Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Pie Tins and Apron Racks

Last weekend I found this great vintage Mrs. Wagner's Pies tin at an estate sale.


I didn't want to just stick it on a shelf and at first I was going to nail it up on the wall in the kitchen at the lake house, but then I had an idea...

I went out to the garage and grabbed a board from Chablis' stack of sign wood and I stained one side and the edges....


Then I grabbed a hammer and took out my aggressions on the wood.  Boy, that felt good!


I went back out to the garage and raided Louie's tool and nail boxes.  I came up with 2 red cabinet knobs and it's beyond me what he would have ever gotten them for.  I also snagged an old crappy wrench and the back of a shelf hanger.  I attached everything to the wood, including the Mrs. Wagner's Pie tin.

Then I hung it up in my kitchen and now I have someplace to hang all my kitchen aprons...


What do you think?  I kind of like it myself!  I need more aprons.....


Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Estate Sale Finds July 28, 2014

 
This week we only hit 3 estate sales, but we managed to find a couple of goodies.  Sometimes I wonder what I like more - the thrill of the hunt or the actual finds.  What about you?
 
We like to play Domino's, especially when we're at the lake, so we picked up this set of Double Nine's.  The universe and I must be tuned in to Marshall Field's, because after last week's Marshall Field's tea tin, this week I came across one of their wooden crates.  It was pretty moldy and smelled really bad, but I have plans to clean it up, re-stain it, and then use it as a paper holder on my desk.  I also picked up a vintage Saltine tin.  Chablis lucked out a couple of weeks ago and got one for free from a lady at a garage sale, but I had to part with a dollar for mine.
 
 
 
 Chablis picked up the vintage Boys Scouts of America book that is in primo condition.  It's truly a beautiful book.  I got the Vera Scarf Tying book out of a free box, although originally they tried to get ten cents for it.  I wish they didn't ruin the front of the book by sticking that stupid 10 cents label on it.  Grrrr.....  And check out the cool Mrs. Wagner's Pies tin.  It was sitting on the bottom of a stack of cheap aluminum pie tins.  Honestly, I have no idea why I even looked through the pile of tins, but the minute I picked this one up, I knew I had a winner.  It's made of heavy metal and has a beautiful patina.  I looked them up online and found out that at one time the Mrs. Wagner's Pies Company was the largest bakery in America.  I did something kind of neat with the pie tin, but you'll have to come back tomorrow to see it.  Does anyone out there remember eating a Mrs. Wagner's Pie?


I found this Pantry Storage Jar up high on a shelf in an old work room.  I've never seen one like it, nor could I find anything on line about it.



These ski patches were a great find.  There was actually a whole stack of patches, but I picked through them and grabbed only the patches for places I've actually skied at.  It's funny because at one time I had a few of these exact same patches (back in the late 1970's and early 1980's) and they were sewn onto my ski jacket.  Sadly those original patches were tossed out with the jacket.  This was a nice find and I'll display them in a picture frame.  The Ritz tin is rather new, but Chablis liked it and she bought it.


I fell in love with this apron.  I'm guessing it's from the late 1960's or early 1970's, based on the material.  I soaked and washed it and it cleaned up beautifully.  No stains either!  And yes, I will actually use it.


 Chablis and I each bought a couple of these bottles.  The quart bottles are newer, but we took them since we can't get that size anymore.  I've never heard of Bireleys, Patio or Hi-Q soda, but the bottles are great looking.  My dad fondly remembers Bireley's soda and he said "Birelys pop was my favorite pop as a kid.  The short squat wide mouthed bottles were quite different from all the other pop bottles.  The pop was a non-carbonated, fruit flavored drink that came in orange, grape, raspberry (my favorite), and lime."  My mom has some Bireleys memories too.  She reminisces, " Mine was grape. Bought it at the corner candy store.  Lots of those types of stores on neighborhood street corners.  Ours was Mr. Braun's. His was more like a garage building set next to the alley, across the alley from Auntie Barbara's house. Sold mostly ice cream, candy and probably stuff like bread. I always got my bubble gum there, if you could get it during the war.  About 6 houses down from our house and we always walked through the alley."    I was glad I picked up a bottle that had such fond memories for both of them.

 
 
I love, love, love this printers tray.  It's in pretty rough condition, but I've always wanted one.  My friend Moira has one she's going to give me if I ever get my ass out to her house to pick it up, but this one was such a great price that I had to take it.  I have plans for this one anyway. I really think I want to try to make a table out of it.  Wouldn't that be awesome?  I've already cleaned it up and started to stain it.  We'll see how it goes.   I've never built a table before, but I kind of have it in my head what I want to do.  Hmmm.....
 


And last, but not least is this cute little chest.  We were up in Racine, Wisconsin on Sunday and we happened to drive past a yard sale and since I put on the pout face, Louie felt obligated to stop.  They really didn't have much in the way of good junk, but Chablis spied this chest over-flowing with the grimiest, most crappy looking baseball caps I've ever seen.  Honestly, who would try to sell old nasty baseball caps?  But the chest was awesome.  It needs to be cleaned up but it's well built and solid, and it has fantastically aged hinges and clasps.  I dumped the caps out onto a tarp and took the chest up to the lady and asked her how much she wanted.   When she said a buck, I didn't bat an eye.  A buck!!! I handed over the dollar, thanked her and happy danced all the way back to the car.  I have very special plans for this chest but I can't say what.

 Isn't this great??
 

That's it for this weekends treasures.  What did you find this weekend?

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Sunday, July 27, 2014

The Jefferson Davis Monument

The Jefferson Davis Monument is located in Fairview, Kentucky and was constructed in memory of the only Confederate President -Jefferson Davis. 




The monument is 351 feet tall and is the largest unreinforced concrete obelisk in the world.   Construction began in 1917 and was completed in 1924, with walls that are 7 ft. thick at the base and 2 ft. thick at the top.  When you stand at the base and glance upwards, you can't help but be impressed with it's height.  Believe me, you will see it from miles away as you drive.


I was surprised to discover that there's a working elevator to the top, although it may possibly be the slowest moving elevator I've ever been on.  It took about 2 minutes to get to the top.  The foyer has 2 beautiful plaques and check out that door....





 The view looking up from the bottom of the elevator....


The inside of the elevator was really cool, with brass trim and windows so we could see the cables as we slowly inched upwards....

 
Once we reached the top we were able to get out and walk around.  There really wasn't a lot of room, but the views from the top floor windows let us see for miles.  It was really windy up there too!
 



The Jefferson Davis Monument is located on the grounds of a Kentucky State Historic Site.  There were 2 park rangers on duty the day we were there and one of them accompanied us on the tour.  Along the way she shared interesting information about Jefferson Davis and The Civil War. 

The windows were beautiful and are still the original windows...


Next to the monument is a museum and gift shop that we also toured.  They have a great exhibit there, with wonderfully large detailed posters and exhibits about Jefferson Davis and the major events in his life, as well as The Civil War.













The gift shop was well stocked with Civil War memorabilia and I'm sorry I didn't go back in after the monument tour to purchase a book.  But I got side tracked because after the elevator ride back down, we sat and tried to figure out the co-ordinates to a 2 step geocache.  We had to get some information from the top of the monument, then do some calculating.....



And even though we are convinced our calculations were correct, the cache, hidden somewhere near this wall, eluded us.  I guess that just means we'll have to make another trip to the monument to find that geocache, right?

You can read more about the Jefferson Davis State Historic Site here.  If you're in the area, stop by and do the tour.  I suggest you call ahead and check their open days and times because there were discrepancies between what's listed on the website and the current hours of operation.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Meeting Pam from Nomadic Newfies

Yesterday Chablis and I had a real treat - we finally got to meet fellow blogger Pam from over at Nomadic Newfies


We've been following each other's blogs and chatting for awhile.  For the past several months we've been trying, and having the hardest time, scheduling a day to meet.  Tinkerbell must have waved her magic wand because yesterday our schedules miraculously cleared and we met for lunch and a hike.  Finally!!

Since we live a little over an hour away from each other, we picked a spot about half way for both of us and had lunch first.  Over pizza and pasta the three of us chatted non-stop about hiking, photography and camping.  Chablis and Pam discovered they have a mutual love of Gatlinburg and had plenty to talk about.  Since I've never been there I had to sit and take notes of all the places I'd now like to see there.  Note to self - add Gatlinburg to my bucket list.

After lunch we decided to drive to the Ryerson Conservation Area and do a little hiking.  Ryerson Woods is noted in Lake County history because the first European of the area settled there.  In the 1920's several families bought the property and built weekend retreats, and then eventually donated 257 acres to the Lake Country Forest Preserves.  Today it's a spectacular preserve that supports a wide variety of state endangered species.


We strapped on our hiking boots and took off down a gorgeous woodland trail.  Well manicured and lush, it was also teeming with killer mosquitoes.  We doused ourselves liberally with bug spray, twice, and those little suckers were not deterred.   It must have been all the Italian spices that attracted them to us.  At any rate, we only lasted a couple of blocks before we turned tail and made a beeline for the open meadow.


We walked past some of the old buildings on the property and found another trail that led more around the perimeter of the forest.  It was much less buggy and we were able to walk and snap some photos while we talked. 





Pam is well versed in a wide variety of native flowers and she pointed out all the different varieties and impressed us with her knowledge.  You really need to go check out her blog because she takes fantastic close up photos of flowers on her many hikes.  Here's a link to one of my favorite recent posts.



Unfortunately we picked the hottest day of the year to meet up - it was about 95 degrees in the shade and dripping with humidity.  After an hour of hiking and dodging the relentless  mosquitoes we decided to call it quits and retreat to our air conditioned cars.  We really had a great visit though and promised to meet up again this autumn and give it another try when the colors start changing.  I'm looking forward to joining Pam again and I'm really happy we finally got the chance to spend the afternoon together.

Stop by and check out her blog, Nomadic Newfies.  I think you'll enjoy meeting her.  She did a post about our meet and greet here.

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