More Thrifty Treasures (I’m Turning Into My Dad)

I never intended for my garage saling hobby to become so much of a series on the blog, but here’s another sneak peek of some of my recent treasures. This spring has been good to me (for very little money). Some of my other escapades helped me discover sweet pink pushpins and an old owl and hunks of glass, all of which are slowly finding their way into my day-to-day decor. This weekend, between a church rummage sale and a random estate sale, I discovered some cool finds that only stole $11.75 from my wallet.

I’ve written before about how my everyday dinnerware consists of a usable collection of mismatched plates, bowls, and servingware, so I added a few choice picks to the collection – both happen to be scalloped and cheerful and fit in quite nicely with the mismatched set. The white bowl is a good size for cereal or soup; the yellow bowl will be useful when it comes to serving sides at din-din or summer picnics.

And here I go contradicting myself; I allow myself to collect random plates and bowls because I try and anchor the table by retaining matching glasses and silverware… but I couldn’t resist this set of glasses representing the United States (minus the western states and mid-west). I’m guessing it was originally a 6-glass set. The colors and level of detail (down to state and regional factoids on the back) are adorable, and for 10-cents a pop, I thought they’d look great with the other clear glasses I drink from. They do.

The clay pots were actually in someone’s freebie bin, so why wouldn’t I take them; cutely sorted like little nesting pots.

I also pulled a 8×12 picture frame from the freebie bin (for the free glass). This mangled frame is not shown but gives me the glass I need to make this empty, ornate frame usable again. This frame was a big spend, at $4. But it’s cute, right?

Speaking of frames, the great colors in this print of the Grand Canyon National Park are what caught my eye; how pretty are the swirling skies and shadowed mountains? At $3, felt it was worth trying to scoot home with the 18″x24″-ish frame between my knees (just around the corner from home, so it wasn’t scary for too long).

How about a close-up on the color detail – the sea greens? the orange? the grays? Love. It’s going to be a pretty accent and complement to whatever wall it lands itself on.

The frame isn’t even bad, although I’m considering giving it a coat of paint – maybe a red-orange coat that will complement the similar color in the painting but still allow the texture of the frame to show through.

I don’t own many tsotchkes; you’re not going to see me with a Precious Moments display on the built-in shelves anytime soon, but I couldn’t resist this little green dog with hand painted facial detail. At 10-cents, who wouldn’t have taken it? Originally I figured I’d paint it neutral a la the ol’ cheap owl, but the unlikely green and yellow is growin’ on me.

And then, I hit the jackpot. I stopped at a random estate sale with poor signage and turned into my dad in matter of 3 seconds. OK, back up: I’ve said for years that I’m turning into my mom (not in a bad way – she’s tall and thin, loves home improvement, perennials, j.crew, and amber jewelry), but my dad has this love for maps unlike anyone I’ve ever met, besides maybe a topographer. It’s annoying and obsessive and he’s forever hinting that I should have a map with me at all times in case I get lost (and my iPhone doesn’t count). His collection is expansive, and what I’m getting at here is that I actually bought maps. Real maps. Stunning, exquisite maps. I don’t collect maps, but maybe I do now since I brought home 10.

The sale was one town over, and come to find, the woman who once lived in the home was the town historian and was involved with mapping the town’s growth and development, so in addition to cool antique maps, reprints, and sketches of various locations around the world, there were some pretty nice blueprints of the town detailing property lines, schools, and dead ends. The family holding the sale had delivered a handsome package to the local historical society, but left duplicates and damaged items for other crazy map people to browse through. Yes, now I’m a crazy map person.

The storage unit itself was for sale ($50) and while I didn’t buy it, it would surely have made for a nice coffee table with a little paint and imagination. It was deeper and wider than this picture gives credit for, and with lots of little drawers, I could really see it being used as nice storage for my own prints and photos. I switched to the iPhone to take a photo for you so I didn’t cause too much of a scene, hence the quality of this photo.

Back to the maps. Yeah, so, I hunted through each of those drawers and came up with a fine selection to bring home with me for just $3.50. Amazing. Although it might have been because that’s all I had in my wallet short of a Starbucks gift card. Here’s the list of what I brought home, with related photos.

1. Map of New York divided by town. Within each town is the population as of the year 1865.
2. Connecticut. It was in good shape and might make for nice framed decor someday for a friend who lurrrrves CT (Holler Alyssa, if you’re reading.)
3. A Franklin County, Pennsylvania recreation map. It has a wonderful map key featuring hunting notes that I just had to take a picture of for you.

4. This old world reprint had me at hello. I loved it so much I practically hugged it into a wrinkled bunch. It’s stunning colors and wonderful design get to me every time I pick it up.

How about a close-up on those colors:

Ooh, but wait, it gets even more vivid:
5. This map of the United States is frail, tattered, stained, and beautiful. I can’t wait to display it someday, somewhere. Reminds me of my 2nd grade classroom. Those dark brown spots around Oregon were there when I bought it but seem to be marker related.

6. I’ve never been to Paris, but now I’ll know the lay of the land when I make a trip. This reprint of an old aerial sketch is beautiful!

7. and 8. Two frail local town maps made it home with me too. The bright paper color coupled with the level of detail in the map was really intreguing, and I like to know more about the area that I live in, so it’s been fun to look at closely.

Fun fact: The site of an old Wegmans that’s closing at the end of the month was actually once the site an elementary school. How old could this print possibly be?

The larger maps, once I photographed them, suddenly popped out to me as being an artful backdrop for some new frames that I had needed to photograph for my store. I think it accents them nicely.

Legit self-promotional footnote: Both of those frames are available on etsy and can be seen in my store at foryour.merrypad.com.