Archives for posts with tag: Thrifting

brass birds duck owl peacock vintage

top brass
If a magnet doesn’t stick its solid brass,  if it does, it’s a brass covered steel.

So should you polish it? To improve it’s value no, the patina reveals it’s age and charm, according to some, but then again if you prefer clean and shiny it’s totally your call… English Custom Polishing believes antiques need to be restored and preserved and if greenish oxidisation or black tarnish doesn’t do it for you, clean it by all means but leave a little grime  in the cracks to show antiquity and allow for accurate dating.

peacock ware anodised aluminium tumblers brass feathers

are aluminium tumblers safe?

Totes cool, to touch, to behold [those fab retro colours] and for keeping drinks colder longer, hence their once uber popular status, Aluminium tumblers conjure up a checked orange wool blanket picnicy nostalgia for Gen Xers. Don’t they?

During the 1960s aluminum cookware and pieces were thought to be linked to Alzheimer’s Disease but apparently there’s been no definitive research to prove this. The Alzheimer’s Association claims it’s a myth according to ehow.  So if you are cool with that then consider them safe for a few bevvies.

But just check, I did find this warning to check if the coating is chipped or flaky. And to make sure the tumbler is aluminium. Best to avoid acidic drinks like lemonade and don’t hold it in them for long periods. Chug down your cold one with a dose of warm happy memories.
Cheers

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Is it an incurable addiction to collecting vintage kitchen implements?

ORANGE retro utensils skyline vintage enamelyellow skyline utensils strainer retromass utensilitus Blue Skyline enamel etc copy

OR

oversized and engorged utensils of a certain age?

oversized novelty seventies teak fork and spoon copy

Whatever the diagnosis, this strange bug is not to be confused with another designer affliction uncommonly known as stencilitis
of which I also exhibit classic symptoms.

I may not recover but I have the tools to cope.

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Greece souvenir ashtray
Have you been to Santorini?
I want to go to there. © Daughter of Tina Fey.
It’s on my bucket list. I went travelling solo in my late 20s but I was not single and I never got to Greece.

Arhhhh… I so want to look at that unbelievably blue water with my own eyes, not out of a secondhand painted souvenir ashtray picked up thousands of miles away from point of origin but whatever…

I will make it one day, hopefully won’t be as a Shirley Valentine, talking to Walls, but for now I’ll just have to suck it up and enjoy the view, non smoking…
Or you can if you like. Grab this lovely piece here. It doesn’t have to take butts, repurpose for small bits and bobs. Coins, earrings, keys etc.
Chocolate Country cigarettes [called Fags when I was a kid, sooo very unPC] not included. Sorry. They gone. Me too. For now…

What is it about holidays that make you want to take more?

preloved handmade knitted bear
20 cents is a small price to pay for Hope, don’t you think? I rescued her on my escape to Yamba NSW [one of the most awesome places on Earth but shhh don’t tell anyone, it’s perfectly underdeveloped and saturated on all sides with blue water, ocean, rivers and fresh water pools] So divine.
I left my man and 2 kids and drove off on a road trip/ op shopping adventure North. Hung out with three of the best bravest girls [ahem ladies, so much reminiscing…]  I will probably ever meet who, as the cliche goes, know everything about you but like you anyway.
Sun, swimming, op shopping and lovely liquid flowing freely. It was Heaven. I am renewed. I have Hope.

She’s all sorts of soft, squishy handmade love and deserves a second chance. I wonder about her past lives…Not even sure I’ll fix her ear where the stitching has come undone. Embrace the imperfections I say. In a world obsessed with youth, beauty and newness perhaps one day the old and fugly will stand out as original and interesting. Somehow I doubt it [being a aesthete Libran myself] but it’s a comforting thought anyway as I get older and fuglier.

One can only hope…

pyrex warmer orange retro shapes NEW

Like the weather these days. Hot as, followed by hail, the loudest thunder I think I have EVER heard, bushfires and then freezing get-the-blankie-back-out temps, Sydney is the new Melbourne, Four Seasons in One Day…
What is going on global warming? Summer is ten days away.

vintage orange pyrex warmer candle

Speaking of warming…

How ridiculously awesome is this little number? Put a lit tea light candle underneath to take your burning Pyrex love from oven to table. Yep, so hot and yet so so cool…

But it did take some effort, as all mega hotness and super coolness does. When I bought the warmer it came with an ugly speckled brown dish. So ugly I nearly didn’t buy the thing at all. Stoked I did, when months later I found this awesome retro baking dish at Brookvale Goodwill and a lonely lid that fitted perfectly, several weeks afterwards at an op shop in Cessnock, NSW.

And voilà. I’ve seen a similar one for sale on ebay [though I like this pattern better] for about $55 delivered. Mine cost me a thrifty $23. Not sure I can bring myself to sell it. Pyrex is getting so hard to find.

Now I need to organise some fabulous retro fondue and pot luck soirée.
Without The Ice Storm…

 

Some yummy fruity bits in this season, pineapples and watermelon pieces in abundance. Ripe for summer.

Gorman produce cute kitschiness  in perfect good taste.
Hey good lady…

Here’s what I have to offer…

4 x plastic watermelon plates4 x plastic watermelon plates stack -new

4 pieces of watermelon, non vintage [a polite way of saying made in China]

toy fruit from the kids cubby house

watermelon bag vintage wooden melon baller copy

Sweetest ever Clinique gift toiletry bag circa 1990s, they aren’t so good anymore…I use my melon for nailpolish.

vintage wooden melon baller, see melons and balls here, oo-er

Happy Monday

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Twisting your Melon?  What happened to Shaun Ryder?
He doesn’t know either…  The juice on the Happy Mondays frontman is he can’t remember a thing between 1990 and 2006. I havent read his book [pieced together from old NME stories apparently] but I loved Tony Wilson’s 24 Hour Party People [written after the movie] If you’re a Mondays/ Madchester/ Joy Division/ New Order/ Ian Curtis fan you’ll devour it for sure. Even more than the movie.

…he got a double tongue you never think he would lie…

.

It's not easy being greenwooden hand red glasses necklacevintage black pie bird oil glue spill flower suede laser cut coasterHMV Nipper Dog Figurine His Masters Voice dog old gramophone nana chic

vintage china mouse retro red seventies cat shaker

Happy Friday

x

Flamingo love- A thing of beauty is a joy forever copy

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: 
Its lovliness increases; it will never 
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Extract from Endymion, Keats

The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? And he’s carrying a beautiful rose in his beak, and also he’s carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet. And also, you’re drunk.

Jack Handey

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Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?
Albert Camus

milk glass cafe orange pyrex mugs copy

I recommend another café Albert.

cafe orange milk glass retro canister

Or depending which way you look at it or what language, uno caffé…

caffe orange milk glass retro canister

Fixed the JavaScript file. It was bugging me.
This new version has it’s original milkglass lid.

set 6 retro orange red pyrex corning mugs copy

Also uploaded these gorgeous orange retro Pyrex & Crown mugs to the urban rustic.com site.

Remember these? Loving the memories from browsers in my shop.

vintage avocado green retro flower pyrex

My entire collection of 1970s avocado green Pyrex in Crazy Daisy and Spring Blossom [the smaller flower print with leaves] for sale $125 plus postage. Out they go…

to make room for these: welcome Holmegaard…

Holmegaard green glass candlestick vases mid century Royal Copenhagen buy

Candle or vase? You flip. Double the functionality, three times the quality from the brilliant Danish legends in Royal Copenhagen Crystal.

Holmegaard Crystal vases candleholders

And more on the holm front: Cathrineholm that is.  Assume the Lotus position people, and hold onto it? Or let it go?

Cathrineholm Enamel Tea Kettle Lotus green white Norway

My first piece. Can you keep a secret? I managed to buy this on Ebay listed as vintage mid-century Danish [actually it’s Norwegian] kettle. Woot. I feel kind of bad. Should I have told her it was Cathrineholm? I didn’t get it for ridic cheap, there’s plenty of cluey ebayers out there, but I did get it for half the price, or a quarter depending where you look.

So do I keep it and start a collection I can’t afford to have [the quality and thickness of the enamel is outstanding, I do see why they are sought after] or send it off to a happy new home with a few bucks extra in my pocket?

More green, with envy this time, when a few days later a lovely lady visiting my shop told me she picked up an orange Lotus bowl for $4 at our local Red Cross. [RRP between  $140 – $200] Not quite the holy grail of collecting, like buying a box of $200 million Ansel Adams negatives at a garage sale for $45  but an awesome score all the same. She said she had heart palpitations. Me too, I couldn’t concentrate for about half an hour after hearing that story. Damn I wish it had been me…

So I think I might let the kettle go, I love being green, but its orange and blue and yellow that I’m digging the most.

What’s your best roadside/ garage sale, market score? I love these stories. Seems they are a bit thin on the ground now even the sweet old ladies at Salvos get on Ebay before pricing a piece of plastic.

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