Skippy, Skippy......

Skippy the dead kangaroo....I know that's awful isn't it? ( Lovely  Sarah B   look away now before you faint. ) I have been humming this tune all day thanks to these guys below. I am a terrible person!!

Yes they are real!!! Amazing, scary and sad all at the same time.

Look at his/her little eyelashes..awww. In our house we are guilty of liking a bit of black humour so this was the scene in Chauncy's room, when he came home this arvo, below.

These guys will obviously be our new object of torture for the next few days. I will be guarding myself every time I open a cupboard or car door...Kristen is very good at scaring me. 

Asteroid the wonder dog better watch out as he bears a striking resemblance to our one half of our coat of arms.

We purchased them along with other treasures from a house today. I can't tell you how many times I went up and down these stairs below. Actually my life is about going up and down stairs, as yesterday I helped two families, one in Sunnybank and one in Coorparoo and both had the dreaded stairs. I should be skinny shouldn't I ?

As a result of yesterday my dining room is already overflowing with treasures, the table is full and there is a ring of china around the walls. Heaven knows where I am going to put the stuff in my car...and Kristen's car.  I realise I have been very slack on my dining room table posts so tomorrow I will show you some pics, right now I think it is drink o'clock.

Mrs Potts and her Sad Irons

                                     
Recently we purchased a collection of the famous Mrs Pott's Sad Irons and it got me to wondering who really was Mrs Potts? Did she really exist or was she just a marketing name? And why so sad ? So thanks to the wonders of Google I have found my answers which I thought I would share for all those history geeks out there like me. Below is a picture of Mrs Potts and yes she was a real lady. A real lady who like me hated ironing.
                                                                         

She apparently used to say. "May I die on a Monday so I can be spared the Ironing on a Tuesday!"

She patented her Iron in 1871 in Iowa in the US. What made the Iron special was its unique design to retain heat. The iron was a cast shell that was filled with plaster which retains heat for longer. They were sold as sets of three with a detachable handle, so you could have one in use and two others on the stove heating up. Below is an advertisement from the time.

In the first two years of production they had sold over 5 million sets worldwide. I bet the thing Mrs Potts enjoyed most about her success was no longer needing to do the ironing herself. Oh but why were they sad irons. Sad is apparently a very old word meaning solid, heavy and dense. 

Today of course you can't beat a Mrs Potts' Iron to use as a door stop or paper weight and I for one think Mrs Potts would get a chuckle out of this and think it a perfectly suitable thing for an Iron, given her dislike for the chore.

Mary gets her skates on.

Did you see the cute photo of VB wearing her new roller skates over at Kitty's Vintage Kitsch . I was very excited that VB got them via my shop at the WAC and apparently she is yet to take them off, apart from bed time. Go and check her out she is the cutest !! Well here is another happy skate shopper.

Meet my niece Mary. Here she is with her new/old roller skates on sitting on Chauncy's bed. This time she was a dining room shopper....in other words they were on my dining room table waiting to go to the WAC when she spied and then claimed them. I think she has been hanging out with Nan, another good dining room shopper in our house.  

They are a perfect fit so it was meant to be. We loved the colours too! ( Let this be a record that I, as her Aunt, claim no responsibility for any potential injuries Mary may sustain as a result of her new hobby....) 

Old school Wynnum House Today

This morning we went to this big old House in Wynnum. It is on a large corner block and no doubt will soon be moved over and another home or two added beside it. For those outside of Brisbane, Wynnum is an old suburb on the Bay. When we first started out in the Antiques caper, 20 years ago now, Wynnum was one of our first stomping grounds as we were living in Manly, the next suburb, at the time. We didn't get much from the old house today, but what we did get, took me back to what a typical Wynnum house used to give up back in those first days of dealing.

Old oars....old copper and 

old fishing reels. I love the old ingenuity of using bottles as hand fishing reels. We also got some old furniture and bric a brac but it was lovely to get these old school Wynnum items and have a trip back down memory lane, in more ways than one. Can't wait for the long weekend. 

Pictures of some of my items up for auction on eBay this week

Can you guess what this item is ?

It is an amazing Antique washing machine....after seeing this I will never complain about doing the washing again. 

Butterfly chairs also from the same old house 

Very stylish chair no doubt Parker Knoll.

The colours of this one are a charming white and green, although it is grubby from being under the old house, with a little work it will have a perfect aged beachy, shabby look.

All of these items along with some others will be listing tonight on eBay for 7 days.