About birds and bonnets, books and specs

panels for Beth's and Karla's swap front or back whatever they decide...

Hi all!

A few girls asked me whether I had time for some thrifting while I was in the States. As we had only 12 days there, we were on a tight schedule. Perhaps I should mention now that visiting thrift shops is not a hobby of my husband nor our kids, on the contrary. But I managed to squeeze in a visit to an antique mall in Dania, while driving from Miami to Orlando. In Dania were quite a few stores which are dealing in European antiques, which is not interesting to me, naturally such goods are cheaper here. I experienced that the American dealers were very friendly though and offering good service. They friendly ask you whether you are looking for something special. In my opinion 'I collect everything' isn't a good answer if you don't buy anything, so I told them I was looking for specific American items. Unfortunately I didn't see any vintage wallpaper, no flower hats (I'm definitely no hat-whisperer like Sugarwings and Karla), no American bisque dolls, except for some kewpies, which were way too expensive to me. I did see a lot of rhinestone jewelry, but expensive too and nothing really special. And of course I told the dealers I was looking for the buttons on cards with images, like the ones over here and here. I have never seen them here in the Netherlands and a button card is safe to ask for while they couldn't be too expensive was my thought, that was before I was told that there are actually buttons of 400 dollars a piece....

I bought these sunglasses in art deco stores in Miami. They are new but I really like them. To me a real American souvenir. Of course I already have a collection of specs....

In the first shop they actually had buttons on cards, but not with the images. I guess from the 70-ties not interesting to me, too young! The second dealer told me that he used to pull of the buttons from the cards and throw the cards away....LOL but he was willing to check 'behind' whether there was something for me. I was following him into a little hall with a beautiful shabby chic cupboard filled with bits and bobs. The walls were covered with about 5000 plastic containers and in one of them THE card was laughing at me. A button card with a small child and all mother of pearl buttons still attached. 'That is exactly what I'm looking for!', I told the dealer but unfortunaltely he couldn't reach this container. By accident about 50 lids and 10 containers fell on the floor and then he quit his search. So I left the shop and Dania with no antiques not even the smallest rhinestone button at all.

My American 'souvenirs'
Yes I know that I'm a very lucky girl but I enjoy these books and magazines sooo much!

At Barnes and Nobles' I had less trouble spending my money, though they didn't have everything on my wish list. Of course we can order anything from Amazon.com too, but it's so nice to see a book live on stage first. I went to Michaels' too, but I really didn't have enough time there. While driving back to the airport we were (read I was) planning to visit another Michaels' store but then my daughter discovered that she had forgotten to take her brand new cellphone from under her pillow in the hotel. So we had to drive 30 miles up the road before we could turn, then turn, drive back and after collecting her phone ( I told you before Americans are honest people), we were back to were we started from about 2 hours later...better went to the airport straight away. Needless to say mummy wasn't happy....

Surprise!

Well, some day you win, some day you loose. Last post I showed you most of the presents Carol sent me. She sent me a magazine as well and as I started to read that last night a dresden was falling out and look what I found between the pages. What a surprise!! Thanks so much Carol!

It's time to craft now!

My last project were the panels for Beth's and Karla's birds and bonnets vintage workshop. If you are interested I have more pix in my Flick'r album. You can click this one as well as the one above my post, though the quality of the picture isn't that good while I was in a hurry to get them mailed...Btw there is a Flick'r group too!

panels for Beth's and Karla's swap front or back whatever they decide...