Weekend Finds

Hello again! I hope you Easter chicks didn't go overboard for the holiday like my bab and I did. Lord have mercy. Now confronting me and my healthy diet every morning, in a yellow-candy-eyed-stare-off, is The Professor, a five pound, hollow Palmer chocolate crisp bunny who wants to teach me a thing or two about how delicious life can be. I was delighted by the box's 60's illustrations, and the fact that a bunny could earn a doctorate, but I won't lie, it IS a little intimidating thinking about tackling that sucker without plunging headlong into a pre-diabetic coma. But I digress. Didn't do much shopping this weekend (the social calendar was F-U-L-L between dinner and a movie on Friday, a wild and crazy wedding out of town on Saturday, and Easter lunch with my folks on Sunday), but I did get a couple things weekend-before-last that I hadn't had a chance to show you. So behold! Items of one week's vintage... take a look:

 

 

 Remember the post I did not two weeks ago about Forstmann wools? Well, wasn't I lucky enough to find this Grace's of Nashville "Ermina" winter coat at a sale at very tip top of a hill out Forest-Acres way. I have a whole flippin closet of winter coats, but not an "Ermina"! So I bent one of my cardinal rules about not stuffing the closet when I already have similar items and picked it up for $7. The princess cut! The white wool! The faux tortoiseshell round buttons! I was a goner. But I did put back like six Donna Reed-looking sweaters to atone for the rack-space. My conscience is clean....ish. :) I'm still lugging around tons of trade credit at McKays from a spring cleaning of my bookshelves, so what did I do? Go get more books, natch! They've moved into a larger building in Bellevue, and the eerie thing about it, fellow Tennesseans, is that it resembles TO THE LETTER their Knoxville location. It's crazy! If you'd dropped me in there blindfolded, I would have thought I was in Knoxville. Much larger, many more items in stock. Well, a few less items after my trip:

 I've been really focusing on the retro/actually vintage crafts and recipe books lately. Also, that safety pin necklace craft book is OUT OF CONTROL...shall I make a huge, knock off turquoise Native American pendant? I shall! So many instructions for batik and bean art, I am going to have to make a conscious effort to try and DO some of these crafts rather than to just read about them (Iknowyouknowhowitis). My Aunt Donna came down for Easter with my Uncle Harold and brought me a sle-e-e-e-w of 1970's-1990's antique appraisal manuals and reference guides, as well as some coursework and materials from when she took a distance learning course on becoming a certified appraiser. "Pretty much all of this stuff you can get online now, but I thought you'd like to have them, and if you don't, you know, you can take 'em to the used bookstore, give 'em to Goodwill, whatever." I choose to keep them! "Oh," she said, "And your mom told me you're really into antique cookbooks, so I brought you these." STOP! THE! PRESSES! 

 I didn't take a picture of the other one for some reason, but this "Woman's Exchange Cookbook" is from 1901, and the other, "The White House Cookbook" (looks like this), featuring recipes from Washington women and former first ladies, is from 1907. Jeepers! I think the oldest cookbook I had before this AMAZINGLY KIND GIFT was a copy of the Inglenook Cookbook from the 1910's. I'll have to report back after I get a chance to look through them better, but the page it fell open to at random was a recipe for turtle soup that began "Plunge living terrapin into boiling water. When life is extinct, remove toenails and shell." ((as I run screaming from the room, clutching the book, hollering "BAB! YOU HAVE *GOT* TO SEE THIS!" in ghoulish delight and disbelief)).

 

 Here's a pretty rhinestone-and-sequin-and-bugle-bead collar I picked up at the same estate sale with the coat. I am CRAZY about throwing one of these on with a heretofore "plain Jane" dress and having enough pizazz to knock out an electrical board. The combinations possible with this and other dresses are just unlimited! We love it.

 Mermaid drink garnish, anyone? Set of 60 for $2.99 at World Market'. They also had little cocktail swords for making hors d'oeurves that I am probably going to go back and get next time I'm in Hendersonville. Heed my words: No kitsch kitchen is complete without them!!!! I'm usually kind of on the fence about that store, but their cocktail party section is just ridiculous with stuff I need for my next shindig. I just have to make sure no one swallows one in a fit of inebriated absented mindedness. Ready for the piece de resistance? Behold...the AL MENAH fez of your dreams:   

 I felt mondo guilty about buying this when I promised myself to cut down on superfluous, space consuming items of interest but no practical application, but I did it, and I'm glad I did, by Godfrey! Do you SEE this hat? I'm not sure of what the rules are about non-shriner/temple people having shriner/temple memorabilia, but I assure you, it's in a place of great honor in my house. From the rhinestone embellishments, to the Egyptian figure on the front, to the little scimitar keeping the fez's festoon in place...I don't even know where to begin. There's some moth damage on the front left of the hat, but who cares? I spent the lordly sum of $20 on this guy on the last day of the estate sale (50% discount...because someone even less sane than me would have parted with $40 for this guy). Note that manufacturer Harry Osers, listed on the lining, boasts "Fine Handmade Fezzes and Masonic Jewlery". There were whole stores for that?! The Postal zone, rather than a zip code, makes me think this hat probably dates from the 50's. And it is dearly loved by me! That is something of which we can be certain. Look at Matthew modeling the gem. Isn't he a cute?

 Anyway, that's all the loot that's fit to print for this week. How were your weekend hauls this month? Any buried treasure unearthed? Let a girl know! Til next time.