It's A Poodle Thang

My mom was a "knick knack" collector. Salt and pepper shakers were her favorites. These were arranged carefully on the "knick knack shelf" in the living room and dusted weekly. I remember coming home from school to my mother listening to Paul Harvey on the radio and dusting her knick knacks. Mom was a bit obsessive about those knick knacks. Her name, by the way, is Pat. Does that make her a Knick Knack Patty Whack?

When Mom switched from the night to day nursing shift she must have had trouble finding time to dust the knick knacks so she packed the salt and pepper shakers up in boxes and scattered the remaining knick knacks around the house. This was also around the time she started taking a ceramics class, so the knick knack shelf now held her own hand painted creations. She specialized in those big-eyed elf like pieces that you can paint up to look like your own kid. You pick from molds featuring the elf dressed up for all sorts of sports and activities. My poor brothers had a room lined with elfin football players, dirt bike riders, tennis and hockey champs. That was before the days of Title IX so there weren't any sporty girl elves, luckily for my sister and I.

Anyhow, my parents moved out of their home into a condo when my oldest daughter was going into college. My mother unearthed a few of the old knick knacks during the move, and passed along two prized porcelain poodles to my daughter. Suprisingly, my daughter grew to love these knick knacks, so like any good mother, I began to pick up vintage poodles for her in my thrift store and yard sale forays. She's now out of college and living in an apartment in Boston. Her poodle collection outgrew the top of her dresser and she now has her very own knick knack shelf. She denies obsessively dusting her knick knacks, however, but time will tell.

Her TwentySomething friends find her poodle collection quite a curiosity and have joined in with adding to it--she even sometimes gets randomly "poodled". Recently, a woman she briefly met through a mutual friend surprised her with a vintage poodle mailed all the way from California. Just a couple of weeks ago, I also "poodled" her--this time with a framed print entitled "Cheezy Poodle" from Etsy seller ColourShoppe Vintage:http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=17524559




So last week, at the yard sale where I lucked upon the box of authentic trailer trash, I also bought someone's entire small, yet very diverse cheezy poodle collection. Just look at these darlings. Each more expressive than the next. No canine can cop an attitude like a poodle.

Bowlful of Cherries

I'm excited. I got featured in an Etsy Treasury. It was created by AngryKitty and it's called Very Cherry--a collection of cherry inspired vintage items. The vintage "Child with Cherry" print belongs to me. Check it out! http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=62323

I had to chuckle when I saw that my shop was featured in the "Very Cherry" Treasury, because we just returned from a vacation that included driving up the coast of Lake Michigan. Unbeknownst to me when we first planned this trip was that the Grand Traverse County of Michigan is like the Cherry Capitol of the US. And we arrived right in the midst of harvest season, so it was just an amazing cherryfest. You couldn't drive a quarter mile without coming upon a sign for "fresh washed sweet cherries". Of course, we had to stop. We spent seven hours in the car nibbling on juicy, sweet, fresh picked cherries. Beats Metamucil any day.



We also indulged ourselves with a visit to a wonderful little tourist trap, "The Cherry Hut". It's a restaurant in Beulah, Michigan that's been around since the 1920s and is reported to have the best cherry pie anywhere. I looooove cherry pie, so this was a mandatory stop.



The building itself was a bit disappointing, no original charm or character, having been remodeled numerous times to efficiently handle the big crowds the place attracts. But the food was excellent--hand sliced roasted turkey sandwiches for the less adventurous and cherry hamburgers, cherry hot dogs, or cherry chicken salad for the serious cherryphiles. And the cherry pie----heavenly. It was so good, in fact, that we bought an additional full pie to take with us. That got a little tricky when we got to Mackinac Island where arrival is by ferry and only horses and bikes are allowed on the island. But we carefully guarded out brown paper sack containing the coveted pie and enjoyed a piece every night of our stay.

Goldilock's Chair

I think I found Goldilock's chair. It looks like the Bears fixed it up since her fateful visit, though. The seat has been sewn back on. Actually, I stumbled upon this little darling in my local thrift store. It's got that "in situ", frozen in time look that I just love. It's probably a much older chair that was "redone" in the 40s, based on the paint color and the barkcloth fabric.

I can just see this in the Bears' cottage. Sitting in the corner, with rays of sunshine pouring in through the little leaded windows.

You know, I learned very early in life that blondes really do have more fun. I spent half my childhood wandering through woods and making little houses out of sticks and stones I'd gathered. Why didn't I ever stumble upon an adorable, fully furnished cottage where I could sit in miniature furniture, snack of out tea set size bowls and snooze on a just right bed? Because I was a brunette? Was it the lack of golden locks that made the difference?

I'll be listing this on my etsy site. I've also got Goldilock's blanket and flower vase to go along with it!

Trailer Trash

On the way to dropping my daughter off at camp this morning, I passed a yard sale. "There's a yard sale", my nine year old said. "I guess you'll want to stop on your way back."

So, of course, I did. Amongst other treasures, I came across a box marked "cabinet hardware". Knobs, backplates, hinges, etc. There was something unusual yet highly appealing about this hardware so I grabbed the box added it to my stash and headed to pay.

"Do you know anything about this hardware?", I asked the person collecting money. "Well, not much", she said. "It came out of my son's trailer. He's remodeling". Oooooh, I thought. Cabinet hardware from a trailer? "It's pretty old", she added, "the trailer was probably from the 50's or so. That's why it's so cheap". 50's trailer??? Music to my ears.

This stuff is so cool. Definite 50's design: streamlined, almost sputnik. Looks like something that belongs in an automobile rather than a kitchen. Well, that would make sense for a trailer, wouldn't it? I'm going tosort it out and list some on my Etsy site. If someone cleans this stuff up it would be gorgeous. Or perhaps can upcycle it into something else or use it for altered art.


One of my favorite movies is "The Long, Long Trailer" featuring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. They're not Ricky and Lucy Ricardo, but are instead are a newlywed couple traveling the country and living in a trailer. Lucy, being Lucy, develops a fondness for collecting rocks along the way. Hubby isn't too happy about this collection, so she starts hiding the increasingly larger and larger boulders in the cabinets around the trailer. Well, you can figure out what happens with that.

Kind of reminds me when my DH opens the trunk of my car after I've had a spectacularly great haul thrifting or yard saleing . . . I have a lot of 'splaining to do.

Frozen In Time

Walking through the doors of Caruso's Candy Kitchen in Dowagiac, Michigan was about as close to stepping back in time as I have ever been. DH, DD and I left from a few days in Chicago earlier in the morning, and were on our way up the Lake Michigan coast to Mackinac Island. When I spotted a write up of this old fashioned soda fountain in a travel guide, I convinced DH that we should stop there for a mid-afternoon snack as it would be "right on the way".

Well, it was closer to a 60+ round trip OUT of the way, but it was worth every mile. Caruso's has been owned by the same family since Antonio and Emilia purchased the old Sorti's Chicago Candy Kitchen in 1922. In 1929, they "remodeled", keeping only the original Italian marble soda fountain, the mirrored and stained glass back bars and the miniature children's bent iron ice cream parlor tables and chairs. In the 1940's the Caruso's purchased an industrial beater to mix the creme fillings for the hand dipped chocolates. That was the last major piece of equipment purchased for the store. In the 1960s the business was turned over to the Caruso children, and his great grandaughters now operate the business.

We grabbed a stool (yes, they swiveled!) and quickly became overwhelmed with the decisions in front of us. The ice cream menu contained at least 30 different concoctions, each sounding better than the last. Nine year old DD decidedly quickly that she would like a raspberry float, followed by DH's choice of a classic banana split and finally, after much agonizing, I chose a vanilla sundae with chocolate sauce, crushed cherries, chopped nuts and whipped cream. As pretty as it looked, it tasted even better. The frozen treats were delicious, but the experience of sitting at that marble fountain, looking out at the little Mayberry-esque town and listening to the chatter of locals as they shared lunch in the booths Angelos built himself 80 years before was priceless.

Welcome to My Blog!

Welcome to Elm Street Vintage, my new blog and summer project. I'm Mary, I live in New England and have had a love of vintage objects, architecture, books--you name it, if it's vintage I love it--all my life. I think the roots of my vintage obsession go back to the hours I spent exploring my grandmother's basement, which was full of old family treasures and books.

So now I'm a grown up middle aged girl who is still entranced by the magic world of vintage. Over the years--in between raising a family, getting a bunch of degrees and holding a full time day job--I've had a space in an antique co-op, and later owned a small shabby chic vintage furnishing/accessories shop. My latest passion is running an on-line Etsy vintage shop, called Elm Street Vintage http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7359613. The name comes from my love of everyday vintage.

In my hometown, Elm Street was the main shopping venue, graced with wide sidewalks and awnings outside every shop. I remember the demure women's dress shops, the classic men's clothier, J.J. Newberry's 5&10 (with the great lunch counter), the stationery store, millinery, shoe stores, smoke shops and more. This is where people came every day, to get the items they needed for their every day lives. While most of the buildings still stand, they're pretty much empty now.

When I travel, I love to seek out the Elm Streets of this country. And my second passion, next to vintage, is photography. When I'm lucky, I can find a spot that has been more or less untouched by time. I love to capture these spots on film. This blog is inspired by these spots, as seen in the photo I took and used for the blog header. We traveled miles out of our way to find this fantastic old candy shop/soda fountain. Walking through the door was like stepping back in time. I've more great photos and some details that I'll share in my next post.

This blog will feature spots like this that I find tucked away in the middle of nowhere, or vintage treasures I've found in my travels, along with some of the everyday stuff of my life. Hope you enjoy the journey with me!