Lucille's

TREASURE HUNTING

Some of you may know that I have parlayed my nostalgia for the 30’s- 50’s and my thrill of the hunt into a small venture…..selling vintage wares at an antique mall in Fort Langley.

Hunting for treasures can be dangerous business. Sometimes the find won’t go willingly to its assigned place on the shelf at my booth but rather jumps out of my hand and onto my mantle or bedside table and declares itself ‘home’. I try to insist otherwise, but sometimes those delicious turquoise or red or ‘grandma’-green pretties just hypnotize me and I must relent and let them have their way. They are clever…….whispering ancient words and conjuring up remembrances of simpler, more delicately beautiful days. I am in love and they know it. No profit today…..just another whimsical, unique pretty salvaged from neglect and reincarnated as an honoured guest in my home.

 Price…..paltry/ experience….priceless!

I do manage to corral some treasures and ferry them to the mall………..Some of my favourites stay there awhile and my heart aches for the injustice of their remaining unsold and uncherished. Other times I manage to create a brilliant display only to have someone purchase the star performer in my clever vignette before the world has had a chance to savour and admire it.  Such is the life of a reluctant passer-on of the oldies but goodies.

Some of you must wonder at my love for the cast-off relics of another time. I can’t explain it; I only know it is so. Part of it may have to do with their uniqueness…..there are not 20 identical items lined up for sale waiting to be displayed in 20 cookie-cutter homes. Yes, perhaps it all comes down to that……. a desire to express myself apart from the masses. And of course it’s the colours. And sometimes it’s just my rescuing heart, loathe to see that tiny jug relegated to a thrift-store jumble when lovingly washed and placed just so on a window sill or filled with tiny garden blossoms and perched on the table above your luncheon salad plate will not only give it new life but also give me a chance to spoil you with its delicate charms.

My best hint for thrift store- garage sale- flea market-craigslist- dumpster-diving-shopping is to go with no pre-conceived notions. If you go looking for something specific, your eye will skip over another treasure.

I like certain colours, so I don’t allow my eyes to rest on something different like brown or orange perhaps. That way I can scan a shelf or table more quickly and get on with the hunt

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If you love it and the price is right (cheap), you will find a place for it.

Train yourself to see possibility. Imagine that little brown, bruised table painted in fetching colours.

Or how about that dresser with new glass knobs? Or the old enamel bucket filled with snapdragons?

Or that lonely quilt square, framed?

 It’s so fun to score something for next to nothing and find a clever new use for it.

An old cookie tin turned flower pot

 

a honey tin to house pencils

 a tin to hold matches, an old frame transformed into a chalkboard, a napkin turned into a pillow

 a picnic basket to store recipes, a suitcase to fill with fabric. Don’t get me started.

I suddenly just  had a brilliance. Maybe someday when you get to know me better, you could come over and see what I mean. And then maybe we could go on a hunt. Oh and then we could have afternoon tea in the garden (hat and gloves of course), and then maybe a little cooking lesson and we could chat and giggle and share our hearts. Oh this is sounding delicious!

Would you come?

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