Ahoy, Thar Be Treasure This Wednesday!

Begin comedic pirate voice/

"Aye, scurvy lasses and lads! This be Treasure Chest... er... Box Wednesday, so gather round as this blogging wench shows ye this week's booty!"

/end comedic pirate voice

(Ahem)

Actually, the main treasure this week is in the form of a gift I'd gotten my dad for Father's Day. Ye Olde Dadde is partial to items reminiscent of the sea and its tales. So over time I found a couple of items that I thought might shiver his timbers...


The sailing ship lamp here is spelter and probably dates from the early 1900s. It still has a bit of its bronzed patina to it, but some of it's worn away... I thought it had character....


I also liked how the base of it is molded to look like a swelling wave.

And then here, I'd found a lovely little storybook with a variation on the Little Mermaid tale, "The Little Sea Maid"...


Delicately tinted illustrations and a poem made this quaint, unusual item just right to send with the lamp. It's also probably from about the same time period.

I believe Dad was pleased.

Now as for thrifting this week, mostly I ended up cleaning up from a flood that hit late last week. So I had time for only a little leisure. However, I did find this cute lavender lamb planter...


And a piece of shell pink milk glass-- this one's a sugar bowl...


It seems strange I'm finding so much of this right now when it was impossible to find outside of antique stores about a year or so ago. But, these things come in cycles, for some reason. Sometimes you see a ton of one type of thing, and six months later-- not a single piece.

Anyway, that's the main plunder for this week!

But before you go, I did want to share with you all a bit of good news, I'd had...

I'd entered a fiction contest for short humor pieces at Humor Press, and actually came in Second Place! Can ya believe that? I about fell over when I saw the notification in my Inbox.

• If you have a moment and you're curious, you can check that out here. Mine is called "Of Bullets and Bad Comma: A Tale of Grammar Noir."

Hope you all have a booty-ful week yourselves! Arrrrgh!

Treasure Box Wednesday: The Stuff Fairy Tales Are Made Of

While the Treasure Box doesn't exactly overflow this Wednesday, there were a few Goodwill finds that were too marvelous to pass up, and I'd like to share with you today. Mainly, this week's stash includes three fairy tale books from the "My Book House" series, published in the 1930s...


The covers, a bit worn, are still magical and vivid. (I only wish the Goodwill employee hadn't put the price sticker right on the paper illustration on the cover... It became impossible to remove them without damaging the picture, despite my careful attentions.) There were a good ten books there, but due to individual pricing, I chose three of my favorites. The volumes I selected were "The Magic Garden," "Through Fairy Halls," and "Up One Pair of Stairs."





The stories themselves are grouped by topic... For instance, "Through Fairy Halls" follows the fairy theme through Russian folktakes, Shakespeare, Romantic poetry, Grimm's and Hans Christian Andersen's works, and other pieces. I thought you all might appreciate some of the delicate little colored illustrations inside. Like this marvelous Children of Lir...


Not to mention the dancing maidens...


Flocks of fairies...


And illuminated verse...


Aside from the books, in the Treasure Box this week was.... yup, one more grape patterned piece of milkglass for the largest milkglass gift basket in the world. (Or at least it seems that way!) And also a cool hobnail bottle with stopper because I just thought it had style...



Apologies to you all for a bit of a short post this Wednesday. I haven't gotten out thrifting much on the weekends-- my whole city, it seems, is under construction! :) To paraphrase that old Stealers Wheels song, there are closings to the East of me, detours in the north, here I am, stuck in the middle with you'. :)

• HOWEVER-- for those who missed last Sunday's post, you can enter a world of stage, silent screen and one seriously intriguing postcard correspondence by clicking here.

Otherwise, I hope to see you in the general Sunday-ish timeframe where we'll, weather permitting, journey through the Regent Square Neighborhood Yardsale!