Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Turning Grey

Turning 35 last week wasn't as painful an experience as I'd previously expected, due in large part to great friends, an amazing dinner party and some really thoughtful gifts.

Here are a select few. 

My favorite of the bunch has to be the vintage mosaic piece that Tony purchased for me at a local antique store. This thing is HUGE—somewhere around 4 feet tall—and the quality of the craftsmanship is really impressive. I just wish our photo could do justice to the variety of shapes (and depths) for each individual tile. We really love this recent addition to our den.

I'd been searching for a copy of the Equals' Diversion single for a while now and was pleased when our friend Mike (thank you!) sent me one for my b-day. I also treated myself to the Creation's Making Time and Liz Brady's Hey O Daddy O 45s. The Finnish owl bank was a Valentine's Day gift from Tony, but it looked good in this spread, so I included it.

Another Valentine's Day gift was a female Zoo Line hippo Tony found buried on eBay. Despite the misleading photo, she arrived with her tail intact. I'm so glad we were able to match up my bull with his new girlfriend!

And, lastly, here's another recent purchase that wasn't necessarily a gift, but he is a hippo. It's a vintage ceramic bank. Unfortunately, no markings or anythingwe just really like him! The mod owl perfume bottle in the background was yet another V-Day gift.

Once again, I would like to thank everyone for all of my gifts and for making this birthday a very special event!

8 comments:

Petro B Pettson said...

That Mosaic is sick!

Gonked, Glooked and Slurped! said...

Thanks, Ben! We were moments away from losing out on this--it had just been put on the floor and an antique dealer was right behind us as we made our way towards it. It was a close one!

jamie@midcenturymania said...

All of your gifts are great, but that mosaic piece is absolutely beautiful. I'm so glad you beat the dealer to it. I love it when that happens. Happy belated birthday!

Gonked, Glooked and Slurped! said...

Thank you!

To his credit, the dealer in question has been very nice to us in the past--he even sold us our kitchen set at a significantly reduced price. He was happy that we were the ones who beat him to the punch!

Amber Von Felts said...

What sweet presents, you must have sweeter friends! I used to have that same she hippo, and the little owl lamp in the background, I have two of those, the lil' brown guy you have and a lil' green one too. Love your collections, they are great!

Tim and Amber Young said...

Hi, I'm new to your blog. You have some amazing stuff! What do you know about the mosaic? I'd love to try to find one for our house.

Gonked, Glooked and Slurped! said...

Unfortunately, the piece isn't marked and the only thing we know for sure is that it came out of an estate and was probably purchased new--it shows very little wear for something 30-40 years old.

Anonymous said...

I can tell you that this piece was a available as a kit from M. Large, designer in 1957. My grandmother made a ton of these. The company allowed you to pick your own colors. I think the one pictured is the standard kit color suggestion