Home for the Harvest Tablescape

I've been a bit of a busy bee lately buzzing through writing the first draft of my second novel, so I haven't had a ton of time to post. But I have had some fun decorating the dining room for Fall with some of my recent finds.

It started with wanting to use the Croscill tablecloth and valences I found at the Goodwill Outlet Store a few weeks back. The fabric was so nice and the colors had just the right feel for autumn. The tablecloth was a perfect fit on my round table, while the valence got easily repurposed as a mantle scarf.

The colors seemed to work nicely with some of the Roseville pottery I've uncovered at surprisingly affordable prices lately.

Here's a view of the mantle and table together. I went with 70s era Carnival glass for the table setting.

You can see a close up of the table. The plates and the goblets and candlesticks are not the same pattern, but the color is close so I think it works.

The candlesticks are actually a new find for me. They're a Harvest Grape pattern and match the goblets. I got the pair for $5, which seemed to be a pretty good buy.

The dinner plates are called Anniversary and they're made by Jeanette Glass. I bought these a while ago and I love the many iridescent colors they reflect back.

Wishing you all the bounty of the harvest at your dinner table and in your thrifting adventures!

--Jenn

Big Box o' Roseville and Hull?

Ah, the happy Hull and Roseville family o' pottery above... You folks would just not believe the good fortune I had in the past week in finding some of these little lovelies!

I had found the Hull bow style cornucopia on the right below when I was antiquing with my buddy Josette over the Fourth of July holiday...

It had been on the floor, of all places-- easily kicked, I feared-- in the first booth of an antique mall. I almost hesitated to look at the price, because bow style Hull pottery is crazy expensive. Only the price reflected a piece that was carelessly placed on the floor and not prized, so I had it in my hands in about three seconds flat.

But the real treasure chest came along with the Hull waterlily piece on the left above. And that's where a stop at an antique mall I almost had decided not to even check out presented me with more Hull and Roseville options that I even knew what to do with. And at prices, well-- I actually thought I was reading it wrong when I saw the waterlily vase and this blue and pink wildflower vase below were $15 a piece.

 $150, I figured. $15, not so much. Then there was this gorgeous Roseville bleeding heart vase...

Admittedly, this one has a repair on the top, but the price more than reflected that. Plus, where it sits, no one but an NBA player would ever see. I just loved the look of it.

I also got this (blurry, sorry) other Roseville piece. This one's in perfect condition.

Anyway, I walked away with four pieces in a cardboard box, feeling like I was Indiana Jones having just found some amazing ancient temple of treasure. There were even others, but I didn't care for the look of them so much. It was very strange to be able to pick and choose of items I normally can't touch with a ten-foot barge pole.

Here's wishing you all find the coming weekend full of favorite things, friends, family, food and even some fun finds. Cheers!

-Jenn

Treasure Box Friday: Things Coming Up Roseville

 You know, I love books on collecting and for the things I do amass I find I peruse those collectors' books like I'm pre-shopping. "Oh, if I found that one some day, it would be nice." And interestingly, I have been able to get some of the pieces I scoped out, and at thrifty prices.

This past weekend, I found one I never, ever imagined finding-- a Roseville Foxglove bowl from the Salvation Army Thrift Store.

I had seen this in my Roseville book with no hope of ever owning it myself due to Roseville's steep prices. But on Saturday, the thrift store came through for me, with a piece that is now a real star in my collection of Ohio pottery pieces.

Nice, too, the soft mint green and pink happen to perfectly match my diningroom. :)

So, that was the real treasure for me this week. Now that the humidity and high temps have swept in, my mind is just on staying cool. Alice below has been as affectionate and lazy as if she were a character in a Tennessee Williams play. :)

(And yes, you COULD scratch the fluffy belly pictured there. She doesn't mind at all. She's shameless.)

Well, hope you all are able to keep cool and find some fun this coming weekend. TGIF to you!

Treasure Box Tuesday: Roses, Glasses and Goodies

It's been a crazy few weeks for me. I've had to put in many extra hours at work for projects, as well as taking care of cat with a respiratory infection (Harry's doing better, happily) and so many other things, would you believe I didn't realize how many weeks it had been since I posted? (?!)

I hear the brain is the first thing to go.

So the thrifted and fleamarket finds I'll show you today are a collection of a bunch of weeks put together. All the items have found their right spot in my house. This was a Victorian transferware bowl I found at the Goodwill in Irwin a while back. 

 I loved the colors-- perfect for the curio cabinet in my diningroom!

At the L&L Fleatique on Route 30, I got this marvelous Hull vase with a waterlily on it. I love the soft pastels and matte finish.

 This sits on top of the aforementioned curio, next to THIS transferware vase from Austria...

I got that at Junk for Joy in Jeannette, PA. Love it! It's quite tall, too, so it makes a nice statement.

At the Fleatique Too in Ligonier, my shopping buddy Scoobie spied these two Wizard of Oz drinking glasses...

I had gotten one from Junk for Joy a while back, of Dorothy, and these belong to one of three different sets put out by Swift Peanut Butter in the 50s and 60s. They look really cute in my kitchen and match the colors of my Fiestaware.

My favorite piece of the past few weeks has been this Roseville console bowl. It was a price I could actually afford because someone had glued a styrofoam flower frog in the center of it to hold their centerpieces...

I had an inkling that antique glue might not be too hard to get off there without damaging the bowl. And with some careful tugging, some very hot soaking water and a little Palmolive, the whole thing came out bit by bit. Suddenly a good buy had turned great!

Lastly, but probably less excitingly, I picked up a whole bunch of file folders and hanging folders in pinks, purples and aquas. This was from the Goodwill Outlet, where tons of them were just tossed in the bins.

So, that's it for today's Treasure Box. We have our neighborhood yard sale this weekend, so I hope to have some fun finds to share with you next week, too!

Happy hunting!

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