At American Primitives at Clayson Farms August 2011

Picture a mid to high 80 degree day with a gentle breeze, tall shade trees and green grass....lots of amazing sellers and eager buyers.....and you have the American Primitives at Clayson Farms show just past.  What a wonderful day!  Here are a few snapshots to wet your appetite for next year!

My friend Janet at the Blue Ewe makes these charming pendants

What's better than an old scrub table full of country pottery?

Just a handfull of the many fantastic booths full of cool stuff

Leslee keeping everything running smoothly.

More to come in another post.  It was one of the nicest days of the year.  Thanks to all the buyers who came and went with treasures in hand!

It all started when I cleaned my cupboard....

As a newlywed of two years my husband and I moved into an old farmhouse on our first farm in 1968. The house was an old 1905 one bedroom down and two up (in the eves of the roof with slanted ceiling). It had been moved there from down the road in the '30's by rolling it on big cedar logs. The logs remained under the house as part of the "foundation". The attached bathroom and back porch had been added sometime later...so there was indoor plumbing too! This was the ultimate starter house and we loved it!

The kitchen had floor to ceiling cabinets with beadboard doors, a scrubbed wood counter and huge cast iron sink. I needed a tall utility stool to reach the top shelf of the cabinets. Moving into the house I tackled the cupboards, scrubbing and relining all the shelves. In the far back corner of the top shelf (where I could barely reach) had been left behind two jars of homemade pickles and a glass bowl. Those pickles and bowl started me on two new journeys.....canning and collecting.

The canning came easily to me. My Mom had canned for years during my childhood, filling up shelf after shelf with jars of fruits and vegetables from our garden. I just dialed Mom and got all the help I needed, but it took years to finally duplicate the awesome dill pickles I found in that kitchen. They had a hint of licorice in them and I tried many recipes before I discovered it was anise that created that unique taste.

Now...the collecting took a bit longer. The bowl (which I learned many years later was Iris and Herringbone pattern depression glass) to me was just a really pretty bowl that always held my fruit salad for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. One day I was shopping with friends and saw the same bowl in an antique shop. Once I knew there was more of the same pattern out there the hunt was on! This is what started my antique hunting passion.......and the rest is history. I owe it all to the day I cleaned out my cupboard.

Welcome to Purple Cow Antiques

What I sell and why.....


Welcome to Purple Cow Antiques blog, where we want to share our story of why we are at ShoprietyStores.com, and a little about ourselves and our stores. I am known as kcarnahan2006 (PurpleCowAntiques), purplecowgal (PageTurners), and Tucker (TuckersThriftandGift

If you are lucky enough to remember your grandmother's kitchen and home you have seen many of the wonderful nostalgic things sold today to collectors. The Purple Cow carries inventory that is truly antique (over 100 years old), genuine vintage items from the 20th century, and collectibles that appeal because of their charm or nostalgia. We have elegant, depression and early American pressed glass, pottery, and so many vintage items I can't list them here.

If you ever read (or devoured!) a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys mystery clear through as soon as you got it as a young reader you know the passion for reading these juvenile series books instilled in young persons from the 1930's to today. One of my fondest childhood memories was mail ordering my next Nancy Drew from Grosset & Dunlap, finding it in the mailbox when I got off the school bus and spending an hour walking the long ranch driveway home while I read. Then I had to wait a whole month for my next allowance. Such suspense. Well, now you can find those same titles at PageTurners, along with many other childhood favorites. PageTurners also
sells vintage and newer adult fiction and some nice contemporary books.

Of course, as I shopped for antiques and collectibles I would find great newer items that were too nice and well priced to pass up. So TuckersThriftandGift was born. Why Tuckers? I had to give my best friend and shop companion some credit too :).

Come and see us on ShoprietyStores.com, where the sellers and owners are a cheerful,
professional and helpful group, and where "everybody knows your name".