Antiquing

Before we had our two littlest kids, my husband and I were quite serious antique hunters. We would spend our weekends at auctions and flea markets coming home with treasures to clean up (and sometimes take apart, refinish, and reassemble) and make our own. Our house is full of these items that had a long history before they came to us.


I have really missed the hunt these last four years, but frankly, I have no regrets not trying to go antiquing with babies. But the time has come to get back on the horse. Now that my brood is old enough to mind their manners, we are back at it. This past weekend we drove down to St. Charles, IL and hit one of the biggest antique fairs in the Midwest.


Unfortunately, there are fewer vendors in November than during the warm months, but there was still plenty to see. On this visit, most of the folks who bring in large furniture were absent so I set my sights on fun, small items. (I generally try to focus on shopping for something specific so I don't get overwhelmed by all the stuff.) What really caught my eye this week was tacky statuary.

Like this:

Se weird, so wonderful.

Highbrow kitsch.

I'm a sucker for bunnies in clothes.
I actually came home with this:
Fawn bookends for Little Bear's room. All clean and shiny now.
Way less tacky once you get them in the proper environment (she tells herself).
The vintage "made in Japan" little fawns are so adorable in the woodland themed room. Love!


There were other things that caught my eye that didn't come back home with me:





I don't know what kept me from buying more. I think I'm out of practice. I'm totally excited to be back on the prowl though. So if you are out at the flea market and see a woman telling two small boys not to touch something every 2 minutes...that will be me!

–Cassandra

4 comments:

  1. We love antiquing as well! We have 2 flee markets very close to us, and have found some great online Cincinnati auction sites. We've gotten cool/old cameras, a set of lockers and refinished them, old records (Jason's thing), and a telephone bench that we refinished as well. So much fun looking for treasures!

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  2. @Marcha: I had no idea you guys did this too! I would LOVE to see those refinished lockers. Send me a pic when you get a chance!
    –Cassandra

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  3. That last picture made me squee a little bit - I need one of those for my living room. I already have an antique typewriter, antique blanket box and antique travelling trunk (the last one is the background to many of my blog pictures!)

    Such a shame flea markets are not that common over here, at least not where I can get to them! Love the little fawns (and they do look much better in situ!)

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  4. @Pinkundine: You know, one of my fondest memories of London was the antique fair we went to on Portobello Road! At the time I wasn't as avid a collector and am sad that I didn't bring anything home from there. I recall that the selection was pretty fabulous!

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