Summer Antique Finds

I know many of you are either getting ready to send your kids- or even yourself- back to school, and are about to get started with "Fall". I actually have about one more month before school starts here. So, I am still feeling as if I am pretty much in the middle of vacation. I will admit that my "normal everyday routine" has pretty much stopped. Vacation mode is in full swing; I try to just concentrate on having as much fun as I can with my family while we have time. We'll all be back to the grind soon enough ;-)

With that being said, vacation does not mean I take a break from my love of antiques hunting! My husband and I still continue to do that pretty much every chance we get. Sometimes I will go off either on my own or with my oldest daughter if it happens to be a day she is off from work. And this Summer has actually proven to be a very good one for me, "hunt wise"! Let me show you just a few things I recently acquired when Mike and I were out and about:

Isn't this cool? Okay- I admit, I don't know much about real country living, so other than knowing that this used to be on a farm, I can't tell you anything about it, lol. Nonetheless, I was crazy about this old rustic can as soon as I saw it and just had to splurge on it. I don't even know if the price was fair, but given the prices on everything else where I found it, I think I must have done well. And if not, so what. I was happy to pay what I did for it and I am loving how it looks by my front door ;-) 

So... if you happen to know what this was once used for I'd love it if you can leave a comment here to tell me!! :-)

Next we come to this really special find....

I have wanted a nice old wagon wheel for many years! As a matter of fact, when we were teenagers (many, many years ago!) one of my dearest cousins and I used to dream about owning an old barn some day. We also decided that inside we'd hang old wagon wheels that we would make into chandeliers. Well, although that dream of mine did not come to fruition (well, not yet anyway), at least I now have an old wagon wheel! 
It's bigger than it looks in the picture, and I'm so happy with the way it looks here where Mike set it up against our fence in the front yard among the tall flowers. Doesn't it look great?


And next is another very fun "find"~

Pretty, huh? Obviously it has been restored, but it was restored very well. It's such a lovely old trunk, and looks really great in my upstairs hallway. 

Can you believe that we purchased all three of these wonderful items from a garage sale?! Well, the man who was selling them was downsizing. His wife had passed away and he just had way too many things. He even let me go into his house just to see his late wife's cookbook collection. There were hundreds and hundreds of wonderful books and he was hoping to sell all of them to one person. Needless to say I passed on them, but I did see that he had a lot of other items he needed to sell as well. The trunk I bought was one of three beauties- all of which had me tempted. Seriously, if I had the room for them, I'd have bought them all! But of the three I chose this one due to the pretty shape and color of the wood. It is definitely more unusual than most old trunks I tend to see for sale. 
I also bought some other fun things from him- all smaller items. I'll try to get some pictures of those to share at some point, too. 

Finally, I would like to share with you one last item for today. This was found in an antiques store in Old Orange, CA by my husband when we were there on a hunt a last month. I can not believe I missed it, and am so very glad he saw it and showed it to me! Let me tell you about my "connection" to this awesome piece:

Okay, so it's a milk crate from a dairy, right? So what could be so special about that? Well, this dairy was in Connecticut- about as far away from here as you can get without leaving the Country. It made it all the way to California. Just like me; I came all the way from Connecticut too. And THIS very same dairy was the one where I used to get ice cream cones EVERY Summer of my childhood!!! Seriously- what are the odds of finding something like this? I don't remember exactly when, but I believe they went out of business when I was in my late teens or maybe early 20's. But from the time I was a very small child until then I would have ice ream many days and nights every Summer from Maple Shade. I have so many awesome memories of that place. And I just can not tell you how cool it is to have this. And now I am on a mission: To find some milk bottles from there! I actually did find one on eBay. But, it was a really large one and would not fit in the crate due to the metal dividers. But I am hopeful that at some point I will be able to locate at least one. 

OKay... there you have it for now. I know a lot of you are like me and love antiques and the fun of the hunt. These are just some of the many cool and interesting things my husband and I have found this Summer; there lots more to share so I'll try to post more pics soon. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. I'll be back later today with my next project for the Scrap Your Crap blog so please check back real soon! 

I'm hoping you'll leave a comment, as I always love hearing from you :-)

Wishing you many blessings as always~
Sarah