Upcoming Shows!

November 22, Teamsters Hall, Lawrenceville

November 22, Teamsters Hall, Lawrenceville

We’ll be at the Allegheny Kiski Valley Historical Society FleaTique on Sunday, October 19th, weather permitting.  Come see us at the last FleaTique  of the season! We’ll be bringing kitchenware, melamine, and all sorts of retro goodies – we’re overstocked so we’ll be ready to deal!

We’re also pleased to announce we’ll be a vendor at the Pgh Vintage Mixer, a one-day, curated vintage vendor fair at Lawerenceville’s Teamsters Hall on Saturday November 22.  We’ll be bringing our best stock, including holiday items, lots of glass ornaments, electronics including lamps, clocks, and telephones, clothing, and accessories.  We can’t wait, it’s going to be fabulous.  See you there!

Dress Success

In the attic...

In the attic…

We go to house and estate sales all the time, so we’re used to the different types of sales.  On one end of the spectrum you’ll have high end sales run by dealers, where the prices are close to retail and they clearly know what they have.  On the other end you’ll have family run sales where their main priority is clearing out a house, and they just want to get rid of everything, no matter what it is!  We don’t mind either type of sale – we enjoy meeting people, seeing the inside of houses, seeing the things that people have accumulated during their lives.

The other weekend we went to a family run sale, and I mentioned to one of the ladies there that I was interested in clothing.  She thought for a moment, and then said she thought there might be clothes in the attic, and if I felt like climbing in there I was welcome to them.  Without knowing what I was getting into, I followed her through a tiny door into a little crowded attic space.  In front of me were a few hanging storage containers, dusty and falling apart.  The woman gestured to them and said they’d belonged to her great grandmother and her aunt, she didn’t know what was in them, and they’d been planning on just leaving them in the attic for the new homeowner to deal with.  I took a quick peek inside, saw some rhinestones, and said, “I’ll take them.”  We got pretty filthy dragging them out of the attic and down the stairs.  By the time we got them outside, the plastic had mostly disintegrated, and we barely got it all stuffed into our car!  I thanked the woman for letting me into the attic – and I think she was happy to get rid of some dirty clothes for profit!

Need a black dress?  I have them all.

Need a black dress? I have them all.

When I finally got everything unpacked, I was amazed at the goodies that we’d dragged home.  The storage bags contained dresses from the 1940s and 1950s, with a couple of 1960s beauties thrown in for good measure.  While some of the dresses had been nibbled on by creatures over the years, the majority of the pieces are in very good shape from having been in storage for so long.  It’s interesting looking at items trying to learn something about the previous owner’s character – but you could tell the owner of these dresses was probably a serious lady.  No novelty prints, no bright festive colors.  No, just more black dresses than I’d ever seen in once place.  Amazing dresses, with bead work, embroidery, rhinestones.  Sheers, bows, textures, pleats.  I’m in love.

All of these beauties are around 1950s size 20 – so around a modern size 14…  Once I get them dry-cleaned, they’ll be ready to go into the Etsy shop!  When you’re at a sale, it pays to ask whoever is running it – whether or not it’s the family or a dealer – if they have what you’re looking for.  You just might find an attic full of treasure!

September Updates!

Our restored 1972 Shasta 1400, nearly finished!

Our restored 1972 Shasta 1400, nearly finished!

It’s hard to believe it has been two months since we updated the site!  We’ve barely even had time to update our Instagram feed.  We’ve had an incredibly busy and productive summer, spending nearly every weekend on our family farm working on our ’72 Shasta.  She needed more work than we’d thought, and it took us a while, but we’re pleased to report she’s back together and in great shape!  After spending the last week camping in the Shasta, we’re back and relaxed.  We’re booking fall shows now, and getting ready to open a space at our local antique mall.  Now that our summer is winding down, we’re ready to enjoy the cooler months and get back to business.  Look for more frequent updates from now on!

 

Newly Listed – Bundt Pans and Barware

Doesn't your bar need one of these trays?  We finally got the Orange Bird tray listed!

Doesn’t your bar need one of these trays? We finally got the Orange Bird tray listed!

Wow, the summer is racing by!  We’ve been busy buying and cleaning and sorting and stocking – as well as selling!  A special thanks to everyone who has ordered from us in the last month.  I just added lots of new goodies to our Etsy shop – we’ve got some great bar and serving trays as well as some beautiful bundt pans in an assortment of colors.  We always do a lot of one tank trips during the summer months, and we promise to stop at every hole-in-the-wall Pennsylvanian antique shop and garage sale to bring you the best retro goodies.  Meanwhile, when we’re not polishing Shasta parts, we’ll keep listing new items.  I’ve got a bunch of darling swim suits and lots of Aloha shirts and dresses… and 1950s floral frocks… and 1960s psychedelic party dresses… oh goodness, what don’t we have?

We’ve started previewing items on our Instagram feed, so if you want first dibs on Pyrex and other goodies, find us over on Insta.  We’re really enjoying the community over there.

I can't even look at these without wanting cake.  Candy colored cake.

I can’t even look at these without wanting cake. Candy colored cake.

If you’re local, we’ll be back at the Allegheny Kiski Valley Historical Society FleaTique on July 20th at Tour-Ed Mine in Tarentum, PA – let’s hope it’ll be less muddy this time around.  See you there!

Retro Recipes: Sour Milk Pancakes

Mmmm... Sour Milk.

Mmmm… Sour Milk.

I love getting new recipes – who doesn’t?  Sometimes the best new recipes are old recipes.  It seems that whenever I pick up a recipe box or vintage cookbook, there is one page that is dog-eared and covered with flour – you can tell that the cook had come back to that one again and again.  In my last Retro Recipes post I featured ‘White Sauce’, which was certainly the go-to recipe from that collection!

This time I want to feature what appears to be another go-to recipe, Sour Milk Pancakes.  Recently we were at an older home, pawing through the cupboards, and found two recipe cards taped to the inside of the cupboard door – Sour Milk Pancakes and Biscuits Supreme.  I already have a go-to biscuit recipe for Cat Head Biscuits, rumored to be the kind preferred by Elvis.  You guessed it, they’re the size of a cat’s head.  So, Sour Milk Pancakes it is!  There’s nothing like breakfast for dinner.

Go-to recipes are used frequently for a reason – usually, it’s because they are easy!  This recipe is for a super easy buttermilk batter, and they didn’t bother to include any more instructions than that.  Thankfully, I know how to make pancakes.  The batter was really thick and didn’t spread in the hot pan, so these were a bit oddly shaped – but they still turned out to be pretty delicious!  I don’t usually use buttermilk in my pancakes, but these were good.  I can see why they got taped to the inside of the cupboard door.

A little misshapen - but tasty!

A little misshapen – but tasty!

Try them yourself and taste the past!  If I made them again, I would add blueberries.  And re-name them Buttermilk Pancakes.  It just sounds better, don’t you think?

 

Sour Milk Pancakes

Batter: –

1 t. baking soda
2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs, beaten
1 t. sugar, pinch of salt
2 cups sifted flour
1 T. melted butter
1 ttt. baking powder. *

Dissolve soda in buttermilk.  Stir in eggs.  Add sugar and salt.  Beat in flour a little at atime.  Add butter and baking powder.

*I believe they meant 1 teaspoon?  A mystery.  A delicious mystery.

It Hasta Be Shasta

The excitement on my face is real.

The excitement on my face is real.

We want to take a moment to talk about our other project – we’re restoring our 1972 Shasta 1400 this summer, and blogging about it here.  We’re really enjoying it, and are looking forward to a long summer on the farm full of nuts and bolts and butyl tape.  If you’re into that sort of thing, check it out!  Meanwhile, we’ll keep posting items to the shop.  Coming up – an assortment of barware and summer clothing.

Newly Listed – Typewriters and Kitchenware

typewriters

Great colors!

We’ve been busy listing things in the shop this past week – check out these beautiful typewriters!  We also posted a lot of lovely pink and aqua kitchenware. We are taking a vacation from the shop for the next week – we’ll be out working on our 1972 Shasta 1400 travel trailer. You can still check out in our Etsy shop but our next shipping date will be June 3.  If you’re interested in the Shasta restoration, check out our other blog!

Flea Market Season is Here!

Obligatory selfie!

Obligatory selfie!

We had a great time at the Flea-Tique yesterday – we met lots of friendly people, sold some furniture, and hardly got sunburned at all!  We’ll be back to posting some great  in our shop soon – we’re still unpacking and repacking our goodies from the flea.  Coming up in the Etsy shop we’ll have typewriters, aqua and pink kitchen items, curtains, bathing suits, sunglasses, and eyeglass frames – everything you need for summer and more!

Today’s Treasures: All Smalls!

Bright and beautiful!

Colorful plastics galore!

Another weekend, another collection of items.  We picked up a ton of smalls – it was a vintage barware and tray sort of weekend here in the Steel City!  We’ll be bringing these trays to the shop soon – including a fantastic 1970s Disney Orangebird Florida serving tray.  We also picked up some tea towels, costume jewelry, toys (Arlo loves finding GoBots!), a great 1970s ice bucket, some ashtrays, hats, and a Formica cutting board shaped like a pig!  We love blow mold holiday figures, so we’ll be keeping the cheerful Halloween ghost.  Keep an eye out as we get new items in the shop, and as always convo us if we post a picture of something you’re interested in!