Lazy picture post to round out yesterday's adventuring

So I'm feeling drowsy and sated after a bite to eat and my very favorite thing on TV (Hooray, The Amazing Race!  But kind of boo, that the cute boys got Phil-liminated instead of the girl who was being all rude).

Anyway, My brain is in a warm fuzzy place that doesn't leave room for much serious thinking, so here are some pictures from the rest of my time at the Lemp Brewery yesterday:

Window's almost too dirty to tell, but you can see the arch from here.

Here starts some shots of the other amazing place of vintage junk, treasure and architectural salvage in this complex.  As far as I know, it doesn't have a name.  Maybe it's like the Lake of the Coheeries; you can only find it if you've been there:

 And a few more shots of the grounds.  You see the bricks paving the drive in the picture below?:

 Not really bricks:

Sorry I don't have more to say than this, but tomorrow, I promise at least a sneak peak at what I picked up at Donnaland.

Local treasure alert - STL

To any vintage/mid-century loving St Louisans out there, as of yesterday, there were some gorgeous finds to be had at the Goodwill at Union and Bayless in South County.

This wasn't all, but here's the only shot I could get with my phone:

The bench upholstery appeared to be leather

There was also another long mid-century sofa in a green/gold damask print, a wood-frame and cushion loveseat with stripes, a couple of leather-bound and one floral print chair, a tall-backed cane-sided recliner and several footstools.  All appeared to be in pristine condition - as if they'd been sitting covered in a cool, dark, dry place for the last 60 years, and all were priced well enough that it hurt my heart to be a person without access to a truck.  I was tempted to grab the tags off anyway and figure it all out later, but I also do not have access to any real storage space for such things, so I sadly left without any of these treasures.  Anyway, it was yesterday, but there's a chance some of it may still be there, and I wanted to give my fellow vintage-loving St Louisans the heads-up.  Happy Sunday, everyone!

Friday, The Cure style

I hope everyone's having a lovely Friday night.  I know I am!  I finished my class, and went for a wander in a different direction tonight.  Checked out another thrift store, this one on a cool little small-town-mainstreet looking drag in Brookfield.  For the first time on this trip I didn't find anything there I couldn't live without, but it was a beautiful drive, and when I came out of that shop and looked across the street I had to smile:

Wonderland Multivintage - you MUST go to their site and play with the scanner - SO cute!

I walked in the door and I have to say, there's still some truth in advertising.  It wasn't a very big shop, but it was full of wonder.  It was musty, I admit, but it was also packed to bursting with so much stuff it almost hurt to look.  When I went inside, I didn't see anyone at first, then I heard a little voice and out from behind a counter popped an adorable little girl of 4 or 5, and if that wasn't cute enough, she was followed by her even younger sister (I assume), playing among just piles of vintage toys.  You know how you see that stuff sometimes, all pristine in a shop, and it seems like a shame that they're not getting played with and loved by children?  Well this stuff is getting loved!  It may not be pristine, but it's packed with nostalgia.  I didn't stay long, but I did find a treasure!  I assume I purchased it from the girls' dad.  Its still down in the rental car, but here's what I just had to buy for $4.00, in a pic from Ebay, in case you want one too:

Rocket shaped commemorative glass. 
You can buy this one, I think I'll keep mine!

Then I wandered in a different direction because I had it in my head I wanted Chinese food, but I ended up going with my instincts and stopped to have dinner at Marquee Restaurant in Broadview.  It looks like a dump, but that kind of dump that's full of locals and has one of those pie carousels.  I had good luck at a slightly more upscale version of that kind of place earlier in the week (amazing cream of chicken soup at Mother's Day on Cermak), so I gave it a shot.  I was greeted by a very spry old gentleman who seated me with a smile.  As I settled down I heard him talking to a woman behind the counter, I'm guessing in Greek.  Then I was greeted again by a friendly waitress who seemed like she enjoyed her job, like she was among friends there and having a good time.  The menu was nearly as much of a wonderland as the shop I'd been in earlier, so I asked her what to get, and she suggested the pork chops.  It was some sort of special and it came with soup too.  This was also cream of chicken, and it wasn't quite as good as the stuff at Mother's Day, but it came with a whole  plate of little grilled ciabatta rolls, which I like better than soup anyway.  Then the pork chops came and OH MY!  They were cooked Greek-style, with olive oil and lemon juice and they were covered with what I thought for a moment were nuts, but turned out to be big crunchy chunks of roasted garlic!  So that's when I fell in love with a pork chop.  But I could only eat one of them, so the best part is, I have two more to eat tomorrow, and there's a big old piece of lemon meringue pie, too!

So what I'm trying to say is - wander often, and give a dump a chance. 

Chicago is thrifty!

Hey all!  It looks like I'm gonna get snowed on here in Chicago starting tomorrow.  They're saying maybe 8" by Friday - eek!  But that's okay, I've been thrifting, so I'm prepared - check it out!

The tag says "Draper of Glastonbury, Made in England".
They're suede, with sheepskin lining, and they fit like a glove!

I picked these up last night (when the temperature was in the 50s!  It's really been beautiful here so far.) on an after-class thrift jaunt to the Village Discount Outlet in Little Village, which I think might be a neighborhood in the actual city of Chicago, since it sounds like a funny name for a town.  I have enjoyed seeing the bits of the area that I've seen - I've spent a lot of time on Cermak/22nd Street.  My class is just off of it in Oak Brook, my Hotel is just off of it in Westchester, and following it east it becomes a pretty interesting sort of main drag as you get to the more inner suburbs.  I love all the cool signage, and there are lots of hot-dog/italian beef type places and various other nifty restaurants, and lots of discount stores and laundromats and funeral homes and bakeries and whatnot.  Some of the fun signs:

Cermak Plaza Shopping Center had these windmilly things,
obviously fairly new, all around this cool old 50s sign.  Like!

Scatchell's Pizza, Italian Beef, Italian Sausages, Catering, Frozen Lemonade and probably a dozen other things. 

 I love it - it looks like a movie set.

Laundry World!  It's like a carnival for your blankets and things.

Old Warsaw Polish Style Smorgasbord's sign is the best.

Even the address part of the sign looks cool.

 I've had some pretty good thrifting luck on this trip, but other than the boots I brought up to the room in case I need to wear them tomorrow, everything is stashed in the rental car, so no pics of my other treasures, but I can show you phone snaps of some things I didn't buy (because they were too big) at the Salvation Army store in Oak Park this evening:

Funky mod 60s or 70s chrome/cork/etc table.

Very cool shelf/cabinet (that's the sliding doors for the cabinet intact inside).

Super cool 60s abstract painting.  I wanted this, bad.
But it's huge, there are spots of what I can only assume is
mildew on it, and it was $20.  I even asked if I might get a
discount on it, but the manager said no, because it's big.  Huh?

I did pick up a few things there, as I have at each of the thrift stores I've visited so far on this trip.  You know, I think Goodwill is cheaper here than in St. Louis.  Anyway, I better call it a night.  I'll try to post more on the stores and the finds therein soon.  Good night!

A Tuesday estate sale - really?

A month or so ago (I really have no concept of time; it could have been September for all I know, but I'm pretty sure I had a coat on, so probably not) there was a random Tuesday-only estate sale right around the corner from my house in South City.  It just so happens that I'm off on Tuesdays, so that seemed particularly serendipitous to me, and I stopped in with high hopes.  I didn't find any one amazing, huge thing, but I found several small things that I quite liked, and that seemed like they might do well in this Etsy store I still haven't posted anything in.  First and coolest is this little Cuckoo clock-inspired looking plastic thermometer/"weatherhouse":

It's plastic, and in need of cleaning, but super cute! 

It says Made in USA, Chicago on the bottom, and there's a cardboard backing that says lots of other stuff, but I think it's still at the bottom of the box that I carried all my treasures out in, so I don't have the details handy.  I did find a similar one online that describes the little characters as "children" who come out when the weather is to be good, and a "witch" who shows up to portend bad weather, so while it's not very gingerbready, all I can think about now is Hansel and Gretel.

I love the marbly-swirled plastic of the house.  What's up with that?

I also picked up a bag of goodies by the sewing table in the back room which contained all of this:

Why do they call stuff like this "notions"?  Anybody know?

I particularly liked the advertisement/free book of needles from a local moving company from some time in the past, "Needles Moving and Storage"

They're "Lady Mary" needles, from England for some reason.

Oddly enough, there's one just like it on Ebay right now, except in their photo it's black and white, whereas the one I have is printed in green on a creamy cardstock.  

I also picked up a couple of linen items:

1964 Vera calendar tea towel.  Great colors!

2 Park Ave. poodle napkins.  Hee!

I always love Vera colors, and the napkins are uber-kitsch - love them!  One is pretty stained, and I'm not too sure about cleaning them because of the poodle-fur bits, but they are awesome just for existing.

I also nabbed a couple of things for the sake of the cool packaging.  The first was audio tape (not "an" audio tape):

Apparently, you could buy audio tape for $0.39 at some point in time,
and you could do so at Western Auto!

Nice that it looks cool, since I don't actually have an apparatus for playing it.

I'm guessing it was a recording of Julia Child, rather than one belonging to her.

The other was a tin that I believed to be for typewriter ribbon when I bought it:

I love the stylized art-deco-y gazelle!

But when I opened it up:

The spool inside was not for typewriter ribbon, but 8mm film:

I don't think that was the original contents of the tin, though, as it has "Underwood" clearly stamped on the bottom.

And finally there were coasters.  First an assortment of mid-century-ephemeral paper coasters:

I particularly like the Buffalo Ranch one.  These are "ROYAL CATCH-ALL COASTERS" according to the backs: "Used Exclusively by the Perfect Hostess for CARE-FREE ENTERTAINING" (all emphasis theirs).

But I know that the truly Perfect Hostess would use these next coasters, of the awesome melamine variety, with the much-less-austentations message on the back "Made in Boonton, USA":

I love the mid-century 4-colors thing and the speckling, and the fact that there are roses sculpted on the edges and daisy/star-bursts in the centers, like they can't make up their minds.

There was also a small bundle of rolled-up maps found in the closet with the paper coasters.  Fortunately for you, I don't happen to have pics of them at this point, but anyway, the moral of this story is, you never know what fun stuff you might find, even on a Tuesday!  Or maybe it's something like never miss an estate sale; they might have poodle napkins and plastic Hansel and Gretel weatherhouses.  Or maybe there is no moral, but just a bunch of pictures of some stuff.  Either way, have a lovely Tuesday, everyone!