Saving the Pennies

We bought this great vintage money box last week – made by Dendan Ware in the late 1950s or early 1960s…

…featuring a hip young girl saving her pennies for life’s essentials – holidays, clothes, handbags, socialising.

It followed hot on the heels of another recent money box find. We posted this one on Flickr & it’s proved very popular – people just love owls! We’re going to add it to the website soon.

It’s going to join our family of Arthur Wood pigs who are already enjoying an idyllic free-range life there.

We love this elephant money box designed by Luigi Colani for Dresdsner Bank in 1963. It’s made from hard, moulded plastic and comes in various sizes & colours.

Back to owls – this vintage money box is from a range produced by Carltonware Pottery in the 1960s. The range features an eclectic mix of subjects including pigs, princesses & pirates – here are just a few!

If you’ve got pennies to save, these certainly beat an old jam jar!

Tile-tastic!

We were out & about in Huddersfield the other day and took some photos of these amazing tiled mosaics.

They’re situated in a 1960s-built precinct development in the town centre – they really capture the era.

On the subject of tiles, we recently put this image on Flickr. It’s a 1960s tile by Platt depicting a prince on horseback with a hunting falcon – we absolutely love it! We’re planning on having it framed.

We got this vintage bird tile ready-framed which is very effective. We think it was made by Maw & Co. It reminds us of Lisa Larson in style. We bought it from Wowie Zowie in Chorlton. This shop is well worth a visit if you’re in Manchester – they have some lovely stuff, imaginatively displayed.

This large tile/plaque is indeed by Lisa Larson – she’s a real favourite of ours! It was designed for Gustavsberg of Sweden in the 1960s.

Here it is in its usual home on a shelf in our lounge.

Here’s another one of our vintage tiles in situ – this one’s Italian – it sits happily on our bathroom shelf. Here it is in close up.

The most recent addition to our little collection was picked up yesterday. It’s quite different to the others in the fact that it represents a real place – it depicts the Euromast in Rotterdam designed in the 1950s – we really like the modernist feel to it.

The final item in our burgeoning tile collection is by Kenneth Townsend. We featured it before in our Z is for… Zoo blog post.

The lion is an early piece from his Menagerie range. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find some of his other animals to fill our shelves!

Mug shot

We picked up a lovely little item this week that we wanted to share with you.

It’s a set of four vintage 60s/70s Staffordshire Potteries mugs… complete with original carrying tray & lids. Not only do we love the design & colours of this set, it’s the fact that all its bits are intact – a rare survivor!

They’re great for cups of tea when you’re working in the garden – the lids keep it warm until you’re ready to drink keep the flies out (and are the perfect place to put a biscuit or two!). They’d also be good for the office – you’ll need to use the whole set when it’s your turn to make a brew.

We normally come across these Staffordshire mugs singly – here are a few more examples that we’ve picked up.

They’re only humble everyday objects but wonderful all the same!

A cabinet post

It’s been a bit quiet on the H is for Home blog front recently. We’ve been keeping very busy with a new little venture.

We were offered a space in our local Picture House Antiques centre, which we’ve already mentioned in our Todmorden blog, and thought it would be nice to have an actual physical presence in our home town.

It’s a large cabinet which we’ve given the H is for Home treatment. We’ve painted its backboard a lovely, vibrant green…

…mounted some glossy photos and press cuttings…

…and have begun to fill it with a mixture of antiques, vintage and retro pieces… a taste of things that can be found on the webshop.

It’s taken a bit longer than anticipated to get to this stage as the whole project started with a bit of a disaster!

We’d arranged about 25 gorgeous glass vases on the top shelf… you know what’s coming next… yes, the shelf collapsed, and the vases came crashing down smashing themselves and other items beneath. There’s no photographic evidence – in all the turmoil, taking photos didn’t cross our minds.

It took a few hours before we could face it again… but we eventually returned and have it looking quite nice again. We’ll no doubt be adding & rearranging aplenty over the coming days!

If you’re ever in the area pop in & have a look!

H is for Home Harbinger

Category: ceramics

Saving the Pennies

Tile-tastic!

Mug shot

A cabinet post