Hi everyone – it has been rather “rough” at thrift stores lately as far as finding new items for the shop has gone. I think you could say that at this point we are “beggars” rather than “choosers”, LOL. We are hearing through the thrift grapevine that this seems to be the case around the country as well.

So we were somewhat pleasantly surprised to come across a few Scandinavian items at thrift stores last week. These will soon be making their way into our shop and Etsy outlet.

We have a soft spot for any housewares from Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland – whether or not they have a “modern” vibe or not. The 1980 collectible plate from Royal Copenhagen is not really something we would ordinarily get for the shop, but it was too reasonable to pass up. Side note: Did you know that the 1980s are considered vintage now? Ugh, I feel old. =)

The other two items are from Arabia of Finland. Actually, at a recent flea market this weekend we came across even more Arabia items, but they didn’t make it into this photo. The Christmas plate with Santa and elves riding on a sleigh is a little subtle. I ordinarily wouldn’t have even picked it up to look at it, but you know, thrift times are tough and I decided to just pick up EVERYTHING to look at it closer. When I saw it was from Arabia, it went into the shopping cart right away.

Apparently, it’s a 1979 holiday plate series that has at least four different “motifs”. We’re uncertain of the designer. You can tell the design is pretty nice, however, when you take a closer look at it.

The cute Arabia teacups are also something we wouldn’t have ordinarily picked up. This blue floral pattern looks a bit more traditional and is known as “Ali”. However, we really like the way that the saucers have higher rims and the overall construction of these pieces is quite nice. We actually believe these might be demitasse cups as opposed to normal teacups. [Edit: these sold almost immediately in our Etsy store, we've since learned that they were made in the 1964-1974 range and the shape is by Kaarina Aho (known as the FC model or Palapeli) and the decoration is by the famous designer Raija Uosikkinen. More info in the Arabia Museum.]

OK – we’ll post more of our finds as they come in. We’re actually thinking of starting up a few features on this blog to encourage people to visit and comment. I think the thrifting angle might be one way to go, since so many of our shop acquisitions come from thrift stores.