White Wednesday-Pearls

Hi all! Three posts in three days. I think that is a record for me. Today I thought I would join Kathleen of Faded Charm Cottage and do a "White Wednesday" post.

On Sunday I was out shopping with my blue haired girl and we stopped at a Goodwill in Portland. The first thing I usually do when stopping at Goodwill is to look in the glass case at the jewelry. On this particular day they had a big glass vase full of pearls. (If you've been reading my blog awhile, you probably know that I dig pearls) The best part is that the vase had a blue sticker which meant 50% off. Score! I didn't know exactly what was in the vase until I got home, but then I had fun sorting through the many pearl necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Here is just some of what was in the vase.

A few of my favorites.

I have the tendency to pick up pearl necklaces if I find them for a few dollars. You might say I have quite a few of them. I never really counted how many, but trust me, I have a lot. There's just something special about pearls, real or fake and if the necklaces have a rhinestone clasp, then I have to have it. I even have a small collection of rhinestone clasps. Someday I'll figure out what to do with them. Anyway, this is where my favorite pearl necklaces end up.


On Sallie Ann in the living room or

on Manni in my bedroom. I think Sallie Ann has a few more. One day for fun, I wore about 6 pearl necklaces to lunch with friends. It was pretty funny. I got lots of interesting looks and comments from my friends. I guess I just couldn't pull it off like Sallie Ann and Manni.

More Finds and My Blue-Haired Girl

As I mentioned yesterday, I have a few more cool things to show you that I have found recently while out thrifting.

Love this adorable doll. Especially her velvet hat with vintage millinery flowers.

This is the dresser I got for a song from Karen's sale. I know. It's pretty ugly, but it's super sturdy, and well built. A little paint will go a long way here.

I found this adorable old pot and holder at an estate sale. I love the curly q's, crazing on the pot and the chippy/rusty goodness of the wire holder. The bottom of the pot says "Royal Copley" which is know is collectible. I think I just may have to keep this little cutie for myself. It would be adorable with a little ivy plant inside.

At the same sale I found this gorgeous vintage dress. I thought it might fit me, but unfortunately, not quite. Need to lose about 10 lbs before it would. Love the fabric and design though.

This pretty dress (also found at the same sale) would be perfect for a garden party.

Got these slips at that sale too. I am a sucker for vintage slips. I have so many, but I just can't not buy them if they are a good price.

And finally, what I got at the Tarte/Willow Nest sale I went to on Saturday with Isabel. I'm still looking for a "V" and an "E." The chicken wire window will be great for displaying stuff.

Thought you might want to see what my darling daughter did to her hair last week, the day before school registration. She will be a sophomore this year (can hardly believe it) and had been telling me for awhile that she wanted to dye her hair blue. She wasn't kidding.

It's blue alright. At first I didn't like it at all, but now it's starting to grow on me. I love her sweet little smile in this picture.


I'll be back tomorrow with a "White Wednesday" post.

Thank you to Sweet Natasha!

Awhile ago I noticed on Stephanie's blog that she was setting up a new swap called, "I thought of you." In this swap you are partnered up with someone and you swap items that make you think of them. I was lucky enough to get the adorable Aussi, Natasha as my swap partner.

I had so much fun putting together a box full of goodies for Natasha. We both love lots of the same things so it was pretty easy for me. You can see what I sent Natasha here.

On Saturday I received my package in the mail all the way from Australia. I was so excited and strangely enough so were my kids. I found out later why.

Here is what the box looked like when I opened it.

Inside those pink tissue paper packages were these goodies.

Lovely postcards of Natasha's ballgowns and a wonderful hand painted roses bookmark.

Cute little card boxes, vintage trim and velvety millinery rose.

Three of Natasha's adorable faux mini cupcakes. (My kids wanted to eat them, they looked that good!)


The most lovely vintage wallpaper ever! I have a couple projects in mind for these already.

Sweet little vintage glass buttons, brooches, buckles and sea shells. My favorite is that silver filigree butterfly. Will be a perfect addition to my butterfly brooch collection.

Gorgeous prints from Natasha's paintings. Ready for framing.

And finally...

Natasha painted this absolutely fabulous sign for me to use for shows and such. Isn't it so lovely! Painting beautiful roses is a talent I so wish I had, but unfortunately I'm just not artistic in that way. So glad I have good friends who are! Natasha also sent some yummy candy which my kids quickly devoured before I could take a picture. (They knew I sent Natasha's sweet boy, Leroy some goodies so that is why they were excited to see what was in my package.) She also sent me a little jar of Vegemite, which I have to admit, I'm a little nervous to try. I'll get my husband, who will eat anything, to try it first.ha ha

A million thanks to sweet Natasha. I love everything she sent to me. This was such a fun swap to be part of. I'll have to keep my eyes open for more in the future.

I have more fun vintage finds to show you later this week so come on back. Happy Monday!

Some Stuff I Found Last Weekend

The last two weekends have been great for thrifting. Most of the stuff I found in Washington has already been cleaned, sorted and taken to my mall spaces. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures but, as I mentioned in the last post, Isabel and I hit a few sales last weekend. One of the best being the sale at our friend, Karen's house. Karen is an antiques dealer who lives in our town and she was in desperate need to clean out a lot of great stuff. I didn't get to her sale until 3 in the afternoon and she still had some really awesome stuff at super low prices. Isabel came right after I left and bought a bunch of stuff too and got even better prices. We both went back later together and bought even more stuff. So, you're probably wondering what the heck I got.

Here are just some of my weekend finds.

Adorable little dresser found at Vintage Gatherings in Battle Ground.

Bar stools, end table, lamps, vintage hangers, great vintage photo in neat frame, bucket, lace, jar, chippy hanger thingy and crusty candle holder all found at Karen's sale.

Close up of the cool lamps I found.

More great finds from Karen's sale. Hard to see, but that bench is really cute. I'm going to recover the seat in that neat fabric on the left.

Cute book shelf found at Vintage Gatherings.

Mirror, bed lamp, divided box, tool box all found at Vintage Gatherings. The chippy cabinet door I got from Linda Marcov (Willow Nest) at the Barn House sale. The little toy phone was found at another Battleground sale Isabel and I found. (More on that later)

This awesome frame was in pieces when I bought it at Karen's sale. Also got the wicker stool and rusty wire fencing there too. I am loving this frame though. Not sure if I will keep it, sell as is, put a mirror in it or make it into some kind of memory or chalkboard. Too many wonderful choices.

Other things I got that I didn't take a picture of before storing them in my garage are a white metal bakers rack, child's sized shopping cart, slipper chair in need of a slipcover, three ottomans needing to be recovered, another cute dresser with an ugly paint job, white gate leg table in pieces and some other miscellaneous goodies I can't remember. To think Isabel and I were worried that we wouldn't have enough stuff for the Monticello Fall Premier Show and the Coburg Antique Fair coming up. I think it's safe to say we do, but now we need to get busy and work our magic on a few things. Personally, I need to get busy painting and sewing as I'm am kind of running out of time.

Now, for that sale Isabel and I found on Saturday. It was pretty close to the other sales we went to and was advertised as a "Antiques" sale. Isabel found and bought lots of cool stuff. I only bought the toy telephone and a couple pairs of jeans for my son. But, the best part of this sale to me was the property where it was being held. The sweet owner, Beth, told us we could snap some pictures so that is just what we did.

Beth's property was just a little slice of heaven. I would be a very happy girl if I lived in such a place.

I'm going to leave you here with the one and only picture I took at the Barn House/Willow Nest sale.

This sweet kitty was so cute hanging out in one of the display boxes. You can see it has a tag on it for sale. I don't think the kitty was included with the box, but who knows?

This Girl's Having Too Much Fun

I'm home again and so behind in blogging. Let me back up a bit to two weekend's ago when Isabel and I road tripped it up North to visit Timi, go junking and attend the first "Hot Blogust Nights" party.

We had a great time, found some great junk and made some awesome new friends. On Friday we made a little stop at sweet Kimberly's adorable home. Here we are hamming it up with WSU Laura's "sorority pose."Loved all the sweet old outbuildings on Kim's property. So much great potential for a studio/junk storage/guest cottage. Love it!

Don't you just love the chickens roaming around. I do! I wanted to move right in. Wish I got some interior shots of Kim's house. You'll have to take my word for it, it's awesome!

We arrived at Timi's house just in time for dinner and a junk swap party with some of Timi's friends. We met Dani, Jana, Trish, Amber, Mary, Ann, Jennifer, Annie and . Everyone was so sweet and welcoming. Lots of great food (the crab sandwiches were delish!), laughs and junk swapping. What could be better?

Here is Timi's house.

Love, love, love the pink chairs on her balcony and if you look real close, you can see Charlie poking his little head through the railing.

My favorite room in Timi's house. This is where the junk swap party was held.Saturday Timi, Isabel and I hit the road for some garage sale good times. We all found lots of good junk and we could have kept going, but we were running out of time and the truck was filling up fast. Here is a shot of the back of my van after we loaded all of our great junk into it.

Saturday evening we headed to downtown Snohomish where the blog party was being held. It was being hosted by Annie and several other stores participated by being open late and offering yummy snacks, beverages and special store discounts. I was the lucky winner of the blog badge contest and got to pick $75.00 worth of merchandise from Annie's! I could hardly believe it! I could have spent hours trying to decide what to get as she had so many amazing things in her store, but I narrowed it down to an adorable silverware ring (which hasn't left my hand since I got it) and a equally adorable vintage medicine cabinet. It was a great evening!

Jana and her Mom, Claris of Joy Works. A lovely shop that's been in business 30 years!

Fun and cute bloggers, Trish and Amber

Loved this mermaid display in the window at Joyworks.

Melaine and Kim posing at Annie's.

Just a sampling of the many awesome items for sale at Annie's.

Susan and her adorable daughter, Laura

Sunday morning we left bright and early as I had to get back home for a family dinner thingy being hosted by me. My little bro was in town for the weekend and graced us with his appearance. It was good to see him and the rest of the family (minus one nephew). My little bro lives in Arizona and we don't get to see him often enough. He's the guy in the black t-shirt. BTW, he's single if anyone's interested.

Monday morning we packed up the car and headed East this time to Boise, Idaho to visit my husband's brother and his wife. It has been three years since we visited them in Boise and it was fun to visit again. We did the Boise river float one day and while my hubby was fishing with his brother the next day, the kids and I hit some thrift stores and a mall. One cool thing that happened while we were there was going to a restaurant that we had enjoyed the last time we were there and finding out that they were filming an episode of "Man Vs. Food" for the travel Channel so we got to see this guy and cheer him on while he plowed through a massive amount of food in 30 minutes.

This weekend Isabel and I went up to see our friends at the Barn House/Willow Nest sale in Battleground, WA. I took one picture while we were there, but you can see all the lovely pictures Isabel took here.

We hit a few other sales and got some great stuff which I will share on my next post. Hope you all had a lovely weekend. I have a busy week ahead with back to school stuff, getting ready for Monticello's Fall Premier Sale and the Coburg Antique Fair coming up next month. I'm just exhausted thinking about it.

TTFN!