Major Pyrex haul!

My baby decided he didn`t want to nap yesterday morning, and since it was half off day at GW, I decided to do a round of thrifting.  My plans were actually to find some lids for my recent acquisitions since lids are often priced at $2 or more, which is a bit ridiculous in my opinion.  Funny thing was, I found no lids (very unusual) but some great Pyrex pieces (which almost never happens on half price days)!!

Check this out!

I found the two baking pans at one GW. 

The flamingo square pan was not in good shape but I thought the glaze on the outside looked ok and a good scrubbing would save it.  Unfortunately, after cleaning off the grime, I realized that this poor girl has dishwasher effect and I couldn`t get rid of the discolouration on the inside.  Oh, and there`s a big scrape on the glaze that I suspect happened after it was donated because there was no dirt caked into the scrape...how sad!

That`s ok though, I only paid $1.25 for her and she has a new life as a cute tray for my 501 and 502 fridgies.

The green baking pan turns out to be a Heinz promo utility dish and is quite minty.  It was priced $3.03 so at half price, I ended up only paying $1.52 for it.  Score!!

I also stopped by a neaby VV and found Woodland Pyrex teacups.  I actually didn`t realize Pyrex made tea cups, I thought there were only corelle coordinates for tea cups. I paid $1 each, plus tax.

On the way to another nearby GW, I saw a rummage sale sign and I quickly pulled over.  It was being held in a nursing home and the parking lot was jam packed!  I didn`t realize they held rummage sales on Fridays.  This turned out to be really great one with tons of stuff.  I found 13 of these torquise autumn band Pyrex sauce dishes:

I found out from the lady running that table that there had been matching cups and dishes but they had been sold already (sadly).  There was also a huge stack of grey band and grey autumn band dishes, but they were not in great shape so I left them.  I paid $1.25 for all 13 of these sauce dishes.  Now when I have a sushi party, everyone will have a pretty little Pyrex dish for their soy sauce.

My best finds of the day were at the second GW I went to.  That place was so crowded I honestly didn`t think there would be anything left.  But a quick stroll through the housewares sections and I found these:

 
That`s right, not one but two large designs casseroles!!  And they were only priced at $5.05 each, which meant I paid that for both because it was half price day!!!  I also found the flameware teapot and large perculator.  For all four items, I paid just over $8...talk about a steal!!!!!

It was so surreal I thought I was dreaming!

Since I found two designs casseroles, I decided to give one of them to one of my new Pyrex friends who had just gifted me with Pyrex the day before.  It turned out that she had been looking for the large designs casserole for some time because she had the small one already.  I was so happy that I could return the favour!!  It was giddiness all around.  :)

Do you share the joys of Pyrex or thrifting with others?

First trip to antique mall and gifted Pyrex

I went to an antique mall with my new Pyrex friends yesterday.  It was so much fun!  There were so many booths with Pyrex that I felt kinda overwhelmed.  Some of the prices were insane (almost $70 for one casserole!).  Sure made me feel super proud about some of my great thrifty finds!  Even some of the more reasonably priced Pyrex was still a bit more than I was willing to fork over.  I ended up getting 2 pieces of snowflake:

I paid $10 for the bigger one without a lid and $15 for the smaller one with the lid (though it has a chip). 

I came home with a lot more Pyrex though because my new friends, who have been collecting Pyrex for a few years, decided to give me a bunch of Pyrex to help me with my collection! 

Nicest people ever!!!  I'm having fun sewing some gifts for them. 

Don't you love it when common interests (i.e. love for Pyrex) brings people together?

Spring Pyrex

What is more cheerful than a daisy divided?!  :)

Found this beauty at a VV a few days ago for $7.99.  Bought a few other things and used my 25% off coupon.  

Have you signed up for your VV super saver card yet?

Thrifting Jackpot!

It was a busy Easter weekend that left little time for thrifting.  But I did managed to squeeze in one estate sale and a yard sale.

The estate sale was that of a designer who had moved and was downsizing.  I arrived 15 minutes after the sale started and there were already over a hundred people in the house!  I missed out on some great stuff but still managed to get a few of the things I wanted.

I've always hated the fireplace cover in our living room (gold with a sliding metal mesh screen) so I was really excited to see this in the preview pictures of the estate sale.  As soon as I got in the house, I searched through all the main rooms and the bedrooms but this was nowhere in sight.  I asked three employees before one said that it was in the upstairs bathroom.  I probably only got this because it was hidden away since a few people mentioned that they had wanted it when they saw me dragging it out afterwards.  This lady sure had a ton of fabrics.  I wished that I could have taken all of it home, but managed to control myself and only bought $10 worth. 

My BIGGEST SCORE EVER was found at a yard sale I popped by.  It was an hour after it had started and only a couple of people were milling around.  At first I didn't see much but then I spotted this:

I thought to myself "no, it couldn't be", but it was - a Le Creuset french oven!  I gingerly opened the lid (expecting to see all sorts of scratches and staining) but saw this:

I asked the guy how much he was asking for the pot and he held up one of his hands with fingers outstretched and said "5 bucks".  I was so surprised, I had to repeat the price back to him to get it confirmed.  I also kept looking back at the pot to make sure that the Le Creuset mark was still there.  I'm still in shock!  It is marked "26" inside the lid so I believe it is the 5 1/2 quart .

I also bought 10 small skeins of merino wool and cashmere yarn for $5.  Not sure if it's enough or the right weight for the birthday present I'm planning to knit for my mom but it was so soft and I couldn't pass it up for the price.

Still enjoying my Le Creuset high!  :)

Hope you had a wonderful Easter!

Check out all the goodies others have found at Apron Thrift Girl's Thrift Share Monday.

Pyrex goodies

It was a great week for finding Pyrex - must be all the spring cleaning happening.  Here are the rest of my Pyrex finds this week:

This was $6.99 plus tax at VV.  I love it so much!

The Shenandoah was $1.25 and the mugs were $0.75 at GW (1/2 price day) and horizon was $2.99 plus tax at VV.

Keeping my fingers crossed that this trend continues!!  :)

The highs and lows of Pyrex hunting - it's all relative

So I made a quick trip this morning to a SA that I've had some luck with in the past.  I was very happy to spot a woodland casserole with a lid.

It was in beautiful condition and I found this inside:

I love finding things with original manuals. However, the picture on it was a set of butterly golds so I'm not sure it actually came with this casserole.  So then I got it into my head that maybe there was a set of mixing bowls somewhere that this belonged to.  I scanned the housewares isles at least 3 times and I checked the rack near the door, no luck so I decide to line up to pay.  It was a busy day because they had a 1/2 price sale on all clothing.  Since the line was long, I decided to leave my cart in line and take one more peak nearby.  As I walk to up that rack by the door where I found my butterprint fridgie last Monday, there was a girl in front of me.  All of a sudden I saw a flash of orange and saw that the girl had picked up a complete set of daisy cinderella bowls that an employee had just brought out.  I kept saying in my head "please put it back down, please put it back down".  Alas, she did not.  She went to pay for them instead.  For the 10 minutes we were both waiting (in different lines), I looked at those bowls longingly and felt a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

Then I wondered if she even realized it was Pyrex or just some pretty set of mixing bowl.  Believe it or not, I actually got up the nerve to ask her if she'd let me buy it off of her for more than what she paid (I figured there was no harm in asking politely).  She told me that she's a Pyrex collector so that was the end of that.  I guess it was not meant to be.  :(  It bummed me out for most of the afternoon, until I reminded myself that the woodland casserole is a spectacular find and I could have left empty-handed instead, like I've done so many times before.  Funny how perspective makes such a huge difference.  Had I never seen those daisy bowls, I would have been happy all day with my find.  At least I came to my senses eventually. 

Yard Sale-ing

Since it was raining yesterday, tons of yard sales were postponed until today, which meant I had time to check a few out.  I found some toys and a Thomas the Train stool for the baby which will be useful.  But the most interesting was the third and last yard sale I went to.  It was a British couple who were moving to the US and downsizing.  I took a quick scan and spotted some English Pyrex, so I was very excited.  Then I asked if she had anymore, and she showed me one more on another table.  She was asking $15 for them.  I didn't like the pattern on the smallest of the casserole dishes but I decided to put them all aside while I looked around some more.  I'll get back to that in a minute.  They had some very interesting things.  I couldn't resist these adorable milk bottles (even the cap at the top says milk).

There were also some pretty scarves, including a Vera (that I keep reading about on other blogs), which I thought were a steal at $2 each.

I was drawn to these accordian folders that look like purses by Vera Bradley, how cute!

In the back of their garage, I notice a hard case and inside it was this vintage typewriter.

It's in beautiful condition, works and has the original manuals.  Was I looking for a vintage typewriter?  Nope.  Could I resist buying this for $10?  Nope!

Ok, so back to the Pyrex, sadly it was not a well lit garage and there was no sunlight, and partially blinded by my Pyrex fever, I failed to notice some serious defects.  The lid on the small casserole was badly chipped in several places.  And middle casserole (one of my favourite English patterns) was missing a chunk (as well as being lid-less).  I tried to take a closeup but I'm not sure if you can really see, but it's right under the orange flower on the small casserole.  :(

 

I was really kicking myself afterwards because I"m normally pretty good at checking for damage so how could I have missed something so obvious?!  Oh well, you live and learn.  On the bright side, the third and largest casserole dish did not have any significant damage and is an English Pyrex snowflake pattern.  Seems that this was a promotional dish that originally came with a lid and a cradle.  Oh, how I dream of the day when I find a promotional dish with a lid and cradle!

All in all, I was still happy with my purchases.

Linking to Apron Thrift Girl's thrift share Monday

Thank goodness it's Saturday so I can hunt for Pyrex

Not long ago, a fellow Pyrex collective contributor had written that once she made room in her cupboards for Pyrex she found some.  I sold all of my blue cornflower corningware, which I blogged about here, this week.  I never really loved it and I wasn't using it so it went to a better home.  After that, with corningware money burning a hole in my pocket, I was hoping that would kickstart a Pyrex finding streak!

Even though the weather was terrible this morning, I drove 1/2 hour to an estate sale promising "tons of Pyrex".  I expected that the estate sale company might exagerate so I wasn't too optimistic, but just the promise of some Pyrex was enough to lure me.  After waiting in line in the freezing rain, I was disappointed to see only 2 homestead mixing bowls on the table labelled $5 each.  I actually bought some homestead mixing bowls as part of the mystery pyrex lot so I left those behind.  They were quickly bought up by someone else.  I found a Kathie Winkle teapot in great condition but I don't collect them so I left it behind for someone who would appreciate it.

I was pretty disappointed at this point.  I decided to take a look in the rest of the house.  I was happy to find a sewing machine table with drawers full of vintage sewing items. 

Look at all those cute wooden spools of thread, buttons and trim.  I needed some embroidery scissors so I was happy to find 3 pairs, along with some heavy duty pinking shears and fabric scissors. There were also a few vintage patterns.  How cute and mad men-esque is this outfit?

It seems that the homeowner subscribed to patterns that were shipped to her by The Star Weekly's "pattern department" back in 1965:

And how cheaky is this little guy:

While I was excitedly sifting through these sewing drawers, many "pickers" came by and started looking through them too, only to mutter that it was "junk" and walked away.  Well I was happy to have it all to myself.

I also picked out a few pretty scarves, including some souvenir ones from London, Italy and Calgary Olympics:

I then decided to see if I could find any vintage Christmas ball ornaments for a new online friend who I've bonded with over our mutual love of Pyrex and other vintage things.  I ended up going into the basement and found myself all alone.  I saw a few boxes marked "Christmas $10" sitting on the top of a shelf.  I lugged them to the ground so I could take a peak.  Unfortunately, a lot of it was in pretty bad condition.  I was able to salvage this - it's not much but it's pink, a little sparkly and in decent shape so I hope my friend will like it:

In another box, I noticed this:

It looked old and kinda neat so I just threw it in my bag, figuring they wouldn't really charge me extra for it.  Well when I got home and quickly googled it, turns out it's very collectible.  In fact, someone was selling a similar set for over $50!  Here's what's inside:

Basically, it's a set of paper shades that go over Christmas lights and will spin due to the heat of the bulbs.  These were made all the way back in 1936.  Frankly I was surprised that these frangile paper shades survived this long and are in such good shape.  I have a feeling they may never have been used.  The box says that it's actually box no.2 in a 2 box set.  Sadly, I never found box no.1 and I worry it was thrown away at the end of the sale today.

I was almost ready to leave but I decided to take one last look in the kitchen for Pyrex.  Some of the shelves in the cupboard were quite high and I pull over a step ladder and climbed up (yes I'm crazy).  I looked into the back of the cupboards hoping to spot something.  Nope, nada.  Then I saw just a peak of blue from a stack of very ordinary bowls right in front of my face.  Could it be?  Yes it is...Pyrex delphite!!  But then my heart sank when I saw this:

Yikes!  Who would do such a horrible thing?!  After I gathered my wits, I did a quick nail scrape test and luckily, a little came off so I decided it was worth saving.

A look at one last cupboard (in hopes of more delphite), I found this:

Again with the blue cornflower corningware...what are the thrifting gods trying to tell me?  Well I figured I'd take a peak at the inside, and if it was stained (like these teapots usually are), I will definitely leave it.  And what do I see inside?

Yes, it's pristine and there's the pamphlet for the teapot, which suggests it may never have been used.  I can't fight kismet can I?  So I took her home too...

As I was waiting for the estate sale person to look over my bag of goodies and give me a price, I spotted this cute pair:

The doggie still had his blue mountain pottery sticker on, but it fell off as I was adding it to my loot bag.

The grand total I paid for all these goodies?!  $10!  And to give this story a happy ending, here's what my delphite bowl looked like after I cleaned it.

Oh, and I found a pair of woodland mugs at a rummage sale for 10 cents each (but was charged $2 admission/donation).  When I first saw them on one of the tables, I wasn't even sure they were for sale because they were filled with pricing stickers but luckily one of the people working the sale just emptied the stickers into another cup and let me buy them.  I enjoyed a nice hot chocolate in one of them to warm up once I got home.

Pet Peeves

1) Seeing someone paying for (my) Pyrex as I'm entering the store.  :(

2) City worker making a huge racket outside our house while baby is napping.  He'd better hope for his sake that he doesn't wake my baby up!

Hope everyone (including me) has a great Pyrex hunting/thrifting weekend!

Ebay results

So my auctions ended last night.  I sold 3 out of the 5 things I listed.  There were 4 bids on one of my Care Bears fabrics and it ended up selling at $3.81 for a fat quarter (I had paid $0.99 for over a metre at SA), which is more than I expected.  On the downside, I underestimated shipping.  I always hated how much shipping is charged on ebay items so I kept mine really low...too low as it turns out.  When I was listing, instead of having the low rate apply only to shipping to US and Canada,  it applied worldwide.  Figures that 2 of my 3 items were sold to people in Australia!  What are the chances?  That basically ate up all my "profit".  Selling on ebay is not as easy as it may seem.  Took me forever just to get a listing up.  I'd never make it as an ebay reseller!

Now I just hope that the items reach the buyers safely and doesn't take too long.  I'd hate to get bad feedback after all this!

Monday pick-me-up

Just when I was about to leave SA empty handed today, I decided to take a last peak on a rolling shelf near the exit doors.  I didn't even see it at first, then I looked down at the bottom shelf and thought I saw an opal fridgie.  But when I pick it up (the cloud parted and the angels sang) and it was my second butterprint piece staring back at me.  No lid but I was still thrilled.  Paid $1.99 for it.

Thrift store over-pricing issues: maybe size does matter

Since I'm trying not to become a hoarder, I've been bringing donations when I go thrifting.  Recently, I damaged a large stainless steel double boiler when I left it on the stove for too long and all the water in the bottom boiled off.  I cleaned it the best I could with steel wool but couldn't get rid the burn marks on the bottom part completely, plus the plastic on the handles looked a bit deformed and it was a bit warped on the bottom so it no longer sat flat on my stovetop.  Nevertheless, it was still functional and the top part, where you put the food, was undamaged, so I decided to donate it.  Well there it was sitting on the shelf the next time I went to that goodwill.  I originally paid around $20 retail for it and they priced it at $12.01!  I was completely shocked!  I understand that they don't and can't know the price of everything, but this was a no-name, made in china, pot that was obviously not in perfect condition.  I really wonder what criteria they use to price things!  The only thing that this pot had going for it was that it was quite a large pot...

Thrifty finds

Hope you're had a good week of thrifting last week.  I'm pretty happy with how mine went.

Friday, I did a round at the thrift stores because most of them were having 50% off sale.  No Pyrex (that wasn't sad Pyrex) but found:

1) baby change pad (retail: $30) - I'm actually using for our dog who is 11 and has a weak stomach.  We've recently thrown away two dog beds due to "accidents" so I figured this would work better because it's waterproof and it's padded for comfort.  I made a quick cover with some thrifted fabric and it's good to go.

paid: $2.01

2) The babysitter pillow (retail: $30) - I'm making a cover and using this for my baby who still sometimes falls backwards when he gets tired of sitting and kick his legs out in front of him.

paid: $1.52

3) "My Brest Friend" nursing pillow (retail: $65, plus tax, but worth every penny in my opinion) - I already own the same nursing pillow (and love it) but couldn't pass on this deal, especially since it was in perfect condition, so I'll either give to a friend or sell it.     

paid: $1.77
Total spent: $5.30

Saturday morning, I went to an estate sale that promised "a lot of pyrex".  It was mostly clear pyrex but I did scores these:

The yellow fridgie is definitely my favourite find.  Also got some baking sheets (forgot to include in pictures), 2 bags of cookie cutters and pretty ikea fabric:

 

Love the cookie cutter with the wooden handle, which says that it was made in Italy.  Most of the metal cookie cutters were in bad shape, even after I tried to clean them and then scrubbed them with steel wool.  I threw most of them away already and I'm still debating on the ones in the second pictures.  I have no idea what the metal thing with the various cut outs on the bottom right of that picture is.

For all this (including the Pyrex), I paid $5!  Actually, I later discovered a label on one of the butterfly gold 401s that said $15 for the set of 3 (which I think is a bit outrageous and I wouldn't have paid).  The guy running the sale must have missed that too or didn't even look because they didn't price most of the smaller items...lucky me  :)

Since I was done by 8:30, I headed over to two church rummage sales only blocks away from each other and were starting at 9 and 10.  The first one wasn't that great so I decided to get to the second one early.  By the time I got in line, it was still more than 1/2 hour before it started and there were easily over 100 people in line!  Luckily starbucks had donated coffee that was being handed out by a nice volunteer at the church...just what I needed.  This sale was huge!  Two floors with 4 different sections.  I headed straight for the housewares.  The Pyrex was right by the entrance.  There was a red and a blue primary mixing bowl but both in pretty bad shape, especially the blue.  As soon as I put it down, another lady bought them for $1.50.  Beside those were a set of old orchard cinderella bowls, which were in great condition but I don't really love the pattern.  However, since the prices being thrown around seemed low, I asked how much they were just out of curiosity.  The answer: "$3 for the set".  What's a girl to do, let them possibly end up in some abusive home where they'd get the dishwasher treatment?!  Not on my Pyrex watch!

I just wonder what Pyrex got snapped up by the people ahead of me in line...

I also got some odds and ends including a set of bbq utencils that looked new for $4.  I saw a huge crowd surrounding a few table of shoes so I walked by it without looking at first.  By the time I was ready to leave, the crowd had cleared so I decided to take a peak to see what all the fuss was about.  That's when I spotted these super cute Nine West patent leather wedge sandals:

They looked barely worn, in my size and only $4, I decided buy my first pair of thrifted shoes.  Apparently, these belonged to a lady that donated tons of shoes that looked unworn.  Then I was sorry I didn't look earlier because I must have missed some great shoes if these were ones left behind.

I am linking to thrift share monday at Apron Thrift Girl's great blog.