Why I Oughta...

Last week, I posted about our trip to the MAGA Antique Mall up in Lake Geneva and how we came across those vintage "Made in Japan" Poinsettia candle holders that we passed on .  Before we were asked to leave by the MAGA guy who runs the place (because...gasp! the boy was playing with some vintage toys!), I spotted this Schlitz glass mug.  They were asking $6 and this thing was H - E - A - V - Y! I've posted a lot over the years about vintage Schlitz stuff , but this mug is a dead ringer for the big Schlitz pitcher that we bought at a flea market last summer .  Seriously... click here for just a second.  And look at the bottom of that pitcher and the bottom of this glass.  Then look at the logo with the thin maroon line around the box.  And the white "The Beer that made Milwaukee Famous" font/mark.   This was totally released at the same time as that pitcher, right?  Had to be part of a set?  Like a tavern would place that pitcher on your table and four of

Up at the Lake Geneva Antique Mall (which...is Trump Country, FYI.  MAGA and all that what-have-yous are involved.  Also, I think it means that Nat might not let us go back.  Also, the fact that the guy asked us to leave because the King of the Ball Tossers was touching toys.  Imagine that!  Toys!), I came across this pair of Poinsettia candle stick holders.  They're marked Napco 1957 on the bottom and have what I assume is a "Made in Japan" sticker that has been smudged pretty harshly. You can see the marks in the photo below. One note:  this did NOT come home with us. I didn't particularly love them.  And we have just gone through a Christmas season where most of our vintage Christmas collection was relegated to an upper shelf in our green room up front where nobody - including me - could see them.  They brought me little joy - and were a pain to unwrap/re-wrap after the season had passed.  Not to mention that Nat had purged about half of the pieces - that

Our middle child picked out this little early wooden horsecart at the Lake Geneva Antique Mall on a trip up there.  I'm not sure exactly how it went down, but I think Nat told the girls that they could pick out something small - a 'treasure' - to reward their patience while we wandered around the place.   Now that they're not in strollers, it is a lot harder to wrangle them at places like antique malls where they don't go crazy. The Bird picked this little wooden horse and cart.  The tag says "Early Japan" and the bottom is stamped directly on the piece, no sticker: Kind of a sweet little treasure, isn't it?  It is super brittle, so I know it won't last long. But, one of the horse legs was busted off already, so it wasn't perfect in the first place. Just like my Dad did to me, we're (I think) doing to our girls:  encouraging them to love old things. The trick, however, is something that I'm not quite *there* with that

I thought this would look good in our place.  But, alas, it didn't come home with us.  Not sure who John Henniger was, but I love his sign.  This was hanging in the Lake Geneva Antique Mall and it was in great shape! Was "The Best Milwaukee Beer" before the "Champagne of Beers" tagline?  Who knows why it says that because the MillerCoors blog makes it seem like the Champagne line was around since the beginning ?

Found this awfully cute Santa planter up at the antique store and if we had a place to call our own?  It would have been mine!  But, because we haven't had Christmas at our own place for two years, I have no idea how much space we have and how much vintage Christmas stuff like this we have! If he's still there this fall?  I'll buy him.  I'm pretty sure he's a Holt Howard based on the face and eyes. But...what is Santa painting anyway?

On Sunday, I posted about the new antique mall that appears to be the one we'll be frequenting now that we've shifted from Michigan to Wisconsin (despite the dude being a wingnut...).  In that post, I showed off the new "Vintage Christmas Motherlode", but have to say that there was a lot more there than I even took in during our visit. And, as I mentioned, I did, indeed, buy something.  That's this metal paper roll holder.  It hold a 3.5" roll of paper on a wooden dowel  and if you pull the paper out and hold down the thin metal piece, it serves as a 'cutter' of sorts and you can tear off clean note-sized pieces of paper. I was drawn to this because I'm always scrounging for post-it notes and the idea of being able to have short or long or...extra long notes was appealing to me.  I can pull on the paper for as long of a length as I need, then press the metal cutter down and tear.  Suddenly, I have a note paper that's just long enough f

I've been chronicling something I've been calling the "Vintage Christmas Motherlode" at the Great Lakes Antique Mall up in Coloma since back in 2013.   I posted about it as recently as this past June when we were getting ready to say 'see you later' to Coloma. But, now that we're spending time up in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, one of the first orders of business was to discover the local antique mall.  Either Nat's parents or her sister found one just a ten minutes away in Lake Geneva .  So on a trip up there earlier this year, we went.  A bit smaller than the one in Coloma but a lot more furniture.  Turns out the guy at the counter is a wingnut and was getting all excited about the prospect of the incoming President-Elect, so it has that going for it... But, in we went to wander around. And lo and behold...what did I discover:  a new vintage Christmas Motherlode!  Look at that case.  Some pretty great stuff.  Ornaments, lights, little figures, Pu