A Very Happy Mothers' Day - The Finds

Thanks for your lovely comments on yesterday's post. Sorry for teasing you all! So here it is... This is the side view - I love the Rennie Mackintosh-inspired roses.And the top is totally different! At the risk of offending at least half of you, I have to say I don't actually like this picture. It's a soppy, sloppy rendition of something else much better, from an earlier time. Sorry!But the front is super too - those 1930s stylised roses again instead of the unfinished-looking ones on the top. And SO French, with the royal coats of arms. Thus I am completely prepared to forgive the top for being a bit drippy.It's quite a big tin, at least adult shoe-box sized. You can see it lurking behind the Pringles (my prize from the quiz!) Let's go briefly through my other finds before we discover what's inside... Enough china plates to cater for all my adult garden party guests without getting the good china out! I met a woman I know from the local choir, Annie, and she sold me her very chipped old set, with the cherries and pears, for 1 euro 50! The big foam die is for a large snakes and ladders game we have for the garden - the old inflatable die has a puncture and I wanted to use the game in the children's games area at the garden party.This lovely serving bowl more or less matches the set of china I bought for the garden party at the charity shop the other day.And finally, showing admirable self-control, I opened up my little treasure chest! I'd hardly seen inside it at the Vide Greniers, as the woman just offered it to me, contents and all...It's one of those lovely lifetime collections of sewing stuff, memoriabilia and tat - you can learn so much about a woman's life from her sewing tin! She was probably local, as she had some violet water from Toulouse.She had a great collection of poppers and fastenings of all vintages and sizes.I should think she was married to a policeman! The bottom of the tin was full of skittering 'police national' buttons in various sizes.They seem to have come from a variety of Paris button makers, judging from the backs, and are also of varied quality. Some are quite crummy base metal but most are shiny and silver!Do you think this came from his uniform too?
Now, what are we to make of the presence of four naval buttons? They were also made in Paris...Back to our lady (oh no, an unintended pun!). I meant our sewing tin lady, but, as you see, she had some devotion to Our Lady, too. Do you think this came from Notre Dame in Paris?A jumble (now sorted) of embroidery silks, lace, shoe laces, straps and loads of elastic - great, as I have something that needs mending with loads of elastic!

This beautiful blue and white embroidered ribbon, which matches my blog so well! I think this is my favourite of the tin's contents. And perched on it, one of those lovely French name-tape thingies; just a number 6. You have to see the much wider collection of red name tapes that both Lululiz and Laura have - just click on their names because I've linked you to the right posts. If you can read Laura's without smiling, or Lululiz's without wanting to go round and burgle her house, then you should not be reading this blog. And, oh yes, Lululiz, just a little crochet hook there, no committments...A very tatty little scrap of ribbon?No - a case for two very cheap pendants, but they do contain real gold! I don't suppose they have value, but I do suspect that the dealer who sold me the tin hadn't bothered to open the 'scrap of ribbon' to find them.

Another pendant, instantly adopted by Son 2, who likes dolphins... And the tin taking pride of place in my vintage-tins-with-buttons-in collection! I'm even getting to quite like the soppy, sloppy, drippy couple...