Lobster Shorts antiques, vintage

Antiquing – One Winner

Antiquing is a fun adventure. I went to the St Jacob’s Market Road Antique mall. I can spend hours browsing through the stalls. I usually stay in the aisle and peak in. I’m terrified of breaking something. I’m clumsy afterall. I documented the things that caught my eye and that I loved the most. I’m going to post the photos of my favourites. There is one winner in the bunch. I hope you enjoy guessing which one I take home. I’ll post the winning item at the end.

These beautiful paperweights were mentioned in my last post. I love the blue one most of all, the colour is stunning. I’m sure the most sought after paperweights are the ones without air bubbles, but I loved this one. I could stare into that deep deep blue for hours. The purple one is pretty too.

This tomato tea pot set… would I buy it? Not in a million years, but it did make me smile. Adorable, fun to look at, but not my style. I hope someone else more whimsical than myself finds it and takes it home. I hope they laugh about it with their friends whenever they use it.

In this stall it was the two perfume bottles in the back that I liked. Both are very cool. The spikey one has been carved to look like a building inside the stopper and the other I love it for the big chunky stopper. How can I resist a showy stopper?

These pretty peacock feathers

This gorgeous inkwell stationery stand! I believe it’s brass. This would be so beautiful on a desk. As someone who loves writing letters, this would be a great addition. Something I look for in antiques besides being beautiful, is the need to be functional. I want to use it.

I have no idea what these are, but they look neat. The tag said something about wine, or wine glasses. Seriously, what are these?

This super creepy shelf of ceramic serving ware. I can’t really fathom why I find them so disturbing, likely the lumpy shapes. It looks like the stuff of nightmares and I like it.

These beautiful wine glasses. The colour! Whoever put this shelf together is an artist. I love the way they paired everything together, the green and blue, the brass. I want to sit in a room like this and take it all in (sipping wine in one of these beautiful glasses of course).

What wonderfully cool bottles! Also a little creepy. Am I sensing a trend here? Do I like slightly creepy things? Of course I do. I like the way they are grouped together, my favourite being on the far right. The lumpy bottle. I love it.

This clown pin – another creepy cool thing I like.

Glass mermaid candle holders. Do I love them? Yes! Yes I do! I love them. Creepy? Yep. I really want them. I would put them on either side of the silver candelabra I have and they would look wonderful all together. What a wonderful candle light dinner. I REALLY want these.

This pretty perfume bottle with the glass stopper and gorgeous colours.

A beautiful hawk shirt/dress thing. A stunning item of clothing that I would love to own. It’s in fantastic condition and I would love wearing it.

These beautiful bottles. I love the colour of the purple one. I love all the big bottles. I have so many more items I loved and photographed, but this is getting long and there was only one winner… and it is….

This stunner of a perfume bottle! Yes she does have cracks and I love her anyway. The cracks seem to be on the inside only, the outside is as smooth as… well… glass. It’s going to store ink like my other bottle and I’m not concerned about it leaking.

The colours make my heart happy and the stopper has a silicone gasket which should help prevent ink from evaporating. As for the mermaid candle holders, I REALLY wanted them, but alas, they are out of my price range. They were $375 Canadian and they were fantastic. I’m not into mermaids, but I really liked them. One day… if they’re still there.

Lobster Shorts antiques, thrifting, vintage

Antiques, Amazon, and Thrifting. OH MY!

I went on a bender and I loved it. I love antique stores. I could spend hours browsing through an antique mall. There are so many hidden treasures. Shopping at a thrift store is like that too, but cheaper. I could happily do either one That is how I spent last weekend. I will post a video of the treasures I found, below.

I found some amazing things. I’ve been looking for a candelabra for months now. I found this one:

I found it exactly as you see it, in a pile, for $28.00. I originally wanted one with a lot more detail and possibly in brass, but this one was in pretty good condition and it looked like it could be polished to like-new condition (I will post it again once I polish it).

I’ve been hoping to find a silver-plated brush/comb set in good condition. I did! It was in FANTASTIC condition!!! The brush seems to have ALL the bristles and the mirror is intact (and yes I fully plan on washing it and using it). I have plans to make a proper box for this brush set (also for a future video/blog). It was $12.95 and I was so happy I found it. I think it’s beautiful and I can’t wait to make the display box it deserves.

I spotted this tiny little perfume bottle for $1.99. It was full of a super strong perfume. I found this out when I opened the bottle in the car. It gave us a headache (both of us are sensitive to artificial fragrances). I’m going to wash it out and use it for essential oil blends I plan on mixing myself. FUN!

My other fantastic find (the above are all from Cobbletoq Antique Mall in London, Ontario) are these keys. I bought the very bottom one, the one that looks like it belongs to a queen. I’m 99.9999999% sure this key opens a lock to somewhere/something magical. It has to. I have a thing for unique/old keys and this one fit. I like to pick it up and imagine all the magical locks it opens.

This was one of the items I didn’t buy. It was from Memory Lane Antiques, in London. I have been looking for a soup tureen for years. It was only $15! It was huge and it was an almost, but not quite. I’m not into cherubs at all. It was so close to perfect, and just enough to make it a miss. Such a shame. I think someone else will love it very much though.

I bought a few more things that I posted in the video above that I didn’t take photos of. There is a set of salt and pepper shakers and an inkwell, from an antique shop in Grand Bend (Dale’s Antiques, I believe). My spouse really liked that store. He bought a vintage hook set to put the dog leashes on (I will have to give an update on our rescue dog! Yes we still have him and he is an angel. He’s in his furever home).

Also shown in the video is a sprouting jar. I don’t know why I felt the need to get another one, but I found it at a thrift store. I have a sprouting lid for mason jars and it works fantastic, except for the seeds that gel. They don’t drain in the mason jar and I think this will work much better.

As for the Amazon purchase, I bought a fog machine. It’s a strange item (which is probably why I loved it). Every year I plan on going all out for Halloween and every year I miss the opportunity. Usually, I run out of time. I have a fog machine now (although I still haven’t tried it to test it out) and I’m going to make a go of it this time around. I will decorate like Halloween vomited a spew of tacky, oversized decorations all over my home and it’s going to be incredible. As for the real reason I got the fog machine: A slightly creepy, nighttime, summer tea party, with fog. And hey, the candelabra fits in there too! I think it will be fantastic fun.

xoxo Lobster Shorts

Lobster Shorts thrifting, vintage

Thrift Store Finds

I spotted this beautiful teapot in the window of my local thrift shop during the lockdown and it stopped me in my tracks. I love vintage silver tea pots and this one was so unique to me. I’ve never seen one with a candle holder on the bottom, I was intrigued. Tea gets cold so fast and I love it piping hot. I wanted it.

I had to wait a week before the store opened and I could to pick it up. When I arrived at the store there was a lineup. A line up at the thrift store! I was surprised. I knew there were lineups in the cities, but I wasn’t expecting that here in my small little town. I waited and worried that it would be gone when I was finally able to get inside (I waited over 20 minutes in the line). I wouldn’t even look at it while I was waiting because I didn’t want to attract attention to it. I was in love with this teapot.

This is how it looks after three hours of polishing. I was elated that it was silver. I spent $6.00 on it! It’s still not glossy and mirror shiny yet and I’m not sure if it ever will be. I don’t know enough about silver to know these things. I’m going to polish it again in the near future and see if I can polish the rest of the dull and dark spots. The worst is the little cup that holds the candle, unfortunately you can’t really see it in these photos.

It’s not a 100% match to my tea set, but the whole of it is quite eclectic, the tray being from a different set as well. I don’t mind, I love it. I consider it a complete now. I wanted the two pots, one for coffee and one for tea. I have used it and although it didn’t keep the water piping hot, it did keep it warm/hot, which is good enough for me. It worked like a charm and I so love it. The neck of the teapot is on the slim side and I can’t get my hand in to wash it, but a bottle brush works and also stuffing the dish cloth in there and shoving it around works just fine too. I’m so happy I found it.