Magpie Ethel

Collection Challenge #170 - Vintage Plastic Depression Ware

When I did my collection challenge on picnic utensils which included plastic utensils, Su left me this comment.

I love your collection of plastic, I collect
those too along with any kind of plastic from
the 30' - 60's. Do you collect any other
plastic. Love your 'stuff'

My hands down favorite collection of plastic would have to be these plastic serving dishes and containers.  I use it for outdoor entertaining.

These are three plastic cake plates. I got them at one estate sale. They mimic the patterns of pressed depression glass.

The plastic has wonderful detail and designs. The colors are just plain and simple HAPPY.

They have bases that come off for storage.

I find them most often in clear plastic. A larger serving bowl and a footed trifle bowl.
I really like this elongated bowl. It would look awesome filled with bright summer dahlias.

For a plastic product, you can't beat the intricate details of these pieces.

A smaller container with a lid.  I love the fancy finial style handle. A few years ago Target had a summer line of plastic ware that mimicked hobnail glass.  I like to mix those pieces in with the vintage stuff.  This is the new stuff.

Crazy colorful and great for outdoor serving!

I posted about finding some of these pieces in 2008 at an estate sale.  Few and far between in the hunt for more!

Happy to share my favorite kind of vintage plastic. Thanks for the suggestion Su!  If you have a idea for a future collection challenge, leave me a comment and finish the sentence "Show me your collection of ____."  Challenge #170...still chugging along!

Monday

Hmmm....

What kind of week will this be?
Love the little curls on this celluloid doll..and what the heck is she thinking with that sideways look?

And Happy, Happy Week!

Estate Sale Friday. A Good Day of Hunting.

I hit two sales on Friday.  Number 12 to get into one of the sales and the second sale I hit about 10 minutes after it opened. The second sale was my third visit to the hoarder house. This was the third weekend the hoarder house was open and they had opened up two new rooms that they could not get to before.

I got some more tablecloths from the hoarder house.  This woman had hundreds of placemats. Mixed in with the placemats were an occasional vintage tablecloth.  I enjoyed digging.

A whole heard of reindeer and a pair of ceramic angels.

Some tinsel light covers that I use for crafting. They are sitting on a appliqued tablecloth.

A ton of old metal molds. I like the one with the bird design.
An old clip on bird ornament missing the tail.
A squeaky rubber duck wearing a beret.

A good assorment of old gift ribbon on original spools. They are nestled in an old enamel sieve pot.

Two rolls of sparkly wire gift tie and a plastic snowman piggy bank.

An aluminum cake cover lid with a great acorn and leaf design around the top. I like the wooden acorn finial. Some old Easter pary treat bags.
A pair of old dishes from the Pixie Kitchen. The Pixie Kitchen was a landmark restaurant on the Oregon coast in the 1960s. An old enamel pan holds my favorite find of the day. Three strands of turquoise mercury glass garland.  One of the strands has larger glass beads. The other two strands are over 15 feet each.
A putz house, an elf and a Christmas corsage.
A few small plastic candy canes, jingle bells on the original card and an unopened packaged of honeycomb santa picks.
Another good day in estate sale land.  I just never know what I will find each weekend...that is what make the hunt so fun!

happy day!

Collection Challenge #169 - Vintage Party Invites, Part II

There was one item I did not share yesterday in my scrapbook post..darling vintage party invitations.  I did a post on my collection of them with post #131, and now with my new found invites, am doing part II and adding to this collection.

I found a pair of invites for a shower.

My favorite invites are the ones for birthday parties. If you went to this party you would have to turn back the hands of time to 1939!

Once again, the graphic just put me over the top with their cuteness.

Party after party!

This was a good invitation...

as I love the party description on the back. Outdoor weenie roast and dance. Come in sports clothes.  That is a party I would have liked to have gone to.

Invitations with a boy theme,Indians or trains.

Clowns!  Two of the invites were for the same little boy for two consecutive years.  Perhaps there were left over invites from the first party and they were recycled for party number II? Party invites with children in party hats and their party clothes.

Two of the same invites. I opened one up to show the inside information. I think I doubled the number of invitations in my collection with this scrapbook find!

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 can do.

 

Remember Those Scrapbooks?

Remember those scrapbooks that I got at an estate sale in Redding while on our Alameda Flea Market trip?

I have had some time to sit down and go through the scrapbooks. They are pretty nifty. One of the scrapbooks is for young couple as they start their life together in a new home and includes cards and letters. Another is a scrapbook from the 1940s and included some great older cards.

The third scrapbook was my favorite and chronicles the young life of David who was born on Jan 1, 1956.

These newspaper birth announcements were all in the scrapbook.  I like the larger card that says "Press Clipping".  The card is signed by Larry Lieuranee, the chief librarian.  I wonder if it was part of his job to send out these clippings to new parents?  The other two clippings are laminated.

There are baby cards from a shower and from gifts when David was born.

Even the milkman got in on the congratulatory action. This is from Borden's Dairy delivery co.

The scrapbook contains tons of birthday cards from David's 1st through 7th birthday.

I was thrilled to find page after page of darling cards.

I love these old cards with the pin back buttons that declare an age. I have found the buttons before, but never on the original card. This card had a winky eye television that changed pictures. The tiny red plastic gun on the other card is a squirt gun!

This card unfolds to be a  placemat.

Darling card after darling card.

Some of the pages still had cards attached, but many were loose and just nestled in pages.  There was writing on many pages that captured the first few years of David's life. Lots of sweet little memories, like these...

Sept 24-27 - We all went to Lake Tahoe and I went in the water (it was cold!)  Mama says I was a good boy.

Dec. 4th. Santa is a nice man. He gave me candy.

A good assortment of Valentine cards.

Easter cards.

I hit the jackpot with Christmas cards tho.  These cards all were attached to gifts for David on his first Christmas.

Great variety of Santa images.

There were department store cards with the Santa photos.  I collect those, so was happy to add them to my stash.

Vintage Christmas cards.

A letter from Santa at the North Pole.

Photo cards from family friends.

A holiday greeting card from the milkman..probably placed on one of the delivered milk bottles one morning.

Leftover tickets from a trip to Disneyland.

A menu from the Farmer Boy restaurant. You could buy your child a meal for less than a dollar.

Souvenir pennants from summer trips.

Such great scrapbooks. Sad to think they did not stay in the family, but read and appreciated on this end. A fun estate sale land find.

Estate Sale Friday - Holiday Haul

I hit two sales today. One very good one and one absolute dud. ABSOLUTE DUD!

The good one I hit first and I got in the door with the first wave (thank you Tom).  It was a big rambling house and I found the holiday room first.

A tabletop tinsel tree and a couple of doll suitcases for studio storage. 

A squeaky doll ready for some New Years fun with old hats and noisemakers.

I never look at modern items as closely as I do with vintage ones.  Look at the tiny elephant graphic on the party horns.

Some candle clips trimmed with holiday doo-dads, old paper plates and paper favor cups.

A lone Valentine nut cup party favor (with my name, but spelled differently). An old crepe paper flower book dated 1929.

This book makes me want to attempt a year of crepe paper flower making.  Perhaps a flower a month in 2014?

A vintage wooden head fairy.  She may be some crafting inspiration.

Vintage Easter.  A pressed cardboard bunny, a couple of cotton chicks and a spun head bunny. An old cardboard cart being pulled by an elephant. A sawdust filled bunny (minus one ear) and a trio of plastic Easter bunnies. The bunnies all have had a rough and tumble life and have chips or breaks. They will be fine when they are mixed in with my other Easter friends.

Quite a few boxes of smaller Shiny Brites and a Crystal Pine tree. You may remember my other Crystal Pine trees from this post. A strand of turquoise glass garland, a bunch of small ornaments and s family of snowmen.

Vintage Santa minus the light he often holds. I have seen him with a plastic tree as well.

Just in time for some Halloween crafting...some old wax pumpkin heads.
I like this Treasure Hunt game. It has letter cardboard game pieces which I am  always looking for.  It also has cardboard "pieces of 8". The box with the pirate graphics is a plus.
A good haul in estate sale land. Heading out for a couple of sales in the morning.  Tis the season for sales!

Summer Jobs - Forest Fire Fighter

I posted about my daughter Kate, the other day and her summer job as a camp counselor.

Today is Ben's 15 minutes of fame. This summer he is out with a forest fire fighting crew.  I had issues with this summer job choice at first with the danger aspect.  He is 21 and will be a senior in college this fall. He is an adult. This is a unique summer job that he had the opportunity to do.

Here he is minus his hardhat and pulaski that he carries.

Ben often works a 14 hour day. His crew can work for a two week stretch and then he is off for 48 hours. It is hot and hard work. He carries at least a 20 pound pack when he works. They get up at 4:30 or 5:30 in the morning to start their day after sleeping under the stars each night. (Some crews all carry small tents with them.  Ben's crew for the most part sleeps under the stars).  They feed them really well for their dinner meal.  The meal is usually catered and last week he had steak one night and cornish game hens the next. I think they need all those calories and hearty meals with their hard physical days.

I am SUPER proud of Ben. It is hard work, but he is enjoying the challenge and being outdoors. He is learning a ton. His first fire he was on the lodgepole fire in Idaho doing mop up. He is out on another call now, in Eastern Oregon.

He has been really good about calling each night and setting my mind at ease with his safety. It is interesting to hear what they do and so far each day differs.

I have also paid more attention than ever to forest fire information. Oregon had over 10,000 lightning strike in a 24 hour period the other day! It is also mind boggling the number of crews out fighting fires during the summer.  I am a walking encyclopedia of forest fire facts. 

I am hoping I can have both kids home for a wee bit this summer before they head back to college in September.  Camp counselor and forest fire fighter...good kids.

Blogland Blind Date

One of the things I really like about doing by blog is the nice people that I have met..both other bloggers and readers who comment.  With the bloggers, I feel like I know them when I follow their blogs.  I have developed relationships with many readers as well and we email back and forth. I have had the pleasure of meeting some of the online friends either when they are visiting or in my travels. 

When I have arranged to meet someone, I feel like I AM GOING ON A BLIND DATE.  The nerves set in...  Lucky for me, once we meet I can talk on and on and so enjoy the visit.

I had the TOTAL THRILL of meeting Crystal from Vintage by Crystal who was visiting from New York. We did some vintage shopping, had lunch and I gave her a tour of my studio and house.   We have emailed back and forth for a couple of years, so it was lovely to finally meet her.  Love this girl!

Another fun little perk of my blog is getting recognized.  The other day I was leaving my car at Plucky Maidens when a woman getting out her car greeted me with "Hello Ethel!".  I had no clue who she was but she reads my blog and we chatted for a few minutes. It always makes me feel good to meet someone who enjoys what I blog about and "gets" it.

Funny the things that internet has done to connect us via blogland.  The friends we have made and the relationships formed.  Despite my nerves, I do enjoy these blogland blind dates and look forward to meeting more vintage minded friends.

Happy day!

Collection Challenge #168 - Vintage Picnic Utensils

Amy of Into Vintage was in my studio the other day and saw my stash of vintage picnic utensils and suggested a post on them.  I do have quite a few. I like the tidy boxes and the graphics.

Ritefork, Ritespoon.  Spoons and Forks packaged separately...it is the True Shape of Table Silver.

I like the company name..pretty straight forward..The Oval Wood Dish Corporation.  Notice the different types of utensils offered. I have never found a soda spoon size. Same company as above, different packaging.

Kleen Spoons.  These are tea size.

Beautiful, artistic, strong and safe..or so the package says. Plastic party ware in Hawaiian colors! I have a good supply of plastic spoons.
Marketed for baby feeding for one of the uses.
A good supply of forks.

Love a nice and tidy stack.
The other crazy thing about the old picnic utensils is how small they are in size. The pink utensils (below) are from a pack I picked up at Target the other day.  Look how they dwarf the older, blue set.  What tiny bites were taken with the old stuff!  More modern day super-sizing.

Fun, silly collection. I love the old wooden spoons so much that I incorporated the idea into a little thank you I send out with Etsy orders. I used to use vintage spoons, but now I just buy the current version available in the craft stores.  I add a thank you message (with an estate sale found rubber stamp) and a little bow for color,

If you have an idea for a future collection challenge, leave me a comment and finish the sentence "Show me your collection of ___."  You never know what will show up week to week!

Alameda Antique Show..Long Post

I have done two previous posts on our road-trip down to Alameda. You can find there here,and here.

Now we are on to the show itself. Amy and I stayed overnight in Emeryville which is very close to the show. We got up at 5 a.m. and were at the gates at 6 a.m. (or just after) for the early buying time.  It was chilly and I had three layers on plus gloves! (this is August..dress in layers for this show).  Quite a few of the dealers were not set up at this early hour which made us question our early buying ticket price ($15). We ended up making two rounds through the show as so many of the vendors we passed during our first round were not set up. 

It turned into a glorious day after the fog burned off and the sun came out. It really is such a unique setting with the San Francisco skyline in the background.

Some of the vendors had gone to town and gotten their displays and merchandise out to buy at the 6 a.m. hour. Some were still pulling out tables.  Here are a couple of go-getter vendors with their set-ups.

This fellow had gotten all his stuff out and then fell sound asleep.  It IS an early morning hour.

Tons of vintage clothing. Fun vintage finds. I love the bread wrapping roll.

I thought about this sign for my bathroom. It was expensive and the glass was cracked on the back. I passed.

Super flower chair!

Loved the huge furniture sign. They pretty much only sold boots though. When I am not looking for vintage stuff, I am people watching. There are  wonderful outfits at this show that people wear!

Always love things in a group.
This was one of my favorite finds that I saw. An old playing card album.

It had over 2000 playing cards with wonderful graphics on the back of the cards.  I have a ton of playing cards, but this was pretty awesome. It was also $200.

I did find some fun stuff.  For me this show is not only finding stuff, but the scenery, the people, the food and the whole experience.  My finds seem to be all holiday based.

A bunch of old Halloween picks including two black cat spun heads.  I have not seen the little witches on the brooms before.
Great old candy canes on original cards (marked Japan), reflectors and glass garland.
Super snowman head. A herd of reindeer and a reindeer vase.

One more deer, some old ornament package tie ons, mercury glass picks and a fish rattle. Happy to find a larger Easter chick to add to my collection. He is about ten inches high.A spun head Uncle Sam.

A good assortment of misc. vintage Christmas.

Such a fun day. Such a fun trip with my favorite junking buddy Amy.  I so enjoy doing road trips like this...where will we go next!?