Gone To The Beach

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Flea Market Finds

The first fall flea market! Yippee! It was awesome, so fun to get out and hunt for treasure.

I don't even think about the flea market from May to mid-September....my Sunday market is right near a major seashore area...and to get there I have to cross numerous little drawbridges, fight my local beach traffic, then the tourists and city-folk...well, it's just not an option. As it was I sat for 15 fidgety minutes as fishing boats and sailboats glided calmly, slowly through an open bridge. The view is nice: white sand, white birds, emerald marshes, blue-blue water. But still.

Anyway, I was amazed at the crowds at the market. Then disappointed not to be finding much. Then, aha!---from two of my longtime friendly dealers I found just the things I needed.

Lots of white linens for white hearts and white Christmas stockings and white doves....

Aren't these beautiful!

I just love this simple guest towel, picture the pale cocoa satin scallops on a stocking cuff? Or across a heart sachet?
And a lovely, never used set of trousseau linens....

Note the original price![oops, NO! not price $1.99..it's the size. 81 x 99, I think.]

I may keep them or, after a nice bleach and wash, sell the pillow cases in my etsy shop. The sheet will become part of a comforter cover or lining for those white stockings?

And some plain white percale pillowcases---the old tightly woven, very smooth cotton that I love---to sew my special laces to. I like my bed piled high with crisp white lace-edged pillows....I even enjoy the starch and ironing part.

And a collection of rhinestone brooches to turn into tiny picture frames and hang on a Christmas tree or tie to a special present......

like this.....

And just for me...you know how I love turquoise things: a turquoise necklace and an antique (pre-WW2) German Easter egg! So big and pristine. See how the bunny's sky is, well, turquoise? I just had to have him! He came with all the white linens, so I got a good deal, even though his price was more than that of ALL the linens!

Unfortunately it was really, reeeally hot! And so I passed up things that were wonderful but would have necessitated a long drop-off trip to my car in the sweltering sun: an entire, huge printer's drawer filled with wooden type, wooden letters, all quite large. (sigh). Neat crates for fall decorating. And spectacular mums, only $5.oo each!

Oh well, next week, right?

What treasures did you guys find? Any goodies?

PS Remember our little guy? He sat with me all day Saturday while I worked on a white hearts order. He thought the snips from the seams were food, poor baby. NOT yum. So I fed him crackers.... :-)

love

lizzy

..............gone to the beach

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Z is for Endings-You know, XYZ?

And Z is for zinnias, the adorable posy that fills the farmstands at summer's end.

They appear in bunches, set in jelly jars on the roadsides of Cape Cod...

and my farmers market guys sell lollipop-like bunches for $2.oo for two dozen.

They don't grow well here at the beach, no space and they develop a strange powdery mold.

To me they are the flower of late summer, the flower of the farm and fields.

It's hard to be sad that summer is almost over when the house is filled with old pitchers stuffed with zinnias.

They sure do make me smile!

enjoy!

love

lizzy

gone to the beach......

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Empty Nest

Hi everyone! Is your house lovely and quiet after summer's bustle? Kids go back to school? Or maybe (gasp) moved out for good? Or maybe you're a student or a teacher yourself, back into the routine.

I know of one mom who definitely won't be sad to find an empty nest....and soon, she hopes! All summer I've been watching a mama gull with her big loud demanding baby! You may remember him from his King of the Hill sandcastle pix earlier this year.

He had his unappealing brown and grey first year feathers that make him look bigger than his parents...

Now he has become a little lighter. But unlike the other fledged babies this guy still follows after his mother, squawking and fluttering and making a scene. If she lets him he will tap on her beak with his own beak, a signal for the parent bird to regurgitate food for its infants. But he is no infant. Sometimes she feeds him and sometimes she stalks off in a huff. (By now she is a single parent, gulls do not remain in pairs...).

So the other day I was interested to see that he was trying to fend for himself. Poor little man, I think he is a trifle, um, developmentally challenged? (He is on the right , above. See his treasure?)

his "find" has been dropped! It is at the horizon lne...

You may know that gulls search out whole fresh clams at the tide line. They then carry the clam high in the air and drop it, over and over again until the shell shatters and they can eat the fresh clam meat.