Someone else's trash is my treasure

By now you've probably noticed that I love old junk. It's a habit passed down from my mom. Growing up she always had some sort of a collection, first it was tea cups, then china dolls, then onto Jadeite (like the green mugs shown here) and now her current obsession is vintage jewelery. We've often joked that she collects collections. From an early age on, I spent countless hours being dragged around antique, consignment, secondhand, vintage and thrift stores. I used to dislike it. I've always been a bit of a bookworm, so it was secondhand books that first won me over. I'd find the booth selling old books and run my fingers along their spines and flip their worn pages while she browsed the rest of the store. I loved the slightly musty smell they had, kind of like leaves in the fall. Next it was jewelery. Antique stores often have huge bowls full of old jewelery, often each piece sealed in it's own teensy little ziploc bag. Like a mad pirate I dived in, searching for plastic and rhinhestone treasures. After that it became purses. Most modern purses do nothing for me. You can keep your Fendi's and Louis Vuitton's, I'd much rather have an old straw purse from the 60's. Now, I can spend hours wandering an antique store. Every nook and cranny holds a new treasure. You never know what you'll find.
Today I visited one of the two antique malls in Barrie. I snapped some pictures of some of my finds.
I found so many cool purses today, there were probably 5 or so different ones that I wanted. Sadly due to budget constraints none of them came home with me. The items shown against the white are the items that did come home. I found these two dishes that I thought were really pretty for $3 ea. I love flower pins, I thought the one here was really unique, it was $5. The purple necklace was $8 and came with a pair of clip on earrings. And the two pairs of earrings were $2.25 ea.
The last picture shows huggy bears. (Huggy bears are the originals, they also have huggy bunnies, puppies, etc.) They're salt and pepper shakers that embrace each other. My grandma has a pair that will someday be passed down to my mom and then one day down to me. The saddest thing in the world is a huggy bear by itself. It stands there thrusting its' arms into the world hoping to make contact with someone and one day be hugged back. If I see a single huggy bear in a store I always try and find them a figurine or something to hug. One day I hope to start a huggy bear foundation and match up all the single huggy bears with mates.
Tomorrow I'm sure you all know is mothers day. I'll be spending the day with my mama. We're planning on taking a road trip to Owen Sound, there's some really pretty waterfalls there and if it's not too cold we're planning on having a picnic. It's about a 3 hour drive away. I'm really hoping there's some antique stores on the way.
I'll be back later in the day to post my outfit. Hope y'all are having a great weekend so far!