First Flea Market!

Sunday was Opening Day...
Nope, not baseball---we have to wait a bit for that. But even better! The first flea market of the spring. I was surprised, usually the market begins on the first or second Sunday of April.

Gorgeous day! But chilly and very windy. I estimate maybe 20-25 dealers instead of the usual 200. Too bad, because there were a lot of customers and people were definitely buying. Everyone seemed to be in a cheery, spring-like frame of mind.

A drawback was that the dealers who appeared took the organizers' word a bit too much to heart: many tables of cast-off junk from granny's breakfront or grandpa's garage.

But some treasures to be found. All these adorable doll dishes were tossed into a crummy old Rubbermaid mini wash basket!

cheld's tea set items with full size white ironstone pitcher

And the tag said $3.oo for all!
I got a good grip the instant I saw the first little handpainted cup.

I smilingly elbowed aside a woman who wanted to rummage in my basket!

And I quickly gave the dealer my crumpled three dollars, not a bit of haggling.

Look what was there! Tiniest Japanese lusterware items ever...

I've never seen a covered tureen, maybe 41/2" long?

And all these tiny plates! Twenty five!

Some may be butter pats, I am not sure, but all measure 2-4" diameter. The yellow lustreware sunflower in the center is German, The blue and gold possible "butter pats" are unmarked, maybe English?

The little plate with the pink sky and girl canoeing is one of my favs!

And the best!

This partial set is handpainted with pink pussywillows sprigs, and on each branch one of the buds is a tiny pink kitty....to die for!

I'd have paid 3 dollars for the creamer alone.

Pussy willows with kitten buds was a popluar motif in the 1940s. I once passed up a crib quilt with pink pussywillow - kitten flowers [little play on words, lol. Get it? Yeeesh.]; also saw it both blue and later yellow. Below is a not-good photo of aqua barkcloth with grey "catkins"---kitties.

Later I decided to buy this ironstone platter or tray at $5.00. Nice prop for shell pix? Bigger than it looks, maybe 18" x 8". And stained a bit and crazed, just like I like them.

I'm not crazy about ivy and almost didn't get it, but looking closely, I realized the design embossed at each end is a line of Tinkerbell-esque fairies, each less than an inch high! How adorable is that!

What I passed up: at the only "real" antiques booth, a man who sells wonderful primitives had lovely flow blue china and a shorebird decoy that was rubbed a soft blue-grey-green! His eyes were neat numbered old nail heads too. Great price, but he was packed up by the time I paid for the doll tea sets, so...maybe another day. Otherwise, not much---some crochet lace?

I can't wait til next time! Did you get to the flea market yet this spring? What did you buy? Tell me....

As for my dolls' teas sets, I plan to keep a few pieces and sell the rest in my etsy shop, so let me know if you have a fav....and want me to share.

love

    lizzy

gone to the beach