My First "Thrifty Thursday"

• She is like merchant's ships, she bringeth her food (and other things!) from afar
• She considereth a field, and buyeth it...

I've never been much of a thrift store/garage sale/flea market shopper. I can remember going to a few garage sales with my mom when I was young, and I've gone to thrift stores and the like a few times over the years, but I never seem to find the "good stuff" and bargains that I hear of from other people. I even had a pastor's wife for a while who was the queen of thrift shopping, and I still didn't catch the knack.

Just lately, though, I've been venturing into a thrift store (I admit, the first time I was lured by the bake sale they were having and the promise of chocolate pie and homemade crescent rolls) and even a flea market or two.

While my son was browsing books, I found this pretty little bowl:

I bought this for $2 just because I thought it was pretty.

The markings on the back show "J & G Meakin, England, Sterling, Vine". I've discovered that the pattern is "Vine" and J & G Meakins is an English (obviously!) company that was was in business from sometime in the 1800's to about 2000, but is no longer in business. The "Vine" pattern was apparently made in blue and red (some listings call it pink), but so far I haven't been able to discover which years this piece was made. I don't think it's all that old realtively speaking. I did find a few pieces on e-Bay and at a company that specializes in replacement pieces for discontinued china and tableware. Interesting what you can find out from the internet, huh?

So today I'm participating for the first time in a new-to-me meme (that's blogger talk for "theme") at Tales from Bloggeritaville called "Thrifty Thursday", where everyone links to posts about their thrift store finds.

Edited to add: I'm also linking this post to:

2nd Time Around at A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

Vintage Thingies Thursday at Coloradolady

Want to see what everyone else is buying? Click on over and follow a few links to see the other pretty and interesting things other bloggers are finding.

Until next time...