An interview about collecting Frankoma and other vintage decorative pottery with Molly Ives Brower, aka The Vintage Reader. How and why did you start collecting Frankoma pottery? Was it, at first, just part of decorating the house? When I was in high school I started going to the Tulsa Flea Market with my mother every [...]

When I stumbled upon Mimi and her Retro Weight Watchers Experiment, I couldn’t take my eyes away… I wanted to; but I couldn’t. *wink* You know what they say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” so I decided to join Mimi — in an interview. When did you begin collecting Weight Watchers publications? A [...]

I was looking for information to properly date this vintage Pillsbury cookbook so I could accurately list it on eBay and I found this fabulous guide to Pillsbury cookbooks and advertising pieces — I just had to share it!

There are a lot of vintage shaker sets with chef designs, but I’ve never seen these clear glass ones with the chef’s face printed on them in black. Cute little salt and peppers — I wonder if they might even have been from a restaurant? As they were for sale in an antique shop (and [...]

While interviewing the charming and delightful artisan behind I Sew Cute and As Luck Would Have It, I naturally had to ask her if she was a collector too… Someone told me that if you have three of anything, then you have a collection. If that’s true, then I have dozens of collections! I guess [...]

At an estate sale on Friday I grabbed this book, thinking it would have some interesting recipes and tips for my vintage home ec blog. It was $5, which I’ll admit is a bit more than I typically pay for a book I know nothing about… Oddly, there was no table of contents to assist [...]

Pick: That was such a fun auction we went to the other night! Lots of variety, friendly crowd, and it moved along quickly too. My favorite thing was the treasure we got, almost a piece of your family heritage! Grin: I started my inspection of the items going up for auction at the far end [...]

Seventy years ago — long before Itchy & Scratchy appeared on the Krusty the Clown Show on The Simpsons — there was Tom & Jerry. The series of animated theatrical shorts was created for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Hanna and Barbera. William Hanna and Joseph Barbera ultimately wrote and directed one hundred and fourteen Tom and Jerry [...]

First, there’s that curious name: Fiesta “go alongs.” (Or is it “go with”? I’ve seen that tag used in eBay item descriptions.) What, exactly, does either phrase mean? The long-acknowledged Fiesta experts, Bob & Sharon Huxford, describe go alongs in their book,  Collector’s Encyclopedia of Fiesta (10th ed. 2005). Simply, these collectibles were “…made by [...]

If you ask yourself why you actually like coffee do you have a reason? Sometimes I think it isn’t the coffee that I really like so much as the social side of coffee drinking and coffee making. Starting with the beans and how you grind them, then to the type of coffee maker or the [...]

My mom found this old pickle cookie cutter and gave it to me for Christmas this year — though first, in the confusion of gift opening, my middle child got it, opened it, and was very confused. (I guess she was the pickle in the middle? lol) My mom found the cookie cutter out antiquing [...]

My parents (of No Egrets Antiques — also found at both iCollect247 and eBay) were just featured in an article on kitchen design in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel! The article, Making Kitchens Special by Jan Uebelherr, featured my parents’ unique kitchen island — an antique woodworker’s work bench. Here’s the part about them: ‘Sold,’ to [...]

Discover how dishes from the 1930s became a totally hot collection….

You’re likely going to think I’m insane with the number of cookie cutter posts I’m about to make — and by that, I mean posts about vintage cookie cutters, not posts that are all the same lol. (I’ll try to spread the posts out a bit, so it doesn’t look like “the cookie cutter site,” [...]

A pretty pair of vintage glassware spotted at the thrift store. I believe the sweet pink flowers with unusual black leaves and stems was hand-painted onto clear glass creamer and handled sugar bowl at Fran Taylor’s Gay Fad Studios (located first in Detroit, Michigan, later in Lancaster, Ohio). Neither glass piece was marked, so I [...]

Since I already have a topless vintage cookie jar (I use it to hold my vintage rolling pins and store it, along with other vintage kitchen collectibles, above my kitchen cupboards), I couldn’t justify purchasing this cookie jar without a lid when I spotted it Saturday at a thrift store — no matter how the [...]

I know some collectors will find this inherently evil, but I like to use my collectibles. In fact, one of my favorite things about the holidays is using my vintage glassware. One of our family traditions is to stay home with the kids on New Year’s Eve and have a party. A geeky party, filled [...]

I used to have cookie cutters that belonged to my Grandmother. I remember a gingerbread man. It was aluminum, a dull silver colour. The shape was filled in, not like the modern ones that are open on top. The old gingerbread man was wearing a pointy hat. That’s about all I can really, clearly remember [...]

It’s not always easy for me to accept altering antique and vintage items, but sometimes it’s a matter of salvaging things the best you can, breathing new life into them so that they are appreciated once again. When I spotted these vintage fork easels, I had to say I thought it was a beautiful way [...]

Many people think of aprons as charming relics from our past, or as evidence of enforced domesticity; but the truth is, aprons have a practical role in modern lives too. Grandma always said you should be proud of your work around the house; you should be proud to take care of your home and family, [...]