Garage Sale Treasure

Look at his table I bought for only $3.00!

As soon as I saw it I thought it would be a good table to hold a plant on the deck.
I also plan to pull out the drawer and put a plant inside.


For this year I just took my old coal bucket and stuck a shrub I haven't planted yet as well as a bunch of little heuchra containers that I also need to plant.



I figure it will last a year or two, then I will toss it out. I may paint it next year.


Today I harvested my first tomatoes.

Yes, that's it.
Sad, sad, sad.
They don't even taste very good--not sweet at all.

We did get a bit of rain last night. I don't even know how much. I thought it was enough that I wouldn't have to water the plants today, but about an hour ago I looked out and they were all wilting. Hopefully we get more soon.

This is Why I Gave Up Garage Sales (until I fell off the wagon on Saturday)

I can't resist buying dishes!
I have no room for them, yet I continue to bring them home.
I got a service for 6 of these lovely fruit motif food receptacles.
I am a dish addict--maybe I need to start a self help group--Dish Collector's Anonymous.

Early Sunday morning (before it got too hot to use the oven)I baked some shortcakes to go with more of of local strawberries (so far we have eaten 5 quarts in less than a week!).


I wanted to use up the buttermilk, so I made a double batch and froze three of them for future summer berry delights.


The ones in the back are darker because they have an egg yolk/sugar wash on the top and they probably cooked a bit longer than the egg white-washed cakes in the front. You can see where I made my little taste test to see if they were worthy of baking a second batch.

With the fruity edge, aren't my new dishes especially appropriate to serve a fruit shortcake?

Now I am thinking that I could use up some of my fruit fabric by making a table runner to coordinate....ah, so many ideas, so little time.

I got a number of other "treasures" at the sales.

A set of amber salt/pepper shakers, a Christmas table runner, two boxes of holiday ornaments, some cookbooks and a book about decorating with flea market finds.

I had almost forgotten what fun trudging through the sales is!

Me and My Asian Man All Alone Early Saturday Morning

Hee Hee. I hope that title doesn't get the pervs in here!

Tuesday Treasure

Anybody know what this little treasure is?

I bought him Saturday at a garage sale. He was my only purchase. I paid 50 cents.

What do you think it is?

Tulips in the Dead of Winter

Can Spring be Far Behind?

I was visiting Claudia over at the cabin earlier today and she had a great post about head vases. Not long ago, Linda over at Reminisce...also had a post about head vases. I do love these vases.

I have only one and she is a teenager. I would much rather have one of those lovely Victorian ladies, but so far I have not found any. They are hard to find these days because eveyone is aware that they have value. Gone are the days of finding them for fifty cents at a garage sale!

DH came home yesterday with a little bunch of tulips. Since the flowers by themselves were not enough to make much of a statement, I put them in the head vase. Together they make a nice little centerpiece in the kitchen.

I made a quick trip to Joanne's earlier to get more green fabric and noticed what a sunny day it was today. It won't be long now before my weekends will all be spent outside.

Deep Cleaning, Fall Cleanup and an Old Wine Rack

I woke up to a little snow cover on this cold fall morning.

While I waited for it to melt, I did some inside cleaning. Since I was gone all last weekend, I had a lot to catch up on. I scrubbed floors, dusted, vacuumed, changed the bed linen and washed the bedroom wall after I noticed how badly it needed it when I was stripping the bed.

During the fall and winter, I have about 9.5 productive hours in a day (5:30am to 3:00 p.m.). As the sun goes down, so does my energy level. Since I am at work until 3:00 p.m. on weekedays, my productive time is spent. When I get home, the most I want to do is get a quick dinner ready and clean up the kitchen.

I have no dishwasher.

I hear you all gasp!

LOL. I had a dishwasher many years ago and really never found it all that wonderful. I always did all the tough pots/pans, etc. by hand anyway. I can wash all the dishes, dry them and put them away much faster than it takes a dishwasher to wash them. Anyway, I've strayed from my point, which was that I have a lot of housework to do on the weekend.

About 11:00 a.m. the snow had melted and I went out to cut off all the canna leaves and dumped the rest of the annuals. I put all the sweet potato tubers in a paper bag (just like Giddy said in her comment). I will overwinter them in the crawl space which is cooler than my basement. I really never have much success overwintering them because I never bring them out early enough to get going. Giddy said she brings hers out in Feb., which is probably what I should do, but I probably won't. I really have no place to put pots of stuff in my house. So I wait until May and since they take forever and a day to come up, I end up buying more for my containers rather than waiting until August for the first leaf to sprout. I am saving these just to stick them in the ground someplace and see if anything happens. The ones I stuck in the ground this year never even came up.

I also cut down about 4 wheelbarrow loads of perennials.

I deep cleaned my crocs with a toothbrush and Bar Keeper's Friend. Is there anything that Bar Keeper's Friend will not clean?

Now I can use them during the winter to run out to the garage and down to the basement.

Last night I went to JC Penney and bought some new hand towels for the bathroom. They had a 50% off sale.

Who has an old wine rack that is never used?

I have an idea that may appeal to some of you.

Use it as a holder for extra towels in your bathroom.

(You will have to go to the post below to see the picture since Blogger would not allow me to put it in this post. )

My Little Treasures, (continued)

Blogger is finally allowing me to post more pictures.
Judging from the shape of this casserole dish, it must be from the 1950's. I just love it, too (I love them all, LOL). There are few things I love more than collecting dinnerware...DH comes in a close second.... JUST KIDDING, my little darling (after I go to bed, he winds down on the compter and will probably wander in here and read this).

It has the little candle warmer holder. On the bottom it says, "Pasedena Florence Ceramic company, California." I could not get a clear pic of it. Last spring I tried searching for info on it, but could not find a thing. Maybe one of you are a collector and know something about it.

I love my treasures even more when I have a little info about them.

This Moorcroft flower vase is truly beautiful. I know a little bit about this one as it came from a now deceased family member. I am not sure how old it is. I can account for about 35 years of family ownership, but beyond that, I don't know.


I actually use this vase all the time. I think this one has a little value.
But it does not matter to me how valuable they are. I like the 25 cent garage sale find as much as the hundred(s) dollar vase. Although I would certainly cringe a bit more if I dropped the vase. :)

Flower Arranging Again

It's that time of year.
For some reason in August I get the urge to make flower arrangements. (It would be nicer if the urge occurred during July when I had more flowers.)

I threw in a load of laundry when I got home from work and went out to gather the flowers. I had pretty slim pickin's today:

I love that sunflower cup/saucer vase. It actually came from a florist (has telefloral on the markings on the back). I picked it up at a garage sale years ago.

Who, I ask, would get rid of such a treasure?

It has its own little holder for the plate and the cup.
Perfect for a yellow bouquet. Since I was using all yellow, I decided to use sprigs of my 'Golden Privet' shrub for the filler.



Here is what I did with it:


I had to rummage around the deck clipping tiny little fill-in flowers (the orange mini zinnias).

I used all the remaining flowers to fill the little green vase, but it was a tad sparse.

So I went off and cut a few more privet sprigs.
I really wanted a bit of blue in this one. I have some blue salvia on the deck, but I didn't want to cut it down. I finally decided I could spare 5 spikes of it.
It was just what I needed to finish this one.

By the time the laundry was washed (1/2 hr), I had two new arrangements.

Kerri, do you recognize these flowers?
Yesterday Kerri posted about her 'Gloden Glow' flowers, which I believe are the same as the one right in the middle (bottom) in this bouquet.

Garden Junk

I bought this birdhouse at a garage sale for two dollars.

I hardly ever go to garage sales because I always come home with junk I have no room for. At least this stays outside. Maybe someday I will repaint it. It's a little too bright blue, but the red ties in with the red plant.

See that big sunflower on the left? Of 4 packages of different sunflower seeds, it's one of the few seeds that survived. I can't remember which sunflower it is, so it will be a surprise.

My hanging baskets are getting somewhat tired looking. Today I cut back the 'orange symphony' osteos in hopes that they will regain their former vigor.

The baskets look so different with no orange.

Bargain at the Farmer's Market

I had a nice day today. I was working outside at daybreak - I separated the big red daylily and some liatris (I was shamed into doing something with the liatris when I saw Sabine's beauties in bloom), moved a perennial cornflower that needed more sun and a little clump of painted daisies. About 8:00 am DH and I went to the local farmer's market where we got a couple of nice big tomatoes, some pattypan squash and some fingerling potatoes. It was "garage sale" day at the farmer's market and I bought 11 old quilt squares for only $2. I will probably make pillows out of them this winter to use outside next year.