A Treasure Trove

I told you I'd be back to show you all the great finds I uncovered on my treasuring hunting expedition yesterday. I can hardly wait, so let's just get started.

Hmmm, my photos are still uploading. Well, I can tell you about a few things I got that, although treasures, weren't the type of thing I bothered to photograph. I found two dresses, a pair of pants, and a cute Halloween shirt for my granddaughter - who I get to see and kiss and hold in just three days time!!! I also got a little interactive car "dashboard" for her to drive. And I found a yogurt maker for my DIL.


Here's the one piece of clothing I found I want to share, this jacket. I just love the knubby texture. I hope the photo shows what a wonderful periwinkle blue color it is. I also found two nice long sleeved shirts and a multi colored knitted vest.

This is a hodgepodge of things I didn't really need to photograph either, but I did want to show you the fun flamingo iced tea glass. I sort of gushed "Isn't it cute" about the glass to the cashier at the thrift store and she was a bit noncommital in her reply. I guess that's what makes things fun, everyone loves something different. My every day silverware is really stainless steelware - although it's really cool, it's shaped like twigs - but I always drink my soup from a silver soup spoon. I had one silver soup spoon, it used to be my grandmother's. The family always fought over who got to use it. Me. If I was one of the people eating soup. I found another one just like it a few years ago. And now I found another one in a different, but equally pretty, design. It's all about the flavor of eating off silver. It seem to taste better somehow. Just one of my quirks.


Not the best photo but you can get the idea. It's an art deco style lamp in a lily pad design. Charlie likes it. It's just a reproduction, it's not even metal. But I don't care, it will still look great once I find a glass shade for it. I used to own a beautiful art deco lamp, it was small, but heavy metal. It wasn't old, it was a contemporary artist, but ooooh so pretty. My husband broke the glass flower shade for it and decided since the lamp was "broken", he'd throw the whole thing away. GRRRRRR.


I found the old lid with the sweet kittens circling it in a basket full of unclaimed and unmatched lids. The jar bottom has an old candle melted in it, I'll have to get the wax out of it. But the color and fit matched perfectly and I want to use it to store buttons or paperclips or bobbins or who knows what.


This is quite a large mirror. It has a few scratches in it and unfinished edges, which only adds to it's charm in my opinion. What I love about it though are the cool, slightly creepy, etched fingerprints in the bottom. Do you see them? I should have done a close up of them for you since they have a lot of detail. It appears as if a ghost left them, or maybe some mishievous creature who inhabits the world on the other side of the glass. I wonder who's fingerprints they really are?

This is probably my favorite find of the day. It's an old French jewelry box. it's also a music box. Well, hmmm, I assume it was manufactured with the intent to be sold in France. The bottom is stamped "JAPAN". I would have bought it regardless but I was thrilled to discover the music box still plays! It's hard to tell from the photo but it's rather large. The words on the edge say "La Petite Marchande de Fleurs" which I assume means "a little flower market"? Inside are wooden compartments lined in red velvet. One compartment is missing a "floor" but it will be an easy thing to insert a new little velvet lined piece into it.

These had no manufacturer's marks on the bottom so perhaps they're from the sort of forms that people paint and fire themselves. No matter, I liked them.

Take a closer look at the pretty pastel lid. I liked the unfussy, unmatched look of it.

Just a couple of contemporary coffee mugs I liked. Hubby is always complaining that I yell at him for using MY coffee mugs. He says that I claim ALL the coffee mugs and that there are none he can safely use without me yelling "Don't use THAT mug!" at him. Not true. He has a few mugs of his own. And yes, I'll claim these as "mine" but I won't mind him using them so much because although I like them, they aren't my special mugs. It might seem like I'm being territorial, but you have to understand that hubby has a bad habit of leaving coffee mugs places like outside on a fence post, or on top of the woodstove, or atop a perilous stack of books, or on the very edge of the counter where someone will brush up against it and...... SMASH. So, it's just easier to give him his own, "husband proof" coffee mugs. Sort of like the need to revert to plastic dishware with children. I'm just saying.

A few books. Anyone remember way back in one of the first holiday photo posts I shared, a scene of a little alley in Bathe with a cafe sign that said The Moon and Sixpence? I pondered then where the phrase originated - now I know, this book by W. Somerset Maughan.

Oops - this next photo, if you're my mom - DON'T LOOK! Or look if you want. These are for you.

My mom collects Santas and I really liked the old fashioned primitive look of these. I assume they're reproductions. If they are the real thing, well, then I got a really amazing deal on them. Either way they're just as nice to look at.

This photo didn't come out as well as I'd hoped. But aren' t these little birdcages cute? They're about 4" high, maybe 5". I have a couple of other even smaller birdcages. These are actually big enough to put some wee birds or perhaps wee fairies inside them. I also have a really big, white birdcage that I put crows inside and then drape with cobwebs for Halloween. I could also do twinkly lights or something and use it at Yule, but I haven't done that yet. After I took this photo I decided to leave one of the birdcages right there in the flowering quince and I moved the other, hanging it in the peach tree.

A couple of gold frames. The larger one actually has a nice print in it, but I'll probably take it out and just use the frame.

When I showed you my tea pot collection the other day, I displayed a cup just like this only in a burgundy color. I went back and got another one in pink. And here you can really see the sweet little rose covered spoon. Can you tell I like to mix gold and fancy things with rustic and folk art things? Please don't ask me to choose between the two styles. Too hard. Eclectic is my middle name.


I didn't find these coffees, they just showed up on my doorstep in a goodie box my mother mailed to us. So far we've tried the Snicker Cookie and the Eggnog and both are yummy! I can hardly wait to try the Chocolate Cherry! I told her she had to stop sending me "stuff" as I was trying to downsize my belongings (and yes, I do see the irony in mentioning that in this post - shut up! - and I do really still mean it, Mom, about downsizing) and so she sent us something we love and can use up instead. Don't I have a nice mother?!

Do you have any idea how hard it is to take a photograph of something under glass without catching reflections!? Reflections are EVERYWHERE! This is the best I could do, which makes the painting look sorta blah, but it's not in real life. I think the thrift store thought it was just an old frame with a print in it. It's an original watercolor. And it matches a larger watercolor painting I have of the ocean. Let me go see if I can make out the artist's name....M. Jacobsen.
I paid $6, which is more then the frame and mat would cost me. It's image is rather small, probably 4"X6". My other painting is much larger, the image being about 18"X24". That one was also already framed and matted nicely and cost me, again at the thrift store - $5.

You can't really tell what a nice deep green this is. It's from Portugal and apparently it's a collectible. I didn't care so much. I thought the green would match the other green pieces I showed you the other day with my green tea pot. And the pumpkins around the edge. I loved the pumpkins.

And now...... wanna KISS!?

I've saved the best for last. Well, this and the jewelry box and the mirror are my three favorites, so one of the best for last. Isn't my new tea pot just a hoot?

I hope you enjoyed seeing all my new finds. Now I've gotta run. Don't even have time to spell check so, uhm, sorry 'bout that. But I have just enough time to take William out for some fast food dinner, like I promised him, before I go off for a nice sit down dinner with my friend Shelly.