Huge Haul From St. Catharines

Pops plotting Saturday's garage sales on a map. He takes his sales very seriously.

Hello there yard sale snoopers. We've just returned from a little trip visiting my parents in St. Catharines. I can't say enough good things about my mom and dad. They are remarkable people and have been happily married for over 50 years. I will share some of their collectable objects of desire in a separate post this week. Part of my trip was spent working with my father on research he's unearthed about a very dramatic episode of our family history, which I'm hoping to write a book about. Between trips to the park and the petting zoo, we did some thrifting and went to some great yard sales. I wish Torontonians were as indifferent about a few drops of rain.

At a Goodwill store, I found one little cowboy salt shaker. Three shelves down, I found the matching pepper shaker, as well as a matching casserole dish and oil and vinegar bottles. How lucky am I? They were made in Japan and look to be from the late sixties or early seventies. Originally, the casserole dish was $8.00, the oil and vinegar bottles were $3.00 apiece, and the salt and pepper shakers were each $2.00. The cashier sold me the whole lot for $10.00. Yes!

All of the pieces have these funny markings on them. Ken thinks they are branding marks. He's seen just about every Western ever made, so he's probably right.

Bucking broncos and chuck wagons. It doesn't get more cowboy than that.

Here's the top of the casserole (or is it a crock pot? - I'm bad with these things). I left the tape on for transportation back to Toronto.

I loved this nut bowl made out of a real log. It came from the same GW and cost a mere $4.00. We'll have to buy whole nuts now.
Bottom of dish. Count the rings to see how old this nut bowl is.
Avocado green apple cup I'll use to put pens in. It came from a different GW and cost $1.00. Apples for the teacher...
On Saturday we went to a yard sale being run by a spunky, recently divorced woman who was clearly moving on in her life. Part of her clutter included this contraption above. Turns out to be part of a very old children's ride from Crystal Beach, back when they had an amusement park there. She said she had it hanging in a tree with plants in it.

A very old puzzle.

The candle stand cost .25 and had a retro paint job, although it was new. Dad bought me the braying brass donkey paperweight for .25 from the spunky divorced woman (SDW).
There's a little story behind this old Fisher Price airplane. A few weeks ago, I placed a bid on the exact same airplane at a Goodwill silent auction in St. Catharines. I told my dad to keep bidding on it, but not more than $20.00. He bailed out when it went over my limit. Eventually it sold for $30.00. A few days later my dad found this at a garage sale for .50.

Duncan loves playing with it and I get to soak in nostalgia.
This was my most expensive purchase. It's a beautiful old china plate made in England. I bought it at an estate sale for $10.00. It will look beautiful on our new dining room table.
Back of plate.
From the SDW sale, an assortment of brooches. I love the china flowers. The morning glory brooch and the horse brooch are made of wood. She sold them all to me for $2.00.
SDW's framed silhouettes by local artist Lini Grol (not including bottom picture of church). She sold me the set for $2.00.
I loved that messages were written on the back of some of them.

Little boy and his pack.

Holiday greetings signed by Lini Grol.

Thanks for reading this very long post. Stay tuned for Mom and Dad's treasures.

Until then...

Erin

Song(s) of the Week #6 Kate Bush "Babooshka" & "The Dreaming"

Kate Bush is my all-time favourite singer. I could write a book about her music and what it has meant to me over the years. Her best albums, in my opinion, were made in the 1980s - Never For Ever, The Dreaming, and The Hounds of Love. Of these three albums, The Dreaming is my personal fave. It's her darkest and most experimental album. I've chosen two songs this week to show the different sides to Ms. Bush, who is now in her fifties and enjoying motherhood in the English countryside. I'm happy she's happy. When she came to Toronto to promote The Hounds of Love, I stood outside the old CityTV building and eventually got her autograph - signed in gold marker on the back of the album. I was lucky enough to meet her for an interview in the early nineties and she was gracious enough to sign a black and white glossy photo for me.

"Babooshka" was one of the first songs of Kate's that I heard, long after it was released as a single. I was in Grade 10 in high school. When I saw the video for the first time, I was sort of baffled and enthralled all at once. It's a great song about a woman who tests her husband by dressing up as a different woman to see if he'll take the bait. Check out KB as a Medieval vixen in the video!

The next song is "The Dreaming." I love the eerie Fairlight synths on this song and the lyrics which centre around Australian Aboriginals. Keep an open mind and check it out.

Duncan's Nook

This is the little nook we will be using for arts and crafts in the corner of the basement room we're turning into an office. Duncan seems oblivious to the fact that the ceiling and walls need to be covered with drywall. A realtor would call it an open-concept, industrial work-live space.

The chair was garbage picked and freshened up with off-white paint. The old sixties kitchen table has been with our family forever. I don't know where it came from.
We are a family of book-lovers. We all have books scattered all over the house. This is the $2.00 magazine holder I painted black last week. I never thought the day would come when I read to Duncan in the basement, but it's actually happening. I see Miss Rumphius poking out of the pile. I love that story.Sharing the space: Duncan's number chart and my William Blake postcards provide eye candy.
I put some of Duncan's favourite pictures and postcards at eye-level. The name plate was given to him when we registered him for kindergarten. He's almost able to write his name by himself. The adorable dog belongs to our next-door-neighbours.
I've attached labels to the front of this oh-so practical, but not very beautiful drawer set. Duncan can't read yet, but he can see through the clear plastic.
Here's a gorgeous paintbox that was made in England. I bought it at a yard sale last year for fifty cents.

Voila!

Vintage Tupperware Mix It kit that cost $1.00 at a yard sale last year. The box looks like it survived a war...
Inside are Tupperware pieces for kids that have never been used. Duncan might use them for salt dough activities.
Ubiquitous Spirograph set. I bought this for next to nothing along with a pile of board games at a Catholic Church rummage sale in St. Catharines last year. Duncan's fine motor skills aren't quite ready for the gears yet.

A pile of old and newer tins stacked on the plastic drawers.

Vintage candy dish now used to hold Mr. Sketch markers. My favourite is the licorice scent.
I have a few of these beautiful state cocktail trays, but we never really use them.

Now, West Virginia holds Duncan's paint pots. The paint washes off the tray easily.My most cherished cookie tin. It was made in England, but reminds me of this bird sanctuary in Australia I went to as a child. The colourful birds land on your head and eat a mushy bread mixture off a tray that that you hold out in front of you. I'll have to ask my dad where that place was. Maybe near Brisbane?
Souvenir shortbread tin from Scotland bought for $1.00 last summer.

It now holds oodles of Duncan's crayons.

Another gorgeous tin. I bought this at a contents sale last year for a buck or two.
It now holds dozens of rubber stamps, which I also bought at a yard sale.

Song of the Week #5 Bowie's "Subterraneans" and "Absolute Beginners"

I could easily pick 15 great songs by David Bowie, maybe more. Here are two very different songs that weren't hits, but stand out for me. They remind me of being a teenager in the late eighties, living in the far reaches of Scarborough, but trying desperately to be downtown as much as possible with my friends. My first boyfriend (sigh) made me a mixed tape that had "Subterraneans" on it. The song was from Bowie's brilliant album, Low. I kept that mixed tape for years and I remember going for night walks with my Sony Walkman as an adult and feeling a little nervous when "Subterraneans" would come on. I discovered this video on YouTube. It was artistically arranged by someone using pictures from what looks to be an abandoned mental institution. I love photos of this nature. Perfectly haunting images to complement the music.

The other song is "Absolute Beginners." It was a single from the film of the same name. I'm not sure why this song wasn't a bigger hit than it was. To me, it's an epic love song. The chorus is sublime. Sorry about the sound and picture quality, but the embedding was disabled on the better quality version on YouTube. I love the mysterious girl in the zebra suit who leads Bowie through the streets. What a great gig that must have been. "And you're paying me to do this?"

Tintinitus

Thanks to Colin and Justin (who may not be on HGTV anymore - sniff), I'm slowly learning how to display collectables. I've amassed a rather large collection of tobacco and coffee tins over the years. They were the most affordable pieces I could find in antique shops and I liked how the artwork romanticized bad habits. Most of the tins are vintage, some are new. When we bought our house, I began putting them on the picture rail in our dining room, where they've sat gathering dust for many years. Now that we're fixing up the dining room, I'm going to take them all down and display just a few at a time in an appropriate place in the house. I'll now be looking to The Elegant Thrifter (and Stan's book The Find), for further direction in how to display vintage goodies.

* Since this post was published, Susan at The T-Cozy has posted pictures on the correct way to display a collection. Check it out http://tparty.typepad.com/the_tcozy I want to be sitting in that overstuffed pink armchair with a big mug of coffee in one hand, and a Jean Rhys novel in the other. The T-Cozy is a beautiful blog. I always enjoy Susan's photography and her joy of living that comes through in her writing. - Erin

Above and below: how not to display tins.

My Favourite New (old) Show

For most of my married life, TV consisted of three channels that we were only able to see if the bunny ears were tilted on a 47.7 degree angle. We would also have to wear tin pie plates on our heads while Morris dancing around the living room.

Cut to this past winter: satellite dish, a gazillion channels. Alright, a lot of what's on is complete rubbish, but there are some good programs out there. My husband has become addicted to Top Gear on BBC Canada. It's on every night. I'm assuming it's available on BBC America and other international channels. At first, I thought it would be a boring car show, or that Ken (an Englishman), was watching it for nostalgic reasons.

Turns out it's amazing. Each show features a celebrity (usually a British thespian or rock star) driving a speed lap in a sedan. Last week I saw Hellen Mirren, Jools Holland, and Ronnie Wood. The three hosts are hilarious and critical. They tell you if a car is any good or not. They also do bizarre things all the time. Here's a clip of the three guys driving big rigs. They clearly have no idea what they're doing. I'm amazed that lives weren't lost.