May 30, 2010 by Cedar
Friday I went to my favorite thrift store in search of some large pots for my garden. While I didn’t find what I went for, I did leave with all sorts of other goodies. The most exciting of which is this lamp. I had been eying something similar on Anthropologie’s website for a while, but anything from that store is far outside of my budget. When I found this vintage lamp I was thrilled, it was only $4. Take that Anthropologie! I also got a lovely granny style carpet bag, a pink wine glass (which you can hardly see in this photo!), some fabric, and the book Revolutionary Road. I am unsure yet what to do with the fabric, it is only two yards, but I just loved the print. I have a really bad habit of buying small pieces of vintage fabric–and then adding them to the fabric box in my closet! One of these days I will find something to do with them all!
I meant to post about the baby artichokes I bought at the farmer’s market last week, since a few people have asked about them, and it was almost a week ago that we ate them!!
I didn’t do anything that special with the artichokes, but they turned out to be a delicious, and pretty easy side dish. The most difficult part of working with artichokes is getting them prepared by cutting off all the bits you can’t eat. It isn’t so much difficult as it is time consuming. First I trimmed off the outer leaves, the bottom of the stem, and the fibrous outer part of the stem. After doing that I used a serrated knife to cut the top half of the artichoke off. As I was going along I cut the artichokes in half, threw them in a bowl, and squeezed some lemon juice over them so they wouldn’t turn brown.
After I finished cleaning the artichokes up I threw them in a pot of boiling water for about 12 minutes, until they were tender. From there I heated up a pan with some olive oil and a bit of minced garlic. I threw them in and sauteed for a few minutes, adding parsley, salt, and pepper for added flavor. Maybe next time I will do something a bit more fancy with them, but these were absolutely delicious without tons of added ingredients.
Sorry about the poor quality of the last photo. It was toward the end of the day, when it is hard to get a picture….also we just wanted to eat, so I didn’t bother looking for a better place to photograph them.
Tags: Finds, Food, Recipes, Thrifting
Categories: Finds, Food •
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April 12, 2010 by Cedar
As many Saturday mornings, Russ and I woke up early, brewed some strong coffee, and grabbed our list of addresses. Out the door we went to start checking each estate sale off our list. This week we had an extra long list. I think it must be estate sale season here in San Diego–everywhere we went we saw signs for other sales.
We did pretty good, though we only purchased from two out of the six sales we went to. The first stop we made was a half hour drive up to the Northern part of the county. Because we had hit the snooze button on the alarm clock repeatedly we got to this sale a bit late, which I am now kicking myself for. There were so many beautiful antiques, for dirt cheap. I bought the two framed vintage prints below for $1 a piece. The remaining items brought the entire bill to $4. By the time we got to this sale, the ladies working said everything was almost gone. I am thrilled however with the things I did pick up.
I plan on getting frames for the two floral pictures on the right. The one with the bird is actually a Christmas card that I loved, as the note inside was a lot of fun to read.
And in case you didn’t know, I have a little Nancy Drew obsession.
I also bought an incredible vintage hat from another sale…but that is another post. Hope you had a great weekend!
Tags: Finds
Categories: Finds •
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December 23, 2009 by Cedar
I know most of you aren’t thinking about buying for yourself right now, but…..if perhaps if you happen upon some extra cash for Christmas maybe you can indulge yourself in one of these incredible mid century finds. That is if I don’t get to them first!
These gorgeous pottery lamps are $125.
I just love this teak wall cabinet. It would be perfect in any room for some extra storage. $37
These paintings are one of my favorite recent etsy finds, though a bit out of my price range. Perfect for any mid century home. $175
I would gladly replace my flat screen TV for this stylish set. $515
Tags: Etsy, Finds
Categories: Finds •
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November 8, 2009 by Cedar
Yesterday Russ and I went estate sale-ing, as we do most Saturdays. On a usual weekend we typically find a good handful of vintage, scattered around various estate sales. More often than not, if we do fin vintage items they are extremely over priced (FYI there are a lot of vintage-hunters here in San Diego). Most Saturdays we head to about five or six before we feel we have got our moneys worth.
Yesterday however we went to two sales. The first claimed to be an estate sale, while all they had were a few measly tables out on their lawn, with stuff the Goodwill wouldn’t even want. At the second we hit jackpot. As we drove up to the sale I could see the backs of yellow upholstered mid century modern chairs through the enormous bay window, I knew we were about to find gold.
The house was filled with incredible, drool worthy, early 1960’s furniture. If I had the budget for it, I would have taken the house as-is, with everything, including the orange shag carpeting. Unfortunately we are young newlyweds, and aren’t really in the market for the caliber of antiques they had in this home. I did however walk away with some great smaller finds; 7 boxes of stockings, all my size (2-3 pairs per box), the only thing Russ picked out which were some great swing compilations on vinyl, a new alarm clock (I had been using my cell phone to wake me up!), some genie slippers, and some odd conditioning heat cap…..which I still need to investigate.
That is all that is pictured. I also got some incredible brown leather driving gloves, light blue cloth napkins, sparkly blue 60’s place mats, a kitchen scale, a cooking encyclopedia…..and….my new pride and joy…..a stand mixer!
Tags: Estate Sales, Finds
Categories: Finds •
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October 6, 2009 by Cedar
As promised here are a few more of my recent shopping spree purchases.
I bought this amazing hat on etsy from Helen’s Hassack. It has quickly become a favorite in my hat collection, it is just so easy to throw on to disguise a bad hair day. Every girl needs a hat like this!
I bought these along with two more pairs of vintage gloves at an estate sale. I am so happy to have found a bunch of gloves for the Fall and Winter. I have such long fingers it is hard to find vintage gloves that fit properly. Oh, and how amazing is that clutch?!
These are the two newest colors of nail polish I bought. I am currently wearing the pink shade which is called “Wild Mink”. I love it, it is like a slightly toned down Barbie pink.
Tags: Estate Sales, Etsy, Finds
Categories: Finds •
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September 28, 2009 by Cedar
Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a good weekend. Russ and I had a wonderful time. On Saturday we went to several garage and estate sales. I picked up three pairs of vintage gloves and an amazing leopard print clutch. Sunday we went out to his parent’s house for a BBQ and to celebrate his dad’s birthday.
Another major thing that happened over the weekend, at least in my opinion, is I bought the first Christmas gift of the year! I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. In the past I have found that if I buy gifts too early I give them out too early. Maybe this will be the year that I grow up and wait until Christmas to hand out the gifts!
I am trying to do all my holiday gift giving second hand, so naturally the gift I bought was from etsy. Here are some other items I have my eye on these days:
This sailor style dress is pure perfection. I love the cut, color, everything! It is $115.
How great are these cat eye glasses? They are quite the steal at only $16.
This compact is absolutely gorgeous. Filling your vintage compact with powder is super easy too. $20.
Just one word to describe this dachshund brooch. Amazing. $21.
This pillbox hat is so darling. The periwinkle color would go so well with so many different outfits. $25.
Tags: Etsy, Finds
Categories: Finds •
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September 10, 2009 by Cedar
I do apologize for the slowing number of posts. I have to admit though, this past week has been one of the craziest I have had in a long, long time.
Over the holiday weekend I had two friends in from Texas who I hadn’t seen in 5 years. At the same time my second cousin, who I love dearly and haven’t seen in six years, came into town unexpectedly. As if that weren’t enough, my brother and sister-in-law left California to move to Florida. I think I consumed more food and alcohol in this past weekend alone, than I have had all year!! Needless to say, I am finally feeling recovered and caught up on my sleep.
Today I met with one of my best girlfriends who moved to Dublin years ago, met an amazing Italian boy and married him this past summer in Italy. Now they are out here in California and having me cater their vegan wedding. We finalized their dinner menu, and had a nice lunch together. With my years of entertaining I feel somewhat relaxed about cooking for 55 people. I made a master list today of everything we need, and tomorrow am going to write out the cooking schedule for next week. This is a new venture for me, and I can’t wait!
Well, I have had hardly any time to think about blogging, but somehow I managed to find time to browse etsy. Weird huh? Here are a few of my current vintage obsessions:
This shirt is the most perfect naughty secretary shirt. It is $23 from mimisgamine.
How amazing are these shoes? Wouldn’t the look absolutely amazing under a little wiggle dress, wandering the halls at Sterling-Cooper? These cuties are $54 from Dear Golden Vintage.
I have a phone obsession, especially the rotary phones. This one looks like it is straight from a Hitchcock film. It is $38 from lisabretrostyle2.
This dress set is so stunningly beautiful. The cut is perfect, the print is perfect, it is just perfect!! It is $96 from snappyfishvintage.
Tags: Etsy, Finds
Categories: Finds •
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