I found some gorgeous items to bring home during a recent shopping trip

There’s nothing quite as satisfying to me as finding beautiful rare items to bring back and share with you. Don’t get me wrong, I love shopping just for the sheer joy of it! But it’s so much more fun when I find some extraordinary piece and then someone else sees it in the shop and falls in love with it! The absolute best is when I hear back from a customer who is pleased with how their purchase looks or fits with their existing decor. I’ve had customers send or bring me pictures of how they used their newly acquired treasures, and it’s just the most rewarding feeling to know someone else is now enjoying an item I found in my shopping travels!

I found this little gem recently, and I’m using it as an umbrella stand, but its original function was much less benign. It’s a Swiss artillery basket. These were used by soldiers during WWII to carry mortar shells around. These artillery baskets were probably woven by hand in various European villages. I’ve seen others used by German troops that are nearly identical to this one I found. The baskets had a wooden bottoms so they could stands flat and straight and leather straps on each side like a backpack so they could be carried around to wherever the shells were needed.

 

 

This funny shaped tub was another great find. I’ve never really seen any of them around, so I was glad to find it.  Sometimes they’re called hip baths or cowboy baths, presumably because you could only sit in them to bathe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think this blue and cream pitcher is really beautiful. It is Alsatian salt glazed stoneware. It’s hard to tell in this picture but it’s actually a fairly large size pitcher, over a foot tall and nearly as thick as your average stone crock pottery, so it is a sturdy piece. 

And these pink beauties are really rare, I was lucky to run across them. The French pink kitchen enamelware storage tins are also hard to find. They are so lovely!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I fell in love with these old French and German books, don’t they just look so classic and pretty as simple display items? It’s not like I have even the foggiest notion what they are about, I don’t read either language… This regal little birdie is one of a kind. I was told it is a European black bird, but it’s so iridescent it looks blue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This very unusual dress form really caught my eye. It is both beautiful and unique, and it also has quite a story! Victorian people were a lot smaller than the average body type by today’s standards, so everything from furniture to shoes and clothing are much more petite. In an ingenious adaptation, this dress form was altered by having a great deal more stuffing added to a standard dress form in order to make it large enough to be used to make plus size garments for larger ladies…