What is a monkeybox?

When I was a little girl, we had a pet monkey named Amanda. My Dad worked in the produce business, so each night he brought home that days culls in a big box - spotty cucumbers, pithy apples, limp celery, moldy oranges and the like. We called it a monkeybox. It was really just trash, but my Mom would take each piece of fruit and trim it, pare it and cut it up to make a beautiful fruit platter for Amanda. Even though it was deemed trash by one, it still had life left in it and was good for the purpose we needed it. That's how I live my life - thrifting, yard saling, looking for another's trash to be my treasure.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Somebody Cleaned Out Grandma's House

Uh-Oh. Somebody cleaned out Grandma's 1960-70's decorated house and donated it all to the Super Cheap Thrift.
A 55¢ "Smoke and Sip" from now defunct "Dogpatch" theme park. What a better way to remember your family vacation to Dogpatch than to enjoy your morning cigarette and coffee? People do collect Dogpatch items so this is for resell.
"God Bless This Lousy Apartment" china plate. I think these old comical plates are funny. This one will be for resell as I do not live in a lousy apartment. I sold one a few years ago that said "God Bless This Lousy Trailer House". I have a collection of these old plates that I will have to share someday.
There were owls everywhere at the thrift today. Owls, owls, owls. Most were slightly creepy and oh so 1970's owls. I did like this wooden owl letter holder for 25¢ and the small porcelain owl for 15¢. The little handpainted pumpkin box was only 20¢ and maybe even made by Grandma herself!
Yes, I know. This is ugly. Four animals that are not even normally found in a natural habitat crammed into a wooden house in a cloche. It's ugly. I've already dismantled it and will reuse the cloche for some of my bluebirds and eggs. That won't be so ugly, right? It was only 55¢, so I took a chance at tearing it apart.
Speaking of ugly. Are you ready?

Yowza. Now, that's ugly. A huge plastic half barrel full of ginormous toadstools, plastic grapes, ivy, and a few sugared Christmas picks thrown in for good measure. Eeeew. But, like the cloche, take it apart and what do we have?
Really cool old toadstools in an array of colors. They are big - bigger than life actually. But pretty cool.
And, the half barrel isn't that bad once it is empty. I will add it to my Fall decor full of mini pumpkins and corn. The plastic grapes remind me of my childhood. We always had a bowl full of plastic fruit on the dining room table. That's cause we was class-y.

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My new favorite Halloween items this year are these fun vintage inspired sets of Halloween Topiaries. They crack me up and add a whimsical twist with my vintage inspired decorations. (These are not handmade - but still really, really adorable!)

(Not sure why that glare is in the first photo - sorry). I have a couple of sets for sale if anyone is interested. A set of two is $20.00 shipped.

Each one stands about 10" tall.

Funny glittery punkin' head topiary.

Fat black cat topiary. $20.00 a set shipped.

Email me at monkeybox at juno dot com if you are interested.

Thanks!


1 comment:

  1. I have to tell you that I was thrifting this weekend with my Mom in my hometown of Chico, CA. And we went to a store called "Thrifty Bargain" and I imagined that it must be like your store the "Super Cheap". Anyway, I was in one othe Salvation Army stores, they call them "the Sally" and there was one of those cloches and I almost bought it, but didn't because they were charging $5 for it! And the flowers were super hideous inside and I don't really even need a cloche! Maybe if it was only .55 cents I totally would have bought it!

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