Vintage Carnival Chalkware

Last month I went to an antique show and ran across a lady who was selling quite a few pieces of vintage chalkware that were borderline tacky, but I was oddly drawn to them. She had dogs, cats, horses, you name it. And sizable too. Each about 10 inches tall.

After walking around the entire show (huge, huge show) and not being able to get those chalkware statues out of my mind, I had decided that I had to have one of them. So I stopped back at her booth.

And she was gone! Everything packed up! Lady nowhere to be found!

I was kicking myself all the way home.

Flash forward to last weekend when some family members and I were rifling through some of my sister's antique items she had stored in a spare bedroom. And what did I find, but this borderline tacky chalkware figurine. In the exact same style as the ones at the antique show.

My niece and I thought it was very cool. Others in my family didn't share our delight. The word crazy may have been tossed around. I think I heard ugly also (gasp)!


The colors are so very vibrant on it.


And it has glitter on the wings, flowers and nest.


My niece told me it was a piece of carnival chalkware, so when I came home I Googled the heck out of that term.


And hello, she was right!


They were given away as prizes at carnival games in the early to mid 1900's.


They were fazed out when cheap stuffed animals become easily mass produced.


From this eBay article it would appear that the glitter on it and the fact that it is painted on only the front (probably by airbrush) would date it to the 1930's or 1940's.


It's currently nesting in my basket on the kitchen dining table until I can find a better place for it.

And don't ask my husband where "a better place" would be. He doesn't covet all things old and chippy like I do!


If you are interested in seeing more carnival chalkware pieces check out ussiwojima's photostream on flickr HERE. He has some great pieces.

BTW, this is my 200th post. Never knew I had so much to say!

Linking to Debra at Common Ground's Vintage Inspiration Friday.

Vintage Enamel Top Table - Part 2 (Or Mr. Chippy Gets A Makeover)

If you missed installment number one of Mr. Chippy you can read about him HERE.

This is what he started as


and what he looks like now.


I solved the excessive chippy, rusty problem by unscrewing the enamel top and turning it around 180 degrees.


I know that doesn't really solve the problem, but it is a heck of a lot less noticeable now and I can put the bad spot against a wall.


Using soap and water and spray cleaners really didn't even touch the embedded black stuff on the top, so I tried Bar Keepers Friend and it got the majority of the 100 years of dirt off of it.


If you've never used it, Bar Keepers Friend is like Comet Cleanser except not gritty and it doesn't scratch. I originally bought it to keep my fancy cookware looking shiny, but I am finding more and more places to use it.


This is one of my favorite kitchen towels, although I never actually use it for dishes. Don't we all have just-for-look towels? It's just not me is it?




One of my favorite mixing bowls with my vintage egg beater.


You didn't think I was actually mixing something up in here, did you? Nope, just for looks.


I cleaned the paint off the original handle with a wire brush on my husband's bench grinder. It's that machine with all the stiff twirling metal wires that looks like it could take your fingers off if you slipped.


And the paint sort of fell off the label while I was taking it off the table. Then I just polished it up with the Bar Keepers Friend.


The color used was Benjamin Moore's Azores, but mixed at Home Depot in their semi-gloss Behr paint. I have nothing against Benjamin Moore paint, I just happened to be at Home Depot that day.


Some of my photos make it look a little like 1980's country blue, but it is actually a turquoise/blue/green/gray color. The chip is probably the closest to the true color that I can get.



BEFORE


AFTER

Much better!

I am linking with My Romantic Home 's Show and Tell Friday French Country Cottage's Feathered Nest Friday and Between Naps On The Porch 's Metamorphosis Monday.

Vintage Enamel Top Table

I want to thank each of you who commented on my last post or sent me emails. I really, really appreciate you thinking of me. It's been a hard couple of weeks, but I think I'm ready to get back to some of my normal routines now. Which include blogging of course.

So meet Mr. Chippy! Full name would be Mr. Rust E. Chippy.


I brought this table home from my sister's house.


It had originally been in my Mom's basement for years and years and years. OK, a really long time.

And when we were cleaning out my Mom's house, my sister took it to her house.


Where it sat in her garage for a few more years.


We did pull it out for one of my sister's famous 4th Of July parties, so we could put food on it (with a vintage tablecloth between the dirt and the food of course), but in general it had just been hanging out in her garage.


I had never noticed this cool metal label on it before - Sno-White.


Sounds so sterile. So clean. So white.

I attempted to clean the dirt off the top, but there's still no sno-whiteness about this table.


A dingy white at best.


These type of tables are called baking tables I think. They are just the right height to stand at to roll out some pie dough or cut out Christmas cookies. But too small to be used as a kitchen dining table.

If someone out there knows more about these than I do (everyone raise their hand), let me know what you know.

By Googling the company on the label, I did find that the Kompass & Stoll Company operated from 1908-1927, so this table could be going on 100 years old.

Since I didn't want to do a post with 40 photos (yawn), I'll show you what I have done to Mr. Chippy on my next post. Or you could just wait and read both posts together, but then you wouldn't be reading this now, so....

Celebration of A Life

If you were to ask me why I started blogging the number one answer would be because of my sister, Ruth. She was a serious antique collector and was instrumental in my love of antiques and all things vintage.


She had been seriously ill for the last few years and pretty much staying at home all the time. And my starting the blog was a way for me to share with her and the world what I was buying, what I was collecting and what I was doing to my house. And she loved it.


She also loved to visit the blogs on my sidebar and see what those people were up to. She absolutely loved That Old House and Between Naps On The Porch to name a few.


My sister died early last week after a rapid decline in her illness. Her memorial service is today.

I will be taking a few days off to spend some time with family and try to get some normalcy back in my life which feels very off kilter right now.


You know, I struggled with whether to share this with the blogging world or not. We all have our own issues and it's hard to know how much to put out there.

I felt that if I didn't say anything, then I was hiding something from you. And if I said something, then I was being a Debbie Downer. So anyhow, I decided to be authentic and let my Debbie Downer side shine through.

I'll see you in a few days.


BTW, the photos are of a small part of my sister's oil lamp collection. Believe me, she has more. She was also a huge collector of cheese boxes and chairs.

Yellow and Blue Spring Table Decor

On Sunday it was a little over 50 degrees in Ohio and I got a bad case of Spring fever. Way too early to get Spring fever, but it's been a hard winter.


BTW, every time I say "hard winter" my mind flashes to Little House On The Prairie. Yes Charles, the barn is under ten feet of snow, it's been a hard winter!

Anywho, I changed out my winter table top in the dining room


for a yellow and blue Spring look.


I threw my vegetable tureen into a metal basket


filled with some shredded sheet music.




And placed a blue and white platter


against a stone vase from Hobby Lobby (on extreme clearance two years ago) that I filled with some yellow flowers.


No deer were harmed in the making of this table top. These are resin antler Christmas ornaments I found at Kohl's this year.






Head on over to Marty's Table Top Tuesday party at a Stroll Thru Life for some more table top and vignette inspiration.