Poppycock: Out of the LOOP!

My apologies for my posting absenteeism. I have been busy working on an additional blog. This new blog will feature some of my own home projects as well as some very interesting and beautiful pictures I have collected for inspiration. As we all are aware, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I find old, antiquated items the most beautiful. I don't think I've always felt this way. In my younger days, newer was better. But as I myself have aged I see beauty in different places.

In the past couple of years I've formed an addiction to flea markets and garage sales. Twenty years ago I would have turned my nose up at such things. Buying someone else's discarded incidentals seemed dreadful. Today, I find these items can be so much more than rejected castaways. Look beyond what you initially see. See the ghastly artifact for something other than it is. What can be done with those old rakes or barrels? Why on earth would someone be selling old shoe forms?? ( I know why, and I bought some).

Not long ago I acquired a child's old pull down desk. It had writing, stickers and crayon all over it. Truly hideous. But I loved it! I picked it up for $5. I'm working on that piece as we speak and will feature it in my other blog.

Last weekend I took my youngest daughter Nadia down to Queen Street in Toronto to browse through the old Antique and Collectible shops. I think I may have entered the wrong shop first on the excursion. As we approached the door, I turned and muttered, "Prepare yourself". Kids at that age have no appreciation for Antiques or garage sale items, much less entering into a hole of a store jammed with relics that really had no value to anyone. It wasn't an Antique store really, it was more fragments and remnants of things that may have had a purpose at some point while they were attached to something of value, but this store was just a landfill. Nadia's face dropped. Her eyes widened. The look on her face was worth wandering into that store first. I held my laughter until we were back on the street.

She asked if they were all going to be like that. Thankfully they weren't and thankfully she very much enjoyed the rest of our outing that day. She was actually fascinated by history she observed; the first TV's ever made, old wooden crank phones with no buttons or dials, old 2 ton metal cash registers.

I often found her leaned over engrossed in framed pictures of people from the early 1900's. As our junket ended she told me how much fun it was to see little pieces of history she had only seen in the movies. (Such a sheltered life!) It must have had a positive impact on her, shes offered to accompany me on my next treasure hunt.