Vintage Wednesday: From Paris. I love.

In the first week of October 2001, my mother and I flew to Heathrow, took a bus through Canterbury to the white cliffs of Dover and boarded a ferry to cross the Channel to Calais. We then took a train across the French countryside and arrived in Paris. We were some of the first Americans in Paris after the 9/11 attacks and all the stories we'd heard about Parisians rebuffing Americans proved untrue. They welcomed us. And so began our time in Paris.

We did the obligatory touristy things: saw the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, crossed the guards with the huge machine guns to see the Eiffel Tower, walked across the gardens and over a bridge to see Musee D'Orsay and saw the stunning Rose Window in Notre Dame. These were "must see" attractions if you're in Paris for the first time. But we also took some time off the beaten track, finding a needlework shop, exploring a pharmacy full of wondrous scented waters and soaps and found one of the flea markets of Paris.

It was a huge, sprawling mess of booths - some covered with tin roofing, some in multistory building-like structures with an open air feel. And the things we saw in abundance in Paris, we'd search a year to find in an antique store here. You see, in Paris, vintage is what we call antique. And what we call vintage is - or was - cheap and abundant.

We found one shop that was full of linens and millinery supplies - there was a wall of shelves full of silk flowers and ribbons from the 20s and 30s. Another shop was full of vintage buttons circa 1900 - jar after jar of jet and glass and wooden buttons in a rainbow of colors. Mama's treasure was a stole, embroidered in gold and silk with liturgical objects. But my favorite find was this little purse. This purse stole my heart. At the time, the price was very dear, but THIS was to be my souvenir of Paris - the romance, the beauty, the style.

I've done a bit of research and I believe it was from around the late 1800s or early 1900s. Although a company named Whiting and Davis perfected the art of metallic mesh bags similar in style to this in the 1920s, this is a little different from those styles I've seen. The blue is a fiber instead of metal with bits of silver that look as if they've been crocheted into the mesh. The top looks like punched silver, so I don't think it was meant to be a compact purse (complete with mirror and powder puff). It's origin is still a mystery to me, but I treasure this little reminder of our trip to Paris and the wondrous things we were able to see. To this day, it hangs by my door as a reminder to seek out the treasures in life - because they're often waiting unexpectedly just around the corner.

DIY Monday: Polishing Silver

A couple weeks ago I posted about finding this lovely silver pin for 25 cents at a local community yard sale. I like the "patina" (darker, aged look) of the piece, but wanted to polish it up a bit. The only problem is that the many nooks and crannies make it difficult to effectively polish. So I turned to the aluminum foil method to get into all the tight spaces!

First, find a container in which you can completely cover your object with water. Cover the bottom of the container with aluminum foil, shiny side up. Pour in 1 Tbsp. of baking soda and 1 Tbsp. of salt and then cover the item with boiling water. The boiling water is important because it speeds up the molecules that help remove the tarnish quickly (someone really smart figured that out, not me). You should smell a bit of a sulfuric smell and see the foil start to turn a darker color.

I don't leave the silver in for a long time as I worry about the salt pitting the silver, but it works wonders in a pretty short period of time. Don't forget to use tongs to take the item out of the water - both will be hot! Next week, I'll show you a non-chemical way to finish polishing up your pieces if there's any tarnish left!