Saturday, October 14, 2006

baskets and bowls


I LOVE picnic baskets! I LOVE collecting wicker and metal picnic baskets and seeing them stacked here and there. They make me so happy!
I also like when my collections do double duty... they decorate my home and they serve a purpose. Picnic baskets make great storage. And I am so about lots of storage!





I store my month-at-a-glance calendars from each year in one of the baskets. When little ones come over, I bring out the basket full of toddler toys. Special cards that I have saved over the years go in a basket... linens in one... and years of memorabilia in another.
I usually pay a dollar for most of the wickers and maybe five dollars for each of the metal baskets. This red one is my favorite!




I LOVE bowls too!
I have got to tell you my favorite bowl story. Like I have tons of bowl stories...
Anyway, several years ago I was yard saling with a friend in the historical district in downtown Phx. We decided to stop at one more sale. Most sales around here shut down by noon and it was 1 pm. But it was my kind of sale... everything was still in boxes. Knowing that most people don't take the time to dig through boxes... I went at it! Oh and picture this, the yard sale and all the boxes were surrounding a slimy, green swimming pool.
This one box was filled with 1970's blue & white Corning bakeware. Well I dug deeper... more Corningware... I dug even deeper... and struck gold!!!!! There at the very bottom of this dirty old box, wrapped in layers of old newspaper were... two old McCoy bowls! I could hardly breathe... so I very gingerly asked what they wanted for the two bowls and they said... 50 cents each!!! AND I ABOUT FELL IN THE POOL!

8 comments:

Miranda said...

HAHAHA... my you are such a story teller... The pictures are beautiful... it is nice to finally know why we have all those baskets and what is in them.

Anonymous said...

you have to tell us why McCoy bowls are special ...

Anonymous said...

I can appreciate your love of baskets and bowls...I am pretty much the same way. I have a huge basket in the bathroom I purchased for "1/2" off..LOL..so it was 50 cents at a yard sale. I roll extra towels up and make a pretty display for guests. I also like unique serving trays, much as you do bowls, unfortunately almost all of mine that I had collected were lost in a fire this summer. But yay for yard sales, I can always replace them. Congratulations on finding a "real McCoy" ;)

:) lucy

Nancy said...

I love the baskets and what clever things you do with them. Thanks for sharing.
Blessings,
Nancy

NanAZ said...

The cool thing is that all those pieces will be worth a good chunk of change some day. The bad thing is that your kids will probably never want to sell them so they won't be able to enjoy the value...they'll be priceless!

So what do you think the bowls are worth?

mimulus said...

those picnic baskets and bowls are definitely priceless..an dyou have the baskets so well displayed!

Joyous said...

those bowls are SO cute!

Boxwood Cottage said...

Wow what a beautiful collection of baskets. I love baskets too. I want an American basket like the one on the IKEA stool but you can't get them over here. Great pictures of your country home! :D