's canning attempts.

On the thrift front I've found nothing...nada...zilch. I've got a birthday coming up in May, so I'm trying to convince myself that all this nothing-to-buy is just saving up for my birthday trip.

Anyways, hope you are finding nifty treats and treasures!

Happy Thrifting!

Thrift and Antique Store Roundup

Yesterday was the anniversary of my husband & I's first date. He had to work, so we only really had time to rush right in and right back out of a local antique store. We hit the Goodwill, and had dinner at the same place as our first date.

I bought these Colonial Mist casseroles on impulse. They cost too much, but I was feeling both spendy and rushed, so I didn't have the time I'd talk myself out of them like I usually would. I do like them, I just don't like the desperation/willing to overpay mentality that contributed to this purchase. I'm trying to shake any negative vibes off my feelings about them and enjoy them as an anniversary impulse buy.

Today, my husband was off work, so we hit the small town thrift store we recently discovered. There's antique stores along the way, so we stopped at them as well. I found these 3 Snowflake Blue bowls for less than I paid for the Colonial Mist casseroles, so I was very happy.

I only needed the smallest 441 to complete the set I've been piecing together literally the entire time I've been collecting. Funny thing is, I had a spare 442, so now I've got a totally complete set and another that is missing the same 441, so I'm still looking for a duplicate of the exact same piece! Haha. At least I now have a lovely complete set.

I also found a couple of Snowflake Blue Corelle luncheon plates and Centura cups. Inch by inch, I'll have that Corelle set!

My new favorite thrift store had these Arcopal dishes the last time I went, but I didn't buy them. I had this same set in black for a long time. I see the same black version every so often at the thrift, I always comment that I had that set, but never buy. Finally I decided to bite on this white version. It was very cheap, so if I change my mind about it later, I wouldn't feel too bad donating it back.

These were also too cheap to pass up. I think the Ribbon Bouquet Pyrex mugs will look sweet with grey dinnerware saucers.

I found the Charcoal Snowflake Pyrex divided dish at the thrift for 4 dollars. I just picked up a spare divided lid not to long ago, so I was glad to find it. Plus it was a piece I don't have already. The Butterfly Gold casserole I've bought numerous times before - twice for me and probably twice for my mom who collects this pattern, but it was just too nice to pass up for 3.50 from an antique store.

 And a couple more finds. This magazine rack was just a dollar. I LOVE this thrift store.

And finally, this little puppy planter hasn't even been cleaned up yet, but I had to include it. It's crazed all over, but I just couldn't live without it.


Overall, today's finds give me hope for the Spring & Summer to come.

Hope you are finding lovely treasures!

Happy Thrifting!

Thrift Desperation

I'll say again, the thrifts have been bleak. My husband swung by GW while out on an early morning errand and returned with this Autumn Harvest Pyrex bowl. He knew I'd tell him to buy it, even though it's not a favorite pattern, and he was right.

I picked up the mug stand and the Centura Butterfly Gold mugs on a different day. I love this kind of mug stand. Since it's my third one, I guess it's become a collection all by itself. But the Centura mugs I probably shouldn't have bought. I feel like I've come full circle with collecting Pyrex. I bought a ton of stuff like this in the beginning, then decided it just wasn't for me and I donated it back. Now, after watching the supply dwindle down to these little pieces only every once in a while, my desperation  hoarder tendencies is getting the better of me.

Two small items for patterns I deliberately collect, a Heartland vegetable bowl, by International China.

And another tray in Country Calico. I keep these with my Heartland collection, they are so much alike. Might have even been donated to the thrift from the same household. This little cow is my second tray, but my other has all 4 of the farm animals on it. I just keep finding pieces I didn't know existed. And I've always found them cheap. Not something I can say for a lot of the other things I collect.

I bought this sweet little piece of Depression Glass believing it was a lid, but apparently it's a tray. Made by Jeannette, also in green and in patterns. I have to say, I was disappointed to give up hope there was a base piece out there in the world that I could possibly reunited this with. It's such a pretty pink.

And as for it being a tray, it's just too tiny! I put it against a large Pyrex 503 refrigerator dish lid. Same width, but quite a bit shorter. Oh why can't you be a fridgie?

And finally, speaking of fridgies - a rare online splurge. Lovely Horizon Blue refrigerator dishes.

I've had all these pieces in my hands at different times over the years. I either thought they were overpriced or that I wasn't collecting this pattern. Well, I paid every penny of yesteryears prices for them, plus shipping. But I'm very glad to have them to add to my very small selection of Horizon Blue pieces. I've come to decide this is one of my core patterns that I will allow myself to hoard even after I've purged some of my less rewarding purchases.

I think I need to take a break from my usual thrift stores. Garden prep and a little bit of planting are consuming more of my free time for the foreseeable future. Thrift trips have left me feeling like I'm totally wasting my time. I have a gardening blog mostly just so I can in theory keep up with exactly when I've planted what. I've done a poor job keeping it updated, but right now it's getting more of my attention than this one here. So if you like gardening, feel free to stop on by!

Hope you are finding swell stuff!

Happy Thrifting!

Red Rose tea figurines

Thanks to an online group I read, I've recently discovered Red Rose tea and Wade figurines/ Wade Whimsies.

This kind of thing is right up my alley. I have a weak spot for vintage premiums/promos/giveaways, and I'm disappointed that they are mostly relegated to a bygone era. How cool would it be for our ordinary grocery items to still come with or inside a free piece of sweet decorated glassware?

So when I read that there was a tiny, cute little figurine inside Red Rose tea, they just totally bought my consumer loyalty. Lol!

(Don't ask me how many Good Seasonings cruets I've amassed over this same loyalty business. Just don't.)

The current series is Nautical theme. I don't necessarily love nautical themed items, but I think these little figures really are just the sweetest. AND I am totally excited that I now collect something that I can display and keep in a vintage printer's tray! My husband collects vintage Fisher Price Little People & Adventure People figures and they display perfectly in printer's trays hung on the wall. I've always been a bit jealous that I never had anything cool that would be small enough to fit in one of my own.

Now I do, but I will have to drink a LOT OF TEA before I'll have much of a collection. With just these two figures I have a stockpile of 200 teabags I'm going to have to get to work drinking, lol!

There's so much neat history and info on the Red Rose tea site that I won't recap it here, but I did want to try to get a picture of both the Wade mark and the underneath of one of the figurines. These are match strikers, though I doubt I'll ever use them for this purpose.

Incidentally, my husband had spotted some figures from the Calender line in a local antique store before we'd ever heard of Red Rose tea or Wade figurines. He showed them to me, wondering if they were related to the Wizard of Oz (May is a violet girl & September is a scarecrow, which almost pass for Dorthy and Scarecrow figures!).

The antique store wanted 10 dollars apiece! Many figurines from previous series can be ordered from the website for 2 dollars each, and they have very inexpensive shipping on them as well. I might just break down and buy a previous series just so I have more than just two little figures to put in my printer's tray display.

And of course, in my excitement for the figurine I've totally neglected to mention the tea. I haven't had a single cup of it hot yet, but I brewed a pitcher's worth a couple of days ago and have been enjoying it iced. It's a nice tea. I'm no tea pro who can capture culinary particularities with poetry, I can only say it's a nice drinking tea. I do love the smell though. I'm not sure if I've just never paid attention to the scent of a freshly opened box of tea or if this particular one is extra smell-goody.

In fact, it reminds me of a perfume I used to wear in High School. This particular perfume stumped the entirety of the internet, ebay included, but I did finds its brother and sisters, Gummy Bear and Cotton Candy.

The perfume I used to wear was Parfums de Coeur Juice Bar and the scent was Long Island Ice Tea. Cannot find a picture or reference to its existence, but I KNOW it did. I had a friend who used to wear the Gummi Bear scent and it would walk into the room before she did. And of course we couldn't wear the same flavor perfume, that would be just unacceptable. Har.

I still love lemon-based scents. I drown myself in Love's Fresh Lemon from time to time, and I'd totally rock the Juice Bar Long Island Iced Tea scent if it still existed.

And as for vintage shopping and thrift scores, life has been brutal. I found a new thrift store a little out of the way. It's not a GW or an affiliated thrift, just a local church thrift. I bought a few pieces of Butterfly Gold & Spring Blossom Corelle for my collection, passed up a few pieces of Corning Ware, but not a drop of Pyrex in site. My area is just bleak for Pyrex right now. I don't know how much better it will be when yard sale and estate sale season starts, but I'm fearing that the vintage ship has sailed. Around these parts everyone, their cousins and the family pet is an "antique dealer".

Hope the sun is shining your way and you're finding better stuff than I am!

Happy Thrifting!

 

Last nights thrift finds

We almost didn't go out last night (I've been saying that a lot lately). We're still broke from our Valentine's Day splurges. But the only thrifts that were open were Goodwill, and I had some loyalty points burning a hole in my pocket, so we went anyway.

I couldn't resist these seahorses. So sweet and so utterly tacky. My husband kept accidentally calling them sawhorses. I told him that these sawhorses might just be hanging up on the bathroom wall when he gets home from work ;-)

Funny thing about the chicken mug stand - it's actually a matching Sears Chicken Little item to the very canisters behind it! Believe it or not, I didn't even put that together in my head until this morning. A little poking around the net led me to this page from the 1976 Sears Big Book. This page has tons of cute stuff, including a whole range of Merry Mushrooms items.

It was Corelle night. I bought the stack of hook handled mugs all taped together with the matching creamer. No sugar bowl. I always wonder when I find odds & ends like this if there was more donated and someone else just beat me to it, or if these were it. Worse still is when the cashier says something like "Oh, someone else just bought a whole bunch of this earlier."

Isn't that just the pits? I just try to smile it off, knowing that there are times I'm sure I was the other side of that equation.

Like when I bought these bowls, the cashier said "Oh, I know someone who comes in here looking for this very thing." I'm not sure if she meant the Spring Blossom pattern specifically, or if she meant Corelle in general. I didn't ask. I felt somewhat guilty, like I was buying the phantom other persons Corelle bowls.

I have never even seen the larger of the two bowls before. It's the same diameter as a dinner plate. HUGE bowl.  Even if Crazy Daisy Spring Blossom Green isn't my favorite pattern, it sure is useful. In fact, I'm certain my husband prefers to mix/heat things up in Corelle serving bowls when possible, just so there's no chance he breaks one of my Pyrex mixing bowls.

And finally, Oh my very Goodness. I could.not.love.these.more.

These so-sweet little Glasbake custard cups were all taped together for 99 cents. If bowls were as cute as baby kittens, they'd be these bowls.

Huh?

One is in better shape than the rest and one is more worn. These will probably never be used again. They are just too precious. And it's unfortunate, because I'd use them in a heartbeat, but some of these vintage treasures just do not have the ability to withstand everyday use and wear.

This pattern dates back to the late 1930's as seen in this amazing advertisement. And this site itself is a fantastic resource for vacuum coffee maker fans like myself :-)

Anyways, I'm really glad we got out. Now I'm cash-poor and with no more loyalty credit until payday!

Hope you are finding the snazziest stuff!

Happy Thrifting!

A sunny day antiquing

Today was such a nice day out we were tempted to put the kibosh on our plans of hitting the flea market & antique stores and spend the day doing yardwork instead.

But I'm glad we got out. I picked up this 4 piece Hazel Atlas Ivy bowl set for $22.50. They look unused. I've had a small 7'' bowl from this set for a long time & an identical sized red strawberry pattern bowl that we use as popcorn bowls.

But my super deal of this day this bowl right here:

Recognize it? I nearly didn't!

In fact, I walked right by it and didn't see it until I was up some stairs and rounding a corner. It was hidden on the bottom of a shelf.

I thought I knew what it was but thought I had to be wrong. So I kept going, walking around the rest of the antique store. Twice I told my husband to remind me to go check out that bowl I saw downstairs before we leave.

So when I get around to it I realize A) Yes, this is enameled metal B) It has no makers mark C) the sticker says "enamel metal bowl $5.00" and then my head explodes, because I am about to become the proud owner of my very first Cathrineholm bowl.

It's a bit rusty and a bit chippy, but it's absolutely the coolest thing ever. :-) And here's a great fansite with lots more info.

I've only seen two other pieces of Cathrineholm in the wild, and they were both the lovely Lotus pattern - and very pricey!

Mid Century Modern anything is a dream around here. Scarce! I live in the heartland of primitives and reproductions. Finding this piece - and for a song, too-  was something I couldn't even dream up.

Hope everyone is enjoying a nice break in the weather or at least finding wonderful junk!

Happy Thrifting!

Heart Day

Hope everyone had a happy Valentine's Day!

My husband and I delayed our trip due to questionable weather conditions. It was warmer, and possibly safer, to have waited a day, but we still ended up driving through a small, sudden snowstorm that, frankly, my nerves could have done without.

And guess what? I did not buy nary a single piece of Pyrex.

There was some, but not a lot. There were reasonably priced pieces in patterns I'm not dying to collect, and wildly, wildly, massively, heart-stoppingly overpriced pieces in patterns that I do.

How about $175 for a Horizon Blue Cinderella mixing bowl set? Or $75 for a single Friendship oval casserole? Any takers?

Here's my few glass finds: 

I had the pink Hazel Atlas Ripple saucer already, just needed the cup. Wasn't wild to pay the 5 dollar price tag, but at least I have a little set now.

The McKee Ships refrigerator dish is chippy, but it had a perfect lid. Go figure. It was cheap enough I thought it would make a nice display piece.

Had such a hard time photographing this small Fiesta heart bowl. I pick one up every time we are in the area. I'm on my 4th one now! I wanted one in the most recent color, Lapis, but they didn't have one. So I bought this Peacock one instead.

And now for my biggest finds of the day - more Kromex!

These guys were *not* the super cheap bargain price I got my pink set for. But they weren't horribly priced, either. I'd never seen yellow or turquoise in real life before, at any price, and I bought as much as I could afford.

Sadly, I had to leave behind half of canister set and a set S&P shakers. Was just too much $$$$

Kromex family portrait

And right before we left town, we stopped at a bookstore - which is usually where my husband does the money damage. This time, we both bought stuff. I did more damage buying records than I did Kromex. But they're some of my favorites, and it was our Valentine's Day, so we're both excused.

Hope you had a happy Heart Day!

Happy Thrifting!