Vintage China Rental Raleigh Archives - Page 2 of 3

Southern Vintage Table Vintage China Rental NC

Vintage Feature – A Symbol of Love and Prosperity is… Wheat

While collecting vintage china patterns for Southern Vintage Table, I have found many vintage patterns with wheat shafts. Why wheat, I wondered? It’s brown and umm … brown. I knew there must be a story behind it. Well, of course, there is.

Wheat symbolizes many good things in life. To name just a few – prosperity, love, home and hearth, harvest, spring, birth and hope. In the bible wheat is the symbol for righteous people. No wonder it was popular on china, to be seen everyday at the family dining table!

One of the most prevalent patterns in the mid 1950s was Golden Wheat by Homer Laughlin, featured in the middle of the photo above. It was a marketing gimmick of Duz detergent – they wanted to have an edge over Tide, so they started including china dishes in their boxes of detergent! Don’t you wish someone would do that again?

The third image above is a beautiful golden scalloped edged pattern on a luscious cream background. I came upon it at a local thrift store – there was an entire set! One of the volunteers, Polly, and I sat down on the floor and examined each piece, reveling in its design and beauty. The pattern is from Grindley, manufactured in England and dates during the 1940s-50s. Of course, I bought it!

One more trio of wheat images is below from the 40s-60s. The first two are on fine porcelain china and the third has a beautiful teal coloring.

So, lovely wheat is in – at least on vintage china patterns – and we have them available for you at Southern Vintage Table!

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Southern Vintage Event: Reisling Vintages with Vintage China

It was her turn to host the monthly wine club dinner and Rowena wanted to do something special for her friends. The wine club’s mission is to ferret out the best wines in every possible category. For each meeting the members contribute a dish for the meal and then they try different vintages of the featured wine. A difficult task but these dedicated women are up for it!

This month’s featured wine was Reislings and what would make this festive event even more fun? An assortment of vintage china! Rowena arranged for Southern Vintage Table to set her table and each guest enjoyed a lovely unique place setting from our elegant collection with themes of pink and green. The final “plat de résistance” to help uncover the best Reisling vintage – an assortment of vintage hats!

Southern Vintage China Vintage China Rental NC — The bold salad plate sets off the delicate flowers of the berry bowl and dinner plate.

Bottles of Reislings and a delicious meal on beautiful vintage china – the perfect recipe for a spirited time! Having a dinner party, book club meeting or wine tasting event? Contact Southern Vintage Table for unique vintage china place settings that will get the conversation started!

Southern Vintage Table Event: YaYa Palooza!

Friends and birthdays just go together. My friends, Cis, Louise, Jami, Pat and Mary, love to get together for any reason and birthdays just make our gathering even more fun. Jami invited us over for a home cooked meal, including her speciality dessert, and I had the pleasure of setting our table with china from the casual collection of Southern Vintage Table. With dinner, key lime cheesecake and vintage hats, you’ve got a YaYa palooza!

Our food was delicious – chicken enchiladas, avocado and tomato salad, quinoa and rice – all served in and on pink vintage china in the casual collection!

After dinner, we donned our hats, made our birthday wishes to Cis and Mary and had scrumptious key lime cheesecake and coffee. Pass the vintage china, please…

Consider Southern Vintage Table for your next birthday or special evening with friends and family. Add the vintage hats and welcoming suitcase for more vintage flavor!

A Vintage Adventure – Vintage China, A Cup & A Business Friendship

This vintage china rental business is a perfect fit for me. I love vintage stuff – love the smell, the feel, the look, the beauty, the energy encapsulated in it, the history. I also love to go hunting for it – what a thrill when you find something interesting and imagine sharing it with others.

One day I was looking carefully at each piece I had placed in my shopping cart at a Durham thrift store and an attractive woman approached me. She commented about the array of dishes in my cart and I mentioned to her that I was looking for china for my vintage china rental business, Southern Vintage Table. We chatted a bit and she went back into the china aisle. A few more minutes later she returns with more pieces of the same pattern I had showed her. The kindness of strangers – don’t we all love that!

The next time she came back to my cart she was holding a coffee cup with “Terry” on it. It turned out to be her name.

Now, here’s the beautiful, eerie part – as she’s showing this cup to me, she’s explaining that it must be a message from the cosmos to talk with me about Southern Vintage Table. She shared that she had worked as a consultant with some prominent local companies in the area, which certainly caught my attention, My cosmic antenna was also up that day and I deeply felt this was not just a chance encounter. We exchanged names and numbers.

Our fateful meeting turned into a wonderful business collaboration for which I am very grateful. Her insight, experience and expertise helped get my business up and ready. Thank you, Terry Melville, for understanding the message in the coffee cup!

Southern Vintage Table is ready to help you with your next event – birthday, shower, anniversary, wedding reception, dinner party, tea party and any other gathering – with beautiful, interesting vintage china!

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A Vintage Adventure – Well, Perhaps Better Said, A MisAdventure…

Last weekend I went thrift store shopping for Southern Vintage Table and came across two beautiful vintage doors. They were narrow and had three small windows in the upper half – just charming and I thought they would be perfect as a prop after painting and distressing. I was trying to decide if I should go with a light blue or an antique white when I thought – oh no, I wonder if they have lead paint on them. Suddenly, I was the one who was getting distressed because I knew they probably did.

Cool vintage doors - but with lead paint... — I love these doors, but with the lead paint, I had to pass them on.

I stopped by the hardware store and picked up a lead paint test kit, hoping that it wouldn’t be. Got home, unloaded the doors, read the directions on the kit and tested them. Bam – the tester turned bright pink which meant they had lead paint. As I said, I was very distressed. After researching how to remove lead paint, I decided to call on an expert. Found out it would cost way more than I could afford for two prop doors. Oh, well…

I figured this was another valuable learning experience and posted them on Facebook. Within 30 minutes someone wanted them, even knowing they had lead paint. I was pleased because they needed to be saved and restored. Lesson learned – take a lead paint tester with me and check before I buy them!

Not all was lost on that shopping day. I did find two vintage china plates, a vintage berry bowl and a vintage table runner. Only one of each but that’s part of the fun of thrift store shopping!

These and other beautiful vintage china and accessories are available for rental at Southern Vintage Table!

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Vintage Feature – Wisdom from Ronald Reagan

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.
– Ronald Reagan (www.brainyquote.com)

Southern Vintage Table is ready to help you plan for your upcoming events this fall. Have a wedding, anniversary, birthday party, baby shower or a dinner party coming up? Let us help you set the table and get the conversation started!

Check out our inventory of vintage china and accessories on Pinterest!

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Vintage Tips – Three Cleaning Products for Thrift Store Vintage China (and other stuff, too!)

When I first started my vintage china collection for Southern Vintage Table, I labored over removing the stickers, tape and permanent marker prices. I would peel, scape and soak every dish to get that mark off! Now, I use three products that make cleaning thrift store vintage china a breeze!

1. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. This product is fantastic – it will quickly remove the permanent ink some thrift stores use for pricing and easily takes care of sticker glue and tape residue. It also does a terrific job of cleaning the bottoms of plates and other china so that when you are finished, the plate looks almost brand new! Do be gentle with some china patterns, especially if they have gold layering. I also use Mr. Clean Magic Eraser for other cleaning tasks. Today I cleaned the outside of two vintage suitcases and removed most of the scuff marks. They both look amazing all cleaned up and are now ready for my next event!

2. Eucalyptus Oil. This stuff will also remove sticky stuff on dishes. Sometimes the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser won’t get the mark off so I’ll dab some eucalyptus oil on a paper towel and wipe it off. It also smells nice and clean.

3. Very fIne sand paper. Some of the older china that’s crazed or china that’s unglazed on the bottom will soak in the permanent ink pricing. Using a very fine sand paper and lightly sanding can sometimes do the trick. Be gentle. I have also sanded down chips or sharp places on glass dishes and some china so that the imperfection is almost imperceivable.

Hope these tips work for you. If you have any other hints or advice for cleaning thrift store finds, please share!

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Vintage Feature: The Blue Vintage China Table

blue willow set — Clementine would be pleased that her Blue Willow teapots will be enjoyed by many admirers of her favorite china pattern.

What do The Andy Griffith Show, The Munsters and old Westerns have in common? Well, yes, they are all midcentury classic television but there’s something even cooler – they share a common dining table setting, the Blue Willow vintage china pattern. These famous shows set their table with this blue and white pattern because it is crisp, vintage and full of history. First designed in the 18th century, Blue Willow has been on generations of family dining tables and continues to be popular today. Read more about this fascinating pattern on Wikipedia.

There’s something special about blue vintage china that many folks appreciate. Blue Willow features dark indigo against white that’s so striking. Blends of light blue vintage china are soothing and inviting. Vintage turquoise has a romantic flair while blues with greens, pinks and yellows present a cheery table.

Whether it’s the classic blue and white vintage china table setting, a myriad of blue vintage china stoneware patterns or a mingling of soft elegant blue vintage china patterns, your guests will love it. Check out more blue vintage china patterns available at Southern Vintage Table on our Pinterest Board!

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A Vintage Adventure – Sold to Number 268!

The seemingly small place was packed – with stuff, people and lots of chairs. I signed in and then made my way up to the front to take a look at the box lots. The items I came for were listed to go first so I wanted to make sure I was ready. I sat down, listened and absorbed all the sounds and sights of the auction house. A gentleman sat next to me in a chair that was marked with his name – definitely someone who knew what he was doing – and I would be quickly thankful he did.

My hats came up. I raised my card with the number 268 but the auctioneer didn’t see me at first. Some of the folks at the front got worried for me so they let him know I was there. The rest was a bit of a blur, but I did end up winning the bid. I wish I had a picture of my face when he said, “Sold to 268”. I bet it was hilarious! My friend then advised me to let them take the stuff to the side room so I could pick it up when I was ready to leave. Good advice.

Southern Vintage Table Vintage China Rental — Classic red and black with a little veil

He then showed me on the ticket where you could keep track of the items you won. He said it helped him keep from overspending his budget. Yep – more good advice. My hands were shaking as I wrote down my first auction win.

I was a quick learner and started bidding on the other items I had seen in the box lots. The pace is fast and you’ve got to have quick reactions. I was so quick that I ended up with something I didn’t mean to win – don’t know how that happened – but I was thankful it was only $7.50. I also learned that you don’t go back in the room to pick up your stuff but you have to wait outside the door – that lesson came a bit harshly but the lady brought my stuff to me with a somewhat apologetic face.

In addition to the hats, I also got a box lot of miscellaneous china and glassware – well worth my $5 bid, a chair – which I didn’t mean to win, and a $5 wrought iron aquarium stand that I’m going to turn into something cool.

I decided to leave before the big ticket items came up. Baby steps, I thought. It was my first auction, and undoubtedly, won’t be my last. As I was leaving with my arms full of hat boxes, another gentleman said to me, “I could see you were having a good time in there!” He must have seen my face…

These hats, plates, bowls and cups are available for your next tea party or family dinner at Southern Vintage Table!

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A Vintage Adventure – A Collection Builds One Piece at a Time

It was our annual beach trip to Louise’s condo and all the yayas (Jami, Louise, Mary, Pat and me) were coming except for Cis, who was caring for her mother. (Cis, we missed you!) This tradition is something we all look forward to each summer – hanging out with each other, cooking a seafood feast, talking school talk, watching a movie and sometimes even going on the beach. For this trip, Jami and I added another diversion – thrift store hopping – although a few of the stores were anything but thrift, but they did have some beautiful vintage things that inspired us.

Our first stop was incredible – it was like a huge, dusty museum of vintageness. Most things didn’t have a price and were covered by a thick coat of dust and grime. The aisles were tight, the shelves were high and the piles were deep. In other words, perfect – well, almost. The dust did get a bit obnoxious.

We were there for nearly 3 hours – looking mostly for china but marveling at all the cool stuff there, too. Jami was on the hunt for the perfect tureen for her succulent garden. We took our finds up to the front counter and quickly a pile was started. In our collection were plates, teacups, glasses, a hat and a tureen without a lid. (Oops – that’s what happens when your hands are full and you have to move 10 things before you can get to what you wanted to see. They weren’t going to make us pay for the lid but Jami got the bottom for $2 which was the best deal we got!)

In the end, I got a few things, including some pink rimmed luncheon plates and two glasses.

So, I started two collections (green thumbnail tumbler which goes perfectly with the amber ones I already had and the square luncheon plates) and added to my Big Top Peanut Butter goblet collection. A fruitful adventure, indeed!

These treasures are available at Southern Vintage Table for your next gathering!

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