Birdie Tales and some treasures

I know that you all remember the fun we had a few weeks ago when our Target birdies flew the coop and took a holiday? Well, I thought I would share a "behind the scenes" story about my birdie holiday.

After I had gotten my story line all straight in my head, I asked my boss if she could lend me a couple of flamingos for my photo shoot. She's got quite a collection. She was more than happy to lend me one of her several sets of salt & pepper shakers. During my photo shoot of the tipsy bird drinking the margarita scene, a horrible accident occurred and one of the flamingo's broke it's neck! And no, I wasn't drinking the margarita! I glued it back together for the shoot, but then I had a broken salt shaker that wasn't mine. So I went to eBay and found another set exactly like the broken one. The day after I had made my purchase through eBay, I got a notice that my entire payment was being refunded. I got an e-mail from the seller (who sells salt & pepper shakers) that when she went to get the flamingos, the whole shelf fell down and the flamingos and all the other sets on that shelf smashed to bits. I couldn't believe it! Luckily, I found another set on eBay and purchased it and held my breath until it arrived and I got it back safely in the hands of my boss. Then I "confessed" what had happened and we got a big laugh about the poor broken flamingos. So I kept the old ones for future tablescapes.

In the meantime, the eBay seller sent me these (at no cost) to replace the ones that got broken. I seem to be unintentionally "collecting" bird salt & peppers! At first I thought these looked like swans - but upon further inspection, I'm pretty sure that they're ducks with their tail feathers all a fluffed! What do you think? Guess I'll have to be on the lookout for some penguins or something.


Several of you asked about my daisy tablecloth. I honestly don't remember where I got it -- I'm thinking it was Garden Ridge. The label on it says "Fashion Industries; 940 Harlow Avenue; Griffin, Ga 30223" It also has a copyright of 1999 by Fashion Industries - so I guess that's about how old it is.

Also, a number of you commented on the coasters with the spoon rests. This picture is another set that I also purchased through eBay -- a little different style - these are not exactly like my grandmother's, but I'll be using them the same way. Also this was a set of 10. I would like to find at least another two like the ones in my post. I took them to a local thrift/antique store and they said that they had seen several sets like that. Although they didn't have any right now - so if you can download a copy of either set, maybe you can get someone at a local antique store near you to keep a lookout for you. Good luck in you search - I'd love to hear if you find any!

I have a collection of old skeleton keys hanging in my dining area and I found this wooden picture with a key in it while I was at the thrift shop.

This was a tray I found at Goodwill this weekend - It's not really anything special, but I liked the red geraniums on it.

And since I also have a thing for bees - can you see the two bees buzzing around the geraniums. Too cute to leave at Goodwill.

At Easter, I realized that I didn't have any official bread trays. I found this one at Goodwill. Now I bet that if you got married in the 70's, you got at least one bread tray like this one -- I did too -- but somewhere in a move or something, mine escaped. So it was fun to find another one.

This one is a little more formal - silver plated. Some of the plating has worn off and it looks like copper underneath, but with my little linen liner, it's not noticeable. This reminds me of one my mother had.

I saw these steak knives in Marshall's. I know that several of you have raved about them and Susan from Between Naps On the Porch did a post on them, so I got me a set - they only had two.


Lastly, at Goodwill I found a book about Jackie Kennedy written in 2004 that I'm reading. She certainly led a tragic life, but always displayed elegance and dignity -- I admired the way she raised her children.

I found a few other treasures that will be showing up in future tablescapes - hope that you had a treasure filled weekend as well.

See ya!