For those of you following me on feeds, you will have to go to the new site and add me again to your aggregator or re-enter your email.  Sorry about not being more savy about this! But please come on over and enjoy the fun!

It was totally different than anything we had ever been to before!  It wasn’t set up like the auction houses you see on TV.  It basically looked like a giant garagle sale in someone’s yard, but you had to wait until the auction started to buy stuff. After we figured out how to sign up for a number and how to bid, we totally got into the swing of things.  Hubs wandered over to the auto section of auction, while my friend Sara and I camped out in the housewares section.

Then we started winning things. 

I have to admit, it was pretty undignified, even for me. We were clapping our hands and squealing when the other won something they wanted, and by the end of the first hour we had our arms filled with treasures and a very bemused crowd around us. Someone took pity on us and gave us boxes, another person gave us some newspapers to put around our glass items to keep them from banging together.  But most just laughed at us, not in a mean-spirited way, but I think they laughed with us because we were so obviously enjoying ourselves.  At least I hope they did. If we annoyed anyone, I apologize!

Sara walked out with three boxes of treasures. She got a set of vintage stoneware similar to some her grandmother had left her and a great green pitcher and bowl with a curved edge.

I got an Apollo Ware melamine bowl with pastel splatters in it.  I LOVE it.  It has some light utensil marks on the inside, but it will make a great chip bowl.

I also got a great set of vintage glasses. They aren’t as old as some other ones I’ve had, but I love that these are a little heavier, and since we use the vintage glasses for everyday, it will be nice if they can take a beating and still be functional. We have broken two vintage glasses in as many months, and are starting to feel pretty bad about abusing them.

After the housewares section of the auction was over, they started on the furniture and other items.  These “other items” consisted of seized drug bust items from the state of Michigan, like semi-automatic guns and electronics plastered with evidence stickers. Seriously.  So, we played with the guns for a while, took pictures of Sara holding a Bushmaster and laughed and then cashed out our purchases. Sara’s total was under $20, and ours was a little over, since Hubs had bought some tools. All in all, pretty good entertainment for a Saturday afternoon. 

We can’t wait until the next one!

I found a few yards of this great vintage cotton fabric. It is interesting because has a lot of different vertical patterns that alternate. This is just a sample of a few of them. This is another great candidate for pillows.

I also found a great rectangular tablecloth. I love the daisy pattern, and it is going to look great on the three season porch in the summer.

And I got both for under $2!

I have a ton of vintage cookbooks.  I mean a ton, and I have tried a lot of different versions of caramels out of these books. Most recipes I used in the past had about the same directions: Boil sugar, butter and water until browned. Pour in cream while boiled sugar foams and writhes and tries to jump out of the pan.  Pray to whatever gods are listening  so you do NOT get burned and NOT drop the pan.  Pour into pan and hope they set up correctly and don’t taste burned.

You can probably tell how well those recipes turned out.

So, I had a lot of cream on hand that I had to use up before it went bad, and I decided I was going to try to make caramels. Again.  My husband rolled his eyes and I rolled up my sleeves and dug into my modern cookbooks rather than their older brethren, looking for….anything. A lifeline. I found it in How To Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman.

I mostly rely on Mark’s book when confronted with something I have never, ever cooked before.  While not being the be-all-end-all guide for cooking, Mark’s book is a good jumping off place if you really have no idea what to do with something. And it has a bunch of odd stuff, like the microwaving or steaming times for tons of veggies, which comes in really handy.

Mark’s recipe for caramels was a little different, in that you just dump everything together at first and then cook it to the proper temp.  No pouring of cold liquids into molten sugar. This I could handle. I dumped everything together and cooked, and I was surprised to find it made really good homemade caramels that set up really well and were easy to cut and wrap. They store well too, and Hubs has been toting them to work in his lunch and enjoying them very much. And most importantly, I didn’t waste the cream.

Caramels

From How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, plus some for greasing the pan
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• Pinch salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Grease a 9-inch square pan

2. Combine all ingredients except vanilla in a small saucepan and turn the heat to low. Cook, stirring constantly, until sugar dissolves, then cook, stirring only occasionally, until the mixture measures 245 degrees F, firm ball stage.

3. Stir in the vanilla and pour into prepared pan. When mixture has cooled to room temp, remove block of caramel from pan and use a sharp knife to cut into small squares. Wrap each square in waxed paper or plastic wrap. These keep for weeks, but are best eaten fresh.

*Note: Mark says to use a small saucepan, but I had to switch to a medium sized one about halfway through the cooking. When the cream started boiling it foamed up, and it was hard to keep it from boiling over without stirring it constantly.  It was easier when in was in a larger pan and had room to move around.

**Note: Yes, you do have to wrap them individually. I tried to keep them in a container without wrapping them individually, and came back to a brick of caramel rather than a bunch of neat little squares!

Another adorable 5th birthday card.  This one is actually “mechanical” in that if you move a little paper handle on the side of the card, the boy, girl and elephant’s head go up and down. So cute!

These are James Beam Distilling Company bottles made by Genuine Regal China. They made a ton of them from about 1960-1980 (drink that whiskey, America!), but because of the many different types of bottles, they are still highly collectible. And if you want to start your own collection, there is no better time than now.  Since they overproduced a lot of these bottles, prices have actually gone DOWN over the years, and they are priced anywhere from about $10-20 a bottle. You can usually find them at the usual suspects, including Ebay.

The dog bottle is cute, but I love the swordfish.  It matches my pink and blue kitchen exactly!

Here is some of the great vintage fabric that I got from Goodwill last week.  This is upholstery fabric, and it is a little scratchy, so it is out for pillows.  I wonder what I can do with it?  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I picked up some great blue linen fabric, which is incredibly soft and a wonderful robin’s egg blue.  It was a super deal at $.49!  I just couldn’t pass it up.  I am going to start a quilt soon made of vintage bedsheets, and I thought that would be a great extra fabric to throw in.

Here is the before shot of the foyer. I know the angles are different, but the new, darker walls of the foyer make it difficult to photograph with the backlighting from the door.  I like the color change, and if I decide differently in a few years, I can always repaint it!

But anyway, ReStore had these beautiful white candy dishes/candle holders.  They are in two sizes and have a great look to them.  They need to be cleaned up, but when they are I am taking them directly to the guest room and putting some buttons in them for cute dresser decor.

The second thing I got was this amazing gravy boat or nut dish (or whatever) that is a metallic finish over glass. This thing is so gorgeous.  I can’t even think of what made someone give this away.  Unless it was lack of space because they collect too many fun pieces, because I could see that. 

I am going to have to do some research and figure out who is the maker for the dish.  It has a few spots on the bottom of the dish where the metallic paint is coming off, but the dish and the plate are otherwise in great shape. 

Anyone out there know the maker of the bowl and plate?  If you do, let me know. You could save me a lot of research….