Baby plates a cute collectible at any age

I was pregnant with my son when a friend gave me my first antique baby plate for a shower gift.
I fell in love with the nursery rhyme theme, the old-fashioned artwork and the patina of the piece, and just had to have more to decorate my vintage-style nursery.
Well, my son is now 15 years old, and I'm still collecting baby plates and feeding cups. However, they no longer adorn my son's room. I've transferred my collection to a guest bedroom with a vintage juvenile theme where my antique children's plates are showcased on the walls, on shelves and inside a shabby chic pea green cabinet with shelves lined with vintage tatted lace.
While I've been able to acquire a few of the pricier Victorian ABC plates that are so coveted by collectors, the bulk of my collection consists of English painted nursery rhyme plates, which are much more affordable than the older transferware pieces.
English pieces made by Doulton, Wedgewood, Burslem, Wood & Sons and Burlington in the 1930s and 40s as well as plates made in Germany and unmarked vitreous American warming dishes are quite plentiful and can be purchased for less than $30 if you shop around.
Since there is such a variety, some people choose a theme, collecting only ABC plates or BunnykinsRoyal Doulton Bunnykins: A Charlton Standard Catalogue, Third Edition children's dishes. I collect only dishes with nursery rhymes on them.

Mad about hats

There's something to be said about the days when hats were haute couture.
Frankly, I think their popularity in olden times was to cover up bad hair days. Back then, women, for the most part, had longer hair but didn't have the convenience of a daily shower to keep it looking clean and fresh.
Whatever reason for the popularity , there certainly was something regal about a hat, whether it was a pillbox from the 1950s or a cloche from the 1920s.
I've managed to pick up a few choice selections of vintage hats during my inspections of antique shops. I use hats, antique purses, formal gloves and even a mink stole and coat to decorate my bedroom. It's fun to accessorize with vintage clothing, especially things you can actually wear out on special occasions.
I have a guest bedroom where I keep my collection of children's plates and antique toys. There, I've accessorized with some adorable vintage children's and baby's clothes.
You can hang them off closet doors or on racks and they are relatively inexpensive to collect.

Little things make a big statement

Ever since I was a little girl and received my first set of dollhouse furniture, I've been fascinated by miniature things.

There just seemed something magical, perhaps fairylike, about tiny versions of the real items. And, if the full-size things were difficult to create, how much more difficult were their miniature versions to make?

So, I keep my eye out for tiny, detailed miniature paintings and antique doll furniture made with the care and workmanship of the real thing. I've even been able to snag myself some precious carved meerschaum miniature religious sculptures under glass that must of required hours of work, an incredibly steady hand and a great eye for detail.

The nice thing about miniatures is they're just that -- miniature. They don't take up a lot of room so you don't have to worry about display space. In fact, some are so tiny, they get lost unless you display them in larger groups. I like to display my miniature paintings in little groups of three for more impact. I encased a group of meerschaum sculptures in tiny oval frames in a single display case for more visibility. My miniature dressers adorn side tables throughout my house and serve as storage for small things like barrettes for my poodle, rubber bands and playing cards.

Depending on the age, artist and materials, miniatures can get pretty pricey. But there are still some bargains around if you look hard enough.

Seasonal secrets

We call it the holiday shelf.
It's an antique pine wall shelf that hangs on the wall next to my front door. It's where I display my seasonal collectibles.
You can always tell what holiday is on the horizon by glancing at my little shelf. I've got antique collectibles representing every holiday. But the holiday that gets the most shelf time, by far, is the Fourth of July. I place my Independence Day collectibles on my shelf in time for Memorial Day and they remain there until Labor Day when they're replaced with my Halloween collectibles.
The exterior of my house gets the red, white and blue treatment as well. I decorate my front porch with bunting and stick miniature flags in plant pots and watering cans. No one can accuse me of a lack of patriotism!

A new use for silver

I don't know about you but I rarely use those baroque-looking Oneida silver-plated trays I received as wedding gifts. Nor do I have much call for sterling silver toothpick holders these days.
However, I've found the perfect use for these items in my master bathroom -- as perfume trays and makeup brush holders.
Sometimes you just have to look at an object in a new light and view it with a new purpose. My eyeliner pencils and makeup brushes were always getting lost in my makeup drawer. The sterling toothpick holders were the perfect means to store my pencils and brushes so they wouldn't get lost. And the decorative holders with the lion's heads on them are so pretty, you don't mind leaving them out on the counter for display. I keep my cotton balls in an antique glass and silver powder jar and my cutips in a larger glass and sterling jar that may once have held cold cream for some Victorian lady. My barrettes and pins go into an antique Art Nouveau covered jewel box. And they all sit beautifully on a tooled silver tray I was going to throw out because it was taking up too much room in my china cabinet.
Yes, the pieces do occasionally require some polishing. Fortunately, I'm one of those people who don't mind polishing silver. The look is well worth it.

Dress up plain wood furniture

When I told you I like to do things cheap, I wasn't kidding you.
I picked up my kitchen table and chairs for a song at an unfinished wood furniture outlet because they'd been on display and were a bit battle-scarred. My kitchen china cabinet, where I display my collection of beloved 1930s and '40s Fiestaware, was a yard sale find at $50. Both were plain pine, but not for long.
I began collecting colorful pints of paint I found on discount on the "Oops Shelf" at Walmart. That's the paint that someone had mixed and decided they didn't like the color. Walmart marks it down to half price so a $6.97 can of paint is less than $4. I chose '50s colors that would complement my Fiestaware and painted each of my four chairs and each leg of my kitchen table a different color. Then I chose my favorite paint color, kind of an aqua blue, to paint the cabinet. I trimmed it out with a rose-red color.
I added a 1950s tablecloth with matching colors, and the result was exactly what I was looking for. Mundane wood pieces were given a colorful facelift, and took the spotlight away from my detested kitchen floor, tiled in a pastel pink and blue. In fact, it helped make the floor fit in with the room's color scheme, which is really no color scheme at all, just color.
As for time, the entire project took all of three days so the results far outweighed the labor. Now I'm gathering up the courage to do something similar to my cream-colored outdated kitchen cabinets. I'll let you know if I decide to take the plunge.

In a fix

It all began when I acquired a beautiful, rare 1940s Fiesta turquoise footed bowl that would have been worth $150, except it had a big chunk missing from the foot. To the Fiesta collector, who prizes perfect pieces, it was virtually worthless.
"You know, I think I can fix that," said Mr. Fix-It, aka my husband.
He took some putty, the kind you use to fill holes in walls, and filled in the spot where the chip was. When it thoroughly dried. he sanded it down and then, using the paints he used on his model airplanes, painted the chip to match the rest of the bowl. He then finished it off with a coat of polyurethane.
His match was so perfect, you could hardly tell where the chip once was.
But the real test was its durability. Would the repair hold up to the periodic hand washings the bowl would undoubtedly get as it was used?
Well, the repair was done 13 years ago, and the bowl is still as good as new. In the interim, I've become quite the ceramic restorer, perfecting the techniques my husband developed when he repaired that first bowl.
I now have people bring me beloved religious statues, marble busts, heirloom ceramics and other items to repair.
I recently repaired a very heavy 3-foot chalkware statue of Abe Lincoln for a couple. Their granddaughter accidentally knocked it over and Abe's arm broke off. It was a challenge. The piece was so heavy that my usual method of first gluing the pieces back together with Super Glue just wouldn't suffice. I went to Home Depot to seek advice and was told plumber's cement would do the trick. But, no, the arm was still too heavy. So I cut pieces of a wire hanger, drilled holes into the plaster shoulder and side and inserted the wire into the holes to anchor the arm. Once anchored, the glue held. Then I packed the cracks with putty to further strengthen the breaks. Once the putty thoroughly dried, I could mix the paint, blending it to match the existing paint on the piece. Once completed, you could hardly tell it'd been repaired at all. I was pretty pleased with myself.
I was able to perform miracles with a majolica teapot with a broken spout. I inserted a pencil in the remaining spout and molded the putty around the pencil to lengthen the broken spout. I discovered the ideal tool for sanding and shaping the putty afterward is a battery-operated manicure file. The various attachments allow me to sculpt lines into the putty or smooth it out, depending on the effect I'm after.
The artistic, and tricky, part comes with paint. It takes a lot of experimentation to find the right colors and then an artist's concentration to blend the paint to match the existing piece. A coat of polyurethane helps it to blend and gives it durability.
When I finished with Mr. Lincoln and the owner came to retrieve him, he asked how much he owed me. I was momentarily baffled. I'd never charged for my work before. I'd always done it for the challenge of making something broken beautiful again. I didn't know what to charge so I suggested he make a donation to my favorite charity.
It just didn't seem right to accept money for having so much fun.