We have received a lot of positive feedback about Upcycling and the various forms it can take. I thought I would share how to easily find ideas and inspiration for your own project. For those of you who use Pinterest, there is a page devoted to antique upcycle which you can visit here.

The ideas range from the strange to the practical to whimsical and pretty darn cool. My thought is not to promote any specific idea but merely to show what is possible and perhaps start you on your own project, after a visit to Yesterday's Treasures of course!

Now, this one is probably beyond most of our abilities for a weekend project, but it qualifies as a piece that got me thinking. I ran across a number of bookcase ideas. Here's another one:

Again, not sure I ever would have thought up this one on my own, an old door repurposed as a bookcase. Of course there are all kinds of materials to work with and final products to produce. Have a lot of old license plates around? I found a dozen interesting ideas for using them without breaking a sweat. In fact, we already have a vendor using them for something new and interesting, recognize these?

So, whether you are looking at a specific piece you want, like a bookcase: or, you have materials but don't know what to do with them, check out upcycle ideas with Pinterest or better yet, stop in and ask for advice!

For book collectors, it seems that the pursuit of the first edition is the only thing that matters.  It doesn't have to be that way. I am as guilty as anyone for being, as Orwell put it so delicately in an essay he wrote on working in an old bookshop, "a first edition snob."  There are actually many, many avenues to collecting books that do not require first editions.  For example, my wife Caroline collects the Perry Mason mysteries by Erle Stanley Gardner.

As you can see in the above example, many of them have fantastic illustrated dust jackets. It is these that she likes to collect and though she has some first editions she also has a number of book club editions, usually dreaded by collectors but in this case welcomed with open arms.

Perry Mason books have been often reprinted (TV shows will do that for a book) so here is an example of reprint.  The illustrated jacket is gone and replaced with a photographic one.

So in this case, the collector is trying to be complete, because she loves the stories, but if she finds a copy of, The Case of the Mischievous Doll in its illustrated jacket, she will be more than willing to trade or sell the photo jacket copy.

All for now and until next time, happy hunting at Yesterday's Treasures!