Annual October Girls Road Trip & Found Treasures

October brings on my favorite season, Autumn, and

one of my favorite road trips. 

Julie and I have enjoyed this trip since 2011.

Mostly staying at Big Cedar Lodge

  

Enjoying the beauty of The Ozarks and of course shopping!

Boomshakalaka!

Boomland is one of our favorite home decor stores and offers amazing selections for seasonal decor.

It's a must for us to visit when were in the area!

Another of our favorite haunt is the Spring Creek Tea Room in Ozark, MO.

Not only can you get a nice lunch and home-made desserts, but it's attached to an antique store!

Here are some of my treasures from this trip

 Beautiful Celluloid dress trim

Mini canvas print

Deer plate (inspiration for a Christmas vignette)

Isn't this fox figurine the cutest fox ever?  

Vintage Red Glass Art Decor and Cut Steel buckle

1950s aluminum starburst molds 

Deer platter

(more inspiration for a Christmas vignette) 

Vintage tatting trim

1958 Turkey platter

Vintage Milk Glass vase and vintage porcelain/Bone China lids

 Vintage lace & trims

Like any vacation, we anticipated our trip, enjoyed every second sharing it together

and sad when it was over.

Awe, but another road trip is in our plans...Junk Jubilee here we come!

My recent Girls Road Trip 'Pickin' Treasures

Recently I blog about my Girls Road Trip.  Here are some of the treasures that found their way home with me...

1940s Glass buttons on original card, Vintage plastic Elephant buckle, Sterling Silver flower pin ($1.00!) and a broken strand of creamy pearls

 Large crock bowl with pennant edge design

 Crystal S&P Shakers for making my 'Snow Girls' and some great orphaned lids for another project!

 Vintage 2-tiered Office stamp holder

 Vintage tins - the SOOVAIN tin is a medicine tin that once held Acetphenetidin with aspirin and caffeine & sold for 25 cents

 And

several vintage postcards for 25 cents each

 

 The wonderfully worn vintage handmade
wooden tool caddy worked well as a base for a Christmas centerpiece

I love pickin for treasures!

GIRLS ROAD TRIP

I was blessed this week to take a GIRLS ROAD TRIP with my dear friends Julie & Cindy

We stayed in an awesome log cabin in the woods at The Big Cedar Lodge. 

We were on GIRL TIME - no husbands, cooking, jobs, chores, etc.

We junked/picked at every possible antique store, flea market and garage sale along our route

Poor Cindy... we crammed our treasures around her in the backseat.  I think she only got hit once with sliding debris - OK not hit, but definitely bumped.

We are known as the original CHICKER PICKERS.

 

My motto is "there is always room for more"

At our last garage sale we had to unpack the car and repack it so we could squeeze in three large wooden flower boxes.  These were a great find as they were cheap! and they make great bases for Autumn & Holiday table centerpieces.

 

Aah, but that was just the last garage sale.  We hit a handful more antique stores and one flea market and managed to squeeze in even more treasures... just small ones.

We also enjoyed retail shopping, tea room lunches and the gorgeous Autumn trees of southern Missouri

There was a beautiful waterfall at Big Cedar Lodge

This was our last morning and we stopped by the marina to see the morning fog lifting off the lake.  A man fishing in his boat in the midst of the fog offered this great photo

Autumn is my favorite season...  

"Winter is an etching, Spring a watercolor, Summer an oil painting and Autumn a mosaic of them all." ~ Stanley Horowitz

Nostalgia & Reminiscing

Well, it's about time I finally post to this blog... smile.  
The past few weeks for me have been overwhelmingly busy.  

It was a bittersweet decision, but after several years I recently closed my antique booths.  It was emotionally and physically exhausting.  Over the past few years I've taken several treasure hunt road trips and have made awesome friends!

Reminiscing....

This guy was a hoot!  We meet him and his family along the Highway 36 flea market run in 2010.  Dee, me and our fellow road buddies (see 2nd photo below) had competition tasks on our treasure hunt.  Dee & I were on one team.  We told this guy we were looking for odd things... can you guess what this was?  Maybe not as the photo is blurry.

This is "wood eye, wood eye"

Would I love to help you was his response while wearing a disc of wood over each of his eyes - there always fun people to stop and share with along the way! 

It's a lousy picture of both my sister Dee & me, but we always had fun road trips.  This is us the morning of what may be our last road trip... the 2010 Highway 36 flea market run trip just weeks before Dee was thrown from a horse breaking her neck, back and shattering her left knee.  After months of hospitalizations, nursing home, physical therapy and lots of answered prayers, Dee can walk and has gone from a wheelchair to occasionally using a walking cane.  We are so thankful!

Here are my 2010 Highway 36 flea market run buddies - Julie, Randy, Dee, Cindy & Gerald...
can you say
"good times!"

Oh, BTW, Dee & I WON the competitions!! 

 This was my last road trip with my mom and sister Dee in the Fall of 2005 as mom passed away in June 2006.  In our earlier road trips, mom often traveled with us.  Such fond memories.

I guess I'm feeling a bit nostalgic since closing down my antique booths.  I am thankful for all the memories and friendships given to me through my antiquing journey.  Thanks for journeying down a small path of those memories with me.

The Pearl Button Museum - Muscatine, Iowa

My friend Tara and I made a whirlwind trip this week to visit The Pearl Button Museum in Muscatine, IA.

We arrived late in Muscatine, but were able to enjoy a later dinner at the The Button Factory restaurant.  This building once housed the Ronda Button Company.  Some of the original wooden trusses and equipment have been kept as part of the decor & structure of the restaurant. 

 (Click images to enlarge photos)

Tara & I are researching the Pearl button industry.  The next morning we met with the museum curator Mary.  We spent several hours with Mary talking, laughing, researching cabinets and boxes full of pearl button history.  We are grateful and thankful to Mary for her generous hospitality!

Muscatine, IA sits on the Mississippi river and is full of American industrial history.  If you enjoy historical trips or collect pearl buttons, this is a destination for you!

The first level of the Muscatine Story & Industry Center features the Pearl Button Museum.  The upper floors are dedicated to the history of other Muscatine industries.

The photos below represent a tidbit of what you may experience in The Pearl Button Museum:

  Framed display of a shell with button blanks drilled out of it - notice the unfinished button blanks amongst the finished buttons

 

  Awesome display of pearl buttons, buckles and other delights

 

Just one of the educational displays of the history and equipment of the pearl button industry

 

Window display featuring an enlarged button card banner of American Maid Pearls and other equipment

 

 

  One of many enlarged button card banners

Peter Pan Pearls enlarged button card banner

Enlarged card banner of Men's pearl shirt buttons

The Pearl Button Museum also offers a gift shop, an educational video room, additional button processing equipment, a hands-on children's exhibit of a house to resemble the cottage industry of sewing/carding pearl buttons from the turn of the 20th century, informative displays of the companies and people of the pearl button industry, and lots of wonderful buttons, buckles and pearl buttons on their original lithograph cards!

 Here are a couple images of what we were allowed to photograph not currently on display:

A copper lithograph printing plate featuring six different images used for publications/store retail button cards. If you click to enlarge this image you will see the plate manufacture's name inscribed in the top center is Hacker.... my last name!  I'd love to have this in my collection!! 

Boxes after boxes full of original lithographed pearl button cards!

Tara & Mary unboxing treasures

Tami & Mary discussing the buckles

Thank you Mary and The Pearl Button Museum for sharing with us the history of the Pearl Button Industry!  We had a great time and plan to return for another visit!

http://www.muscatinehistory.org/

Please do not copy or use any of the above photos for personal or public use- Thank you.