Magpie Ethel

Estate Sale Friday

I hit a number of sales this morning.  None was a particular bright spot, but I left almost all of them with at least one item in hand.

Christmas was probably the biggest haul of the day.  My favorite Christmas find was an old Christmas tree stand with a winter scene.

I have always wanted one of these tree stands and this was the first one I have ever found that was not an outrageous price ($3...insert happy dance).

Lots of ornaments.  Tiny ones and the larger figural ones with stripes and scenes.

A box of Shiny Brites and a bunch of old Christmas light bulbs in vintage colors.

A ornament holder box for my collection.

A storybook doll with that adorable face. Beneath her is some sort of coverlet that is made from all sorts of vintage fabrics pieced together (the fabric covers two of my picnic tables end to end and drapes to the ground...it is a good sized piece).

An old recipe box and a bunch of thimbles.

A trio of Easter figures.

And last but not least a vintage milk/cream container from "Municipal Farms Inc., New York City".

It was happy morning.

 

Weekly Bread

I have a bread starter that I feed every week. I got it about 10 years ago from my sister in law who had had it herself for about 17 years.  It lives in the fridge and I feed it potato flakes, sugar and water about every 10 days or so.

It makes the yummiest home made bread ever. I always serve it at parties and it gets devoured.

While on the subject of bread...I have this adorable little pamphlet "Tummy Tingles" put out by the Wheat Flour Institute in 1937. Dancing cakes, pies and biscuits...those vintage illustrations get me everytime!

It has cute little poems about cupcakes, pancakes, biscuits and such.  The illustrations and this charming little poem about bread are sure to bring a smile to your face.

Bread,  I love you - yes I do!  Truly, I could just EAT you - Fresh from Mother's baking pan, or bought from our nice bakerman.

Bread, I love you spread with jam, peanut butter or minced ham. And marmalade or jelly makes you taste as good as the finest cakes!

I don't know when I love you most, when you're white or when your toast. But either way I feel well fed, when you are with me, Mister Bread.

I love you bread, you are my friend - to me your strength you gladly lend. And your friendship I would share, with hungry children everywhere.

Ode to bread. I prefer my bread warm from the oven with a little butter.  Happy Day!

 

Collection Challenge #65 - Vintage Tins, Not Round

I was given a bit of a hard time on my 39th collection challenge for posting about ROUND vintage tins only. Today I am adding to the tin post and showing my collection of tins intended for sweets. 

Most of these tins were filled with some sort of candy initially and were manufactured in England. They are a smaller size, usually about 5 or 6 inches in diameter.

Flowers

Packed and manufactured by M.A. Craven and Sons in York, England.

I love the whimsical ones with the child oriented illustrations.

Notice the cat is chasing the mouse with salt shaker in hand.
The owl and the pussycat
A duck teaching birds to fly with a flying manuel at his feet.

These are all from a manufacturer called Horner and are one of the more popular manufacturer of tins. Most of them held toffees.

Women on horseback.

Tins with cute little real life photos...a girl with a goat and a flowerly lady.

This tin depicting the tree bears in adorable.

Even the sides of the tin are illustrated.

A Riley's Toffee Tin that is from 1958.  Celebrating 100 years in British Columbia.



A fun collection and please note that none of these are ROUND! You may still find one more post on tins of another shape in an upcoming challenge....

If you have an idea for a collection challenge, leave me a comment and finish the sentence "Show me your collection of _____." I will see what goodies I have.

 

Eye Candy Organization

Half of the fun of crafting and collecting is figuring out to organize in an eye candy manner.

I love my collection of vintage wooden flatware trays (originally intended to sort your knives, spoons and forks).  They have an assortment of colors and patterns on the ends. I stack them up on a shelf in my studio.

The real fun comes when I take them out to start my Christmas crafting.  The trays hold my collection of vintage mercury beads sorted by color.

How can you not be happy when you have something like this to work from?

Nothing like sorted mercury glass beads to start out the crafting week!

Special Wedding Wishes

Wishing my blogland friend Crystal from Vintage by Crystal a glorious wedding day today!  At her request I made her a cake topper to grace one of the cakes that she will have at her celebration.

She told me her wedding colors and I went to town.  I pulled out old flowers from my stash and an old cake topper base. A couple of spun heads and old crepe paper were transformed into a happy couple. Ben has a beard and moustache which could only be crafted from a pipe cleaner!

I hope you have an amazing day Crystal. Congrats and many happy years to you and Ben!

Estate Sale Friday....Gift With Purchase

I hit a round of probably 5 sales this morning.  I did well enough and can't complain. I found more Christmas than I have found in awhile.

Quite a few smaller size Christmas ornaments, vintage light bulbs and a box of ornament hangers (upper left corner of tray...I collect these boxes).

The red reindeer is a wrapping paper box which contained quite a few sheets of old wrapping paper and some vintage gift tags.

A package of adorable baby wrapping paper with birds wearing bonnets and a pair of plastic plates with a blue bird and flower scene.

A great old table top Christmas tree, a pair of spun snowmen and two vintage reindeer.

A darling little metal tray with children dressed up like cats.

Old plastic snowflakes.  I have these in assorted colors and sizes and love them.

I was really happy to find a big assortment of vintage plastic flowers for crafting.

My very, very FAVORITE find of the day was this absolutely silly swim cap. It came with the original bag and is marked for ages 3 to 8. I will not model this cap as I have a big head...just imagine it on my noggin.

It sure brought a smile to my face. The best part was the woman did not charge me for it...she just said this was a gift with purchase.

Happy Weekend!

Skating Your Way With Birthday Wishes

I have a blog-land friend LISA who is celebrating her 50th birthday TODAY. She has been a faithful commenter, Etsy customer and Facebook friend for awhile.  I have never met her in person, but know her through the power of the Internet.

She shared one of her dreams with me a couple of years ago about always wanting to be a figure skater.  She emailed me recently and asked if I could do one of my spun heads that was a skater.  I was more than happy to put on my Magpie Ethel creative cap.

Here she is skating across the ice.

I had a vintage Ice Follies badge that I included.  Lisa suggested using a mirror to mimic the ice. I had some old tarnished ones that I used and also added some frosty ice.

I was not sure how I was going to make the skates.  I ended up wrapping the legs tightly in pipe cleaners to make the shoes. The blades of the skates are paper clips. I added tiny bows at the top of the skates where they would lace up.

I think she is the perfect gal to skate Lisa's way and help her celebrate a special 50th birthday!

Keep on dreaming Lisa and may all your birthday wishes come true!
 

Happy, Happy Day to you!

Collection Challenge #64 - Vintage Sunglasses and Eyewear

Blogland friend Marci asked to see my collection of vintage eye wear and sunglasses.  You can tell from the sidebar on my blog, that I do love the old fashioned frames and pick them up when I find them (only at a good price).  I found a new pair of sunglasses this weekend and thought it fitting that I should do the challenge on this topic.

This is my new pair.  I think they are bit small for me, but had to wear them for his shot.

I like vintage eye-wear because of the shape of the frames and the little details that the eye-wear often sports.

These are my glases in fun colors.

See the details on the frames? Jewels and little curlicues.

I wear contacts.  When I was in college I wore a pair of tortoiseshell vintage frames (without lenses) to classes often. It was the scholarly look I was going for.  One of these would have fit that bill.

A couple of pairs of frames with bifocal lenses.  Often if I want to wear a pair for a party or event, I will remove the lenses and just wear the frames.  These bifocals make me dizzy if I wear them too long!

These are smaller, perhaps child size sunglasses.  The shapes on these are really retro.

A couple of my favorite frames. Hubba-Hubba!

Awesome details.

Remember the eyeglasses that our grandmothers wore that had that certain grandma quality to them?  Practical.

Short and silly collection today. In case you are wondering about the embroidered towels - I have picked them up over the years at estate sales.  I think they are fingertip towels for the bathroom.  I just like their silly sayings.

If you have an idea for a future collection challenge, leave me a comment and finish the sentence "show me your collection of ____."  I will see what I have in my stash.