A German Photo Album

For those who might be wondering, yes, you guessed it - I bought yet another vintage photo album at the auction last week. Bidding went quite high for it and I ended up paying $90 but the album is full of fabulous photos so I think it was worth it, based on what I have seen of vintage albums over the past few months.  The cover is nothing too exciting, a worn leather embossed floral design:

and is quite worn in spots

but the binding is still in good shape and there are lots of photos inside.    Some of the inside pages are damaged as well, as you can see from this photo of this lovely Fraulein in a hat, but I think that adds to the charm.

The guy beside me told me they must be German photos, because the men are wearing German army uniforms. I love this one especially, he told me soldiers were often photographed this way if one arm was shorter than the other - I think maybe he was kidding about that? Still, it's a neat photo, don't you think?

Sure enough, the back of this cabinet card confirms its Germanic origin and it turns out, most of the other photos in the album were also taken by German photographers.

Besides pictures of handsome soldiers - isn't this guy dreamy?  What is it about men in uniform??

- there are also beautiful ladies in fashionable outfits:

and kids in various poses. My favourite is this little guy, who looks quite alarmed to be having his photo taken!

The Danger of Auctions

The thing about auctions that makes them a little bit dangerous is that sometimes you can get caught up in the excitement of the moment and start bidding on something that you don't really need or want.  After the bidding is over and you find yourself the winner of the item in question, it's too late to change your mind.

Which is how I ended up with this collection of Elvis memorabilia even though I wouldn't call myself a big Elvis fan. Oh sure, I like his music well enough to survive 3 days of "all Elvis, all the time" for two years in a row now at the festival in Collingwood and yes, I wouldn't mind making the trip to Graceland one of these days, but the reality is I didn't really need this little collection of things.  But at the auction last week, I definitely got caught up and bid higher than I needed to and suddenly, I found myself the proud owner of the following:

(1) A "Blue Hawaii" record album from October 1961, featuring the Jordanaires:

(The amount of pancake makeup Elvis is wearing in the above photo simply astounds me!)

(2) A collector's edition of LIFE magazine from 1995, put out for what would have been his 60th birthday:

It's LIFE magazine, so you know it's got some great photos.

(3) A softcover book called "The Illustrated Elvis" from 1976, written just after he turned 40 and before his death.

(4) A tabloid style magazine entitled "Elvis - One Year Later" from 1978, which has a two sided poster ("Giant Centerfold!") stapled into the middle:

(5) And a booklet of photos that was once the insert in a record album, full of great (a.k.a. cheesy) photos of Elvis in some of those crazy white pantsuits, oops, I mean costumes, that I know will be very entertaining to share with my fellow Elvis fans next year in Collingwood.

I did resist bidding on the Jailhouse Rock collector plate at the auction, although it turns out I could have had it for only $5.

Nevertheless, I am enjoying looking through these things today, on the 34th anniversary of the day he died. 

Tired Today

Today I'm really feeling the effects of my busy weekend of making jewellery and cleaning my bead and art supply stash.  Combine all that hard work with the fact that I had trouble sleeping Friday night because my muse was wide awake and cruising full steam ahead, add in a late night Saturday night as I couldn't seem to turn off the muse and put down the beads, and a not early enough bedtime last night and it's no wonder I'm feeling quite worn out today. 

Of course, I was the only one that actually missed out on a good, long nap yesterday - some of the other members of my household took full advantage of the grey weather and quiet conditions and stretched out on the couch for a good long slumber:

 

Lost and Found

Seems like it wasn't too many months ago that I decided I wasn't going to spend time every week on my declutter project and yet here I am, not too much later, feeling like I am drowning in clutter again.  Which really isn't true - if you could see my spare bedroom right now, it is an oasis of clear surfaces and tidiness.  I like to stand in there and look around from time to time to remind myself that it is possible, I find it very calming! :)

It's mostly just a feeling I usually get this time of year after spending most weekends at the cottage and evenings during the week doing anything but decluttering.  No matter how clean my house is (and it is generally so, thanks mostly to my wonderful cleaning lady and the fact that I have to tidy up every two weeks before she comes!)  After a few months of this, I start to get a little panicky when I can't find things easily, usually because things aren't put away where they belong but have been tossed quickly in a temporary spot to linger for much longer than they should.  In my head, it starts to feel like I am living in the middle of this room:

It actually started to bother me back in June when we went for a birthday lunch at work and I took some photos on my camera, then couldn't find the little adaptor piece I need to download the photos onto my camera.  I had a feeling that I had put it in a safe place, I just couldn't remember where that safe place was!  Too much time was spent going through drawers and what I thought were the obvious places with no success. Eventually I gave up looking for it (and even thought about buying a new one, only I was too cheap to spend the $10 replacement cost, knowing it had to be somewhere in my apartment!!) but the knowledge that was missing was nagging at the back of my brain all this time.  Then lo and behold, last week I opened a previously unnoticed shoe box full of little bits and pieces that I vaguely recall scooping off my dining table in a moment of "instant cleanup" and there it was.  [Note to self: the instant cleanup system works like a charm as far as tidying up quickly when company is coming over but is totally useless unless you go back to that box as soon as possible afterwards and put things back where they belong!!  The hours wasted looking for things that go missing in that process just don't make it worth the time you save cleaning up.]

The crisis point hit earlier this week, when I couldn't find the beaded paper doll I had made for the Toronto Bead Society Bag of Beads Challenge back in March.  I was excited to learn a few weeks ago that for the second year in a row, my piece has been chosen to be featured in the annual TBS calendar on the Bags of Beads page.  The bad news was that I couldn't find Esmeralda!  Once again, I was thinking I had put her away in a logical and safe spot.  But after looking several times in several places (even checking some of the same spots over and over again, thinking perhaps I just hadn't checked carefully enough) with no success, I knew I would have to make a concentrated effort this weekend to find her because the winning items are due to be photographed by a professional photographer this week and were supposed to have been delivered last week.  I had visions of having to turn down the honour of being included in the 2012 calendar (over 120 entries this year, 12 of whom are chosen to represent the months of the year, 4 for the "Hall of Fame", 5 honourable mentions and me being one of 5 artists chosen for the BOB page) simply because I couldn't find the damn doll! 

After spending most of this afternoon going through my dining room shelf by shelf, box by box, drawer by drawer, examining all of my beading and art supplies for places where the doll might be and decluttering along the way, I eventually found her. Of course, she was nowhere near where I had spent several hours looking, but instead tucked neatly in a pile way across the other side of the living room, in the very last place I looked in desperation when I had looked everywhere else! Ironically, in a pile that I'm sure I checked at least twice before. Eureka!!

However, this afternoon's sorting through turned up several items that will come in handy for the jewellery I am making for the sale in two weeks, so it was well worth the time spent.  And all the cluttered corners and shelves are now dusted and tidied and I have a general idea what is being kept where again.  Time to get back to making said jewellery pieces, which is much more fun! However, I hearby resolve to go back to spending time focusing on decluttering on a regular basis and hopefully the reminder of this painful lesson will be enough to keep me motivated going forward.

My Muse is Awake

I've been planning to make some new jewellery for the first time in a very long while and set aside this weekend to do so, as we're hosting a jewellery sale at our cottage in a couple of weeks with our good friend Ellen Woodward who will be selling samples of John Hardy's amazing designs (John is her brother). 

Last night, after a really exhausting week at work, I thought I'd take it easy, go to bed early and wake up this morning ready to go.  My muse had different plans.  She was wide awake and busy swirling ideas around and around in my brain.  So instead of falling asleep around 10:30 as I had planned, I was awake until about 2 a.m., in spite of being physically exhausted and struggling to keep my eyes open.  I simply didn't have the energy last night to actually start putting together any of the pieces my brain was coming up with but I did write down a number of ideas.

After a mere four hours sleep, my brain was awake again and after dozing a bit longer, I got up, had breakfast and started making jewellery. I've been at it all day, working in copper, using some fabulous beads from Earthenwood Studio.  They are a steampunk design and I love them.  Here are a few photos:

Tomorrow I'll be switching to silver, putting together some charm bracelets.  But first, I'm going to move my jump rings and pliers to a location on the couch and watch a bit of the 6th Harry Potter movie before bed. Okay, maybe I'll put down the pliers for now...

Auction Hunters

Speaking of auctions, I discovered this TV show a couple of weeks ago quite by accident, just flipping around the dial, and now I'm hooked. I came home the other night and found out they were having a marathon showing on Spike TV, with several episodes on one after the other, and I couldn't turn it off!

These two guys, Allen and Ton, bid on abandoned storage lockers and then hopefully sell the contents for a profit.  The auctioneer opens the door to the storage unit and the bidders have only a few seconds to look inside, without touching anything, to try to figure out what is in there and whether any of it is worth any money. For these two, the more dust they can see in the unit, the more they want it. 

The shows I watched the other night included such vintage items as a Ms. Pacman machine, a Thomas Edison gramophone, a 1958 vintage Harley motorcycle and a mini boat that used to be popular in the 80's and 90's before jet skis came along.

The coolest item I saw them find was something called a dice popper.  They used to sit in old saloons and customers would put a nickel in, the machine would pop the five dice and (contrary to Yahztee)the lower the score, the bigger the prize.  The prizes were cigars.  It is speculated that this is where the phrase "close but no cigar" came from, referring to the fact that you might score close to the right number but if it wasn't low enough, you wouldn't win the cigar. 

I found these pictures of a dice popper on danielsantiques.com:

I Googled the show and found a couple of threads discussing whether or not the show is fake as apparently the two "stars" are actually actors, but others suggest that perhaps the auction business is more profitable for them than bit parts on movies and TV shows.  I'm not sure I care either way, it's still an entertaining show to watch and for someone like me who enjoys treasure hunting at auctions, flea markets and antique shows, it's right up my alley!

Did I mention there's another marathon scheduled for this Sunday?

A Wednesday Night Auction

Mid-morning yesterday, I was taking a little break from work, signed in to Facebook and noticed my friend Karen had posted that she was about to drive 3 hours to an auction. Knowing she lives about 3 hours west of where I do and that if she were to drive 3 hours west of where she lives, she'd be in the U.S. of A., I asked where she was headed. Turned out she was going to Milton, only half an hour from Toronto. An auction, you say? In the middle of the week? How exciting. Of course, I simply had to invite myself along, especially after I read the description of the auction.

Me and Karen

The preview started at 3:30 p.m. and the auction was scheduled to start at 5 p.m., so I left work early and headed off.  Ran into Karen in the parking lot immediately upon my arrival. She had already had a first look around and saved herself a seat, so I marked my spot in the row behind her and went to check the merchandise after we both got our bidding numbers.

I bought the box of records labelled #69

My goodness, there was a lot of stuff and all of it very well organized, already divided into numbered lots and in most cases, with brief descriptions written on pieces of paper sitting on top of the items.  There were boxes and boxes and stacks of old records, magazines and books, some jewellery, and several knickknack type items (most of which were ugggly, at least in my humble opinion).

There were so many vintage magazines available, boxes and boxes of National Geographic, LIFE, Mad, Punch, New Yorker, Redbook, Good Housekeeping, National Lampoon, movie magazines and even Penthouse and Playboy, to name just a few.  All of these magazines dated anywhere from the 1920's to the 1990's, it was quite an astounding assortment.

Harry Potter guarding the Playboy magazines!

Karen bought some vintage jewellery and two boxes of tie clips and cuff links, as well as an entire tray full of old buttons, plus a bag of vintage buttons still on cards (which I secretly coveted as well, but didn't want to bid against her and wouldn't have bid as high as she did anyway) and some old magazines (which she very kindly shared with me).  Not to worry, I bought several very cool items myself, which I'll show you in more detail over the next day or two.  Some Elvis memorabilia, a box of old record albums, vintage charms, colouring books and paper doll books and a couple of very old University of Toronto yearbooks (1926 and 1934).  My most expensive item? Another vintage photo album, full of photos - whoo hoo!!