Round Top, TX

What a fun couple of days.  My awesome Aunt Madelynn came for a visit and a quick trip to Round Top for their huge antique markets.  I've never been and it was just fantastic.  Stall after stall of antique and not-so-antique goodies, a sunny but not too hot day and fabulous company.

Good things come in tents. 

Look familiar?

(Here's my Nana's old hutch that I painted turquoise on the inside!  Perhaps I started a trend...)

There were plenty of colorful, peeling things to look at.  I love furniture that is peeling (you blog buddies know this after looking at so many pictures!).  From the slightly, er, rustic...

 ...to the elegant!

 From the massively beautiful...

 ...to the tiniest vibrant touches.

There was color in regal couches and mod windows...

  ...and in my aunt and mom's favorite form: fiesta dishes!

There was also some interesting animal furniture.

I found an adorable little pin (a $3 bargain!) in the shade of mustard I'm obsessed with these days.

The color was right, but sadly the price was slightly more than $3.  Loved this gramophone.  Interestingly, the man running the stall was filling his plastic cup with champagne when I approached.  He seemed to be really enjoying himself.

And here the color was right, the price was right and yet somehow I resisted these earrings.  Somehow.

There was a stall full of 1950's kitchenwares.  So vibrant and functional.  My mom said it felt like walking into the kitchen she grew up with.  I loved this little copper percolator coffee pot, but I'm guessing the handle's not the original one.  We did find some great treasures, though:

My creative aunt took three lovely china plates (a dinner plate, a luncheon plate and a salad plate) and made a beautiful three-tiered pedestal.

Stunning, huh?  Now to fill it with sandwiches or cupcakes, make some tea and throw a party!

This was an amazing find for me.  I gravitated towards a stall that had things just like markets I visited in South Africa years ago.  I hovered there, gripping this beautiful chalice until I could talk with the man running the stall.  Boy, did we talk!

He was a lovely older South African gent, and we discussed everything from mealie meal to horseback riding on the Drakensburg Mountains in Lesotho to those dusty, glorious sunsets that, as he put it, "call you back again."  I left with the carved wooden chalice (for a generously discounted price), the card of his Scottish Presbyterian wife who will want to visit with me and my memories of wonderful travels renewed again.  The reason this particular chalice spoke to me (other than being a minister and loving all things that remind me of communion) was that I own a small carved wooden jar that I discovered in one of the markets in Durban, South Africa.  The charming chalice is its twin.

 See?

 Aunt Madelynn very sneakily bought me this lovely peridot cross.  I'm going to wear it to lead worship tomorrow.

And my mom found these beautiful beads in a bargain bin full of jewelry, half price.  It turns out, they're black onyx with 14k gold spacers!  Quite a find.

Round Top, you're top notch.