I am so thankful for a crafty husband!!! We admired and talked about the vintage cardboard fireplace kits..
.
How could we get ourselves one of those - well, when the husband is crafty, all is not lost, we now have our own vintage style fireplace!
I am so excited to share this - he did a beautiful job on it and it looks so great surrounded with vintage Christmas!!! He made it to fit perfectly around our little display shelf.
It took him about a week to complete it, I can tell you it was a very stressful project, at one time he was about ready to give up, he just couldn't get the facade figured out. He started with cardboard boxes but that was quickly changed - it's constructed with a light metal/wood frame covered with thin wood panelling. His first idea for the facade was brick wrapping paper - but two things going against that, it's too flimsy and you can't find that paper anymore!! His next idea was brick design panelling - no good either - too expensive! His next idea was with stencils made first from wood, then cardboard with spray paint on the panel but that was no good at all - it looked terrible with the paint getting under the stencils. This is about where he thought his great idea was all for nothing - he wondered how he had got himself into this mess!! Finally, his brainwave was to use painters tape and after a couple of coats of white background, laid out the entire brick pattern by hand and then 2-3 coats of red brick paint - removed the tape and we had a fireplace! We were amazed, it looked so good!! It's totally modular so it can easily be disassembled and stored until next year. He mounted two low wattage lights in the mantle section to give a great effect of the display case below. His only regret is that he didn't make one for our children when Santa needed to get down that chimney, but we'll have this forever, so hopefully, some grandchildren will get the thrill of waiting for Santa to arrive from this magical fireplace!!
I just love the way these things look on top - here they are from left to right!
I am so happy to finally have a real Shiny Brites box!!
We bought this big Santa blow mold at a yard sale this summer, we plugged it in, poor Santa looked like a monster, he had been painted over, he was so creepy. He won't ever be plugged in but he looks great here! This old truck belonged to Dad, this is my first year for that, I love it!!
The knee hugger music box tree is probably my favourite thrifted item from last year, who cares that the music box doesn't work! I put some little red lights on it this year which adds some nice Christmas red. This year I have a real box of Gurley candles too - which I have been wanting for a while too. Isn't there always something we need to add to our collection?
I just put up my little memory tree this morning, it is all decorations that belonged to my mother and grandmother. The corner shelf is all vintage as well. I used to have all primitive type decorations, I've switched everything over to red and green - I like this so much better!
I think I'm way ahead on decorating, it must be because of the all the early snow we've had - Christmas is coming!! I took this on Thursday, the trees have been laden with snow all week!
We went on a little road trip on Saturday, I was hoping to find more than I did - like a different Christmas blow mold but I did come home with a Halloween one which I paid a whopping $1 for - it's a TPI blowmold from 1989.
My husband got ahead of me at Value Village, he makes his circle of the store way faster than me, he comes back and asks if I saw that Santa jug - no, I didn't even get to that section yet - so, he went back - what a great find - I have a few cups but no pitcher. I had this posted on Instagram, I knew once I posted it on there someone would know what it was, two other people shared their pitchers which were the same - apparently it's a Josef!!
I don't really think people have been donating very much at the thrifts in the line of vintage Christmas, maybe it's too early yet - I was at three shops yesterday, I bought nothing. I did buy a box of old ornaments last week, for fellow Canadians, the Eaton's tag is still on them, didn't they have the best Christmas displays and merchandise?
I've been on the lookout for Ideals books, they have the greatest pictures in them for SMASHing, especially the Christmas ones. I was happy to find "The Most Beautiful Tree in the World" but I should have checked it more carefully, two pages are missing, so that'll be going by way of the SMASH book. I always like to read a Christmas book at this time of the year, so this Awesome book will be the one!!
Here's a SMASH page where I used the Ideals book, it's the poem and picture on the right. The picture on the left I took last week, after the big snowstorm!!
It's time to link up with Thriftasaurus, Thrifter Share and Vintage Bliss Tuesdays. My apologies to anyone that follows my blog and Instagram, I know some of this is a repeat, oh well....
I always check out the vintage games, just like everything else, there doesn't seem to be as many around as when we first starting buying games. But, the other day I scored this old Monopoly at the Salvation Army for $2.50 - I really only wanted it for the pieces as we had no wooden ones. It made me want to learn more..
I don't know much about identifying games but I have learned that the method used for Monopoly is the patent year and number - the patent on this game was Canada 1936.
The board isn't in the best of shape and it's standard, it looks like any other Monopoly game.
The Chance and Community Chest cards are quite plain. The mustached tycoon we see on the cards now was introduced in 1936, he used to be called Uncle Pennybags - in 1999, Parker Brothers changed his name to Mr. Monopoly.
I noticed that the property cards for the two blue groups are different shades of blue than they are now, the rest are all the same though.
The money hasn't changed much either..
All of the pieces are wooden, that's why I wanted the game to begin with - I think the white milk bottle doesn't belong with this set and there is extra dice, the wooden dice belonged with this game but apparently, one is missing.
Monopoly was such a great game - have you played lately?
Just a few Monopoly facts to finish off this post...
Monopoly debuted in 1933.
Wooden tokens first showed up in 1936 when demand for Monopoly grew so fast that Parker Brothers couldn't keep up with the production of the metal tokens, and again during WWII, after a ban on the use of non essential metals was imposed.
The six original metal tokens were iron, cannon, thimble, ship, shoe and top hat. At one time the tokens had holes in them, you could buy a bracelet at Woolworth's and wear your tokens!
$15,140 - total amount of money in a standard Monopoly game
The length of the longest Monopoly game was 1, 680 hours (lasting over 70 day) Oh, my!!!
I did some reading on Monopoly in my book "Timeless Toys" - I haven't had it out for a while, I need to go through it again...
I really feel like there will be more blog posts from here on in until Christmas - vintage Christmas is something I love to look at and buy, although, I really shouldn't be buying much. I was looking through my new bin of things that I've collected up since last January - it's full - I see more purging ahead of stuff from the other bins!!!
Saturday we went down the road to this little town that has four shops, all owned by the same people. Two are nice, with displays that you can look at, and they have heat!! The other two is where it's fun, but if you could only get to it all. There's so much stuff piled up in boxes, some of it you couldn't even dream of reaching it - I just bet there's a box in there full of good vintage Christmas! I was there in the summer and it seemed to be better this time but still in disarray!!! The other building had no lights, we would have been all set if we had taken a flashlight, but we were able to dig this out...
Blowmolds! The deer aren't Christmas but I'll tie a bow on them and they'll look like Christmas!!! I think they're really cute and something different about them - they have stakes - how handy!!
This little white electric tree took my eye, not that I needed it but I have the bigger green tree and have been wanting a little white one, this should do until I find a better one! It needs a cord replacement and I had to put some of my own lights in it - I think someone drilled new holes in it as the old lights are stuck in there for life!!
As soon as I walked in the door, I spotted this Santa candle, I turned it over, a Gurley _ I was happy!! He's seen better days, I cleaned him up a bit but I think this is as good as he's going to get. He's a good size one, about 9 inches tall. It's a fun thing to find because I couldn't find any for the longest time and now I actually have a collection!!!
Might as well stay with the Christmas theme - a couple more ornament hanger boxes, different ones for me!
My husband picked up a couple of things for the game room...actually, when I saw these, I thought these cards might be neat for SMASHing! The game is from 1963.
We thought this was a unique set of cards and like new!
This cardboard bunny advertised Maple Leaf Tendersweet Ham, he was only $1, there were a bunch of them there, I thought he'd be cute for Easter. He's big too, about 17 inches.
Last week the local library was having a used book sale, fill a bag for $1 - I bought a few Ideals books for SMASHing which I didn't were worthy of a picture but anything Jim Morrison is worth a picture..
It's a soft cover book from 1991, so not that old but full of great old pics of Jim and his band, The Doors - love The Doors!!!
I haven't been buying any children's books, except for vintage Christmas and Eloise Wilkin which I haven't seen in ages but what the heck, I was paying only a few cents and this book was just so cute, it's falling apart so it might be heading to the SMASHbook too!! A little girl named Gail was given the book in 1953.
Nothing very big but pleased with our finds and not much money was spent!!
I even saw a piece of Pyrex that was different for me but I held back, I really don't need any more!!
Mid afternoon we finally stopped to eat - we had a lovely meal and just in case you're hungry right now, take a look at this coconut cream pie, we brought a piece home to share, it could be the very best piece of coconut cream pie I've ever had!!!! Drooling??? Hah!!
.jpg)
.jpg)
