Don't forget to poke the photos to enlarge!

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Bottles for the Pond Scum......

I didn't set out to look for bottles for the attic this morning. I just wanted a slow stroll around the antique mall.....I got bottles.

But first I found a Pfalsgraff bowl in black for my kitchen. Then I found this cute Japanese Candy dish with a curlicue handle. I have a weakness for 1920 to 194o design. Evidently, so does Tessie. She immediately jumped in and announced that it would make a great bathtub, "And it even matches my apron. See the little blue circular flowers! Just like my apron."

I told her she could either have that or some bottles to store her pond scum and swamp water. She decided that I could have the candy dish back.

As I walked around the mall, I happened on a booth that I hadn't seen before. Or maybe it was just new merchandise. This booth had all kinds of fancy perfume bottles. I pretty much ignored those and went for a basket that had old sample bottles in it. The ones without stoppers were dirt cheap.

I bought four of them for Tessie's attic. That made her day. I also bought a couple of larger ones without stoppers. Those, I am going to use for bead work. I usually make beaded cork stoppers for them, so I didn't need the tops. I am just glad that the people selling these things seem to think of them as useless if they don't have a top.

Unfortunately, when Tessie asked what I was going to do with the big ones, I wasn't quick enough to think of an answer that would make her lose interest. Instead, when I said I was going to do bead work on them, her eyes lit up and she said, "Oh good. You can practice on those and then when you are good enough I will let you do my pond scum bottle. I would like it in green and yellow to match the scum. Then you can do one for Swamp water in blue and brown. I will have to think about the other two."

I bought a big bag of cancelled stamps from all over the world. They come in handy for all kinds of things in mini as well as they do for big art and craft projects.

Tessie already found a bunch of Irish stamps that are paintings of birds that she likes. I saw quite a few that are promising.

The last thing in the bag was a treasure. It is a paperback book from 1984. "Creative and Collectible Miniatures" by Lillian Baker. It's one that I had never seen before. I am guessing that many copies of that one were relegated to the waste basket. It has a lot of black and white photos(only a few color photos) and good descriptions. However, the pricing guide in it consists of maybe ten pages in the back and when I looked through that, I couldn't find even one company or store that is still in business. When I have a chance, I am going to sit down and go through it more thoroughly. Right now, Tessie has it and is marking photos of things that she needs badly.....

Me? I keep looking at the photos and thinking that we have come a long way in miniatures since 1984.

See you tomorrow.

7 comments:

Katie said...

Love the stamps! What a lucky find!!

.....and those perfume bottles! Not too long ago I was kicking myself in the butt for throwing away all the ones my Dad had brought home while he was on deployment! I know I had a nice little collection at some point!

...Oh, and I dunno if I ever told you how much I love the fabric on Tessie's apron!! Very modern!

Thanks for enjoying the cat pics!! LOL
Katie

Kathi said...

Love those little bottles! I haven't been to an antique mall since I got my dollhouse. Maybe it's time to go back with new eyes? :D
I'm also wondering if that beautiful carousel horse is still there? It was only $40 and I'm still kicking myself for not buying it!

Jo Raines said...

Great finds! I've been missing Tessie's exploits while life has had me in a grip! I'm hoping I'm back to blogging and checking on everyone.

Jody
Mini Leaps and Bounds

Kim said...

every time I visit you and Tessie I see things with new eyes! How do you do the beaded corks? Do you do a peyote stitch or something around the actual cork? Have you already showed them in a previous post? Can you tell I am very curious??

I can't wait to see what you do with Tessie's bottles :)

Caseymini said...

Kim, I am preparing to start one of the bottles now. I will probably wait until after the bottle to do the cork. In this case, I may have to do a bit of experimenting because the holes are so small. To answer your question though, the corks are soft enought that I can usually poke a hole up from the bottom with the needle and start in the center top with a circular peyote stitch, make a small mandela and then when I reach the edge, go down the side of the cork with round and round peyote. In this case, it probably won't take more than a couple of rows.

Kim said...

makes sense- thank you Casey!! I cannot tell you how often your blog sparks my creative mind :) I have sooo many beads- I think this would be fun to try out- I am thinking it is going on the list for a project of the week :)

Irene said...

I would never have thought of using stamps in mini land. Good idea.