LuRay Pastels Dinnerware: Celebrating 20 Years

CELEBRATING
20
Years!
1992-2012

My vintage LuRay pastels
dinnerware collection.
It all started with a trip to a
Salvation Army in my college years.

I spotted a stack of pink dishes.

Thought they were great

But didn't buy them.

When I went back to get them

They were gone.

I wanted to know

More about vintage dishes.

At that point I was hooked
and had to know

what they were &
where to find them

I went to the library.

(There was no google,
no internet...gasp!)

I found a book which

had a section on LuRay dinnerware.

It wasn't until about four years later

that I found my first piece.
In the back of a dusty
antique shop's
garage...by the beach in NJ.

Then came all of the basic pieces.

Teacups, plates, soup and cereal bowls.

I've paid  some outrageous prices...
and found some awesome deals
along the way.

Since then I've been adding unusual or

vintage "Go Alongs" as we collectors

like to call them.

This set of drinking

glasses took a very long

time to find.

Not LuRay but they go

along great!

 I found this two

tiered tidbit tray in the same antique shop,
 but in their main shop along
the famous boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ.

I love it!
These are very hard to find.

The bamboo style handle is unusual.

Thanks to ebay I finished

my mixing bowl collection.

The yellow bowl was my first.

Back in the day (1998) when ebay

was new and amazing...

Remember those days?

I was so excited.

I kept exclaiming "I won! I won!"

Sigh.

I enjoy finding the pieces in

person now.

Much more exciting!
 

All of these pieces

are not LuRay but

I couldn't help but add them

to the collection.

As well as these

syrup or cream dispensers!

What can I say?

The thrill of the hunt.

And I've enjoyed

every minute

of the past 20 years!

I'd love to hear about

your LuRay collection

or

maybe Fiesta

or other vintage item

you love to collect.

Stop by and say hello!

 

Linking with Etsy Cottage Style

Entertaining party.

 

 

New Arrivals: Celebrating the London Olympics!

This week to help kick off the

Olympics in London

we're celebrating with

a little bit of English!

Especially in this week's Mystery Sale!

Tea pots, cups, and some

good 'ol English books

are discounted to help

 get you in the mood

for the games in London.

Here are this week's new finds:

A beautiful pink and green

floral cheese server.

Ironstone lidded bowl with roses.

Love that color blue!

Larger than a normal sugar bowl

but smaller than a casserole.

Unique!

 Also unique this week:

An antique report card from 1886.

The front looks like a Christmas card.

Here is the back showing the grades

name of the school, student, and the teacher.

Plus the year.

A neat piece if you like to collect

ephemera.

 A set of 8 antique postcards of London.

The home of the Queen Mum herself!

Less than 2.00 a piece makes this

a great set to collect

as a "souvenir!"

A stack of three old school

style books.

 A sweet sweet Royal Doulton collectible...

made in ENGLAND!

Quite pricey in her time this "Last Waltz"

figurine from 1965 is dancing to a

new price now!

Spaghetti poodle

So cute!

Love the little bug

on her head.

A lovely Victorian enamel buckle.

And a red crystal rosary.

Gorgeous beads!

For the rest of my finds

click here...

Enjoy your weekend

Linking to PINK SATURDAY

And yes, celebrating another

big event....

Beverly's birthday!

The Before: Tackling a Lake House Kid's Room

One of our next projects at the

lake house will

be this kids room.

I'm blaming everything on the aqua colored walls.

I've started early by purchasing matching

quilt coverlets in Red, White, and Blue.

Just imagine bunk beds

painted in white.

The red striped pillows are going back.

I found another pair at Christmas Tree Shops

Much cuter.

Photo to arrive soon!

Dear Hubs found this lamp in his travels.

I think it is a keeper!

The little red table

it sits on is from my Dad's

cabin up in Maine.

We found this shelf at a yard sale for five dollars.

I sprayed it white.

I just loved the mirrored stars

and bought three of them.

I plan on doing a wall of them here.

But we haven't really gotten to this room yet

so I just hung one where

there was an existing nail to

see if I even liked them.

I do!

The challenge in here is going to be

the bunk beds.
An attic celing makes this a tough one.

I found a few ideas on Pinterest.

The other challenge is getting Bebe to

change her mind about this aqua color.

She loves it!

Remember, she is just three.

But she made me stop and

question my thought of painting it white!

Then I remembered

the awful cast it leaves in the room.

If not white, then what color then?

Stay tuned...

Although I have no idea when this

room will be tackled.

In the meantime I have

a few finds I'm going to list soon.

Enjoy your day!

Lake House ReDO: Befores & Afters Part I

I've never professed to be a decorator, a designer,

or anything related to a home improvement guru.

But what I do know is, when faced

with a problem, I just dig in

and make a decision.

The house was built in the fifties.

It seemed like the former owner's

motto was "just add whatever,

after all, it's just a lake house."

Outlet covers didn't match,

the rug was in a bad shape,

the last time the kitchen was

updated was the late seventies.

Below are a few "before and after" shots

of the lake house we recently acquired.

So far, I'm pretty happy with the results!

Here is the kitchen.

I can't believe I am showing the mess

in there for the "before" but hey,

it is what it is!
We were in a mad dash to get as much done

as possible in the first visit.

We decided to go with the same cabinets,

use paint to save money, and just

replace the old hardware.

It turned out that this was not the first time

these cabinets had been reused! There were

old holes behind the holes of the hardware!

So, hubby had to fill in all of the old holes

before replacing the drawers and doors

with the new hardware.

A new counter top and voila!

A completely new look

while keeping within our budget.

Then there was the knotty pine debate.
Should I keep it or get rid of it?

We decided to slice it in half.

Paint the bottom and add dry

wall to the top portion.

Turned it into wainscoting and

I decided not to look back.

So happy that many of you on the blog

and in person have told me "you did the right thing!"

The couch was a craigslist find!

Hardly ever used in someone's guest room.

The lady was happy to hear

we were going to use it

in our lake house. 

The chair with the blue denim cushion

was found at Salvation Army during

one of their "fifty percent off"

furniture days.
We replaced the old gold velour cushion

with the blue denim and it fits

just perfectly there.

I wish I had taken a picture of the before!

The lesson we learned there...

While the chair itelf was cheap

the fabric and materials needed

to make the cushions proved to be

very expensive! We could have

saved money on the fabric but didn't

A lesson for another time!

Hope you enjoyed a peek into our

"behind the scenes" of a lake

house redo, on a budget...

Until next time,

 

Vintage Beauties: French Scroll Frame, Victorian Shakers Plus My Watercolor Find!

Just simply put, I listed some

 vintage beauties last night.

Actually it took me three days to get this all done!

(I try and edit photos between watching

Bebe and everyday tasks)

(PLUS... the MYSTERY SALE

is up for this week!)

Now, back to our regularly scheduled

programming....this week's finds:

I couldn't purchase this antique

 French scroll frame fast enough.

A perfect fit for the shop!

A vintage Flapper girl head

 band or hair wrap.

Beautiful elongated rose celery dish.

This little bugger had me

heading back to the fleamarket

thinking I left it on a table

somewhere. I couldn't find it

when I arrived home.

That's how much I liked it!

(Turns out it was in the back

of my trunk)

I was also happy to list this

perfect sized vintage suitcase.
Petite and just the right dimensions

for stacking at the TOP

of your suitcase pile!

 A Royal Albert teacup and saucer

in the "Festival Series" Lyric shape.

A lovely petite pink roses

bowl filled with baubles and beads

PLUS a set of vintage keys come

with this! 

R&S Prussia rose plate

A lovely "ruby red" rhinestone pin

 Antique book written for children

 Victorian green opaque glass

salt and pepper shakers...

These pink ice & ivy

earrings are marked "STERLING"

Just lovely!

To see all of my new arrivals click here.

__________________________________________

And here is a peek at my newest exciting find!

A gorgeous rose watercolor.

Found in the antique mall where we

have a booth.

It was in need of TLC.

So, we took it out of the frame to purchase

a new matte board.

Behind the frame was a Boston Herald

Newspaper from 1886!

I loved it even more after this discovery.

Hopefully the frame and glass cleanup

plus a new matte board will bring this beauty

back to life!

This one might be a keeper for me...

what would you do?

Have a great weekend

and happy antiquing!

~Jillian

Linking to Pink Saturday...

"The Artist": A Movie Review By Jillian

It has been awhile since I did a movie review.
Mainly because I try to focus my blog on my antique shop and the adventures of finding antiques.

But over the weekend we rented The Artist and I just loved the style of it. Set in the late 1920's the costuming, makeup, props, and well, everything about it just put you right there with the flapper girls. It was even silent. Yes, SILENT. You had to read their expressions and the random words up on the screen to know what was going on. I thought my Dear Hubs was going to go crazy. But he actually hung in there for the whole thing. No sleeping this time, can you believe it?

When I went to IMDB to see what they wrote for a synopsis, I found this:

"A silent movie star meets a young dancer, but the arrival of talking pictures sends their careers in opposite directions."

It was about so much more than that!

It was about a man who was a larger than life celebrity (he even had a very large portrait of himself in his house) who was the king of silent films... but lost everything when his pride overcame his art. He could not see the value in switching over to talking movies. (Many silent film makers and stars did not do well in the transition to talkies...they either had terrible voices or didn't want to progress forward.)

He loses everything, his wife, his home, his riches, his fame... until a young dancer whom he had helped in the past comes back into his life.

I highly recommend it!

And for that I give it 4 popcorns! Check it out for yourself, you might like it. We found it in RED BOX Movies.

I'll be back soon with new listings and a peek at my new rose watercolor painting...and how I am trying to restore it back to "like new" condition!

Thrift Shop in the Woods: A Twig & A Tresor!

We were at our lake house on the last day of our mini vacation, eating out at a local restaurant, when we met a woman who lives in the area all year.

She was giving us some great ideas of what to see and do in "town."

And then she said "Then there's Twigs & Treasures. I'm a Twig!"

A twig and a treasure. Well, I certainly had no idea what that was but I absolutely know what a treasure is so my curiosity meter went up.

Turns out this cute little woodsy building is where everyone in the community drops off their unwanted stuff (this place is like Grand Central Station) and you can go looking around, fill up a box and donate whatever you'd like for your "purchases."

Of course, I went there as soon as possible the next time we went to the lake house.

I had a whole room to decorate and I was on a mission.

While it is not as good as my favorite flea or antique mall, it did have some treasures. Especially if you need to stock a kitchen or decorate a cottage.

After all, most of the items in the place came from other people's cottages in and around the lakes there.

I couldn't believe no one had picked up this sweet little collection of
Italian basket pottery. The roses get me every time.

I really needed a lamp for this bedroom and found this "touch turn on" style.
It had no shade so I asked and they said "oh, out in the tent are a bunch of
shades, go pick out one!" So, I did. Gotta love this place!

The beauty of this little thrift shop is that it raised enough money to give thirty thousand dollars back to the community...for things like ambulances and
scholarships.

I was amazed, thrilled, and motivated all at the same time!

I also spotted a set of oval needlepoint pieces for either

side of the window in this same room.

You can see one of them hanging there.

For another wall, I found this beautifully

done counted cross stitch piece:

What a lot of work went into this!

Thanks for checking out my new little

thrifty place to find

"lake house  decor"!

I can't wait to go back...

Although, up next, my awesome find

right in the antique mall where

we have our booth!