Antique Excursion Part 1 - Here in IL

While Bree was down in Tennessee visiting my Mom and Dad, I headed out to Princeton, IL area - as well as Peru as there are two pretty neat antique malls out there. You better bring your walking shoes - something like 40 and 60 THOUSAND square feet of antiques.. heeee

I enjoyed my time perusing and could have spent a vast amount of lottery money (had I won the lottery)- but came home with a few things.

I need to put some background out here first - while Mom was here in town, we went up to our old hometown of Antioch (right on the IL-WI border) to visit with some dear friends of hers whom are antiquers as well as worked with Mom to establish the Antioch Historical Society which is a very neat museum. If you like history, visiting the museum and now the new building they purchased is a must!

Ainsley, one of Mom's friends, is a Civil War Historian (don't know what else you'd call her as she is an expert) - She even has her own SUBSTANTIAL private collection to which she travels to put on displays. She also participates in various Civil War Re-enactments and has not only ACTUAL clothing from this era, but, beautiful replicas. She also has many different types of antiques from this time period.

Bree was particularly interested in a dresser and cupboard that was a doll or small child sized furniture - In the antique world, they are called "Salesmans Samples" - Salesman traveled with smaller replicas of the furniture they would sell. In Bree's world, these are PERFECT American Girl Doll sized furniture. Bree is an American Girl Doll "officiando". She has learned a great deal about history and such through the various life stories of the dolls. Felicity, is one that grew up close to the civil war time period. So, I'm sure you can see where this is all going...

After seeing Ainsley's collection - She wanted the furnitre, the mini curling iron, etc...

So, while out perusing, I found these for Bree:


As well as this curling iron (granted it's not a "mini" sized one, but an adult sized one) - they would set the metal end in the hurricane lanterns for the flame to "heat up" and then would take out and while hot to curl their hair



And this is a glove stretcher (past civil war era). For gloves that were too snug, they would put the pointed end into the finger and by squeezing the handles it actually "opens" up the points and spreads the fabric apart.



Now, I fell in love with Ainsley's Hat Pin and Hat Pin Holder collection, but much to my dismay, did not find any I absolutely had to have.. I did find myself an Antique Butter Mold and Antique Sewing Needle -





I also found a very nice weaving shuttle that has the manufacturer's name carved in it as well as the "size" - all with working parts - but, that's still packed from my Tennessee trip (I took it down there to show Mom) - It really ties to my visit to Esther's Place - in fact, that's how I knew what it even was!!!

So, lots of neat stuff - Bree was quite excited with her "finds" when she saw them last night when we arrived home and has spent much of today rearranging her American Girl Doll things to incorporate them!