Stuffies

So during my last post with all my first of the month finds, I mentioned that I had managed to squeeze in a few regular night runs in between... here are the results.

The following was picked up in front of a house that was for sale. There was a sign up saying they were having an open house on the up coming Sunday, so I guess they decided to clean out a bit before potential buyers came in.

I found a old curling iron still unused in the box with the instructions, a gold picture frame, 2 religious hangings, a Hello Kitty cell phone cover, 2 boxes of thumbtacks,2 french books, a battery charger, one walkie talkie, an electric hair clipper with attachements, 2 headphone earbuds, a barometre, some costume jewellery and a watch, 8 cents and one pfenning, and some kind of hook thingie. Also pictured are a few medical note pads which I mistakenly added to this haul, they actually belong to another pile I'll get to further down...

There were also thermometers, nose syringes for babies, a few colourful plant pots, 2 candle holders, a set of silver electroplated spoons, and some vintage Christmas decorations

Here is a closer look at the barometer

The watch still has the $29.99 price tag stuck to the back of it

The religious hangings, they say "Bless our home"

And the hooky thing. If anyone knows what this could be, please leave a comment. It says Dupuis Freres Limitee, Montreal which was an old department store that ran from the late 1800's until 1978. There is also a patent number on it, but I can't quite make it out. I have tried every number combination I thought it could be on a patent number search site, but no results come close to looking like this hook.

At the next stop I found some cool paper finds. There was a fake newspaper that was printed in 1982 from the Ontario Science Centre which talked all about their Chinese exhibits, some Chinese stamps on paper, an asian print, a post card from The Jungle Queen, a small cut out paper bird, an old Zellers flyer, and a black velvet display cushion which I'll be using to display jewellery when I have a garage sale.

On the back of the paper with the Chinese stamps, there is a note written "24 Juillet 1982 Toronto Ontario Science centre" Then a name and "China 7000 years of technology" 

Under that is "Titre Bonheur" Titre usually translates as "title", but it also seems to mean "respect", which would make more sense since I think these words are the translations of the Chinese character stamps on the other side. The second word translates to happiness.

This is a closer look at the paper bird. It's very delicate and I'm surprised it's still in such good condition. I wonder if it was a souvenir bought at the Science centre that day?

and the print. It's also on delicate paper and has wrinkled a bit from being thrown out.

These are the medical note pads I had mistakenly put in the photo above

A few pages in and there is an advert for medications for the organs pictured on each pad.

The Zellers flyer was a real blast from the past. A few years ago Zellers closed when Target bought them up. Target then opened a bunch of stores, bombed out here, and is now closing down it's stores as well. Zellers was a great Canadian store and it's too bad Target destroyed it. There is no date on it, but since the other papers have the year 1982 on them, I'm going to assume it's from the same year. You can see by the fashions and technologies pictured that I think that year is pretty accurate.

In the weekend I went back to my little second hand store that tosses out all their surplus books and saved a few more. I took some pictures of the full bins...

I pulled out some vintage E.B. White books, including Stewart Little, a vintage "The world's best fairy tales" book, a manefesto of the communist party, Tuesdays with Morrie - which I've heard about and want to read, a book with a bunch of different card games in it, various paperbacks that looked like they'd interest my husband and mom, a book on herbs that I will give a friend who uses herbs in some of her homemade products, and a few childrens books.

I was also thrilled to find 5 different Charlie Brown books and a Calvin and Hobbes book. 

Around the neighbour hood on various other trash days I also picked up...

2 more vintage orange chairs from the same spot I got my last one. I was glad to get these because while I was taking apart the last one to recover, I noticed a crack in the welding of the frame which got worse every time I wiggled it. Seeing that it was unsafe, I could no longer continue with my plan to recover and sell it. I was thinking that maybe I could get a local welder to fix it, but seeing that I now have these 2, I'll put the other chair frame at the curb for the local scrap metal guys to pick up. 2 matching chairs are easier to sell anyways :)

This adorable vintage Fisher Price School Days Desk

I can't believe all the pices are accounted for. The little paper spelling cards are in rough shape, and there are a few wear spots on the chalkboard, but the other pieces look great.

This little cupcake stand

 And this box full of paperclips which my husband took to work.

 The next week I went back to the spot where I found all the Science Centre stuff. This time they threw out this vintage Air Canada tray. I found one that had sold on ebay for $59.99 (scroll down if you click the link). This one seems to have a few paint spots on it, but if I'm careful, I'll be able to get them off.

 These vintage medical posters were rolled up and thrown in their recycling bin

 

They have printed signatures from J. Miller and A. Geras with the date of 1980

I actually remember seeing this poster when I was young. It basically translates to "It's enough to break your heart"

There was also a cardboard box full of these old film reel boxes. Each of them had an empty reel inside despite most of the boxes being marked on the back as medical movies. I saved the best ones of each type of box because of the cool old vintage graphics.

They also threw out this old lamp which was basically in pieces with a bunch of other trash in a bag. The little cowboy was so dirty, I could barely make him out. I was surprised at how easily all that gunk came off when I started to soak and scrub him in some hot water and Dawn dish soap.

Here is what the lamp and cowboy look like all cleaned up, and it even still works! The only bad thing is that when they shoved it in the bag to throw out, they dented and tore the paper shade a bit. You can just make it out on the middle left side. I think a piece may also be missing as there is a small hole in the little log, I think something may have fit in there. I tried Googling this lamp, but got millions of results that either didn't match or totally different modern lamps. There are no makers marks on it or any clues as to who the character is. If you recognize him, please leave a comment for me!

On a grocery shopping trip I stopped at a pile that was out on a non garbage day for that town. The house is for sale, so I guess they are cleaning out for their move. There was some junky furniture out and this bag...

 I could see that it was full of nice stuffies and a few towels, so I took it home to throw straight into the wash.

Along with 3 matching towels and 2 face cloths, inside were some really nice stuffed animals...a white tiger, black panther, a little lion, a bear puppet, an angel frog, a vintage looking deer, a skunk, a little breast cancer support teddy bear, and a pound Puppy

The one that made me really sad though, was this little guy. He looks pretty old and like he had been well loved. He is just so adorable, I can't believe someone would throw out their old stuffie. I still have 2 of my teddy bears (one's a bunny actually) that I had as a kid. Happily, my youngest actually took a shine to him, called him "Doggie" and brings him to bed every night. I'm stupidly happy that this guy will be loved again.

On the beautiful weekend we just had, my husband and I did some spring cleaning. I put a "Free Stuff" sign at the side of the road and we started placing all the stuff we no longer needed.

More and more stuff went out as the day went on. We had a few people stop by to pick through it, but by the time I put our kids to bed at 8pm, most of it was still there. I went out at 8:30 for my usual run, stayed out for one hour, and by the time I got back, we were practically cleared out. I actually had to drive by my house on the way home, turn around at the end of the street and wait because there was a picker there blocking my driveway. When I got back all that was left were a fake plant, 2 plastic wicker chairs and I think a baby stroller. In the morning, only the fake plant remained. It stayed at the curb for 2 more days before I took it back up to the house. I think I'll just put it in my cats' outdoor cat run. Look how sad it looks, every time I looked out the window I kept hearing the song "Lonely...I'm so lonely" going through my head :P

This weekend I'm participating in my first yard sale of the season :) A church near by is having a sale and they are renting out tables at $10 each, so I reserved one. Usually around here these organized sales have tables at double the price, so I couldn't pass this one up. I spent a full day packing up and pricing all my items. I'm bringing solely garbage picked items to see how I do. :) I ended up with 7 packed boxes, so hopefully I priced everything well and it all goes!

and to end this post, I leave you with an image of one of my priced items...

Oh come on! You know that's funny! :P