Why 'My Mink Betty'?

Why 'My Mink Betty'?
I'm not your common, everyday twenty-something year old and when I graduated from High School I got an equally uncommon gift. My parents found for me a beautiful 1940's mink stole at a garage sale. It had belonged to the woman's Great Aunt Betty who had married late in life to a man with money and had only allowed him to buy her this one luxury. The unusually styled stole has the name, Betty L. Jones, embroidered in the satin lining so that's what I call her. They never had children of their own and the mink was passed to Aunt Betty's niece and on to her daughter. Until it got to me, no one since Aunt Betty had worn it. Now Betty the mink and I go to the theater together on special occasions and I hope that someday I can take her to the Symphony or the Ballet. Although Betty hadn't been worn or loved for many years she was waiting for someone to love her again as are most other things I look for when thrifting.

Showing posts with label pink daisy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pink daisy. Show all posts

Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Big And The Small Of It

Today I thought I'd show the largest thing I've ever thrifted, and the smallest.

The largest was found a few weeks ago at The Salvation Army during a 50% off sale. It was just under $30 - children not included. It's powder-coated tubular steel; very strong. A new one sells for over $200, so we were very happy to have it.

The smallest thing was found at the Goodwill Outlet, commonly referred to as "the Bins." The Bins is a giant store where they send all the "clearance" items. When the store shelves get too full, they send a bunch of stuff to The Bins, and it gets sold by the pound. It's all dumped into these giant bins, kind of like tables with short sides, on wheels. Customers dig through the bins, looking for bargains. Things get tossed about, and if there are board games, parts get dumped, so I like to look in the bottom of the bins for tiny items.

Here are some of the tiny things I've found. There's a purple wooden mouse, a wooden Professor Plum token, a Barbie telephone, a tiny die, a figure of "Jacque" from Cinderella, a bingo number, a Monopoly top hat, a Clue revolver, some magnetic checkers, a chess piece, a metal figure of the Virgin Mary and a teeny dog. Some of them will be used for altered art, some for dollhouses, some as replacement parts for board games; who knows. Everything in the picture cost about 10c. I also found an entire set of vintage scrabble tiles (with very smooth edges) to make into charms.

Lately I've been ignoring a particular Goodwill in our area, so yesterday I decided to go in and have a look around. And what did I find but lovely Pyrex?! I saw this Desert Dawn oblong baking dish and was immediately interested, so I called my mother to ask if we wanted it. I love oblong bakers, even if we already own two. They have so many possible uses: holding cards, carrying things, making peppermint bark, etc.


This baking dish is a size 232, 2qt. It's smaller than the 3 qt oblong pans that I own in the Daisy and Butterfly Gold patterns. Desert Dawn oblong bakers came in size 231 (1.5 qt) and size 232 (2 qt). I don't know how they compare to one another lookswise but I'd guess that the 231 is probably about the size of a space saver but just as shallow as the 232.

While on the phone with Mom, I spotted this:

An aqua snowflake patterned space saver just like one we saw at an antique store recently for $18.00. My mother loves space savers and aqua Pyrex and was drooling over the one at the antique store. As I picked it up, the conversation went something like this:

Me: I found something but I can't tell you what it is.
Mom: Okay but I'm not sure we need it.
Me: How can you say that? It's Pyrex.
Mom: Unless it's aqua we don't need it.
Me: Only aqua you say? Interesting. What about pink?
Mom: Okay. Aqua or pink.
Me: What about patterns like Daisy?
Mom: I'm really only looking for a space saver.
Me: Okay, Mom. I won't bring anything home unless it's aqua or pink or matches any of our patterns or I really, really like it.
Mom: Wait a minute...
Me: I have to go. Bye!

Needless to say, when I brought it home, she was thrilled, though she'd kind of already guessed it was aqua.

I'm linking up to these parties :



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Click on the links and join the fun.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Blah blah blah Pyrex

For all my Pyrex loving friends, today's post is brought to you as heard and repeated by my boyfriend when I told him about my recent Pyrex-y finds...

Blah blah blah Pyrex blah blah. Blah blah Goodwill.
Blahbity blah blah Pyrex blah blah.


Blah blah blah Pyrex blah blah


Blah blah Pink Daisy blah blah


Blah blah Snowflake Open Baker blah blah



Blah blah blah Blue Butterprint


Blah blah blah Spring Blossom Gravy Boat blah blah


Blah blah Shenandoah blah blah blah


Blah blah Opal White blah blah


Blah blah blah Orange/Yellow Bowl blah blah


Blah blah blah Juice Carafe blah blah


Blah blah Another Juice Carafe blah blah

Blah blah blah ANOTHER Juice Carafe blah blah


Blah blah Coffee? Carafe blah blah blah


If you have trouble deciphering my post, ask the non-Pyrex-y people in your life and they should be able to translate as they've probably heard this before...

I'm joining these parties:
Click on the links to see what others have found:




junkinfinds

Friday, August 27, 2010

Jim the Pyrex Man and the great Pyrex-palooza

Everyone has connections. Some people have a computer guy, some people have a car guy, when I was working at Disney World I had a free ice cream guy. Yesterday my mother and I met our Pyrex guy.

I was doing the requisite weekend searches for estate sales (on craigslist) and trying to pick one or two to hit up. A little bit frustrated with the lack of early postings close to my home, I decided to just search "Pyrex" as a keyword in all for sale.

It turned up a hit for a man listing lots of bottles, jars, pans, and TONS of Pyrex. He even had prices listed and they were GOOD. He didn't seem to know patterns but at least two things were pink. I just had to see his stuff!

I called the phone number he had provided but had to try a few hours later to get hold of him. When I got him on the phone he gave me the directions to his house and Mom and I were off - another trip over the river and through the big city (to Pyrex Jim's house we go).

When we got there he had his garage literally stacked floor to ceiling with boxes and boxes, mostly of canning jars. Right after we got there, he started to pull out the Pyrex (which he had stashed all over) and he had beautiful pieces. Most of them were patterns that I recognize because they're fairly usual but he had some pieces I had never seen before.

He told us that he goes to Estate Sales (only if they have pictures online so he knows what is there) and just buys all the Pyrex they have for about $1-$2 each and then sells it on craigslist for not much more.

Here are the things we bought from Pyrex Jim for a total of $24.00


1.5 QT White Daisy on Pink oval casserole, no lid.
2 QT Verde oval casserole, patterned lid.
1 QT Gooseberry Pink Bake-Serve-Store, clear lid.
1.5 QT Friendship (promotional?) divided serving dish, clear lid.
1.5 QT Promotional Yellow with Gold leaf Floral pattern, clear lid.
1.5 PT Delphite Blue glass with Gold Leaf Grapes Cinderella handled bowl.


The yellow oval casserole is a pattern not available at Pyrex Love and I'm dying to know what it's called. If someone can tell me, there may be a Pyrex themed prize in it for you!!


This lovely blue bowl, after some research, has been deemed a chip and dip bowl. Or half of a set anyway. What kills me about it is that Pyrex Jim told us that he'd had the 4 QT in that pattern and a woman had bought only the big bowl from him about two months ago. I don't get why she would have bought one without the other. And chip and dip sets aren't common, so I doubt that I'll ever find the big bowl for this one.

Pyrex Jim assured us that the red divided dish was just a primary color serving dish, but we were pretty sure it was the elusive friendship pattern, missing the decorative lid. Even without the lid we were very pleased to have it.

Pyrex Jim also said that if we just emailed him with a list of lid sizes we were missing (numbers and dimensions) he would hold them for us when he found them! We're also welcome back any time (as long as we call ahead) to check out his Pyrex finds.

After we left Pyrex Jim's we debated about stopping at a Goodwill that we don't often get to. We had gotten a pretty good Pyrex fix and were thinking that Goodwill prices were never going to seem good enough again. But we stopped anyway and look what we found.


My pattern - Spring Blossom!
4 QT Spring Blossom Cinderella bowl
Spring Blossom loaf pan
2.5 QT Friendship oval casserole, clear patterned lid. (there's some wear on the lid but it's the first piece of friendship pattern I've ever seen at goodwill!)

The large Spring Blossom bowl, by some act of God, was only $1.99 (usual Goodwill price would be $6.99) while the loaf pan was $3.99 (but obviously we paid that anyway). My mother was especially happy to find a piece of Friendship pattern with it's matching lid. The lid even fits on the Friendship divided dish that we bought from Pyrex Jim! (Well, it slides a bit - apparently the divided dish is just a bit different in shape, but almost a perfect fit.) How awesome is that?


And to think that we almost didn't stop!

Today, after getting all that Pyrex yesterday, I wasn't even looking for Pyrex when I went out to estate sales. I was finding great sales but not much that I couldn't live without. And then, at the third sale of the day, I saw them. They were just beckoning to me from the table in amongst the Tupperware.

The sale I was at was a late starter at around noon and I pulled in at 12:02. I got out of the car and as I walked toward the sale I headed for Tupperware (always looking for deviled egg plate inserts). There on the edge of the table was the Pyrex.


Daisy pattern: Lasagna pan, brownie pan, loaf pan, 1.5 QT oval, and a small round patterned lid (the matching bake-serve-store in the photo I actually got at Goodwill on Wednesday)
Spring Blossom pattern: 1.5 QT oval casserole with patterned lid.
Verde pattern: 2 QT round casserole (lid borrowed for photo purposes).
(the Butterfly Gold fridgie I got at a later sale for 10 cents!)

I immediately just grabbed all the Pyrex in sight and set it on a table in the garage (next to a large assortment of Pyrex mugs in Butterfly Gold and Autumn Harvest) while I called my mother on the phone to make sure she wanted it. Eventually, after she didn't answer for about ten minutes, I just bought them all anyway. Most of the items were $1-$2.


Do you ever have those times when you just can't stop finding the best stuff? And of course you're afraid that if you stop looking, you'll miss the most amazing thing of all? I'm still out there searching for a lid to the margarine tub. What is it that you've been looking for forever that you feel you're bound to find some day?

Don't forget!! If you can find out the name or more information (year, etc) on the yellow oval casserole with the gold leaf floral design on it, there might be a special Pyrex prize in it for you!! If you want another picture of that dish alone just ask and I'll take one!

I am thinking this post to:

The Garage Salen Party @ Debbiedoos
Thrifty Tuesdays @ Coastal Charm
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