When Victoria, over at Restoring our 1890 Victorian, invited me to play lead guitar for her Linky party, I was thrilled.  Victoria will be Lead Singer and Danielle of Storypiece will be on drums. 😀  Playing with blog friends is so much fun.  Then reality set in, what was my favorite find?!  I’ve always loved scouring flea markets, antique stores, and thrift stores for treasures.  Since I’m now more mature (read: older) I have amassed a lot of good stuff from these excursions.  So what would win the beauty contest as the best thing I’ve ever found?

I thought and debated with myself…I had recently done a post on homes becoming the scrapbook of your life and figured I could use that post to link my finds.  Then I decided to work on my creativity, “let’s not become lazy where your blog is concerned, Karen!” and I came up with a recurring theme with my inventory of “treasures”…TRAYS, specifically silver trays, but pretty much any tray that strikes my fancy.  Trays have always been a draw for me, as evidenced in my two previous posts on the topic HERE & HERE.

I have been given a couple of trays by family members and a particular favorite tray came from a friend (she found it for me on one of her excursions)…but most of my stash comes from bumping into the odd tray at consignment, antique or thrift stores, the prices have one thing in common, they have been rock bottom for all of the useful benefits they can provide the willing owner (moi).

Both the tray above and below belonged to my mother-in-law.  I was honored when she gave them to me a few years before she passed away.

This tray (below)  is hammered silver and coincidentally has a B monogram, our last name starts with a B.  Our friends know us well…we love this tray!

I bought the larger tray at a flea market last year, but the tray in front is a trophy tray I purchased in 1999 in Oxford, England.  Such a find, and a great reminder of the fun we had as a family while visiting England during Christmas.

This Sheffield tray came from a favorite antique store in San Clemente, Stanford Court.  It was cheap because it was missing a foot {I love footed trays} but a visit to Normandy Metal Finishers remedied that for me for only about the price I paid for the tray.  It remained a bargain…

I’m now using the tray in the reading room.  It holds a couple of antique books, one of the little nests I’ve found in our yard, and an orchid.

This silver plate was found at a consignment store for $25.  I love the detailing

Recently I stumbled upon this little, and I do mean tiny, tray.  I couldn’t resist.  Look at the detailing on this cutie…

Another recent find…wait, am I overboard on this collection?  No, can’t be, one can never have too many trays, right?

There’s always a holy grail of trays I’m in search of, the impossible find, and this is it…

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If you know where I can pick up one of these beauties for, oh say, $25 let me know!

Join me over at Victoria’s place…it should be fun finding out what surprise “find” Victoria recently acquired and some of the treasures other collectors have discovered.

Wait until you see what Victoria has to share!  Visit Restoring our 1890 Victorian.

Wait there’s more…I’ve visiting Art@Home for her “My Happy List” party, and Savvy Southern Style for Wow us Wednesdays,  Stop by.