Forsaken Little Souls.

i collect dolls. little figures. tiny little things with happy faces. 

most of my collection are matryoshka dolls. i have an entire shelf of matryoshka dolls.

i love little wooden dolls.

i especially love wooden dolls that i find on the forsaken shelves of the thrift stores. they've been thrown out of their loving homes & forced to sit & wait for someone to come along & rescue them.

i love rescuing these little dolls. 

so the other day i was out and about hitting up my local thrift shops. they're pretty tiny & surprisingly don't replenish their shelves very often. i was disappointed by the lack of new choices. it was the same ol' blah blah blah. mostly plastic crap.

so on my way home i took a detour because i wanted to stop by the craft store for some yarn to cheer me up after a poor day of thrifting. that's when i saw the sign. it was a magical sign. it spoke to me.

it read:

rummage sale

elk lodge of Del Ray Oaks.

(or something along those lines.)

i was excited.

i love rummage sales! it's like a magical, outdoor thrift store.

so i high-tailed my way over to the elk lodge & there were tables stacked with beautiful items & boxes overflowing with used goodness. this is where all the forsaken souls end up.

the table items were kind of duds. there were great, vintage pieces, but the seller was kind of stingy & priced her items as if this were a high-end antique shop ($200 for a vase?! i think not!)

so my only hope was to rummage through the boxes. (duh! it's a rummage sale!!) so i rolled up my sleeves, knelt on the asphalt, and started digging. 

some of the stuff was crap. most of it dirty, broken, or both.

then i found a little box that had items wrapped in plastic. 

i was intrigued.

they felt like little people.

i found a trio of angels playing instruments.

look at this happy little band.

then there were these two. they make up a sweet little duo band.

turn them around and each one is missing a wing.

these poor creatures were in the bottom of a box surrounded by junk and wrapped in plastic. 

they were begging to be rescued.

the owner tried to squeeze a lot of money out of me for these because they're over 100 years old (according to her) but after i pointed out the broken wings & the condition of the rest of the figures i received an excellent deal. 

now these little lovelies are out of their cardboard tomb & happily displayed on my shelf.

A Few Of My Favorite Things

I like old things. 

Vintage. Antique.

 Two great words to describe my style & taste.

When I go to thrift stores or antique shops I like to browse to see what they have to offer, but there are a few choice items that I try to keep an eye out for.

Things like:

Matryoshka Dolls

Vintage Tea Tins

Books (particularly old versions of Jane Austen novels)

Women's Handkerchiefs

Old Suitcases

& 

Tea Cups

A few stacks of my hankies. I still need to frame a bunch of them, sew others onto some bunting, and I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest.

A few of my favorites all spread out.

The pretty lady on the right is huge. The bearded man on the left is the average size of the largest matryoshka doll, so the beautiful Christmas doll is about 12 inches tall!!

Some more of my beauties. Note the little doggy in the bottom right-hand corner? He's a little cutie I named Basil. He's a toy from the 1930's & I rescued him off a dusty shelf in the corner of an antique mall.

It's a MATRYOSHKA PARTY!

A few of my tea tins hanging out on my dresser. (Also pictured: vintage souvenir Dutch clogs, my Great-Grandma's yellow tea pot with a tiny matching cup, a fake candle with the Eiffel Tower on it, a vintage tin tray on top of a bigger vintage tray both covered in my jewelry, and a piggy bank from Target.)

Another little tin nestled into a cozy section of my dresser. (Also pictured: blue vase I rescued from a dirty old thrift store, a tea cup & saucer that weren't made for each other, but I decided that they belonged together anyway, my Grandpa's old jewelry box, a spool of vintage fabric ribbon, and Dutch clogs the last time I was in the Netherlands.)

I was going to put off posting pictures of this great find until Friday so I could do a 'Great Find Friday' post, but I just couldn't help myself! I went to the local Antique Mall here in Monterey to have a little retail therapy after my dear friend, Melissa, left this morning on her big move back to the East Coast. I went to the corner where my favorite seller displays her items when I noticed on a little roll-top desk a few books sat. The first one I picked up:

Emerson's Poems!!

I adore the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

His philosophies on life are brilliant, and if you've never read anything by him you need to go hit up Borders before it closes & get a copy of 'Nature' or any collection of his essays and poems.

So I looked through this book & fell in love.

It was printed in either the 1880's or 1890's, the seller thinks (there is no print date inside the book at all.) & you can tell it was well-loved by it's previous owner, but it is still in excellent condition!

Great Find Friday!

So my dear friend, Melissa,  & I spent the day in Monterey and Pacific Grove. We weren't planning on doing much shopping, just going out to lunch and maybe walking around enjoying our town. Well Monterey had too many tourists running around & we decided to mosey on over to Pacific Grove to check out what I thought was a used book store. Turns out it was an independent book store with not much of a selection, nothing that Melissa was looking for, and too many little, colorful items that Layla couldn't stop picking up and messing with. So we got out of there quickly and decided to stop by 'Animal Welfare Benefit Shop' which is a sweet little consignment shop which, as you may guess from the name, benefits the welfare of local animals. I couldn't NOT go in this shop after knowing that! So we putter around & Layla and I find some cute stuff, but what really catches my eye is this beat up, ugly green shelf. It's exactly what I've been looking for!

One of the things I want to start collecting is Matryoshka dolls, but I don't want to start collecting them until I have something awesome to display them on! So I have been looking for something on a small scale that I can hang in my bedroom. No more than 4 shelves, and no less than 3. Preferably something a bit older that I can paint whatever color that catches my fancy. I've actually been searching for a while, and I basically gave up hope until this ugly little thing caught my eye today! I was thrilled! Plus, it was on $5!!! PERFECT!!

I cannot wait until I get this little thing sanded down and painted. Then I can start collecting cute little treasures from consignment shops & antique stores to proudly display on my latest & greatest find!

cheers,
Jenna.