We’ve been finding a few beautiful vintage children’s books lately that we wanted to make sure to blog about.  Book illustrators have always been at the cutting edge of graphic design, especially during the middle decades of the 20th century.  We found this one on a thrifting trip a few weeks back.

The first is a Danish children’s book called Jesu Fødsel (which roughly translates to The Nativity), illustrated by Emile D. Probst and published in 1967.  We haven’t been able to find out much information about Probst, other than the artist flourished in the 1960s and illustrated mainly Danish children’s books.

We especially like the style of Probst’s faces — it’s very reminiscent of medieval Greek Orthodox iconography, but with a decidedly Scandinavian flare that reminds us of Bjorn Wiinblad’s art.

This weekend was full of thrifting firsts for us.  Usually, we wake up and trudge to early-morning estate sales all on our own, but this weekend we spied a sale we thought our friends Josh and Sarah would love, so we invited them to come along!  The sale was in an eastern suburb of Seattle, so far out in the country that a bobcat ran across the road in front of our cars!  Mr. Butter and I left early to put our names on the list; in fact, we set our alarm clocks for 4:45am so that we would be first on the list.

For those of you who don’t go to estate sales, they’re a bit more intense than an afternoon trip to the Goodwill, but Mr. Butter and I like going to a few every now-and-then.  Most sales these days are run by local estate sale companies who post their weekly sales on sites like Estatesales.net.  A few hours before the estate sale starts, people who really want to be first in line when the doors open create a list.  Usually these people are dealers or collectors and if you go to estate sales often enough, you’ll see the same people in line each weekend.  Well, Mr. Butter and I–try as we might–had never been first in line before.  And we spied a few things in the photos that we had to have for our own collections and for the shop as well!

And as it turned out, we were first in line for this sale!  And what was so exciting that we got up before 5am?  Well, the estate sale was full of Swedish ceramics and glass, two of our favorite things.  Our friends went on a dala horse spree and snagged anything that even looked like a red horse and we made a beeline to a few rather sweet items.

That’s right.  Three Lisa Larson figurines all in one place!  She’s one of our favorite ceramicists, especially for her modernist “Zoo Line.”  Her designs have a certain whimsy about them, don’t they?  We’ll be keeping Mr. Fox in our permanent collection, but the other two figurines should be in the shop shortly.

I know, I know, I said that the house was full of Swedish ceramics.  Well, these pieces originate a little farther south, in Italy to be exact.  We were over-the-moon to find a Bitossi figurine “in the wild” since they’re so rare.  Even scarcer is the pair of white Bitossi lamps we picked up.  Although they come with their original shade, we think they’d look amazing with a saturated red lampshade, don’t you?  We’ll be selling the lamps shortly, so let us know if you’re interested.

I think we may have set our friends up for disappointment though.  This type of sale comes once a year, if that!  Hopefully they’ll join us on the ratty sales as well and not be too disappointed with chippy pyrex and orange tupperware!

Linked to Flea Market Finds and Thrift Share Monday

Bit of Butter is featured on Thriftcore today!   Not only is there an awesome interview, but we put together a Mad Men-inspired prize package for one lucky reader.  So go visit and enter to win!

This was a big thrifting week at Chez Butter!  Mr. Butter and I took last Tuesday off work and went on an all-day thriftbreak for my birthday!  We found a few lovely pieces, but I’m going to blog about those later.  This weekend we spent most of our time around the house weeding, cleaning, and having some friends over to help us eat food from our garden, which has finally started producing vegetables!

Mr. Butter had big plans for us on Saturday, however.  The Swedish Cultural Center was having its annual rummage sale / vintage fair and since we’re suckers for all things Scandinavian, we decided to stop by.  As it happened, we got there right when it opened and we were, quite frankly, blown away by what we found.  Mr. Butter and I tend to split up at places like this, so he went right and I went left and we met in the middle with our treasures.

After perusing a few tables, I found this Tipp City spice set for the price of two lattes.  I asked the lady if the price tag was correct (I was honestly expecting there to be another zero at the end!) and she nodded in approval.  I spent most of yesterday researching Tipp City spice jars, which was a lot of fun!  Mr. Butter and I are much more adept with Scandinavian Modern items, but we were more than happy to find out about this Ohio company!  I just listed the set in the the shop and apparently the Scottie dog pattern is quite scarce, so hopefully the set will go to a good home!

As I bought my spice rack, Mr. Butter spotted an entire table full of Iittala glassware and was frantically trying to catch my eye.  I wandered over ready to gloat about my find, when I saw him practically beaming at the thought of using Iittala for our barware! (We’ve wanted a set of Iittala for a while, but there was no way we could afford to buy the glasses new.)  Mr. Butter snagged a carafe, double old-fashioned glasses, high-balls, and red-wine goblets all in the Ultima Thule pattern!  I’m afraid that these will not make it to the store, however.  We’re currently cleaning out the bar cabinet and making room for our swanky glassware!

And before I forget, we’d love your help identifying some crazy art pottery that Mr. Butter found on a small thriftbreak when he was supposed to be buying Gorilla Glue at a local hardware store.  I won’t hold it against him since he found two beautiful pieces of figural stoneware!  If anyone has any information on an artist named “Varela,” who may have made these adorable pieces, we’d love to hear more!  (They remind us of Bjorn Wiinblad’s work, but alas, they are not signed with his name.)

And here’s a quick shot of the signature!

This post is linked to Flea Market Finds!

This week was a bit of a bust for us as far as thrifting goes.  We were able to duck out to a few thrifts, but mostly this week was dedicated to helping friends!  To wit, I’ve been thrifting milk-glass vases for our dear friends’ wedding.  Yesterday morning I rounded up all the vases, went to the local farmer’s market and picked up flowers, and had a lovely afternoon filling vases full of flowers for the wedding!  I think they turned out perfectly.

As I mentioned above, we were able to do a little bit of thrifting this week, and we returned with a few great finds for the Etsy shop.

First is a set of salt and pepper shakers designed by Ben Seibel for his “Potter’s Art” series produced by Mikasa.  We found a few other pieces in the same line, but as Mr. Butter keeps reminding me, I don’t need to save everything I find.

Speaking of Mr. Butter, he found the amazing, flower-power candle holder  made by the Terra Sancta Guild of Israel in 1971.  We’ve seen other examples of the Guild’s work, but this piece was so cute we had to bring it home.

The glass tumbler or vase on the far right is still a mystery.  Both Mr. Butter and I were drawn to its effortless shape and green color, but we can’t figure out who designed it.  Our gut says that it’s Finnish, and possibly one of Kaj Franck’s designs, but we would love some help with this piece!

Finally, the yellow bowl, which is my favorite find of the weekend!  We’re suckers for Finel bowls at Chez Butter.  In fact, we have quite the burgeoning collection!  Alas, I refuse to be the person who collects of of every shape and color, so we’ll be listing this beauty in the etsy shop later in the week.  It’s bright yellow with white polka-dots and in amazing condition!

Linked to Flea Market Finds.

Well, Mr. Butter and I had such a fantastic thrifting weekend that we wanted to share what we found with everyone!  Saturday was a beautiful day in Seattle so it seemed like the perfect time to hop in the car, roll down the windows and check out some local thrifts.  But first, we stopped at an estate sale close to our house and picked up this beautiful Blenko Water Bottle.  This baby catches the light like nobody’s business!

These Ken Edwards salt and pepper shakers make me wish I still lived in Los Angeles, surrounded by stucco and night-blooming jasmine.  They definitely deserve to live in someone’s bungalow, don’t you think?  We don’t find much Ken Edwards up in Seattle, so I happily picked these up!

This next find is one of my favorites–it’s a ewer from Lapid Ceramics of Israel.  Not much is known about this company, but from what I gather, they flourished in the 1960s and 1970s.  Personally, this is one of the nicest pieces of studio pottery I’ve come across.  The glaze is amazing!

This next piece was a bit of a mystery for me.  I picked it up because it reminded me of Harris Strong’s ceramics.  When I flipped it over, I was rather surprised to see that it was made in Norway by “Nora G.”  After a little research, I found out that the maker of this beautiful ceramic plate is Nora Gulbrandsen, who also designed some enameled jewelry for David Andersen.  This piece hasn’t made it into the shop yet, but it should be available soon, hopefully!

The last piece we found this weekend is one of those fabled finds that Mr. Butter and I will be talking about for a long time.  We both love the work Kay Bojesen and Hans Bolling.  Even though Seattle tends to be a good area for  Scandinavian thrifts, we had never seen one “in the wild.”  Until I spied this little elephant, that is!  He’s staying in our permanent collection!

Like something?  Visit Bit of Butter on Etsy!

Linked to Flea Market Finds and Thrift Share Monday

A few weeks back Mr. Butter and I were out thrifting and I heard my favorite exclamation: “Hey Aud, come here…”  I could see a demitasse cup and saucer in his hands, but they looked modern to me, not vintage so walked over to him ready to be the vintage police and move on to the next item.  The cup and saucer was gorgeous, to be sure: white exterior with a black graphic that reminded me of Esteri Tomula’s work, and a jewel-tone interior.  But vintage?

Much to my surprise (and Mr. Butter’s happiness), these cups and saucers were most definitely vintage, and were made by British ceramicist, Susie Cooper, c. 1958.  The pattern, called “Black Fruits” is delicate, colorful, and complex and Mr. Butter and I are so happy we found them ‘in the wild’ as we thrifters say.  The combination of the black, sketched design and the jewel-toned interiors make this set look decidedly contemporary, even though it is over 50 years old!

One of our more recent thrifting finds is a set of Anchor Hocking shot glasses in their original box.  (The box calls them whiskey jiggers, but we like to drink whiskey in bigger glasses!)  What’s so special about these shot glasses, you ask?

Well, they have some of the most hilarious graphics that we’ve seen in a very long time.  Although we can’t be certain, we think these glasses were made in the early 1970s, just when conservation movements are beginning to get some national and international attention.

From left-to-right, the back of the glasses read: Reforestation Expert, Wildlife Manager, Game Warden, Water Conservationist!  Great graphic designs AND hilarious puns?  Now if we could only find the designer responsible…

Børge Mogensen is one of our favorite furniture designers at Chez Butter.  His pieces don’t come up for sale locally very often, but when they do, you can bet that Mr. Butter and I are first in line!

Enter our new bookcase.  We’ve needed a new one for a while now, but I refuse to let any contemporary crap through our doors.  “We have to find a nice, vintage bookcase,” I thought to myself.  Soon after, Mr. Butter found a Craigslist ad for a Danish bookcase that looked promising and after bargaining with the previous owner, we loaded the bookcase into our car and made the trip home.

We didn’t know very much about our new bookcase other than we thought that the legs looked familiar and that it had a stamp of a viking ship on the back.  Within ten minutes Mr. Butter looked up from his computer and exclaimed “Mogensen!”  (We’re nothing if not nerdy at Chez Butter.)  Indeed, many of Mogensen’s side-boards and bookcases have inset, round legs with a supporting brace that hugs the legs and body of the piece.  It’s a beautiful marriage between form and function — and we’re so very happy its entered the permanent collection!