Southern Treasures

We just returned from one of my favorite areas of the country to “pick” and came back with some wonderful Southern treasures!  We found some beautiful pieces, some that I’m not sure I am going to want to sell in the shoppe!

Yesterday, we got everything unloaded from the trailer and piled into one room so that I could get a few photographs of it.  This isn’t everything though…….I have to keep some things as a surprise!

We found some of my favorite things, which is really all I look for.  I only buy what I love and would want in my own home.  I always feel that if I don’t “love” it, then it’s harder for me to translate it into words when I’m describing it in the online listing.  So I only look for pieces that I love and want, and those that best reflect the style of Edith & Evelyn.  

However, this also creates another problem……..

by only buying what I love, it’s sometimes really difficult to let something go!

We came back with several European dough bowl trenchers, French enamel milk buckets, and French grape harvest baskets.

And sheep……..I am always hunting for sheep…….I found some really great ones this trip!  

As well as several French chandeliers and a gorgeous Italian Florentine lamp.

I was surprised to find two antique French priest vestments with beautiful beaded appliques.  These came out of a New Orleans estate and they are so hard to come by.  The appliques are stunning, one with the dove descending from heaven, and the other is the Christogram.  Coming from the same estate, we found two long French linen altar banners with blue and red embroidery.  I’m extremely fond of these and will have a hard time letting them go.

We were also lucky enough to find a couple of French crucifixes, one like I’ve never seen before.  It has a tiny lamb figure sitting at the base of the cross.  I couldn’t grab it fast enough!  It is very old, late 1800’s.

 The other one, made of silver metal, has a lovely base….the detail work on the ends of the cross is just gorgeous.

Also coming home with us was an incredible pair of French altar candelabras with the symbolic wheat, grape, and lily embellishments.  Once gracing the altar of a French church, they are quite large and sit on beautiful tripod bases.  We found lots of French books this time around, a very old chippy, shabby Madonna statue, a little bit of Florentine, transferware, a few rosaries, and sheep………did I say sheep?

The turquoise seltzer bottles came out of Europe, I’m going to have a hard time letting those go.  That color is my favorite!

I felt like we didn’t find much on this trip, and as far as quantity goes, we really didn’t.  But the quality of what we did find is fabulous!

The piece de resistance of the entire trip has to be this……….

It is such a rarity to find such a piece…….

And for someone like me that has a weakness for antique religious artifacts…….

especially French……

well, let’s just say that I think my heart stopped when I saw it!

It is an antique French church board for the Children of Mary society.  It is all original with much of the paint and gilding still intact.

Dating to around 1870, it is all wood with slatted panels that slide out so that the children’s names can be written on paper, inserted into the panel and then slid into place under the correct alphabet letter.

Most of the papers with the names have deteriorated over the last century, but the name of the counselor, Mlle Emma Seigle, was still intact.  I’m extremely torn with this piece.  I know that if I list it for sale and it sells, I will be forever sorry.  

If you have followed me at all here, or on our Facebook page, you know that I am a lover of French chairs and rarely can I pass them up if they are in decent shape and a good price.  I mean seriously, can one really have too many French chairs?!?  I think not!  This time however, I didn’t find any French chairs………….but…….I did find a sweet little French settee!  It was in such great condition……and it was only $85.00!  Hubby was thrilled that I didn’t find any French chairs to bring home……until he saw me pull the tag on this settee!

Hubby: “What are you going to do with it?”

Me:  “What do you mean, what am I going to do with it?!”

Hubby: (eyeroll) “Don’t you already have one?”

Me:(arms crossed) “I only have two, and they are extremely different than this one…….and this one is in such great shape, I could put it anywhere………..and maybe I will sell one of the other ones………and this one is only $85.00 and it’s in excellent condition………I can’t just leave it here for someone else to snatch up!”

So, as any good hubby will do……..he loaded it onto the trailer!

For some reason, my little schnauzer girl, Lulu, thinks I brought it home just for her!  She has excellent taste!

Now, I’m off to get some of those treasures cleaned up, photographed, and listed in the shoppe!  And then it’s back to finishing up the renovation on the den.  We’re so close to being finished with that room!  It seems like every room takes so much longer than I anticipate!  But then I realized that nap and cocktail breaks really eat into how many working hours there are in a day!  Reveal coming soon!

Grateful,

Cindy