Treasure Box Wednesday: Pocketful of Roseville

Happy New Year to you, my virtual thrifting and antiquing buddies! Here's to an exciting year ahead for fun finds and creative collecting.

While I haven't been doing a whole lot of secondhand shopping lately due to holiday visiting and drafting the follow-up novel to my humorous sci-fi book, There Goes the Galaxy, I did have a little adventure this past weekend.

My bud Scoobie and I went an hour or so westward to the Fiesta outlet in West Virginia, to Pottery City in East Liverpool, Ohio and then north, to Columbiana, Ohio. It was at an antique mall at our last stop where I found my newest curiosity, this art nouveau-ish wall pocket marked Roseville...

Now, I'm not entirely convinced this can be real Roseville pottery. Maybe some of you out there might have a better idea about it-- and I'd appreciate anything you could share. I don't own any Roseville collecting books (yet) because it's always been so pricey, I never really had a hope of finding a piece in a price range I'd feel comfortable with. 

But the style certainly looks right. And there's a marking on the back, though I know with fakes that doesn't always mean anything...

Even if it is a fake, I only paid... wait for it... $12.50. So if it is a replica piece, it will look just as pretty on the wall in my diningroom, and I won't feel like it was a gigantic loss.

Anyway, I'll be interested to hear what you folks think!

Have you come across any fascinating finds this year? And if so, what's tickled your fancy?

Onward, to more thrifty 2012 treasures!
--Jenn

Bewitchin' Kitchen Updates

My friend Scoobie's been working hard on redoing her kitchen, and I thought you folks might enjoy seeing some of the still-in-progress transformation.

For long-time readers, you might remember, she's the friend who bought a house last year and has been decorating it in a Western arts-and-crafts style. She's also my co-conspirator in Fiesta dishware obsession, though where I lean toward pastels, she favors the Tangerines, Evergreens and Browns.

When it started, her kitchen was kinda... dull... and not at all Western. The previous owners had gone with a moden coffee-themed wallpaper, that was somehow simultaneously not very interesting and also strangely busy-looking.

You can see some of the wallpaper here-- lots of little coffee cans-- and the thing was topped with a Very Coffee Wallborder.

Fine, I'm sure, in its time, but not really what Scoobie was going for...

So the more she looked at it, the more Scoobie decided the wallpaper had to go. She and her younger brother spent a week removing paper...

And then painting. Based on her dinner plates, which feature orange Western mesas and green cactii, my friend chose her color scheme. The orange paint (it's called "Indian Paintbrush" and it looks quite a bit brighter here than it does in natural light), is the same shade as her Tangerine Fiestaware dishes.

(Which you can see happily nestled on her green baker's rack.)

The piece of furniture below-- part pie-safe, part hutch, or as Scoobie gleefully refers to it, "the Putch"-- was designed and built by her dad specifically for this space...

It's pretty, simple, and incredibly functional. All canned goods and soda bottles become nestled away!

I noticed she's using the orange and green arts-and-crafts style breadbox I'd found for her at the Red, White and Blue Thrift Store in Bellevue a few months ago...
And even the apples of the season have a good home here in her happy Fiesta bowls!
Going forward, she wants to add some plate rails to display some green-and-orange Victorian pottery dishes with deer, pheasants and other game transferred on them.

She also would like to display her tin enamelware kitchenalia. This should help tone down the orange a bit.

As I said, it's a work in progress, but so far nobody misses those wallpaper coffee cups. If she's up for it, I'll share pictures with you all in the future as more things come together.

And so comes together the end of today's post! I hope to see you Wednesday to talk secondhand treasures. Take care, folks!

Treasure Box Wednesday: the Alice in Wonderland Kitchen

Given this particular Treasure Box Wednesday, I have nothing newly-thrifted to share with you all, I thought I would instead show you a room I hadn't really taken pictures of before.

Many of you folks were "with" me as I spent time creating my "Alice in Wonderland"-inspired faux stained glass window. (Thank you for your patience over that lengthy process!) But I never got a chance to show the big picture, and just why this particular theme had taken over my land of cookery.

It was the joy of finding Fiestaware, and integrating that into my otherwise Victorian house that left me trying to blend the streamlined art deco style of the dishes with the William Morris, Arts & Crafts red and green livingroom that the kitchen opens onto.

And one day I got looking at my collection of bright Fiesta candleholders and vases here...

...Thinking, "These Fiesta folks are completely mad! Look at those crazy shapes!"

And that's when something in my brain said, "Hmmmmmm...."

I already had a strange number of pottery hearts hanging around...
And then at Tuesday Morning, I uncovered purely on accident some odd-and-assorted plates, bowls and cups from a British-designed Alice in Wonderland dinner set. Each one had a quote from the book-- and being a writer and a huge fan of the tale since childhood, that was just too much for me to resist!

The timing was right!

Fiesta, it turns out, also made some heart-shaped dishes, a number of which I found in their outlet discount area.


Add to this things like a Humpty Dumpty teapot I had thrifted long ago and put into action now...

And a McCoy rabbit pottery pitcher, well... the whimsical theme has worked surprisingly well without being impractical for kitchen use.
The colors transition nicely from one room to another now, even though the kitchen is a lot more kaleidoscopic than the rest of the house. The pops of red, and an Arts & Crafts rug, really tie it together.

I also had fun with a little, er, prop...Anyway, that's the Treasure Box for this week. Hope the rest of your week is filled with wonders!

Treasure Box Wednesday: Coming Up Roses

In my recent travels to Fiestaland, I did pick up a few goodies at the surrounding antique malls which I thought I'd share with you today.

From Pottery City, I got this rather unusual hand-painted, art nouveau style bust...
She's just plaster and probably isn't very old. I suspect she was someone's craft project, someone with an eye for detail who thought that what usually took on a uniform bronze cast would benefit from a bit of color and livening up...


I liked her because of the cheery pastel colors, her luster overcoat, and the careful painting of the piece. (Also because she was cheap!) So she lives in my blue sitting room very happily next to a vintage rose painting.

And speaking of roses, I couldn't resist this great vintage print of a lady in a garden, carrying a bushel of fresh flowers...The vibrant color caught my eye right away! It just felt like summer to me.

And lastly, at that same antique store in Columbiana, Ohio, I found these Fiesta (yeah, I know: surprise) candlesticks...
They were $10 for the pair. Which made me chuckle a bit, because apparently different grades of Fiesta-- condition, whether they're discontinued or not, maybe even manufacturing runs-- can cause pieces that seem to look virtually identical (at least to my untrained eye) shoot off into the skyrocketed-crazy price range. I mean, one vendor at Pottery City had a pair of orange candlesticks in this very same style-- possibly from the 30s-- for...

(Wait for it...

Are you sitting down?...

Good. Because you'll need to.)

That vendor had ones in this very same style for...

Over $900!

G-ah! Yes, yes, I know-- rarity, condition, blah, blah, blah-- but OH WOW.

And I've seen ones for $20, $30, and $80 as well. Just goes to show, it's very important to know what you want to pay for things, and stick to it. If I had $900 candlesticks, I think I'd never use them. I'd just put them in a clear glass box with a spotlight on them and charge for tours.

And is that really what Fiesta-- such usable dishware-- is about?

Treasure Box Wednesday: Partying with Fiestaware

While here at The Thrift Shop Romantic, we typically delve into vintage resale finds, there happens to be one so-functional collectible that is still being produced, and hasn't changed much since its birth in East Liverpool, Ohio in the 1930s-- decorative, art deco Fiesta.

I've been picking up pieces of this, both new and used, to balance out the plethora of purple pottery plates I'd found at Big Lots over the last few months. I love the big deep mugs and bowls, but the sheer purpleness of it all was a bit much. It was starting to look like Tim Burton's kitchen cabinets.

But most interestingly, this last week, retail stores actually came through to give me the balance I'd wanted-- and in a huge way. (I know: it gave me a little unnerved shiver, too.)

Department stores Kohls and-- of all places, the normally-pricey Macy's-- have had big sales on the dinnerware. 40% off in the case of Kohls, and Buy-One-Get-One-Free at Macy's.

So I chose some colors I knew would work with my kitchen, and was able to pre-order some to be picked up this very Wednesday evening. It's going to feel a little bit like Christmas, I suspect.

One thing worth noting-- the "Lemongrass" color above has photographed much more yellow than it appears to be in person-- in my kitchen it looks like a bright lime/Depression glass green. Lighting is funny that way...
Which is why I recommend anyone looking to buy Fiesta who hasn't done so before, and might not know what the various color names mean, to make sure you see it in person to start.

I'd noticed the new Kelly Green that's out appears actually way more green-green than it looks online as well. So just a word to the wise.

The other nice thing about the newer Fiesta is that, beginning in the 80s, the Homer Laughlin company began making sure the glazes were lead-free. You can identify many of these pieces by the "lead-free" mark on the bottom.

So tonight, I'll be putting on my sombrero, gathering up my maracas, and having myself a Fiesta! And as always, you're more than welcome to join the party. :)

Have a great rest of your week!