I’ve had a busy weekend and haven’t had much time to post here, but I hope to make up for that with a few AMAZING flea market finds from this morning!!

First, let me bore you with a few not-so-amazing finds:

Some glassware for my mom. Hen on nest was $5, milk glass basket was $3.50

Some bulbs, bobbins, and random sewing things for my new sewing machine.
Marked $5, I bargained to $3.

I’ve been looking for a cheap type case for a while, in which I can put little things and/or craft supplies. Who in bloody blazes got the urge to paint a type case blue?? I don’t know, but it allowed for the good price of $4. I’ll strip the outside edges and put on some stain and varnish and I’ll paint the inside white. I think it will look nice. I’ll shine up the handle too. It’ll be great!

Now on to my amazing finds of the day!!

I collect old scrapbooks, and was delighted to see the aqua-colored one for $1!! I didn’t even really look at the contents until I got home! I am so excited about it because I discovered that it follows a family trip around the US in 1959!

It’s filled with postcards, hotel stationery, menus and placemats, and what appears to be the writings of a young lady (I’m no pro at handwriting analysis!) who documents some of the events for us.

There is also some great vintage Disneyland stuff in there, like this brochure for the Sleeping Beauty Castle! It has a sweet fold-out poster in the middle.

Now if this wasn’t enough, I found ANOTHER amazing scrapbook at the same flea market on the same day!!! It has a plywood cover bound with leather lacing. It was marked at $15 and I only had $12 left in my pocket. I asked nicely (trying to contain my PURE JOY) and the seller accepted my offer easily.

This book is filled with amazing photographs of Girl Scout camp in 1937 and 1938!! There are tons of photos of swimming, sailing, cooking in tin cans and all that sort of fun! These are obviously older scouts, and it seems that they are campers themselves, but later in the book they serve as camp staff for younger children. The names of two camps are listed: Camp Alice Chester and Camp Wells. A Google search finds that Camp Alice Chester is still being used and is located in Milwaukee Wisconsin. I can’t seem to find anything about Camp Wells. Anyone have any details?

Here’s the first page of the book! This is the “cast of characters” for the rest of the book. Each of the young women seems to have a nickname, which is used throughout in the photo captions.

Stay tuned for more!! I plan on scanning both of these scrapbooks in their entirety to save them for posterity. The paper in them is typical cheap (acid-filled) paper for scrapbooks of the time, and it is terribly yellowed and getting crumbly. I’m not sure of the best way to proceed in preserving these books, so I’ll do a little research on that. In any event, I will definitely be scanning them to save them in digital form and I’ll share lots more here in upcoming posts!

I found a box of Polaroid 779 at a thrift store for 50 cents, and with the current state of Polaroid film being discontinued and soon to be gone, I decided I better pick it up! Expiration date was in ‘02, so it seemed to have potential, although I had no idea how that box had been stored. I loaded it up and took a few kitty shots this evening, and the results were unfavorable. It would help if the little darlings would stay still… I’m wondering if the camera’s rollers might not be a little loose. I just don’t think the film is old enough to be that dried out. I don’t know. It is interesting though. See the kitties in there?

Here’s Ziggy! He’s quiet, but sweet and playful. He’s always asking to be picked up, standing on his hind legs and leaning on me, stretching his front legs up as far as he can reach. If you don’t obey his wish, he’ll attack your feet or find some sort of trouble to get into.

Here’s Hayashi

We also call him Beepers because he has a rather high-pitched meow and he never shuts up.

Beepers is obsessed with food, and I’m in the kitchen, so that is why he allowed himself to be photographed. The first time the camera clicked and whirred as it ejected the film, he freaked out a little, but would not be put off from a potential feeding.

My husband and I went to a mall antique show yesterday, and it was a total bummer! Lots of empty spaces, lots of overpricing going on. We didn’t get anything worth noting there. Since we finished up that show quickly, we decided to hit some thrift stores on the way home. Had much more fun there!

First up, a few books: Turkish Cooking for a $1 and Learn Maltese, Why Not? for $1.99. I have a ginormous collection of foreign language-learning books. Many of them are unusual languages from places I’ll surely never go. I loved Learn Maltese, Why Not? because that title pretty much sums up that collection. As for Turkish Cooking, I recently went to a local Turkish restaurant and discovered that I loved the food very much. This cookbook has mouthwatering pictures. Perhaps I’ll even try to make something from it sometime.

Next, some random fabrics. It came up to about $4 for the whole lot. I loooove the floral. There’s about 2.5 yards of that. It is so pretty. Not sure what I’ll do with it yet.

I got another addition for my camera collection, a cute little Kodak Brownie. It was $8. A little overpriced in my opinion, but I got it anyway. It’s very clean. Probably was only used a few times.

I nabbed this cute deck of cards for 60 cents! I’m kind of sad that the entire deck is in the box. I wanted to use them for artistic endeavors, but because it’s a complete deck, I feel bad separating them. Also got the kitty hooks for $1.99. I think it’ll be great for necklaces. Not sure what its intended purpose is…

And finally, two pretty embroidered shirts for $6 each. They are brand new, and the original tags say $32, so that was a pretty good deal huh? The sleeves are 3/4 length, which I love! Also, the fabric is quite light, so they’ll be fine for spring and summer.

My thrifted Singer 600 Touch & Sew works! It did need a little help though. When I first tried it, thread was balling up on the underside of the fabric. I adjusted the bobbin tension and removed a huge wad of fuzz that was jamming up the thread. I also disassembled and reassembled the upper tension knob which was not working properly due to having been taken apart and put back together incorrectly. At least all the parts were still there. After I got it together right, it works swell. Inside, the machine looks like it has been oiled regularly, and it wasn’t too dirty in there.

Now I just have to read the manual and figure out how to use all the cute stitches the machine can make. There are two sliders affecting stitch type, and the width and length sliders, all of which have to be properly set for the stitch pattern to look right. Getting all these in sync seems to take a little practice! The sewing machine also came with several discs/cams that pop in the top of the machine to make additional cool stitches. Tons of different sewing feet were also included—half of which I have no clue how to use! There was a box labeled “Buttonhole Attachment”, but it was just filled with even more feet. I am so lucky though, because I have a buttonholer I picked up a long time ago, hoping that it would work on my first sewing machine, and it didn’t fit. It seems to be made for this machine! Now I have to come up with some great new sewing projects! yay!

I spent the night at my folks’ place eating junk food and watching TV. This afternoon we got the itch to go to the local thrift store and hunt for treasure, so we did! I got this heavy ol’ Singer sewing machine with manual and all these boxes of accessories taped onto it for $30. I have no idea if it’s in good working order or not. It looks like the case has been forcefully/carelessly opened at the bottom, so I’m sure someone has messed with it somehow. I decided to take a chance on it because I enjoy fixing things. I’ll give a full status report on it after I test it out and see what sort of help it needs. The Kodak Colorburst 100 camera with flash will be a nice addition to my instant camera collection for $3.50. In the fabric section, I found these 3.5yd cuts of heavy hound’s tooth fabric for $1 a yard. And, the pièce de résistance, the Salem Mini Sew’R for $1. I haven’t tested this out yet, but it seems to work similarly to a punch needle and holds its own small spool or bobbin. More details on this set to come as well. Just wanted to share my finds right away while I had a free moment!