A collection of 23: small tins

Hallo allemaal, vandaag tellen we 23 kleine blikjes. Mmm, wat is klein?, zul je zeggen. Mijn kleine blikjes moeten in speelgoed winkeltjes passen en dan is 6 cm eigenlijk al te groot.
Hello everybody, we are counting 23 small tins today.
Now in LiLi's World 3" is huge, small is 2" or smaller. The tins have to fit in the little toyshops I collect.

This is that big cupboard where I keep most of the toys I've collected. There are 5 small shops in the cupboard. Most of the tins are in the shops.

Here are the shops at random order:
nr. 1 ^my favorite, the dutch grocery shop, about a 100 years old.
Hier zijn de winkeltjes in willekeurige volgorde, nummer 1, mijn favoriet, het nederlandse kruidenierswinkeltje, ongeveer 100 jaar oud.

nr. 2. ^This one from Rotterdam's flea market, there were some fun items included like the cash register with very small coins, the packing rols, the small scales (shop 1), and the weights.
nr. 2 ^Dit winkeltje komt van de vlooienmarkt in Rotterdam, er zaten hele leuke dingetjes bij, zoals een blikken kassa, met piepkleine muntjes, een papierrol, een weegschaaltje (winkeltje 1) en een set met gewichten.

nr. 3.^ This tin one is from ebay USA. I try to collect dutch items only, but sometimes an international item slips through and most of them I put in the American shop.
Nr. 3 dit blikken winkeltje kocht ik op ebay en komt uit de VS. I probeer zoveel mogelijk Nederlandse dingen te verzamelen, maar als er eens iets anders tussendoor slipt stop ik het meestal in het Amerikaanse winkeltje. .

nr. 4.^ This one from Belgium is almost entirely stocked with wooden items. The texts on the items are in Dutch as well as in French.
nr. 4^ Dit winkeltje komt uit België en is bijna helemaal bevoorraad met houten dingetjes. De tekst op de houten blokjes/doosjes en flesjes is zowel in het Nederlands als in het Frans.

nr. 5. This grocery store is from France. The small box 'Le petit epicier/ de kleine kruidenier' was filled with wooden grocery items and belongs to shop nr. 4.

Now did you count 23 tins? Hahaha, only kidding!
Nr. 5. Dit winkeltje komt uit Frankrijk. Het kleine doosje met ''Le petit epicier/ de kleine kruidenier' was gevuld met houten boodschappen en hoort bij winkeltje nr. 4.
En? Heb je 23 kleine blikjes geteld, hihihi, grapje!

Nu heb je van die blikjes die destijds speciaal voor de winkeltjes gemaakt werden. Zoals deze Belgische groente conserven blikjes.

You must have seen some tins that were especially made to play with in the toy shops, like these ^ Belgian preserved vegetables toy tins, or the 'Hero' tins:

These are behind the LiLi blackboard in shop nr. 5, but I turned them for this photo.
Of deze conservenblikjes van Hero, je ziet ze ook in winkeltje 5, maar voor deze foto heb ik ze even gedraaid. 

Today we are counting 23 tins that weren't made especially for the toy shops, but do fit in: voilà:
(There is a quarter and a euro in the left lower corner, for seize reference.)
De 23 blikjes die ik vandaag laat zien zijn geen speelgoedblikjes maar passen qua maat uitstekend in de speelgoedwinkeltjes. ( de euro en het dollarkwartje in de linkerbeneden hoek geven een idee van de maat van de blikjes)

De meeste zijn monster blikjes, oftewel proef verpakkingen, blikjes snuif of waren gevuld met iets medisch.
Most of these are samples, sniffing tins and tins filled with something for medical purpose.

Van links naar rechts: een klein blikje bedoeld om kroontjes pennen in te bewaren, een blikje grammofoon naalden en een automaten/snoep blikje, het laatste is al aan de grote kant voor de speelgoed winkeltjes.

From left to right, a small tin meant for nibs, a tin filled with grammophone needles and an automata/candy tin, the last one is already a tad big for the toy shops.

3 snuff tins (now empty).
3 blikjes snuif (leeg).

Three sample tins: cocoa Driessen, tea and Droste cocoa.
Drie proefblikjes: cacao Driessen, een thee blikje en de bekende Droste cacao.

Another two sample tins.
Nog 2 proefblikjes.

See the text? 'proefdoosje" on the left and 'Gratis monster' on the right? Both mean sample, gratis = free.
Misschien moet je de foto even vergroten om 'proefdoosje' en 'gratis monster' te zien.

En dit zijn allemaal blikjes uit de apotheek.

And these are all apothecary tins.

To me this collection never bores. There is always space for one more!

Mij verveelt deze verzameling niet snel. Het is leuk om op zoek te gaan naar die piepkleine blikjes en er is altijd wel plaats voor nog eentje, bedankt voor je bezoek weer en je commentaar,

Thanks for your visit and your comments, hope to see you soon,
xoxo LiLi

A collection of 22: playing cards

Hello and welcome or welcome back here, today I'll show you 22 playing cards:

Daar ben ik weer, dit keer met 22 speelkaarten:

Dit zijn de achterkanten van kaarten, gewone speelkaarten maar ook kaarten van andere spellen.

These are the backsides of cards from different games, just playing cards, but also cards from other games.

Als we de kaarten omdraaien zien we heel veel gewone kaarten, maar ook enkele kaarten die ook een interessante voorkant hebben.

When you turn around the 22 the most are just ordinary playing cards, but a few have another interesting side.

Sommige verzamel ik voor de achterkant, sommige voor de voorkant en sommige voor beide kanten.
Some games are collected for the backside, some because of the front side and others for both.

Het Nivea kwartet is aan alle kanten leuk.

The Nivea card game has both interesting sides.

Het sprookjeskwartet kocht ik omdat wij het vroeger zelf hadden en omdat ik de plaatjes leuk vind.

I bought this fairy tale game because we use to have it at home and I love the graphics.

Ik verzamel de zwarte Pieten spellen ook voor de mooie plaatjes

I collect the 'black peter' games for the graphics too. (Do you know Black Peter? You have to take care that you don't get stuck with Black Peter).

Nog een Zwarte Pieten spel.

Another 'Black Peter' game.

En nog eentje.

And another one.

Sommige gewone kaartspellen hebben ook mooie plaatjes aan de voorkant, maar meestal koop ik ze voor de achterkant. Alle kaarten koop ik om mee te knutselen en ik geef ze ook altijd met swaps.

Especially the small card games have two interesting sides.

I use them for crafting and I always share them in swaps.

In de Marie Antoinette collage in deze post, gebruikte ik ook speelkaarten.
In the Marie Antoinette collage from this post, I used playing cards too.

Bedankt voor je bezoek, je tijd en je gezellige commentaar,
Thanks for your visit, your time, your lovely comments,

xoxo LiLi M.

It will be raining hats and dolls!

Last week we had the button challenge, which was so much fun. I have discovered some amazing blogs and I'm going to swap buttoncards! This week Analise and Cerri have thought of something new. Let's show the world your vintage millinery flowers/hats. If I showed you my millinery flowers we would be finished quite quickly. I have one jar with those little flowers every one in the States has too, but actually they're not so easy to acquire here.
Well millinery hats then? To be honest; I never have seen them here. It's the same as with those buttons; hats are black, grey, brown velvet or straw, not flowery. I guess a flowery hat was too frivolous for the average dutch lady. Even our Queen didn't wear millinery hats, that I can remember. So I thought I would pass this one...

Well, why don't you cheat a little LiLi, and just show them one of your hats with flowers, after all you are a stranger who just pretends to speak English...
Well I know that these flowers are not exactly what you are looking for and this hat started its life as:

Before I revamped it. But I do have some vintage hats, I even have vintage hat stands. Well, come join me in my little 'sans' millinery vintage hat party. First meet our lovely models Eugene and Laurence:

They are showing vintage black hats. Remember Eugene? He and his top hat were involved at the giveaway back in October. The hat that Laurance is wearing is a gift from Mrs. H. The veil has been attached by a vintage rhinestone heart shaped button. In fact mixed collections! Laurence and Eugene are quite a couple and they would like to continue showing you their matching hats:

A little bit more quirky. Laurence is wearing one of my favorites. I bought this hat in Belgium with my cousin while hunting brocante. It was end of October and it started to rain, it was such an ice cold rain and I felt that I was catching a cold. Then I bumped onto this woolen hat, it fitted me like it was made for me. So I bought it for almost nothing. No wet hair anymore, it comforted me immediately, making me warm again. 'You are actually wearing that hat?' A woman at the stand asked me totally surprised. 'Yes of course' I replied, 'what else should you do with a hat?' (you tell me LOL). 'I'm amazed that you dare to do that' the woman said to me, 'but you are so right, because it suits you perfect!' I was getting a little shy. Every time we met that lady again she said something positive of me wearing that hat. So my cousin was suspecting her to stalk us. She even waved us goodbye when we left!

Eugene wears this hat in Summer and one of the black hats during wintertime. At Christmas time he wears the same hat as Santa, when we celebrate birthdays in our family he wears a funny hat too. Laurance on the other hand doesn't wear a seasonal hat, because this summer hat she shows us here is actually my gardening hat. You can fold it down to protect you from the sun. I bought this hat last year, but I it wasn't necessary to protect myself from the sun all summer!

Here are some vintage veils. The right one belonged to my grandmother, though I cannot remember her wearing it. Perhaps it was something she used to wear on funerals.
Before I'm off to see some of your vintage hats, I want to tell you about Lori's challenge; Next Tuesday April 8th, she hosts a doll challenge. Show your favorites, no matter what they look like. Don't forget to pop over to Lori's and join her Give away. She is celebrating her one year blogging. But even when there was nothing special at Lori's you would be so happy to be there. Because she is one of the most talented ladies around blogland AND she is such a sweety too. Well what are you doing here still? Just pop over! Wait, wait wait, there is another challenge this week. Anja is hosting 'Next stop thrift shop'. In her blog you can read all about it.

Buttons!

Hi button lovers of the world!

Through Heather's blog I arrived at Sugar*sugar where the lovely miss Analise asked whether we could show our buttons to the world. Well, being a button addict myself, I couldn't resist of course. One sign of my button addiction: I once went to Amsterdam by train (1.5 hrs) to buy heart shaped mother of pearl buttons. I needed them so bad to finish a pincushion.

It all started at my grandmothers'. When I visited her I loved to play with:

Those shiny black glass buttons. I used to play 'shop' with them.

Since I'm reading and lurking an awfull lot of American blogs, I have noticed that your buttons are far more colourful than ours. When I buy a box of buttons the vast majority of them is grey or brownish. That's also the case with our button cards:

Very to the point huh? No playing children or lovely ladies...I guess that's typical Dutch. Even nowadays there still aren't many people who buy beautiful and expensive buttons. The market is a typical place to buy such supplies.

But I still managed to collect these:

Well ladies for every 100 grey/brown dutch buttons there is one red one. So take your calculators please, to calculate my total amount of buttons...

Ok, I'm not playing a fair game as I buy vintage buttons loose sometimes. For my dutch readers: the Noordermark(e)t in Amsterdam is a great place to buy vintage buttons but the best is 'De Winkel' (Vrouw Juttenland 39) in Delft. I only have to warn you (probably an addict yourself). Don't fall apart when you see what they have done there with all vintage buttons on cards:

They just cut old cards in half or in more pieces AND they write prices on the face of the cards with black markers. I couldn't believe my eyes and of course I couldn't keep my mouth shut either. Someone has to save what's left of the diminishing button-on-card population. So I asked whether it please could be possible to write the price on the back of the card, preferably with pencil. The lady laughed loudly...Why on earth? They were pricing the buttons this way for more than 20 years now and NO ONE she repeated NO ONE did ever mind...I should almost boycot that place, but they have amazing glass buttons:

So lets skip the greys and the browns. I sometimes use them with old fashioned rope to pack something a little bit old fashioned.

If there is 1 red button on 100 grey/brownish oned, pink is even more rare. I guess 1 on every 200.

Mother of pearl, one of my old time favorites, is quite common, except for the heart shaped ones, but you know now that you can find them on the Noordermarket in Amsterdam.

And here some blue buttons. I have added the biggest blue one because its a typical one. My mother who was often sewing clothes used this one on a jacket for herself. In the sixties she used to wear costumes (jacket and skirt) complete with gloves, grace kelly bag and high heels. I can see her image vividly just when I look at that peculiar button. My parents' button box is like a photo album to me!

Like this one: a carved peach stone given to me to my neighbour Mrs. Trense. She was a very sweet old lady, who used to give me all kind of treasures. Like empty Avon bottles and boxes. I cherish her memory.

I remember those green ones, they were typical childrens buttons in the sixties.


Later on these childrens buttons arrived here. Of course I like everything. No limits for LiLi M. again.

Well I'm off to see the worlds most beautiful buttons now. I just wonder is there any blogger out there who buys just as many buttons as necessary, not just one for pleasure only? Have a nice week!