Kitschy Kitchen

Love my new vintage plastic straw dispenser.  And the cool 60's kaleidescope.  And of course the Hazel-Atlas box of glass deviled crab baking shells.  You know I adore my turquoise canisters in the background, too!

 Now, I always say that just one complete set of carousel animal glasses aren't enough--ya gotta have TWO.  The atomic glasses in front are some of my favorites, and I love those gold encrusted glasses on the right, too. 

Indiana Glass Company is often pooh-poohed in the glass collecting community because they made stuff that was sometimes a poor imitation of better, older glassware.  Apparently they decided to do something in the 60's to look like Miss America or English Hobnail, and what resulted was Diamond Point.  Gene and Cathy Florence do feature the pattern in their Collectible Glassware From The 40's, 50's & 60's book but as they put it, "Frankly, we never expected to be adding this pattern in our book when it was appearing all over the markets."  Hey, it's pretty, it's cheap, and it's plentiful!  What's not to love?  When they listed prices for Diamond Point, they did note that the prices were only for the crystal with ruby stain "because it is the ruby stained crystal most collectors seek."  The ice tub with the lid on is the most valuable piece of Diamond Point I own and it's only valued at $22.  Many times you will see the pedestal compote with a lid, but it doesn't belong on the compote, it belongs on the ice tub.  The compote's on the right with the cute honey bear jam jar sitting in it. 

I never fancied myself a salt & pepper shaker collector until I took stock one day and realized that, yup, I were one!  Some of my favorites are the Van Tellingen "huggers", and I get a kick out of those wooden chef S&P's.  The space agey Tupperware S&P holder is cool, and don't you just love the little mousey toothpick holders? 

More S&P's, some pretty old.  In the back is a wooden set that are little tombstones with the words "Here Lies Peppy" and "Here Lies Salty".  Ha ha ha! 

The Shawnee Little Red Riding Hood series (cookie jar, S&P's, sugar, creamer, etc.) are horribly expensive so I've been trying to complete a salt & pepper set without going into debt.  Unfortunately, these have been reproduced so all three of the shakers I own don't match each other. 

Yes, those are Kool mascots Willie (or is it Chilly?) & Millie S&P's--they're plastic but the other set is ceramic.  Don't know who they are, just plain old penguins, I guess.  I sold the pigs toward the back to a couple who were about to open a BBQ joint and the shakers were going to be their mascots.  Cute!  The little round pigs more to the front were part of Mom's pig collection.  A couple ears have their tips knocked off, but that just makes them cuter. 

When I reached for the door handle to go into my shed the other day, I was met with this.  Every glass pane in the door is completely riddled with what I thought at first were thousands of spider webs.  Which of course nearly made me pee my pants--AACK! GIANT SPIDERS LIKE THAT ONE IN "ARACHNOPHOBIA" THAT TRUSSED UP JULIAN SANDS!  AACK!

Upon closer inspection, however, I determined that some stupid bird had crashed into the door.  I did look around for a stupid bird carcass since it had to have hit that door pretty hard, but either it was able to shake it off or some woodland creature was awarded a tasty snack. 

So far the flea market sales are outdoing the antique mall sales BIG TIME.  I'm seriously thinking about just concentrating on selling salt & pepper shakers and costume jewelry at the flea market, though, since wrapping up all the larger stuff, packing it in boxes, toting it around and then packing it back up on Sunday when I'm tired, dirty and cranky is a big pain in the patootie.  Plus I'm usually one of the last to leave since everyone else has already figured out that easily packed and carryable stuff is the smart way to go.

Hope everyone is doing well and that this damn tornado season is just about OVER.  I mean, hurricane season starts tomorrow for pete's sake!