Posted by Cheryl-Anne

May 10, 2012 10:07 p.m. - Updated: 10:07 p.m.

(Photo by Cheryl-Anne Millsap)

   In this column I usually write about the objects I discover on my travels and bring home with me, vintage finds that are reminders of the places I’ve been and seen. But occasionally, the destination itself is the treasure.

    I spent my last night on a recent visit to the island of Kaua’i in the little town of Waimea. In 2006 the entire town, a place that was once the hub of the island’s sugar cane industry, was given National Trust for Historic Preservation® status.

    The Waimea Plantation Resort had been the site of a thriving plantation but at the end of Kaua’i sugar production in the late 1980s the owners decided to create a resort destination that captured the period feel of the plantations. Worker cottages from around the island were moved and refurbished into vacation cottages and the original plantation manager’s house became a large ocean-view rental.

    My cottage, built some time in the early 20th Century, was set back along an avenue of tall coconut palms and the windows framed a slice of ocean view. It was perfect for me.

    The original wide plank floors and tongue-in-groove walls of the interior were cool under my feet. One bathroom featured a claw-foot tub and the other a vintage soaking tub. Wide lanai doors in the living room and master bedroom opened to carry the ocean breeze throughout the house.

    While comfortable and contemporary in all the right ways, the simple cottage was not fussy or artificial. The small kitchen was simple and open, with shelves for crockery and a period Schoolhouse ceiling light.

    At night, after a “catch of the day” dinner at the Grove Cafe, and a walk back to my cottage under a sky filled with stars,  I slept with the doors open to the cool night air. The sound of birds woke me in the morning.

    I love small houses. I like the compactness of a cottage and I especially appreciate a house with history. I like the idea that people, sometimes generations of one family, lived there in every sense of the word, putting every corner to good use.

    With an evening flight, I requested and received a late checkout and spent the coolest hours of the morning sheltered under the wide tin roof of the front porch, writing and editing photos and looking out toward the sea.

    I came away with the feeling that I’d managed to find something unique. This was my first visit to any of the Hawaiian Islands, partially because I'd worried I would be disappointed. That what I’d imagined no longer existed. That paradise had been paved and planted with high-rise condominiums. But when I woke up with the Kaua'i sunrise, strolled down to the beach before breakfast and then back past the tall Cook Pine tree, I stopped for a moment to admire the little house where I’d spent the night. I couldn’t bring it back with me so I did the next best thing. I captured a file full of photos and made a promise to myself I would return.

Cheryl-Anne Millsap is a freelance writer based in Spokane, Washington. In addition to her Spokesman-Review Home Planet and Treasure Hunting columns and blogs and her CAMera: Travel and Photo blog, her essays can be heard on Spokane Public Radio and on public radio stations across the country. She is the author of “Home Planet: A Life in Four Seasons” and can be reached at catmillsap@gmail.com

Posted by Cheryl-Anne

April 8, 2012 8:49 p.m. - Updated: 8:49 p.m.

(Photo by Cheryl-Anne Millsap)

   When it is time to dress the table for dinner I open the old oak armoire that serves as my linen and china closet and take out the one of the bundles of napkins, table runners and tablecloths I've collected from all over the world.

   Folded and tied with ribbon and stacked in the armoire, the old textiles are more than just pieces of cloth to cover the table or place under the centerpiece. The natural textures and hues, from snowy whilte to soft vanilla to almost burlap-brown, are pleasing to the eye and to the touch. A few pieces are monogrammed, stitched with the initials of the woman who owned them first. Some are sewn with fine stitches and edged in delicate lace. Others are more crudely made, finished with heavy crochet. Some are not decorated at all, simply hemmed lengths of fabric.

   Before I select a piece I run my fingers over the folds and, in my mind, draw a map of the world, connecting one place to another with a trail of purchases. The short piece of very old linen I found in a bin in a Paris shop. The table runner picked up for a song in Biloxi, Mississippi. The woven second-hand souvenirs of trips to Belgium and Germany. The linen tea towel from a thift store in San Antonio. The Irish linen napkins purchased from an antiques shop in Birmingham, Alabama

   These fabrics bring out the hausfrau in me. If the tulips dust them with pollen, or the wine spills or coffee cups leave rings, I shrug. These small sins almost always disappear in the wash. And on the first hot day of summer I soak them in hot water and hang them out to dry and bleach in the sun before bundling them again, tying each stack with a length of white ribbon.

   I am not naturally tidy. I have to work at it. When I open the cabinet I almost always find a jumble of china and crystal and odds and ends that weren't put away properly. Perhaps it is an indication of how much I love these old, worn fabrics, but I take the time and enjoy the ritual of folding and stacking them for the next use. It gives me the opportunity to admire the handiwork of another woman, the beauty of natural things. And each piece reminds me of the place it was discovered and tucked into my suitcase before coming home with me.

Cheryl-Anne Millsap is a freelance journalist based in Spokane, Washington. In addition to her Home Planet , Treasure Hunting and CAMera: Travel and Photo blogs, her essays can be heard on Spokane Public Radio and on public radio stations across the country.

CAM is the author of “Home Planet: A Life in Four Seasons” and can be reached at catmillsap@gmail.com

Posted by Cheryl-Anne

March 24, 2012 12:45 a.m. - Updated: 12:45 a.m.

When you walk into Roost, the new vintage emporium on Main Avenue and Division, the first thing you'll see is a trunk filled with letters and papers. But what makes the papers so interesting is that they are a lifetime of correspondence, keepsakes and photographs of a woman who moved from France to Spokane after World War II.

Never have I wished I could speak, and especially read, French as when I was pulling out yellowed pieces of onionskin paper and AirMail envelopes covered with small, neat, lines of handwriting.

Owner, Dena Kieffer, told me the contents of the trunk were all from one estate and I spent at least half an hour rummaging through the ephemera.

Finally, when I'd run out of time, I committed to a folded sheet of stationary ($2) and a souvenir postcard book of photographs of the S.S. Normandie. ($12)

I chose the letter because it is the perfect size to scan and save. I'm going to use it for several decorating projects I have in mind.  The postcard book is a miniature history lesson. The elegant French ocean liner was built in 1935 and made 139 crossings to the Untied States before she was seized by the U.S.in 1942 and put into service as the USS Lafayette only to burn and sink in 1942.

The Normandie was one of the last of an era, and as a frequent traveler I love anything to do with the elegant age of transportation.

I brought home my French souvenirs and spent a happy hour or so examining them. The last time I was in Roost, the big box of French memorabelia was still there. I'm tempted to go back and lose myself again in the photos and bits of paper history.

Parlez-vous Junque?

Cheryl-Anne Millsap is a freelance writer based in Spokane, Washington. In addition to her Home Planet , Treasure Hunting and  CAMera: Travel and Photo blogs, her essays can be heard on Spokane Public Radio and on public radio stations across the country. She is the author of “Home Planet: A Life in Four Seasons” and can be reached at catmillsap@gmail.com
  

Posted by Cheryl-Anne

March 12, 2012 9:22 a.m. - Updated: 9:22 a.m.

(Photo by Cheryl-Anne Millsap)

If you were anywhere near the Fox Theater in downtown Spokane Saturday night, you might have noticed men and women in evening wear, wearing elaborate masks as they hurried into the beautiful Art Deco building. It was the Spokane Symphony's first Masquerade Ball and I was there with the rest of the partygoers. It was fun to see the men and women in costume and it was amazing the difference the masks made. Even old friends didn't immediately recognize one another.

Like everyone else I had wanted my mask to stand out, to say something about its wearer. So, after thinking about it for a few days, I went to an unexpect source.

Becky Ellis and Holly Baublitz, of Spokane's All That Glitter, are now located in Pink, the vintage and salvage mecca located just a few blocks from the Fox Theater. Becky's elaborate creations—crowns, wreaths and other exquisite displays crafted of ephemera and found objects—are beautiful one-of-a-kind collages. I've long admired her work and it occurred to me she was the perfect person to make a custom, vintage inspired, mask for the ball.

I stopped into Pink one afternoon and talked to Holly. She asked a few questions about whether I wanted a mask to wear all night or one on a stick that could be worn or carried. I chose the former. I reminded her that I'm not a particularly “blingy” woman, prefering my pearls to over-the-top sparkles. After that, I left everything else to Becky and just waited for the call.

When Holly opened the pink (naturally) box and showed me the mask, I was thrilled. The sepia tones of old Spokesman-Review newspaper pages, clipped and decopaged onto the mask form, accented by ostrich feathers and vintage faux pearls and rhinestones, glowed. A dusting of German glass glitter finished the effect. Just enough sparkle for a ball, but not too much. Rather than an elastic band, Becky had crafted a clever headband to hold it on comfortably.

It was perfect.

On Saturday night I slipped on the mask and joined the party. After the ball, it became a unique piece of handmade art for my home office. Now, every time it catches my eye I smile, celebrating the creative talent of a local artist. And I remember a wonderful night spent benefitting a great cause.

Cheryl-Anne Millsap is a freelance writer based in Spokane, Washington. In addition to her Home Planet , Treasure Hunting and  CAMera: Travel and Photo blogs, her essays can be heard on Spokane Public Radio and on public radio stations across the country. She is the author of “Home Planet: A Life in Four Seasons” and can be reached at catmillsap@gmail.com

Posted by Cheryl-Anne

March 9, 2012 4:37 p.m. - Updated: 4:38 p.m.

Once a month I spend a half an hour or so at Spokane Public Radio recording several Home Planet columns for my weekly Sunday Morning Essay program. ( Listen to the Podcast here.)

I always try to make sure I have enough time to record three or four essays and then prowl around the The Vintage Rabbit Antique Mall on the street level of the building, before I have to make the after-school pickup. This was my week to record, and as it happened, it was also my week to discover a great find.

For years I've been picking up old wicker-covered bottles. Long before Pottery Barn decided it was the perfect accessory, I was adding to my collection one old bottle at a time. Today, thanks to a dealer at The Vintage Rabbit, I brought home one more.

It's in great shape, showing the expected wear and age but the wicker is still intact and the exposed lip of the bottle isn't chipped or broken. And the bonus? I paid only $5.50.

Friday is usually a good day. But a sunny Friday with all deadlines met, a great find and a fun weekend ahead is a very good day.

Cheryl-Anne Millsap is the author of Home Planet: A Life in Four Seasons.  She also blogs at Home Planet and CAMera: A Photo Blog of People and Places. CAM can be reached at catmillsap@gmail.com

Posted by Cheryl-Anne

March 3, 2012 11:21 p.m. - Updated: 11:21 p.m.

(Photo by Cheryl-Anne Millsap)  

   So often when we bring home an antique or a vintage find, we’re left to imagine the history it might have. That’s part of the fun after all, speculating where and when an object might have been used, and in whose hands it might have been. But occasionally, if we’re fortunate, we are gifted with an heirloom with a story that is our own.

   In 2007 I wrote a Mother’s Day Treasure Hunting column for the Spokesman-Review HOME section about an antique wooden crib hanging in my garage. It was, I wrote, the symbol of motherhood for me.

   I’d found the little bed in pieces in my mother-in-law’s basement when I was pregnant with my first child. It had been my husband’s grandmother’s crib when she was born in 1898 and at some time, when households were sold and moved, it had ended up in my mother-in-law’s basement as a family heirloom with no real expectation of ever being used again. But I had to have it and we were fortunate enough to have a family member who was an expert woodworker. He made repairs and reinforced it, adding slats to replace the wire mattress holder, and I can still hear the excitement in his voice when he called to tell me he’d found 1895 written in pencil on one of the pieces. In March of 1985, exactly 100 years after it was signed and dated, we gently placed our newborn daughter in it on the night we brought her home from the hospital.

   That crib served us well for many years. My son and two younger daughters spent their first months in it as well, and when there were no more babies it sat in the youngest daughter’s room for years as a place to hold her stuffed animals and baby dolls. And then, finally, it was put away.

   A lot of splendid finds have come through my house, some to stay and others to be sold or given away when they were no longer useful or necessary. Or, when the big house was sold, when they no longer fit our downsized lives.

   But the little bed was too precious to let slip away, so it was put away until until another generation arrived to claimed it. Which is exactly what has happened.

   My husband climbed the ladder in the garage and lifted it off the hooks on which it had been resting. He brought it into the house and we cleaned and polished the wood and slipped the sheets over the mattress. And last night when my daughter brought our month-old granddaughter over for a visit, as we watched her sleeping in the place her mother had been only a heartbeat ago, it was as if the years were a length of ribbon, tying one generation to another.


Cheryl-Anne Millsap is a freelance writer based in Spokane, Washington. In addition to her Home Planet , Treasure Hunting and  CAMera: Travel and Photo blogs, her essays can be heard on Spokane Public Radio and on public radio stations across the country. She is the author of “Home Planet: A Life in Four Seasons” and can be reached at catmillsap@gmail.com

Posted by Cheryl-Anne

March 2, 2012 12:48 a.m. - Updated: 12:48 a.m.

(Photo by Cheryl-Anne Millsap)  

   I’m in good company, I know, but I have this tendency to put my head on my pillow, completely exhausted by the events of the day, and then find myself wide awake, unable to sleep. The words I couldn’t come up with earlier suddenly pop into my head without warning, or one of my children crosses my mind or I am so excited about a trip or a project my brain is buzzing with ideas. I’ve learned over the years to not fight it. Instead I get up, make a cup of Chamomile tea and sit down in the dark living room, relishing the quiet.

   More often than not, if I am wandering through dark rooms when I should be in bed, I am guided by a small lighted globe that sits on my desk. A thrift store find, it is used as a night light as much as a travel reference.  

   Tonight, as I walked by, I looked down at the globe and noticed the story that could be told with the other items around it.

   The globe is surrounded by a souvenir model of the Eiffel Tower  I brought home from Paris, a clay dish made by one of my children which holds a handful of Euro coins, and a purse-sized pocket atlas, a gift from my daughter last Christmas.

   When I look at the globe at night, shining in a dark corner of the room, I remember the maps and globes of my geography class when I was a girl, the way they intrigued me and opened a world  of possibility, inviting me to explore and dream and go.

   Sleepy at last, the tea finished and the cup rinsed, I headed back to bed. On an impulse, I grabbed the camera that is always sitting on the desk and took a photo. I think I'll put it on my computer to light my hotel room when I travel.

   It’s funny. I’ve brought home so many things over the years. But this little globe means the world to me.



Cheryl-Anne Millsap is a freelance writer based in Spokane, Washington. In addition to her Home Planet , Treasure Hunting and  CAMera: Travel and Photo blogs, her essays can be heard on Spokane Public Radio and on public radio stations across the country. She is the author of “Home Planet: A Life in Four Seasons” and can be reached at catmillsap@gmail.com
  

Posted by Cheryl-Anne

Feb. 29, 2012 8:28 a.m. - Updated: 8:28 a.m.

If you're looking for a little creative inspiration, Custer's 35th annual Spring Arts and Crafts Show is coming up this weekend and we've got a chance to win free tickets!

Treasure Hunting creative types should go to The Spokesman-Review's weekly news quiz, authored by reporter Jim Camden. Simply by taking the 10-question, interactive quiz this week, you will be eligible to win two free tickets to this weekend's Custer's Spring Arts and Crafts Show. And the overall winner, drawn from among the top scores, earns a $50 gift card to the Davenport Hotel.

Winners are drawn Friday morning. Find the quiz at www.spokesman.com/newsquiz

Posted by Cheryl-Anne

Feb. 20, 2012 8:32 a.m. - Updated: Feb. 21, 8:32 a.m.

Last week while out making my weekly treasure hunting rounds, I stopped by the Antiquarian, on Division between First and Pacific Avenues.

The antique mall has been a Spokane staple for a number of years and is a place I always recommend when asked where to shop for fine antiques, especially larger pieces of furniture. (I was there because I'm always searching for a set of oak barrister cases to match the ones I have, knowing it's a long shot.)

Before I left I caught sight of a big bowl filled with small crystal and china salt dishes. While a few were priced a bit higher, most were only $6 each.

I snapped a picture and all the way home I thought about the tiny crystal bowls, imagining ways they could be put to use. I remembered seeing an idea on Pinterest for using small berry bowl-sized dishes arranged in a drawer as storage for little odds and ends. What if you were to adapt that idea to a smaller scale?

Tiny crystal salt dishes on a silver tray on a dressing table or in a dresser drawer would make a pretty way to separate and store earrings, necklaces, rings and other pieces of jewelry. On a desk they could be used to hold stamps and paper clips, or to sort coins for parking meter change. If you already have a collection of crystal salts, you could do what the Antiquarian did and fill a big bowl with them. It would make an interesting centerpiece.

Of course, if you're the practical sort, I suppose you could always just fill them with salt and set the table.

Cheryl-Anne Millsap is a freelance writer based in Spokane, Washington. In addition to her Home Planet , Treasure Hunting and  CAMera: Travel and Photo blogs, her essays can be heard on Spokane Public Radio and on public radio stations across the country. She is the author of “Home Planet: A Life in Four Seasons” and can be reached at catmillsap@gmail.com

Posted by Cheryl-Anne

Feb. 14, 2012 10:24 a.m. - Updated: 10:24 a.m.

(Photo by Cheryl-Anne Millsap)

I usually spend Friday afternoons out and about exploring local antiques shops. My weekly deadlines have been met and it’s a treat to have the quiet time to myself.

I’ve done this since I moved to Spokane and it’s a ritual I look forward to each week. Frequently the owners are in their shops, prepping for weekend traffic, sometimes already putting out items picked up at the morning’s estate sales, and I can stop and chat. Or, when it suits me, just quietly browse. Even when I travel, I try to find a few minutes on my own, searching for a vintage souvenir.

Last week I made my rounds and stopped by Tossed and Found on north Monroe. I’d been looking at vintage Valentines all morning, thinking I would build a February 14th column around some sweet paper find. But, as it always is with treasure hunting, my Valentine arrived in an unexpected way when I spotted a small heart-shaped lock on a table and picked it up. The black paint on the body of the lock showed its age, faded and chipped in a few places. The hasp had that true rusty patina that comes with time and exposure to the elements. Stamped on the front was the patent date of Feb. 25, 1896.

I stopped looking at postcards and paper. I’d found my Valentine.

Since I brought it home I’ve carried the lock around the house like a child with a favorite toy. For a few days it rested in the dish where I drop my earrings and watch each evening. Then it spent a day on my desk as a paperweight. After I photographed it, the lock lay on the table next to the chaise lounge where I like to sit and have my coffee each morning. From time to time I pick it up and run my fingers over the surface as my mind plays over words and sentences, searching for the perfect line for whatever I am writing. I feel the weight of it and imagine the places it might have been. The little lock is a perfect example of the Victorian philosophy that even the most mundane objects should possess beauty by design.

I considered looping a ribbon over the hasp and wearing it as a pendant. It’s the perfect weight and shape for a keyring. Of course, if I can find a key, I can use it as it was intended, to secure something I want kept private and safe.

So, some may get cards and flowers. Others will celebrate with jewelry and wine. But I’m happy with my discovery.

 I like to think I have a lock on Valentine’s Day.

Cheryl-Anne Millsap is a freelance writer based in Spokane, Washington. In addition to her Home Planet , Treasure Hunting and  CAMera: Travel and Photo blogs, her essays can be heard on Spokane Public Radio and on public radio stations across the country. She is the author of “Home Planet: A Life in Four Seasons” and can be reached at catmillsap@gmail.com