Vintage and Thrift Finds

Hey Everyone!
One thing my mom and I have in common is a love of thrifting. I think we're not alone! : ) And one of the best places I know to partake in that pass-time is Maine, where we just happen to go every summer for family vacation!

I already told you all about the amazing score I got on my enamel kitchen table, but there's lots more! Let's start with my random negligee obsession. I don't know where it came from, but I decided I NEEDED some sexy vintage nighties! Happily, both Goodwill and The Schoolhouse Antique Mall in Brewer were able to provide!

First I found this cute 60's babydoll at Goodwill:

Super cute and not too terribly see-through, which means it can actually be sleepwear!

These next two, both from Schoolhouse Antiques, not so much... but hello sexy!

How can you not fall for an aqua blue, off-the-shoulder, ruffled floor length piece? For $6! You have to take it, right? Well, I did. Can't photograph it for the life of me, but you get the idea here, right?

And finally, on the second floor of the Schoolhouse (the place is a bit terrifying when you get up to the second and third floors and you can see how much that building is falling apart, but it's worth it!) I found this total Scarlett (or maybe Dallas!) number:

How about that? The nightie and the matching over-piece still together after how long?! Nine bucks, baby!

That one's worth a second picture- look at those sleeves! Such a fantasy piece, it's great!

Ok, now onto the slightly less scandalous category of decor items.
Well, I guess this first one still counts as apparel, but I'm using it as a tablecloth, so I'm leaving it here!

This is a Ralph Lauren silk scarf that someone got some ink marks on (that aren't very visible), Goodwill $1.50. Perhaps I should have pressed it before I photographed it... oh well!

At two different Goodwills (I think one was actually in Framingham, MA), I found a couple of cute mirrored trays:

This oval one graces the back of my toilet tank, holding (for now!) a potted African violet and some hand lotion.

And this larger rectangular one is wrangling perfumes on the bookshelf in my bedroom! Less than $3 each, and I loved seeing an almost identical rectangular one at an antique store later that same day selling for $28! Gotta love Goodwill!

Over at the Salvation Army in Brewer we found a couple nice things:

First, these adorable milk glass vases. They had about a million, most fairly boring shapes and only two or three different ones, but I dug around until I found these cuties!

And the story of this marble-top table makes me laugh.

Mom and I had arrived a moment or two before the store opened, and we weren't the only ones to be waiting in the vestibule, pressing our noses against the window for a sneak-peek. I spotted this table not to far in and pointed it out to Mom, who declared it a perfect fit for the empty bed-side spot in the guest room she uses at my place. So as the employee unlocked the door, Mom distracted the other two shoppers for a moment while I dashed in and grabbed that table! Know how much it was? $8! The marble top is actually cracked,

But it's right on the grain of the marbling, so you can't see unless you look re-e-e-ally hard!

And finally, artwork:

Both of these pieces came from Big Chicken Barn Antiques, which is where I also found my kitchen table. I love the colors in this little one (about 9x11), and I was looking for water scenes, so for $10 it came home!

And another nice water scene, more quintessentially Maine, for $15.

All right, I think that's about all of this season's score! Unfortunately I missed both the July and September sessions at Brimfield (I was hoping to score an umbrella stand!), but there's always next year!

How about you all, any favorite thrifting/antiquing spots? I'd love to hear!

The Great Mascara Hunt: A Few Reviews

I don't know about you guys, but I seem to be constantly looking for "the perfect" mascara. My lashes used to be naturally quite long, like I had trouble wearing sunglasses long, so it used to not matter too much what I put on them. Just about anything with the word "volumizing" on the label did the job! However, the length of my lashes is just one of the many things that seems to becoming more challenging as I move into my 4th decade. I imagine I can't be the only one struggling with this problem, so I've decided to document my hunt and share it with you all!
So, first off I'll start with a longtime favorite: L'Oreal Voluminous mascara, the original.



   It does wonderful things for my lashes! (My sister's too, she's a longtime fan as well.)



But it does flake, and my hair brushing against them results in raccoon eyes. Which isn't so attractive!

So from there I went for a very conservative everyday mascara: CoverGirl Lash Blast.



Which is great stuff! Doesn't flake at all unless you rub it, which is entirely acceptable.



But, well, it's not exactly Va-va-voom, is it?

Then one day at Sephora I got a little sample of Lorac Multiplex 3-D lash mascara.



Hello Va-va-voom! I'll tell you I practically RAN out to buy myself a full sized tube of that! Or no, I didn't actually. I cheaped out and tried another brand first, which I cover next.



But then, well, I wore it for a few all-day sessions and discovered that it doesn't just flake, it de-filaments. Which is to say that while it won't give you raccoon eyes, it will leave little black chunks floating around your eyeballs which then give you totally bloodshot eyes... oops! That's headed back to the store! (yay for Sephora's return policy!)

So,ok, I got the Lorac sample and loved it, but was too darn cheap to spend the $22 to buy it. (Which I just now noticed is $18 on Amazon! But there's shipping...) SO... I went out and bought L'Oreal Voluminous Million Lashes, which I don't remember why but I thought was very similar.



Which it actually is! I mean, ba-BAM lashes! (pay no attention to the bra-straps, I have no idea what I was dressing for just then...)



But it has the same down-fall, which is that the crazy length comes from tiny filaments that adhere to your lashes and then to each other, and just as promptly un-adhere and end up in your eyes. Oh well. $10 down the tube! (After which I went out and got the more expensive one thinking it might be better, but you already know how that ended!)

Which brings me to the mascara that I'm currently defaulting to: L'Oreal Double Extend Beauty Tubes mascara. Which is a pretty creepy name, frankly.



But also a pretty good mascara! Great length and very black, though I would like a bit more thickening as this can get a little spidery looking some days.



And no flakes! Which I suppose is thanks to that creepy tubule technology. Which I thought was total jargon, until I went to wash it off and it can off all in one piece- the whole darn lash! I don't mean MY lashes came off, just that all of the mascara really stuck together and came off like a tiny little toupee. Or, as I first though, EW A BUG!!! It is a little gross. But for no flakes and reasonably high impact? I'll put up with a little creepy.
For now, anyway! The hunt will continue!
My sister is currently using Maybelline Collosal Volume Mascara and likes it, but I haven't tried that one... yet!
Anyone out there have a favorite they recommend?

Meet Olive!

Hey Everyone!
I'd like to introduce you to the newest addition to our family, little Olive!



Actually, her proper name is Olive Tapenade (because all the animals in the house have names that begin with 'T',) but that's a bit of a mouth-full, so we call her Olive for short!
She was rescued in upstate NY by a very nice woman who found her starving in a field and brought her to her house a nursed her back to health and then passed her on to us. Talk about a good heart and generous spirit!



It took about 36 hours for Olive to decide that we were ok people and that she didn't have to live under the bed. After letting her get a quick look at Toby and Tembo, I think she's going to be the bossy little queen of the house once we let her join the crew full time! For now, however, she's busy eating as much food as fast as she possibly can (which I'm doing my best to regulate!), and hopefully build up a little muscle on that tiny frame!

Surviving Irene

Although I have to say, compared what other people have gone through at the mercy of Irene, we didn't have all that much to challenge us. Power was down for 36 hours, and we had a moment of panic when the giant oak tree out front lost three of it's big top branches:



And one of them missed our roof by two feet, while another got hooked on the power line running from the street to our house! Thankfully the line held, otherwise I'd certainly be one of the unlucky ones waiting for power through the weekend.
Other than a few dramatic hours, mostly the day was just very dark and blustery, but I refused to let Hubby do anything outside for an extended period of time, and he was getting antsy. I figured since it was too dark and gloomy in the whole house anyway, why not bring some candles into the basement and clean down there?



Hubby toils away...
Thanks to my sister for that fantastic candle-lier- it came in really handy during the black-out! Hubby used to ridicule me for the number of candles and holders I always have on stand-by (any good sale!), but not anymore!
Another home decor item that was very useful during foul weather was an old, tiny brass fondue pot.



When Hubby was desperate for a cup of tea I thought of that stand and some leftover Sterno, and the top half of our Turkish teapot! Worked like a charm! A very slow, 30 minutes to boil 2 cups of water charm...
Hope everyone else is recovering well!

Enamel Kitchen Table

Hey All!
I just got back from a great week up in Maine at the family camp. Actually, it was a very chilly, damp week, but that just gave us more time for thrifting and antiquing! Today I want to share with you the most exciting find of the week:


My beautiful, new (to me) enamel top kitchen table!
I'm afraid I wasn't a terribly good blogger and didn't even think to take a picture of the table all buried in the antique store (if you're wondering, it came from Big Chicken Barn Antiques in Ellsworth.) Suffice to say she was buried enough that we needed help to dig her out, and more than a little dirty and rusty!


There I am, all decked out in my fancy cleaning gloves, scrubbing the rust off her chrome legs with Bar Keepers Friend.


See how much better they look after a liberal application of elbow grease? (That would be the top one in that picture...)

The biggest chip is proudly displayed on the front of the table- no look-alikes here! After I scrubbed the top with a sponge, followed by magic eraser, my Mom's husband went at it with some car polish and BOY did that make her shine! See the chair reflection on there?!

She looks right at home with my iron trivet on the wall and apron collection hanging on my DIY display board. The only question left is whether to paint the apron a nice high-gloss to match the cabinets in the room, or to let it be. The household is divided. Okay, I'm the only holdout for letting it be! (Hubby, though, has yet to get past the head scratching point at all!)

So what say you all? Should I paint the apron a high gloss greenish-blue to match the curtain on the right (which matches the cabinet interiors?) Or leave it be?
Incidentally, the cute painting over the table is also a new find, I'll share more about the rest later!

Texas: Part Two

After much delay, here are the shots from the second half of my week in San Antonio! The Botanical Garden was one of my favorite trips out. Don't get me wrong, it was HOT spending an afternoon outside, but I brought an umbrella to fill in shade where the trees didn't provide some, and in the end it was worth it!


I loved their visual solution to the drought- instead of leaving the fountains looking bare and sad, they filled them in with beautiful blue glass!


Lots of inspiration to be found in the giant planters scattered around.


The Garden for the Blind was an interesting addition, where the plants were all either highly fragrant or tactile (lots of herbs!)


This stunning sculpture was in the Garden for the Blind, as well as:


This huge snail!


I loved the water lilies in this little pond.

It was in the courtyard of a series of greenhouses that housed:


Bromiliads from the rain forest in one.


Cacti from the desert in another.


Ferns in a fog-machine induced sauna! And there was another VERY hot and humid house filled with Palms that was setup as a ramp that spiraled upward through the foliage, which was a cool idea, but I practically had to run through to make it out the exit at the top without passing out!


Pomegranates!
Another unique display they had was the "gardens" showing the 4 natural habitats they have in Texas. I went to check out the Pine forest area, since I have lots of Pines around my house and was interested to see what would grow around them. Turns out not much!


But it was lovely anyway. And really nice to walk in the deep shade!


These roots are so cool! Can't remember the name of the tree, though...


That's my art-y self-portrait in the window of the classic wood cabin.


But I really loved the cottage garden! This is my favorite kind of garden. It was really neat to see how many of the same plants grew in Texas that we have up here in New England, and how some grew very differently! The hydrangeas, for example, were so tiny down there as to be barely recognizable, whereas up here they grow to be 5 foot tall bushes in just a few years! They must like the cold winters!

After the Botanical Garden I headed over to the San Antonio Art Museum, mostly to see their European and American paintings, which are a favorite.


But, well, their collection of paintings was TINY! They more than made up for it, however, with an absurdly large collection of Irish silver (fun to read the inscriptions!), and ceramics and pottery from the Middle East. I didn't take any pictures of those, however, because my camera battery had already died, and after photographing the garden my phone battery was dying, too!


I HAD to get a picture of this, though, because it's so unique! It's a sand mandala- that's right, that whole thing is made of sand! Enlarge the next picture to get the full explanation of how this came to be in the museum.

Sorry for the blur, I think I was a little dehydrated at that point!

The next morning, Hubby had a business meeting over in Austin, so we swapped to a hotel over there, but first we had to do the obligatory trip to the Alamo!


The pictures came out terrible- I must have had the phone on some odd setting!

Our first night in Austin we met up with another friend who lives nearby, and he took us to an UH-MA-ZING BBQ joint called The County Line.


If you're ever down in Texas, see if there's one of these nearby, because it was DELICIOUS! And I really don't even normally like meat!


This location (Austin Hills) was particularly special because it sat on the side of a hill and the patio overlooked the sunset and the valley below. Not that you can see the sunset in this shot, but you can see the color it turned me in this shot:


Bring your sunglasses and sunblock! But more importantly, do you see that food?! Those ribs have converted me- I am a big, fatty beef rib lover! Never liked them before, but these were so good I'm going to be trying to make some myself soon!


The whole place was adorably kitschy, and instead of music the bathroom speakers played a language CD called "How to Speak Cowboy", which is for sale for $10. (Yes, Hubby bought one!)


There we are, all fat and happy, rolling back to the car.

The next day we spent some time wandering around downtown Austin, but it was SOO hot, Hubby couldn't take being outside and actually suggested we go shoe shopping! Well, cowboy boot shopping, but still! So we asked around a bit and were originally directed to either a place in town called Allen's that had mostly highly decorated, more expensive boots, or if we wanted something more functional and less decorative, a place out by the airport called Callahan's General Store. Well, where would you go?


A place that sells cow feed and turquoise refrigerators along side cowgirl boots? Sign me up! Well ok, I admit we checked out the one in town first, but I didn't fall in love with anything that cost less than $400, and cowboy boots are a little too much of a novelty up here in the Northeast to justify that much money!
Callahan's was GREAT! Totally down to earth, with a great sense of humor in the home decor section (yup, they had one of those, too!) Another place you definitely need to check out if you're in the area! I didn't take any pictures inside because some stores frown on that (though this didn't seem like one of those places!), but there's a video on their website if you want to take a peek.


But all of that was a bonus to the fact that I walked away with these beauties for under $150, which is just about what I'd been hoping to pay! And they're SOOOO comfortable. I wore them pretty much non-stop for the next 72 hours with nary a blister or rub-spot to show!

And that included an immediate trip out country dancing in them! The same taxi driver who, on our first day, told us about Arjon's salsa club, also told us about Cowboy's Dance Hall for some authentic country dancing, and I was DETERMINED to go before we flew out the next morning at 7:30 AM!


So I roused hubby at 9:30 that night, put on my new boots and dragged us off to do a little cowboy dancin'! And we were both so glad we went!


The dance floor was huge, and had just the right amount of dancers on it so we felt fine going out and bungling through our version of the two-step (which was kind of a mish-mosh of a waltz, east coast swing, and polka!), but empty enough that we didn't worry about slamming into anyone. They even had a live band! A really, really good band! They're the red blur in the background there...


And look, actual cowboys! It was the perfect way to wrap up a surprisingly delightful first-trip to Texas!

Thanks to all the wonderful Texans who helped show me just how wrong I was about that state!