Eat Cake!

Eat Cake brings up a number of hidden meanings.  On the downside, there's the tacky quote Marie Antoinette was supposed to have uttered in regards to the starving peasants - "Let them eat cake."  It turns out that she didn't really say that.  Ahhh, history.....  Once accused, the charge sticks.

On the upside, Eat Cake seems to mean celebrate and enjoy life.  I'll go for that, however, the last thing I need to do is actually eat cake.  I am determined to drop some weight. 

That's fine by me because I've found something related to eating cake that I like even better - vintage cake carriers.  I have found two in the last two weeks. 

First, I found this beauty by Regal.  The top locks on with a couple of turn lock mechanisms.  It's aluminum.  I love the rings around the bottom of the cover.  This carrier reminds me of all the wonderful cake bakers in my past.

Then yesterday I came across this one -

It's stainless steel and is a twist-lock style.  It looks exactly like the 1950's-60's Everedy ones.  It has the exact same USA brand on the bottom.  But - it doesn't say Everedy.  It was really dirty, but in good shape. It's shorter than the first one, but heavier.  I still like the first one best - it looks older and more like the ones from my childhood.

Now I don't really need two cake carriers or do I?  An idea took hold of me as I was looking these up on Ebay.  I kept coming across really pretty cake carriers in all sorts of colors and shapes.  Maybe I need to start a collection!  I could put them on top of my kitchen cabinets.  Maybe my friend Nicole (Queen of all things Retro Kitchen) would help me watch for them. 

I'm not the only one who is smitten with cake carriers. I came across this collage on The Kitchn.  She found these beauties on Ebay.

And I've always loved the Eat Cake letters in Tina's kitchen as seen on her blog - Cherry Hill Cottage.

By the way, I've been thinking about removing the doors below my sink and skirting it.  I don't have a farmhouse sink, but I love the extra something a skirt under the sink adds.

Now, go eat cake!

New Treasures - Side Tables

My thrifting lately has rewarded me with two great side tables.

Before I show you the tables, I need to point out a few disclaimers (excuses).

Disclaimer 1: The family room is not a room I am satisfied with in terms of decor.  It's a major work in progress with all sorts of limitations.  First of all, hubby insists that Lazy Boys (the old fashioned, hideously large, overstuffed style) are a must have and they must be positioned in a certain way in front of a television. Remotes and phones and such need to be close at hand.  He doesn't interfere with too much in terms of decor in other parts of the house, so it's only fair that I meet this request.  In order to make a Lazy Boy look right in this room right in front of the TV, believe it or not, I got two Lazy Boys and made a grouping.  It's comfy, but definitely not my style!

Disclaimer 2: We live in a zoo.  We have dogs and cats and they rule our life.  Living with pets requires certain concessions.  Delicate fabrics or knick-knacks are out of the question.  Light colors are asking for trouble.  Slipcovers are a pet owner's best friend.

Disclaimer 3:  Even with all the limitations, I am confidant that one day I'll get this room looking pretty danged good.  It just hasn't happened yet.  I hate buying new - it's not much fun.  I'm going slow and acquiring interesting pieces from yard sales, estate sales, auctions and other thrifting.  That takes time!   A good many things in the family room are make-do pieces.  I know I'll find something better one of these days.

Sooooooooooooo ------Please don't judge my decorating ability by this room! 

The first table is a retro beauty from 1946.  I know the exact year because it had belonged to the mother of the lady I bought it from.  Her mother had bought it when she first married in 1946.  So the table has a known history.

That's Dolly posing in the chair.

One more disclaimer - I haven't had time to put the finishing touches on the table decor.  First order of business - I'm considering lots of options for containing things on that shelf.  And the lamp - I love the vintage base, but the shade really isn't working.  It's another make-do.  Also - the red caddy under the table holds pet toys.  I want something more stylish for that.

I fell in love with this table at first sight and that baffles the heck out of me.  I usually like beat up, sturdy, hunky, chippy pieces.  This one has modern retro lines. It does have a bit of wear and tear, but nothing even close to "beat up".  It has a maple finish, which I generally like to cover with paint.  I appreciate that style, but it's not a look I typically swoon over.  But, swoon I did and I continue to swoon as I look at it in my house.  I'm thinking it must have some sort of magic.  That's the ony way I can explain it.

If you look closely, you'll see Lulu peeking out from behind the shelf.  Don't look too closely - you'll see tattered upholstery and dust bunnies.

Regardless of the style, the size and proportions are so much better in the room than the smaller make-do table we'd been using. This table is quite large for a side table - about 30 inches square.   Hubby wishes it were a tad shorter.  I told him he could cut the legs down a bit if he wanted.  He seemed satisfied with that.  Meanwhile, he really likes the table, too, and I hope the leg-cutting thing is something he'll never get around to.

I had always thought I'd have a painted table between the chairs, but I don't think it would be right to paint this one.  It would take away from the look.  That's surely more proof of the magic in this chair - I'll paint most anything!

The second table I found is one that I planned to sell in my booth.  It needs just a bit of TLC under the shelf.  Not much, it's it pretty great condition overall.  Hubby is fairly busy right now, so I knew the TLC wouldn't happen for a couple of weeks.  Meanwhile, I decided to put it someplace where it would be highly visible (and not forgotten by Hubby) but wouldn't be in the way.  Well, when I put it in this corner, my plans for it changed.  I really like it there.  I may one day come across a piece that's better for the spot, but this is definitely a make-do upgrade! 

Sissy (the sweetest, smartest kitty on earth) approves!

Fire King - Swirl Pattern

Here's another nice Fire King piece I found.  This one is a Swirl pattern mixing bowl in white.  It's the 9 inch, which I think is 2 1/2 quarts. 

Wikipedia says that Fire-King was originally produced in the 1940s for everyday use, rather than display. It was often sold in bags of flour as a promotional item or was given away at gas stations. Fire-King could also be purchased at local grocery and hardware stores.

More Specifically (from K & M Antiques): Fire-King was produced by the Anchor Hocking Glass Corp. of Lancaster, Ohio during the years from 1940 until 1976. 

The swirl pattern came in a number of colors including jadite, azurite, pink, ivory & white.


I found a great post for identifying Fire King bottom stamps on Cobblestone Mountain.  Here's a little tidbit from their page:

As a general rule, the less embossing on the bottom of a mug, the older it is – however one common exception is that “Fire-King Glass” is older than “Fire-King Ware” (one alphabetic character difference!)  Also, though not specified in any of the descriptions below, the mugs made after about 1950 will usually have a 2-digit mold number embossed on bottom as well.  These mold numbers carry virtually no collector value or meaning.

According to the post, my bowl was made in the 1950's.  That was a good decade.  I was made then, too.  :-)  My bowl has Made in USA under the WARE, but you can't see it in the photo above.  Those letters are starting to wear off and my photo went dark down low. 

Also, my bowl does NOT have Anchor Hocking on it.  I read somewhere in my research that even though Anchor Hocking made all the Fire King line, they preferred to highlight Fire King rather than Anchor Hocking on the whole line of dishware.

It's very easy to confuse the Fire King Swirl Pattern with the Anchor Hocking Shell pattern.  There's a great post about how to tell the difference on Jadite Kate. The shell pattern was NOT part of the Fire King line, so Anchor Hocking is the main mark on the bottom stamp for it.  The shell pattern was made in both jade and white.   Be sure to check out her post for a few more tips.   

I found this on DepressionGlass.net - The Fire-King Swirl pattern was made by Anchor Hocking from 1949 to 1962 in Azur-ite, Jade-ite, Anchorwhite, Ivory, Rose-ite, and Pink. The ivory and anchorwhite also came trimmed with 22K gold (Golden Anniversary and 22K Anchorwhite). The dishes may be trimmed around the outside with Lustre (peachy bronze color), or pastels (green, pink, blue, yellow), or red (Sunrise). Plates, cups and bowls were often hand-painted by various artists of the time, or had decals applied. Fire-King's Swirl pattern has raised swirls around the insides or outsides of the pieces. The edges are smooth, not scalloped.

Another tidbit - The Shell pattern was produced later than the Swirl pattern. 
Shell - 1965-1976
Jadite Kate says Swirl was made from 1949 to 1951.  Depression Glass Net said 1949 to 1962.  Hmmm.  I actually found a good many differences of opinion on a number of Fire King points.  My friend and boothmate in the White Booth, Nicole, has a book which may hold the answer.  Yoo-hoo!  Nicole!!!!!!!!!???????

By the way, Jadite Kate is a blogger who obviously loves Jade-ite dishes.  I plan to explore her blog further.  Here's a quick post on her retro kitchen.

Fire King - Primrose Pattern

I found two pieces of Fire King in the Primrose pattern.  This pattern has a red, pink and grey floral design on a white milk glass (Anchorwhite) background.  It was popular in the 1960's.

My find consisted of just two pieces - a 2 quart casserole and a sugar bowl without the lid.

I noticed the brand mark on the bottom of the casserole is backwards.  Is that how it's supposed to be???  Apparently so.  I found this online on SPGlass's Fire King FAQ page-

Q: I have a pie plate with the Fire-King logo written backwards. Is this unusual or rare?

A: Unusual? A little.  Rare? Definitely not.  Some logos were intended to be read looking down, through the glass.  When such a mold was used with an opaque slag, such as white, ivory or jade-ite, the backwards logo made less sense. 
 

Stella from Our Vintage Life has a great collection of this pattern. 

She also has a wonderful little article on the Primrose Pattern.  I learned from her blog that this pattern was only produced from 1960 to 1962. 

Even though this pattern was only made for a few years, you can still find them and they aren't all that pricey.  Click here to see primrose pieces on Ebay.

Tom and Jerry Eggnog Punch Bowl and Cups

I am not a retro kitchenware expert, but having a booth may get me to at least the intermediate level one day.  Whenever I come across a cool retro item, I research it.

Today, I came across this fun milk glass set, which I assumed was a Christmas mixing bowl and some mugs.  I wondered why it would have Tom and Jerry written on it.

It turns out it's a Hazel Atlas punch bowl and cups, specifically made for eggnog. A Tom and Jerry is an eggnog recipe traditionally served between Christmas and New Years.

Pierce Egan, wrote a book called "Life of London: or Days and Nights of Jerry Hawthorne and His Elegant Friend Corinthina Tom" in the early 1820's. To publicize his book, Mr. Egan concocted a variation of egg-nog he called "Tom and Jerry".


I even found recipes online, like this one on AllRecipes for Tom and Jerry Eggnog.  The original was fortified with rum and brandy.

There are a number of different patterns for this series.  The one I have is called Christmas Cheer, but some refer to it as Top Hats.  There are a number of other Tom and Jerry patterns.  They all look very similar, but the pictures are a little different.  Sometimes the writing is red and pictures green or vice versa.  Other patterns include Auld Lang Syne, Currier and Ives, and Colonial.  You can see more of these on Ebay.

What I have not been able to do is find out if the different patterns correspond to different dates or what year/s my set might have been made.  If anyone out there has more info, please let me know!

Hutches with No Doors

Last week I did a bit of antique browsing in Hogansville, GA.  One piece that I keep thinking about is a hutch with no doors on the bottom. 

It was painted green inside and out.  It was old.  There had been doors at one time - you could still see the holes where the hinges had been. I really liked the look and I sure do wish I had taken a photo.

It caught my attention because I was looking for ideas for displaying smalls in my booth.  Having an open bottom allows for more display space.  The more I think about the door-less hutch look, the more I like it for booth AND home. 

Than, this morning, while browsing some blogs I follow, I came across a link to this fun piece. 

It's from B & B's Nest.  She bought it to use in her flea market booth.

Here's a hutch top used as a stand alone with no doors.

from All That Jazz Vintage

I searched for a bit trying to find other hutches with no doors on the web.  No luck.  Here are some other wonderful, chippy hutches (with doors) I came across.

Junk Fest married two separate pieces to create this hutch.

High Street Cottage - Her husband found this fabulous piece at a pharmacy.

And finally... this is not technically a hutch, but from a post I ran across while searching for pretty hutches.  The whole post has fabulous photos from a visit to Northwind Perennial Farm.

From an Urban Farmgirl post

Some Big Pieces in the Booth

I have been super busy and have so much catching up to do on this blog.  I'm not even go to bother to post in order.  I'm just going to catch up randomly.  I'll start with some new pieces I bought for my booth.

The previous post from a week ago shows photos of our new larger main booth.  I'm thinking it needs a name.  We call our white booth The B Hive.  We call our first booth our primary booth.  I also used to call it Booth 188, but we actually have two numbers now - 188 and 488.  It's very confusing and all of those names are really dull!  Anyway, once we moved the PB (Primary Booth) over to the new larger space, we had all sorts of extra space.  And suddenly, I came across loads of big pieces.  The booth is fairly full again!

My major find were three beautiful oak pieces.  A lovely army family was moving out of state and downsizing.  They had a sale and I was lucky enough to find it.

I wanted to keep all three pieces, but ended up keeping just the vintage fireplace mantle.  They had used it to create a faux fireplace at a number of Army base homes. They put a screen in front of it and made it look quite real.  When their friends would come over, they would all ask how they'd been lucky enough to get a base home with a fireplace.  Knowing some of the stories behind this mantle will make it even more special.  I'm so glad I'll be able to keep it.

I don't have a fireplace and have been really wanting to try a faux look.  I've seen some amazing faux fireplace looks on blogs and even did a post on that topic last November.  It's a great post with some wonderful inspiration photos.   I'll be revisiting it when I make final decisions on setting this one up.

For now, the mantle is sitting upside down on our bedroom floor.  I rotated the photos so you could get a better idea of how it looks.  On the inside of the mantel, they used a faux brick panel. It has a bit of it torn off, but that doesn't bother me because I'm thinking of a different treatment.

The mantle details are really pretty.

It looks like I'll have a place to hang my stockings this Christmas!

The other two pieces I very reluctantly put in my booth.  I hope they find a wonderful home because I really, really, really fell in love with the previous owners.  So now, this sale is personal.  Am I the only one who does that?  I'm doing it a lot lately.  I may need therapy.

This oak icebox was placed front and center in the booth.  It's a great piece and has obviously been well cared for. 

The chest of drawers is in the back, but it's actually in a very nice spot - it's not being hidden, for sure.

This photo was taken several days ago and the area around the chest has been tweaked a bit since then.  I tried to put a few things on the chest to create a nice vignette, but left it sparse enough that the beauty of it still showed.  It has a slight curve to it.  Oh, my goodness.  I wish I had been able to keep it.  Even now, I'm thinking I'd like to bring it back home and move something else out.  My hubby would not be amused.  He'd have to be the moving man and he doesn't come cheap!

When we went to pick up the pieces, I ended up getting a tour of the lady's house and seeing some of her other vintage items.  While looking at a fabulous Hoosier, I spied some fabulous tea towels. They had belonged to her husband's grandmother, but her husband had no interest in them.   I'm a sucker for vintage linens and tea towels are my favorites.  I seldom use new dish towels any more.  She was willing to part with some of them and I came home with two tea towels and a pretty tablecloth (oops - I forgot to take a photo of the tablecloth).  They will be loved and used by me! 

I will think of my lovely Army family every time I use them.

Quick Look at the New Booth

I stopped by Rockin' B for a photo session yesterday.  It had to be super fast since hubby and I were on our way to the grocery store.  I wanted him to see the new booth. It was a little messed up here and there, but there was no time to fluff.

The new booth is 5 feet wider and that 5 feet makes a world of difference!

This is our first style and it will definitely be finessed and improved on, but it looks pretty good as is.  Our goal for last Friday was to get everything moved and set up before closing time.  Martie and I made it... barely. There was no time left over to play around.

Once we had moved all the shelves and smalls to the perimeter, we set up Martie's table in the front as the base for a sewing vignette.  We didn't put a whole lot on it so the smalls wouldn't block the view of the table, which needs to be seen well in order to sell.  It's a great table - a pale gray.  It looks like some things have already sold from the vignette.  There was a vintage iron on top of the ironing board. I don't see it in any of these photos.  And it seems like there was something else, but I can't think what. 

The right side is the least visible side as you approach the booth.  Good thing because all those linens are a mess! They were neat when we left on Friday.

We have two bakers racks on the right and another on the back wall.  Folding bakers racks are fabulous for a fast spot to put smalls when a large cabinet sells, but they are not the best for long term small displays.  A shelf unit holds so much more, uses vertical space better and you don't have to worry about things falling between the bars.  We'll be on the lookout for better shelves or cabinets to replace these racks.

We seem to have a ton of fruit-and-vegetable-colored kitchen and dining items.  We grouped those together on the back wall.  

I didn't take a good photo of the left side, darnit!  The tall shelf is filled with blue and white items, the second shelf has lots of red, white and blue things and apple dishes.  We put a linen display in the corner.  The photos are a bit disappointing.  They really don't get across the pops of colors and the spaces here and there that invite you to come closer for a better look. 

We bought the rug from Cynthia on Friday.  She didn't have room for it in her new smaller booth and I knew it would look great with our concrete floors.  It has a few bumps here and there from being folded, but we hope to make use of some double sided tape next week to help it lay flat.  By the way, I'm so glad we didn't paint the floors.  I love the simplicity of the concrete. 

Speaking of painted floors, another vendor snapped up our old booth.  She was already moving in!

My goodness, our old booth looks so much smaller.