More old stuff.

We headed up to Richmond this past weekend to check out a flea market Todd had heard was good, but...um, not so much. Lots and lots of garbage, nothing remotely interesting. Unless you find used pants and stolen DVDs interesting. Todd did pick up a motor and a couple other odds and ends but my thrift vintage junk dream was rudely punctured.

So we headed off to explore and find some antique malls. We went to three all together, and although Todd found nothing, I did buy just a couple little things.

At the last antique mall, I walked into a treasure trove of vintage paper STUFF. The dealer said she's one of the largest paper ephemera dealers in the country, and I can believe it. I've never seen so many magazines and ads and pamphlets and STUFF in one spot before.

I didn't get to look through everything--it would have taken a whole day--but I grabbed just a few old magazines for fun at-home perusal. I loved the colors on this one, and doesn't that look like a room you'd sleep in at grandma's house?

I also got a copy of an old magazine called Everywoman, which features an essay by Senator John Kennedy on whether the U.S. will ever have a woman president (he waffles around the topic in truly Presidential style), and a couple old Better Homes and Gardens.

At the first antique mall we stopped at, I found this old reader:

My dad has been a custodian at a local school for 30 years, and when I was a kid and an avid reader, he'd bring home books that were being discarded from the school library, in a fruitless effort to keep me supplied with reading material. (And also because he's constitutionally incapable of seeing perfectly good items thown away.)

This was in the 1970s, which meant that most of the books being pitched were from the 1940s, and the readers, in particular, were full of the most charming illustrations I'd ever seen. I firmly believe my love for 1940s-style home decor comes from my years of absorbing these pictures.

So whenever I see an old reader with nice pictures, I pick it up. This one is from 1935, so the style is a little older than the readers I remember from my childhood, but the pictures are just lovely: