Thrifty Thursday

This week I wanted to tell you about my thrifty grandparents. It also gives me an excuse to share some lovely old photographs with you. I enjoy looking over old family photos and imagining what life was like for my mother and her two sisters as young girls. I hope you enjoy looking at them too!

I was over at Funky Junks blog today. Her use of crates for storage around the house got me to thinking of a special crate that I own. It must be about 65 years old and belonged to my grandmother. My mother can remember her using  Darkoline Woodstain on it.

The box came from the local greengrocers and originally contained Jaffa Oranges. My mother used it as a bedside cabinet as a young girl and can remember a little lace doily and a bedside lamp sitting on it . I have used it for various things over the years but for a while it has been  hidden in my wardrobe where it has been serving as a little storage shelf. I thought it was time to bring it out and let it see daylight again. 

How clever of my grandmother to see the beauty in this little bit of wood. I'm sure she never imagined it would become a treasured possession of mine. 

My grandparents lived in a charming house in Morningside in Edinburgh, Scotland after moving up from Birmingham, England in the 1940s. I was wondering why my grandmother would have used an orange crate as furniture, but I guess she was just into upcycling long before it became trendy. My mum thought perhaps there was a shortage of goods in wartime and so she was just being inventive. The photo above shows my mum to the right and her two sisters middle and left. Behind them are a couple of neighbours and my grandmother. 
My grandfather was as an industrial chemist, I love this photo of him in a lab.

My grandfather was very good with his recycling too. He used to methodically go through the mail every day and  fold and  cut all the envelopes that arrived into neat little bits of paper with his paper knife so that they could be used as scrap paper. A little pad of this paper held together with a bulldog clip used to sit in the kitchen ready for making shopping lists or jotting down notes.  I still have some of his recycled envelopes in our Scrabble box where they were used for writing down scores. I couldn't part them. Precious memories.  ( He always beat me at Scrabble!) 
Here are some more lovely pictures...

Check out those baggy trousers!!! :-)

and check out the swimming cossie!! Trendy huh? The little girl in the picture is my aunt - my mother's older sister .

Here is my grandmother with the same aunt. 

and my grandfather as a young man. 

On top of the crate are photos of my great grandparents on my maternal grandmothers side. They were named Abraham and Sarah,and they came from Austria and Poland. The little chair belonged to my  my mother's older sister who is now in her 80s and the Cheeky Teddy bear belonged to her younger sister who sadly died of a brain tumour a few years ago. The cushions I made a long time ago. I hand painted the butterflies with fabric paint onto some nice thick cotton, and the floral cushion I embroidered before I had any children so about 20 years ago. 
I hope you have enjoyed reading a little of my family history. 

PS.  I'm joining Funky Junks Copy Me Challenge here