vintage orange

This weekend, we went to the quaint little town of Orange, CA so we could poke around and look at other people's things. Orange, which is about 40 minutes outside of Los Angeles, has everything that's appealing about a small town, since it's full of old soda fountains and stores selling old-fashioned candy.

It also has quite a lot of antique stores that are mostly centrally located, so it's easy to park and just walk around for hours and hours. One of our favorites, Chapman Antiques Mall, yielded some exciting treasures this time--a mushroom cookie jar, a reproduction needle set, and a baggie of weird old photographs.

I've been coveting vintage mushroom cookie jars from Arnel's for awhile now, and this yellow and white one goes perfectly in our little kitchen. I love its pleasant little shape, the gills on the bottom of the lid, and the handpainted colors on the 'shrooms.

If you flip it over and look on the very bottom of the jar, it's signed by RAMONA '77, which presumably is the person who painted it. How fun! Ramona, I love what you did! Best of all, it was a steal at just $5. I've seen the various different models run as high as $65 in stores, so I was very pleased with this find.

The needle set is really sweet as well. It's dated 2001, and is a reproduction of antique needle sets. The card is pretty enough to reuse or perhaps even to frame. The other item we couldn't resist was this weird fat packet of old photographs and IDs. We haven't opened it yet, but the lure of the slightly creepy photos and the evidence-baggie-style packaging was too much for us to pass up.

I do so love looking at old things. Are our kids going to feel nostalgic over things like Snuggies and Dora the Explorer one day? The mind boggles.