Latest Finds!

I went to my favorite thrift shop today.  What fun this place is!  Let me show you what I found!

I'm in love with bottle brush trees and found this one is a bag mixed with other items.  I really only wanted the one item but the tree next to it was neater than I had thought, so it's a keeper, too.  The tree basket seems to be homemade.  The basket appears to be balsam wood and then gold cording is lining the inside handle and matches the hanger.  The bag cost me $1.00 so they seem worth it!  The other item is a metal truck and I just love it!  Again, only one dollar!  It happens to be a pencil sharpener.  I want to find a tiny little person to drive it.

 I just loved the look of these old nail boxes!  I need to do my research on them but if nothing else, they'll make an awesome display!

 The hubby purchased this heart shaped bowl!  It is perfect for our upcoming Valentine's Day party!

 This is a plain and simple bowl by Hazel Atlas.  I'm going to make a flower cluster orb for it and use vintage papers.

 This is an amazing little thing!  I think it's a master salt.  What is great are the feet on it!

 Look closely!  That is a man's face!  Maybe a Viking? Pssst, I only paid .50 cents for it.

 Wonderful Fry custard cups!

 This is the best thing yet.  A souvenir cup or toothpick holder.  Great gold accents with ruby dots.  Souvenir of Hershey Park, PA.  It's just beautiful and I only paid $2.00 for it!  

 Skirt measuring devices.

 A metal two-sided Chinese checker board and checkers/chess board.

 Slide a metal bar and you can see cups in it to store the marbles and checkers (not included).  BUT, it's an older lithograph piece made by Ohio Art!

I sure wish this thrift shop was a lot closer to me!

**sigh**

Boring party or craft challenge?  Maybe a little bit of both?  Not sure what happened here!  Made from nothing but the snacks on the table and a Sharpie pen, came up with this styling snowman.  LOLOLOL!

My friend ate the first hat I had, which set us off giggling.  This is mini peppermint marshmallows and Hershey's kisses, a toothpick and the Sharpie.  Pretty darn cute, huh?  LOLOL!  I had a square from the Chex mix on his head but my friend kept talking with a Chinese accent so I changed the hat to the Kiss.  I couldn't take the accent anymore!

Um, can't wait for the Valentine's party!

Western Charmers!

I saw these charms on eBay and knew immediately I wanted them and what I'd do with them!
(Click on photos to enlarge them!)

Great gumball charms, all with a western theme.  I took them and turned them into these!

Above:  antique copper and below, silver:

They turned out better than I expected!  I'm so thrilled with them and will be listing them on Etsy shortly.  Some of the charms are stage coaches, horse shoes with horse, bull, horse, bronco, boots, cowboy and gun in holster.

Rob and John, dancing the day away!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

We are old people!

As you know, I'm a huge fan of flash mobs, when done legally, that is.  Seems there's a new type of flash mob that is becoming very popular!  Here is just one that I found!

You might want to scroll down and shut off my playlist so you can hear the music for the flash mob!



I just love it.  There's seniors on oxygen, dancing away in some of the mob flashes!

Antique fun!

Yesterday, I spent the day with a friend and we went antiquing!  We met at a new thrift shop that we both wanted to visit.  This sure was an adventure!  We went around to items 3 or 4 times because they just kept putting items out.  This item fascinated me and at first, we couldn't figure out what it was.  Yes, I know it's a snowman, but what is it's purpose?

Then it hit me, it's a plate holder!  It's a heavy wire with hooks and it folds in half to store!  I tried so hard to pass it by but as you can see, it came home with me in the end.

Wouldn't it be cute with snowman plates?  How about this?

Your favorite ornaments, perhaps!  OR:

On the front door with a wreath?  Okay, enough of that.  

Home decor was half price!  Woohoo!  I got this for only $3.00, the frame is worth that much alone!

Picnic plate holders that are chickens!  They only had two.

They had container after container filled with electric Christmas candles.  They were only .50 cents each so I got two for my front windows.

Now, just one more time around, quickly.  LOL!  And that is when I spied this cutie.  I know it wasn't there the first 100 times we circled.

She drew me to her and then I realized why:

Yep, that's Holt Howard!  Just an awesome piece and even more awesome at $1.00!  I had every intention of selling her but guess what, I don't think so, she is mine!

After two hours in this place, we went to the second place.  An antique co-op.  Barely inside the door, my friend says to me, did you see this PEZ?  Just thrown in a basket on top of a cabinet, she picked up one after another one to show me.  You have my attention!  

No WAY!  Yes, way!

The home worker on the chick must have drank her lunch before painting the chicks eyes, she gave this chick one too many eyes!  I love it.  Go ahead and ask, what did you pay for those?  I'll tell you!  A total of $12.50 plus tax!  Estimated value?  $170.00, woohoo!  It doesn't happen too often but it still happens, oh, I love the hunt!

The only other thing I got are these:

Something else that fascinated me.  Vinyl coated metal hangers that fold down!

They are so interesting!  You pull the sides out, fold up the hanger part and waalah, a hanger!  You can pull them out to different lengths for different sized clothing!

Let's look at just one of them, above is one that is totally folded down and pushed together as small as it gets.

There is the same one fully extended.  It's a shame you really can't see how awesome these are!  I got four of them, red, light blue, blue and green.  

It was time for lunch, we couldn't believe we were in that first shop for over two hours!  No WAY!  Yes, way!  We ate at this really cute, old time place and had a really nice time.

Hit 3 more antique shops and this quaint 5 & 10 cent store.  I found only one more item in the last antique shop:

What a work of art!  :o)

It was just the perfect day!

Hawk

I was lucky enough to see another hawk today.  I'm really not sure what this is but I'm going to guess it is a sharp-shinned hawk.  It's smaller than the ones I usually see but still quite impressive!

 If anyone knows for sure what this is, please let me know!