Pyrexmania

It all started with these

 and these

 They came from my mother.  She's had them for as long as I can remember.  The yellow one held our Sunday night popcorn.  When she was downsizing, I took them home with me.  Thrift Chick has already called dibs for when I downsize.  Since she has bugged me day and night to give them to her, I started keeping my eye out and picking up vintage looking pieces at thrift stores, garage sales and estate sales.  Soon Thrift Chick joined me and it evolved to this

and this

 We never pay more than a few dollars for any piece and we have one rule of thumb.  The piece must be usable.  If you do any research, you will find that there are tons of vintage pyrex patterns out there.  I love coming across the odd piece here and there.  Together we have amassed quite a collection.  For me I love seeing things that were used by generations before me.  I love seeing how the patterns and colors changed and evolved with the decades.  

What makes pyrex so fun to collect is that is just so useful.  As you can see we use it everyday!

Patty

City Wide Garage Sales -The Great White Sale

Call me Ishmael.  You know when you are out thrifting whether it is at an estate sale, a thrift store, flea market or garage sale and you have the deep hope that you are going to find the sale of all sales? You know the kind I mean.  The kind you read about in magazines like FleaMarket Style (where they never print the prices...I always suspect they pay a lot more than I would ever pay.)  You know the kind where someone is cleaning out their attic and just wants to get rid of stuff.  Well, we hit one during the city wide garage sales.

After trolling through countless sales with baby clothes, afghans and a thousand candlesticks and bad eighties decor, we drove by this driveway that had one table and lines of boxes up and down the cement.  It didn't look promising, but my daughter-in-law said we should stop.  At first we saw a few things and then my daughter-in-law started digging through the boxes and oh my...things got real fun.

The homeowner didn't have very many prices on things and when I inquired about a lamp, he said the words every hardcore thrifter longs to hear.  "Just make a pile and we will work something out.  I made a pile and he charged me a whopping $5.  That's right.  Five whole dollars for this pile of fun.

 As per my last post, my son took the pictures...a little more artistically than I would have.

 I would have paid $10 for the lamp.  My husband isn't too sure about it, but my daughter-in-law and Thrift Chick both said, "I can see you spraying that some fun color....they got that right.

 These are Pyrex tear drop measuring batter bowls.  I usually don't buy clear pyrex.  However, my daughter-in-law unearthed them in a box and we both thought they would be quite useful.  Turns out they are also quite vintage and single pieces of them go for $15-$20 on Ebay.  I saw a few full sets for the $40-$50 range.  I just like how much use I am going to get out of them.

 The enamel pot was filthy.  It is amazing what a magic eraser can do.  I have a growing collection of enamelware.  However, I have never paid more than $1 to $2 per item.  I actually saw some enamelware at some other sales for $15 fa piece.  Some day I will do a post about how I started getting enamelware when I didn't actually like it!

 Okay the Pyrex gravy boat and saucer is not all that vintage because it has microwave instructions on the bottom.  I just liked the look of it.  I actually collect the red translucent vintage cookie cutters and put them on my white Christmas tree (see it here)  My mom used cookie cutters like these so I threw them in my pile.  I am sure I will find a use for them.  The flocked vintage Santa was a piece I threw in at the last minute.  I couldn't think of how I would use him, but he reminded me of my grandmother's decorations.  Thrift Chick said "He's cool in a real creepy sort of way."

There was also this vintage small casserole dish in the browns and harvest gold of eras gone by.  I forgot to have my son take a picture of it, but you can kind of spy it in the top picture.

If you divide up the $5 total by pieces, each item cost me less than $1.  Now that is a "Great White Sale" for ya!

Patty