This is the desk of my fountain pen-loving dreams. It’s a courthouse desk from Kingston, Ontario from 1870. I’ve always loved big clunky furniture. Calling this work of art clunky is just rude, but it is a beast of a desk. An incredible beast of a desk. A beautiful beautiful beast.
The little cubicles would be perfect for ink bottles and pens. Notecards.
The shelves for letters of friends and loved ones, letterhead, and any other stationery paraphernalia I can dream of.
I have no idea what they used this open shelf for in the 1800s, but it’s screaming laptop storage to me. Those little drawers have locks on them as do the doors. Locks! Wonderful! The secrets this desk has kept hidden. The treasures!
These big storage compartments would be perfect for cardstock and holding tools to make envelopes. The possibilities are endless.
It does however come with a steep price tag. I hope it comes home with me one day.
I went thrifting recently and found a heavy, silver-plated candelabra set. I’m assuming they are antique, I’m guessing. I’m also making the assumption that because they are very heavy, they are good quality. Regardless of whether any of that is correct or not, I love them.
They came lightly tarnished
and coated in dust.
I spent some time polishing them.
There are some really hard to get to places. These arms(?) have ridges that I couldn’t get into. I’ll try Q-Tips next time. There are a few places where the silver is damaged and has a small knick.
They came out quite nicely and are currently displayed on the kitchen table with grey candles.
With the weight of them, they are going to work perfectly for outdoors. I won’t be worried about them getting knocked over as easily.
One thing I wasn’t aware of, was that the middle candle holder is designed to hold a bigger thicker candle than the outer parts. I had no idea. I also don’t know where to get this thicker candle. I am keeping my eye out for two spiral candles. I think they are thicker and would possibly work. I had no idea taper candles come in multiple sizes. I looked on Amazon, but they only list the candle length, not width. Alas, that means more adventures searching the thrift shops!
On a side note, my spouse just called our dog a wet swampy donkey, and I can’t stop laughing.
I love browsing through antique malls and looking at all the pretty vintage items. The things that catch my eye the most are inkwell stands, tea cups and saucers, and perfume bottles (even though I don’t wear perfume). A place I love to browse is Market Road Antiques in St Jacobs. There are tons of stands to look through, which means there is a big variety of items to see. I have been a few times and spotted a purple glass bottle and bejewelled hair pins that I had been thinking about. I went back to the antique store and unfortunately, the hairpins were gone, but the purple bottle was still there. The bottle wasn’t quite right for what I wanted it for – ink storage. The part that holds the liquid was too big and it would be hard to get the ink out or make evaporation problems worse. Storing ink in a perfume bottle is not ideal. Especially if the stopper is glass and doesn’t create an air-tight seal. The ink will evaporate a lot faster than it should, but I went ahead and did it anyway.
This beautiful amber-coloured glass bottle was locked in a glass display case. I’m quite sure I said out loud “I want that” the first time I saw it. It came with a hefty price tag, $75 Canadian dollars. That seemed on the expensive side for a glass bottle. I found out that it was this price because it was part of a two-piece set. I walked around browsing all the booths and kept circling back to the display case wondering if I was really planning on buying a $75 bottle. There were so many beautiful bottles to look at, most of them clear glass. The clear glass bottles were priced way better (around $25), but the amber glass one, was just that much more beautiful to me. I spotted a spikey triangle glass bottle that I was trying to find again, but for the life of me, I could not find it. If you’re ever in a large antique mall and see something you like, take a photo of the booth number, because that spikey bottle went missing despite my searching.
The third and final time I passed the display case one of the agents saw me drooling over it and offered to open the case so I could see it better. I knew I knew if she opened that case, this bottle was coming home with me. Well, she did and I found out the bottle was part of a two-piece set. That did make the price a little more reasonable. I told her I was planning to store ink in the bottle and how I was obsessed with fountain pens. Turns out I’m not the only one. We have the same book and love some of the same stores.
She showed me photos of some of the ink she had made out of the book, I had always wanted to make the blue ink, but hadn’t yet. Hers turned out crystal clear and beautiful. I can imagine how pretty it would look on brilliant white paper. I can’t wait to make it. I feel like I’ve met my crafting hobby soul twin. So of course I bought the bottle. The ink will likely not store very well, so I was sure not to use a favourite ink. I put a really pretty purple ink in it that didn’t have any shimmer or other properties, it was a straight-up solid colour without any extra pizzazz. It looks pretty cool too. I love this bottle and have no regrets (I’m also hoping beyond hope that I don’t knock it over. There is nothing to prevent a spill).
The other bottle I’ve gotten recently was a birthday present from Mr Lobster Shorts. This is the Twisbi Diamond 50 Inkwell. I’m not sure if he got it from Amazon or Wonderpens, but I absolutely love it. This bottle should prevent inky fingers (the video at the top of this post is a demo on how to use it) one of the frustrating parts about fountain pens. Filling your pens can be messy if you don’t use cartridges, like me. I love it.
As for the second part of the glass items. My guess…. ashtray? It’s going to be used to store my fountain pen converters. I have a couple of them loose floating around in a drawer in my desk. This will bunch them together nicely and double as a paperweight. They had gorgeous paperweights at the antique mall, but they are not something I’d use, yet stunning all the same).
I’m going to use this pretty green pen and fill it up with the converter on the bottom of the photo, from the Twisbi bottle. The converter on the top part of the photo will work perfectly to get ink from the glass inkwell. You could also just stick your pen nib right in there and fill it up that way, the opening was large enough, but I prefer filling directly from the converter.
As for the two empty ink bottles, I’m saving them for when I make my own ink and the samples you can buy at the pen stores.
I polished the candelabra last night. If you want to see a video of the before and after, click the youtube link above. Sorry about my dogs running around in the background!
I picked this candelabra up at an antique shop. I was super hopeful it was silver plated. The way it looked here, I thought it was made out of some other metal and wouldn’t get shiny (the one shiny candle holder at the back of this photo was polished by myself. I was too impatient to find out what it looked like under the tarnish to wait until I had taken a photo before I polished it).
Here is a closer look at the tarnish. I spent less then an hour polishing, washing, and drying it. I took it apart completely and found out it can be put back together to make a single candlestick, three arm candelabra, or five arm, as shown in the photos. Pretty cool! I will likely never take it apart though.
It polished up to almost a mirror shine and I love it!!! There are still a couple dull spots, but it was only the first time I polished it and I’m sure they will buff out the next time around. I really didn’t expect it to come out so well. I really love it. I can’t wait to pick up some candles. Romantic dinner at home this weekend????
I’ve been on the prowl at the thrift stores for an electric pasta maker that makes fusili or trecce. It would be awesome to wait for a homemade pasta dinner to light up the candelabra, but I think it’s going to be a while before I find one. I’m sure I can think up something else for a romantic dinner at home. Mood lighting! I’m so happy with my find and so pleased at how well it was restored.
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.
This weekend my Amazon order came in and I went to an antique mall. One of the things I love is stationery. Amazon has some really pretty paper and for good prices.
I bought this set and I love the paper. I don’t feel like the envelope matched that well, but it’s still a really cool set. I really love the paper. I have trouble writing straight and the lines will help a lot.
This was my favourite one from the first set. I love the colours. Each set came with a matching envelope.
I’ve been looking for an antique pie lifter forever. It’s not silver, but I like it and I won’t have to polish it. I found it at the Freelton Antique Mall, outside of Hamilton. I have been looking for an antique letter opener for years. They had them there, but they weren’t quite the one. They were plain, and I want a more elaborate one. I’m also looking for an unusual and really old coin, for good luck :). If I find one or not, walking through an antique mall can be a wonderful adventure.
Lobster Shorts 