Hunted:: Gathered: 03/31/12

Wow, another month has flown by! It feels like just yesterday I was in disbelief about it being March and now we're looking at April. I am hoping for some sunny and bright skies tomorrow to do some photographing. I am finally going to take a dip in the Etsy pool. Everything is all set up, now I just need to go for it! Did anyone else have a hard time just getting started on reselling online? I am hoping it's not just me.

Anyhow, here are some of my latest finds:

I found an Iittala platter very similar to the cake platter that I found earlier this year. This one has a ridge to fit a bowl, I assume, but it looks different that the chip-n-dips I've seen. I seem to find quite a few Oiva Toikka flora pieces but Ultima Thule pieces still elude me.

The pink and red scarf is also a recent acquisition that I have failed to mention previously. It is a Vera scarf and I just love the bright colors.

I found this piece to be interesting. It is an Italian Raymor piece but I am unfamiliar with the pattern. The shape looks like that of a Ginger jar (something new to me). Anyone have any ideas?

Now for another exciting find. I must admit that this find cost me a very pretty penny but I think it was well worth it. It may be hard to tell from the items above but it is an Eva Zeisel design for Castleton China. It is no secret that I absolutely love her designs and very evident that I can't resist her pieces. This service is in Museum White and was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1946 (i think) . Unfortunately none of the serving pieces were in the set that I found but there were plenty of other pieces to make up for that. 94 pieces to be exact, including dinner plates, salad plates, b&b plates, cream soups and saucers, cups and saucers and some larger bowls.

Let's not forget that there was also a creamer and sugar. The creamer is what gave away the set. I took one look at the creamer and knew what it was. The curve on the spout was unmistakeable. The pieces were behind the counter so I asked to see a couple of the pieces and was excited to find that I was right, they were all marked Castleton. The price tag left me in shock though. So much so, that I left the set there that day. As I've done in the past, I couldn't get the set out of my mind. I tweeted about it and spoke to the boy about it.The boy said words that I have a hard time swallowing, "you have to take big risks to get bigger rewards". I returned for the set first thing the following morning.

The workers at the thrift told me that they admired the set as well and that they knew it was something special. The lady at the boutique and myself were wrapping up the set. Another worker, a guy, decided to start helping out and the lady and myself were hesitant to let him. I'm sure we were making funny faces. After telling him to be really careful, he asked how much I paid for it, we told him, his face said it all and he immediately stopped helping. Haha! I am not going to lie, I'm tempted to keep this set and sell my Hallcraft pieces, but I think the boy would kill me!

If you are interested you can read some background information on the set here.

So did you find some wonderful goodies this week? Hope to see you at Selena's and Sophie's.

Moment of Snark :: Epic is Over!

I don't know about you but, in the manner of Fred Armisen, I think the word Epic is Over!

 Gladly provided to you by my snarky moment. :)

{ Made} :: Carved Polymer Beads

Looks like I've been bitten by the DIY bug!

A blog that I follow (i can't remember which one :( ) linked to this tutorial at some point last year and I made it a point to add it to my want to do list. I thought it would be cool to make for my nieces. I only made two as a test and will definitely be making more!

Happy Birthday Mies!

I loved Mies and his understated elegance. So much so that my designs early in my schooling were often compared to his.

Below are a couple of drawings of an analysis I did of the Barcelona Pavilion a very, very long time ago.

Hunted::Gathered: 03/25/12

Hey folks! I hope you've had a great week. I have a couple of announcements to make before I jump into my finds. I am excited to share with you that I've started a Facebook page, I am now on 'the Twitter', and I am going to launch my Etsy store this week! You can link to them on my sidebar, but please remember that I just started ; ) so I have not posted much yet!

Now on to my finds:

I found this cute kitty bank at a faraway thrift. I don't know much about it and similar ones I've seen online also don't provide a lot of info. I think it is vintage, but am not really sure. In any case, it was too cute to pass up. Especially since thrifts continue to be dry. I visited over 10 thrift stores this week and walked out with a select few items!

I remembered seeing the glass container before on another blog but couldn't  remember which one. After some research, I learned that it is likely a piece by Jacob Bang for Holmegaard. The line is called Primula. I also took a closer look at the wooden wine-rack and saw that it was marked Nissen Langaa Denmark on some of the ends. Alamodern has been finding these recently so they were fresh in my mind.

Lastly, I love this little footstool that I found. I love just about anything that has paper cord/ danish cord. A couple of the straps snapped but I'll do a quick fix on them. I don't know how old it is, but since this guy is sticking around for a while it doesn't really matter.

That about wraps up my finds. I'm rationing my finds to bring me through the recent thrift drought! :)
I'm curious to see what you've found and hope to see you at Selena's and Sophie's.

It's Aloha Friday...

I think it's time for some more Aloha!

Have a great weekend!

{MADE}:: Poppy Flowers

Lately I've been checking off some items from my lengthy to-do list. This is one of them. A few months ago I saw this tutorial to make fabric poppy flowers and I did complete one but never photographed. I had plenty of pre-cut fabric pieces and all of the materials ready to go to make more and they just sat around.

The tutorial can be found here. 

Here are mine:

 Have a great week!

Hunted::Gathered: 03/17/12

Phewy! This weekend's rain is surely starting to make up for our dry winter here in SoCal. The boy had been telling me all week to get all of my "things" done before the weekend. Did I listen? Sort of. One of my things was to go on my usual thrift run which I did mid-week. Unfortunately I did not find much. Local thrifts have been low on goodies that I'd like to get my hands on. However, estate and rummage sales have been pretty great. Not only that but sometimes their prices are even better!

This week I couldn't resist this fun leather? clutch. It is in great shape and I love the brass detailing. It was a bit spendy for this type of item, but the estate sale lady said it was leather. It is supple, and I had a feeling that it was leather but I don't know if there are any tricks to help determine that. Does anyone have any tips?

I've been having luck with Kokeshi's lately. This one is quite large and is a Sakunami Kokeshi. This is the first one I've found that has beads inside and so it rattles. As I was reading up on them I learned that Kokeshi's were originally children's rattles but are now mainly souvenir items.

This is another Kokeshi that I found at the same rummage sale. Isn't he cute! He's the first boy in my little Kokeshi clan. I couldn't resist taking a picture of both of them together so that you could get an idea of the scale of the large one. I would say the boy is about 6" tall so you can just imagine how HUGE the other one is.

This find was actually from a thrift store. They are a sugar and creamer set in the Prestige design by Eva Zeisel for Federal Glass. I didn't realize how many pieces are missing from this set until I saw this page. I'm going to have to go back and see if the remaining pieces were orphaned at the thrift.

Lastly, I couldn't believe my eyes! These pieces were at a local estate sale. I recognized the bowls immediately because it is one of my look-for items. I have an Eva Zeisel service in white that I found at a thriftstore years ago. I've been slowly adding to it whenever an item pops up locally. I did not have any of these pieces so I was extremely excited. They are in great shape too! There were other pieces of white dinnerware that were not Zeisel so I was unsure if the ladle was a Hallcraft piece. I bought it anyway because I recently picked up a gravy boat in the Harlequin pattern and I figured it couldn't hurt. When I did some research at home I learned that the ladle is also from her Hallcraft line. YES! They often get lost in the shuffle because they are not marked. I assume that due to this they are quite expensive, even for being such a small piece. I'm beyond ecstatic about finding it because I don't see myself ever paying retail for these pieces because I'm awfully cheap.

I have some aces up my sleeve that I may share with you this week. As a teaser I'll let you know that it involves Glenn of California. :)

So... what did you find this week? I'll be linking up with the lovely ladies Sophie and Selena.

Hunted:: Gathered: 03/10/12

Luck be a lady...

This week's common thread is that all of the pieces featured were carefully crafted by lovely ladies. Coincidentally, this week we had International women's day. Hurrah for women!

While I am not 100% sure, I believe this vase can be attributed to Tamara Aladin for Riihimaki/ Riihimaen. She was active with them from 1959-1976. I am the proud owner of other pieces by her.

This lot contains designs by one of my all-time favorites, Eva Zeisel. The four glasses in the front are from the Prestige line for Federal glass. On the top left is a gravy boat from her Century line for Hallcraft in the Harlequin pattern. In the top center is a lone shaker from the Century line as well but I believe it to be a reissue from Royal Stafford for Crate and Barrel. I know that the reissues are in an ivory tone and I couldn't tell until I paired it with the gravy boat. Can you see the difference? Lastly is a creamer in Metallic Brown/ Bronze from the Town and Country line for Red Wing. I couldn't resist this piece since it is my first piece of hers for Red Wing. I actually found it at an antique shop and it was properly identified but it was somewhat low in price.

Another first for me were pieces by Victoria Littlejohn who was a native California potter. These are some of her more typical Victorian home wall plaques but I didn't care because I'd passed up a wall hanging of hers before and was not about to do it again.

Then as luck would have it, I found another piece of hers. This time it was an actual pot/ planter signed by her. The bottom isn't very flat so I thought there was another piece that went along with it. I searched high and low at the thrift. I was also thrown off by her signature which is by the top rim, I didn't know which way was right side up!  It also has some cement-ish type residue near the top that I've tried to scrub away to no avail. The residue is on the unglazed part of the planter so I am hesitant to treat it with harsh chemicals. Anyone have suggestions?

That about wraps up my goodies! I hope you all had a great week and I can't wait to see your finds. If you have some extra time, take a quick look at a mini-DIY I did this week.

Cheers!

Surprise Friday!

All, I know it's been a while since I've posted anything other than Hunted::Gathered posts. Well, I have a couple of things to share with you today.

To start I'd like to share an ad that I've been obsessed with lately. It cracks me up every single time I watch it and it reminds me of some of my youthful South Beach clubbing (I'm originally from Miami).




I must have missed it when it played during the Superbowl. Oh wait, I didn't watch the Superbowl but I did catch the half-time show.

Now for the real reason that I'm posting. I don't know about your local thrift stores but in mine there is always an abundance of wooden trays and bowls. Sometimes they are made of teak, sometimes out of walnut and most oftentimes they are monkey-pod. While I'm not tempted to get the monkey-pod pieces it is difficult for me to turn away some teak pieces. All of you know by now that I love just about anything teak but too much teak can result in, well, too much teak.

I had an idea a very very long time ago to paint some of these pieces. My very first piece turned out to be a disaster. It looked so bad that I never mentioned nor was I ever going to share it. It haunted me on my desk as yet another unfinished project, until now that is!

The motivation to continue with that project came from a visit to a somewhat local antique shop. I saw a tray similar to the one below and it was painted and I thought it looked great.

I figure that whether or not I decide to sell this guy I can always use it for styling.

Since I also had a bowl at home I couldn't help but paint that one too. It was a bit trickier but I gotter done. I had other colors in mind but thankfully since I had my first failed piece I tried the other colors on it first. Boy am I glad I did. Some of the colors looked terrible on the wood so I'll probably have to prime the piece depending on the color I would like to use. For now it had to be black, navy and a silvery gray. The pictures don't capture it but the gray portion shimmers.

This little project went against the purist in me but I wanted to experiment with making these pieces a bit more graphic (Especially since my local thrifts seem to be a mortuary for wooden bowls and trays)

For a while I've been seeing color blocked wooden bangles, necklaces and furniture so why not kitchen items? What do you guys think? Would you buy these? Is this a fun little project you'd try out?

Hunted:: Gathered: 03/03/12

Can you believe we are in March already? Sheesh, where has the time gone...

This week my finds are a bit scattered, ranging from California Pottery to a zoo-line-ish wooden piece. I hope you enjoy them as much I do.

Bauer, Bauer, Bauer. I still can't say no to you, especially if you are in great condition. I believe this to be a creamer from the La Linda line.

This Madonna is by Howard Pierce and is beautifully sculpted. I love seeing his other Madonna's and am curious about where this one lies during his career. I have had a hard time finding any information or even other examples of this iteration.

This sugar container is by Bennington Potters. It is a bit hard to tell from the picture but the little knob if actually made out of wood. I was excited to make this my first find from this pottery.

Lastly, I have found the cocktail version of the Zoo-line squirrel with its fierce fangs and holey tail. While I find the fangs to be a bit disturbing, I had to add this little guy to my ever-growing collection of wooden animals. Now if only I could find a Bojesen in the wild!

Stay tuned this week for a little DIY project. Paint can really make a big difference!

So, what did you find this week? I hope you join the fun at Selena's and Sophie's.