Seeing the Trees for the Forest

I. Seeing the Trees for the Forest

Below: Vintage metal shoe trees I'm going to use for forest trees in the Dolls' Midsummer Dream. I hope... To get them to stand up, I'll need to stabilize them somehow.

They are more metal recycling castoffs from work.
But aren't they cool objects?
Has the store even tried to sell them?
They sell online for around 10– a pair. When I'm done with them I'll take them back to the store and see if they'll sell.

[I took a set of 4 (of the 9) place settings of the Dansk flatware back to the store. It didn't seem fair to keep all of them--more than I need--knowing they could bring the store $$$.
I priced the set (20 pieces) at 240–.

I'll be curious if the Dansk sells at that high price (high for the store, average for online...).
Probably have to knock the price down, though you never know.
The two saints' relics I posted last week sold the very next day, at 10% off. Two for 550–.
I'm glad they're gone, it made me a wee bit nervous to be selling body parts, even if they are only, as Michael of OCA pointed out, a wee bit of extraxisse particulas ex ossibus: “extracted particles from bones”. ]

II. More of my thrift store haul...

After three years of having nowhere to put stuff and therefore buying nothing, I am off the leash...
I truly need some practical items, like a colander and measuring cups. Other things, not so much. I don't want to clutter up my beautiful new open space:
stuff I don't truly love and use, I'll take back.

Milk-glass (white undersides) bread plates, unbranded, probably 1950s. Forty nine cents each.
Online these only go for a couplefew bucks, but 49 cents? I don't know why the housewares staff refuses to take-in that people want vintage stuff.

(I might take these back though. The girlettes are all into Jordan almond pastels, but I'm not sure I want that much candy color around.)

BELOW: A velvety silver & pink rectangle pillow, donated new with the price tag on (not all that uncommon).
I'm often flabbergasted to see what stuff costs new. I don't recall the maker's name, but the pillow was marked 130–.
I paid 4– (no, 3, with my store discount).

BELOW: When I unpacked this wood doll (vintage, from Poland), I swear she said that she was Linda Sue (blogger of Lady Margaret's Curlers).
But maybe she was saying she was FOR Linda Sue?

I emailed Linda Sue, and she said send her on--she's just the person to teach sculpting to the orphans!

Today is a day off, and I'm off to the PO.
I found the perfect box--Art Sparker sent doll clothes in it, a couple years ago, and I'd saved it. It originally held William, MMA's replica of an Egyptian faience hippo (a ceramic material made of ground quartz).

III. Weather note

We're having the weirdest July weather: nice!
It was actually chilly last night, I put on a blanket.
The forecasted high is only 77º today.

I usually dread July's smothering heat. Our temps here are normally more like what Europe's been suffering this year, up around 100, and corn-growing humid.

Just saying because it's so weird. And so, so nice.