Sunday Flea

 Room 363 and Whimsy Decor shared a booth. More photos here.

Jennifer Rizzo Designs had a wonderful booth.

Sunday I decided to go to the Kane County Flea Market. I haven't been there for a very long time, so I was surprised to see the new buildings. The weather was so perfect - sunny, a slight breeze and the temperature was about 80 degrees. I wish I could remember to take my camera out of my purse more often at these kind of things. There were lots and lots of beautiful booths with fun vintage items. 

Vintage Market

This past weekend I went to the Vintage Market at Viva La Cottage. This is the 5th year of the sale and I have missed going to it every year - until this year. It is a small sale, but oh so worth going to.

The weather was perfect and lots of people in attendance.

I bought the shabby chic white tool box pictured above from Janine at Chippy Shabby. I did get a few other goodies and wished I had bought more. I missed out on an adorable green shelf that would have been perfect in my guest room. Oh well - finders keepers, losers weepers - I should have been quicker and more decisive!

Beautiful picnic tables ready for you to sit down and enjoy some refreshments.

The pictures below were taken inside the Viva La Cottage shop. Angie does such a lovely job at merchandising her treasures.

Don't you just love this bed swing?

White ironstone - I've bought my share from this shop.

Vintage mix-masters - Love them!

You can see more pictures from the Vintage Market here and here.

Weekend Fun

This was a fun weekend ~ busy and spent with good friends. I went to the flea market on Saturday and picked up a few good finds. Here is just a sampling of some of the vintage lovelies I came home with.

Sweet little chairs :)

Bottles galore!

Seam binding and lace in pretty pastel colors for spring.

A lovely tea-stained French towel, religious medals and mitten clips.

Latest Vintage Find

Here she is - my sweet little pink frosted glass dresser lamp. I found her at the flea market a couple weeks ago. I fell in love with the little pink girl who was sitting there with the shade laying nearby and no way to attach the two together. Neither the vendor nor I could figure out how the two pieces would go together. But I still liked the pink lady and for the low price I figured I would be able to do something with her. 

I brainstormed ideas like adding a candle-shaped bulb and using the shade for something else. Or perhaps I could remove the cord and place a glass hurricane and real candle in the socket. She sat in my studio for a week while I pondered various ideas. Then amazingly, I stumbled upon her twin at an antique mall - for four times the price I paid for her!  Her little pink sister sat with her shade fully attached and voila, I saw how the two pieces fit together. For less than $2, I purchased one of these at the hardware store, screwed in a bulb and topped it with the shade. Doesn't she have a nice warm glow when lit?

Thrifting Finds

I've found some wonderful vintage goodies recently and I finally got the camera out to photograph some of them. Love this pink wicker purse and pearl trimmed pink gloves.

Some pretty millinery flowers and hankie laying on top of a beautiful textured pink tea cozy.

More millinery flowers, vintage pink seam binding and a McCall's apron pattern. I love the pink and orange combination. . . . .do I see some inspiration bubbling up here???

Sweet cards from a children's game. I love the old maid cards.....brings back fond memories of playing that game with my family when I was little.

A beautiful lace collar in perfect condition and a couple of white plates that are just like the one's my mom used to have.

A combination sugar and salt container???  Well, it's going to hold glass glitter in my 

craft room.

I couldn't resist the pale pink color of this adorable vase. 

Finally! A blue velvet lined jewelry box. . . . . .I've been searching for one of these for ages!

And a girl can never have too many rhinestone shoe clips, right?

She's Beautiful

Isn't she beautiful? She arrived on my doorstep last week - a purchase made from Tiffany at Shabby Scraps. I've been wanting one of these pin cushion dolls for practically forever and am so thrilled to have found completely in tact.

I also found this beautiful set while perusing the antique mall on Friday. I would have loved an entire set of this cup & saucer/plate combo - wouldn't it be great to have friends over for a tea party using these? But alas, there was only one on the shelf and I grabbed it as quick as I could. Tea for one and a scone sounds good to me!

~ Photo by Brandy Faulkner ~

Don't forget to pop over to the Joli Paquet blog when you get a chance because Brandy has a tutorial on how to make this darling Valentine ornament.

Lovely

Don't you love this photograph? I am sorting though old issues of magazines deciding which ones to keep and which ones to recycle. I found this lovely photo in Real Simple Magazine as a part of an article about "New Uses for Old Frames." I was drawn to the dreamy colors and that vintage box of Elizabeth Arden powder. I think I'll hang it on my inspriation board so I can gaze at it whenever I want.

I've been busy in the studio working on swaps and also some new items to put into my Etsy Shop. I'll be doing a shop update either later today or early tomorrow, so stay tuned.

We made a quick trip up to the cottage this past weekend to check things out and to plow out the driveway. We didn't stay as long as planned since the weather forecast was predicting an icy rain storm. It is good we came back when we did because the next morning the streets were encased in an icy-coating. . .pretty, but not much fun to drive or walk on. And up at the cottage there was a 9-inch snowfall (so much for all the snow-plowing we did the day before!) The trip wasn't a total waste though, because we stopped at a flea market and two thrift stores where I managed to pick up a few goodies. I will share my finds with you in a day or two, once I get them photographed.

I have an appointment to have my hair cut and highlighted today. I would like to have a "new do" of some sort, but I feel I should try to drop a few pounds first. (Does anyone have access to a magic wand???) I'd love to have one of those Oprah makeovers where the women come out looking all young and hip afterwards. Ahhh.....nice dream, but that will never happen, so I guess I will just stay here in reality and get the same old haircut. Besides my appointment is in less than 90 minutes from now, so chances of me finding "the perfect haircut" in that amount of time is close to nil !!!

Hope you all are having a terrific Tuesday!

Antiquing

It was a beautiful day to go antiquing, so that is what we did! All three of us got up early and headed out for breakfast and then to the antique fair. This is the same fair I went to last month (see post here) when it was soooo humid and horribly hot! Not this month though. . .the weather was perfect! I found some good buys on old books....should have bought more.....I always have regrets when I get home. I thought these were good since it is "back to school" time. Wish I had found the In College Days book when I was making this for my daughter - which by the way I still haven't finished.
Lots of great dollar rhinestone jewelry this time. It was hard to know when to stop digging!
A great vendor with lots of inexpensive old photographs. . . again, I should have made an offer for the entire lot. Dumb! I already have plans in mind for these, so stay tuned!
And below is my special find of the day! I told my husband and daughter to be on the look out for an old train case. I wasn't really looking for a particular color because I didn't think that there would be a huge color selection. We came across a few reasonably priced ones that were terribly stained or had ripped linings, etc. Near the end of the day we stumbled upon a darling little shabby-chic type booth that had several sets of luggage. Again, the train cases were badly damaged. Then my daughter looks up and sees the one pictured below. . . .

. . . and I couldn't believe my eyes. The true color is closer to the pic below, which happens to match my little car perfectly. And since I wanted to do something like Rebecca did here with it, the color couldn't have been better if I had special ordered it. And to top it off, it was priced less than the damaged train case. I can't wait to clean it and fill it up with art supplies!

I also bought another suitcase full of sewing notions, dress patterns, buttons, etc. for a song because the vendor said she was tired of packing it up at the end of each show. I found quite a few vintage postcards of the area where our cottage is located at. Usually they are difficult to find. And also a few tiny porcelein doll parts which didn't photograph well enough to post. All in all, I'd say it was a successful shopping trip for a beautiful birthday weekend!

Hot Flea-Marketing

I finally made it to the flea market last weekend and boy was it ever HOT! I really had to drink tons of water to keep myself hydrated. I think I was sweating as much as I was drinking!!! Probably wasn't the best weekend to go, but I've been yearning to go all summer and this was the first opportunity I had, so I really didn't want to pass it up.

This particular flea market is especially nice because it isn't very big. In fact, it is quite manageable and I can get through all the booths in just a couple of hours. We have another flea market that is very popular in my area but it is just way too big in my opinion. I used to like going there when I frist discovered it, thinking I was getting my $5.00 admission's worth because there was so many more goodies to see. But the funny thing was I never was able to get to all the booths by the end of an entire day! So then I felt like I was missing some thing. . .some great vintage piece that I might really "need." So this smaller one is more to my liking.

I got a bunch of these vintage McCall's and Ladies Home Journal Magazine's at the very first booth I stopped at. I like old magazines for the vintage advertisements and photographs, as well as the nostalgia they represent. And sometimes the articles are rather interesting too!

Then I found these vintage trims, buttons cards and this children's sewing instruction book at a booth that had lots of things the vendor had acquired from a lady who used to run a sewing business. The images on the button cards are just so sweet!

I can never pass up a pretty vintage greeting card or postcard. These two especially caught my eye because of their soft pastel colors. I also picked up a couple of old postcards of the area where our cottage is at and also lots of vintage photographs that I got for a song! Of course I am always a sucker for rhinestone jewelry. . .love anything that glitters. Do I see another set of rhinestone angel wings in the works here with those earrings??? The rhinestone frame is actually a pin and those little wedgewood-like earrings have a tiny bird sitting on a branch on each of them. . .can't say no to birdies, right?
This hand embroidered tablecloth and napkin set I bought at an estate sale the day before. I stopped there on a whim and there wasn't much of anything left except for this. Lucky for me because those colors are so perfect!

Flea Market Finds

Well, I finally got all my flea market finds from the weekend unwrapped and washed so I thought I would share my good fortune with you. I couldn't believe how many things I was able to find in my favorite color combination - pink and aqua. The vintage glass ornaments (still in the original box) were a steal in the various shades of aqua and silver tones. I think I should have bought the box of pink ones too - why didn't I? Dumb! The aqua drinking glass is just like a set of red ones that I have, but I have never seen one in aqua, so of course it called out to me "pick me, pick me." The little pink Pyrex-type bowl and pink crochet pot-holders were irresistable. And the aqua cups will be perfect to use at the cottage. I have a small collection of milk glass that was my grandmothers, so the little candy dish will be an nice addition to that. The porcelein roses were broken off of something, but that didn't matter because I like them better this way. I already have a plan for the broken pearl necklaces, rhinestone earrings and the sweet little perfume bottle with the pink cap. And I can never pass up a few vintage postcards, especially the one with 1910 on the front, which happens to be the year my grandparents were married.

I couldn't believe my luck when I stumbled upon this basket full of vintage victorian clip-on bird ornaments. We all seem to be in love with little birdies lately.


Here is a close up of one of the little bird ornaments. Some of them have little tiny pearls for nostrils on their beak. . . cute! And this vintage bird book with that amazing image on the cover is to die for!


Okay, who could resist this darling aqua sewing basket with the floral decal on the lid? Certainly not me!


And then there was this set of paper bird coasters. . .I just couldn't believe my luck! Somedays I go to the flea market and find nothing and go home rather bummed-out. But this time I really hit the jackpot! Yipee!