Baskets and buckwheat

I scored a bunch of interesting things this week. It's hard to see some things in the picture, but that's because I have a crappy camera.

The tall jug with the rooster on it is an oil cruet, hand painted and from Japan. The creamer in front of it has a pattern that almost looks like a cross-stitch. So I think I'll use it for a pattern. It's also going to be used to hold thin ribbon. All you have to do it stick the spool of ribbon inside and feed the end out of the spout. It works better when you have a creamer with a lid, or a sugar bowl and lid with the notch in the side for a spoon, but it will do just fine. If you can find a nice soup tureen, you can use it for your yarn when you knit.

The blue pillow is a buckwheat heating pad. Pop that into the microwave and away we go. The egg is just pretty. The bowl that I have currently filled with styrofoam snowballs gets filled for easter with eggs. I have a bunch of jasper and quartz ones and a couple marble too. There are even a couple hand-painted wood ones. But I only have a few ceramic, and they are painted with flowers and things. This one looks like they took the red and swirled it directly into the ceramic. It's going to be very vibrant among the flowers.

There is a little carnival glass dish in the back and another stained glass pattern for my husband to copy. That one's pretty easy, by any standard. But it's nicely done. I found two still sealed up moleskin journals I'm going to keep to put down the addresses of all my thrift stores. One in the car, one at home. That way I'll never be without a place to go. And the two purple things on the table. The one in back that you can barely see against my new basket is a decanter. It's shaped like a bell and has no chips or cracks at all. The one in front you can clearly see is a big amethyst chunk made into a candle-holder. Boy does is glow when it's lit up!

And lastly on my useful list is this towel bar. It's meant to hold fingertip towels in your bathroom, but this one is going to hold some more of my bracelets. I'm working on dividing all my jewels into categories. The ones I don't wear often, will go on the dresser, the ones I do, will go on my little table. Since there are more that I don't wear, the bigger one I have already will probably stay on the dresser, while this will move to my table and hold my best beloved pieces.