Scandinavian Enamel Bowl Obsession

I'm a little blurry-eyed this morning, due to the fact that everyone else here, including Tim, was exhausted last night, and fell asleep practically in the middle of brushing their teeth. Left to my own devices, immediately after saying "I'll be right up", I began on what quickly became an all-consuming search online for one of these:

Dedicated eyeblog readers (is there such an animal?) may recognize this from the original eyeblog header, which was posted from our vacation in Maine. It does, however, not belong to me, but rather the lucky family from whom we rented the house on Pink Street.

I have always liked these vintage enamel bowls; I have one from Denmark, a gift from my lovely relatives (who deserve and will someday get their own, entire, blogpost) with red hearts on it, which is very cute to have around at Christmas, or perhaps break out again on Valentines Day, but otherwise, red hearts are really not my thing.

I had zeroed right in on the sunflower patterned one that Amy Butler has in her kitchen, which you can see in her book, Midwest Modern,

image by David Butler, Midwest Modern, Stewart Tabori & Chang

image by David Butler, Midwest Modern, Stewart Tabori & Chang

and so, I had an inkling that there were a few designs out there other than my redheart one, and thought I might, someday, like to acquire one just like the one from Pink Street.

Well, little did I know!

After my latenight obsessive online research fest last night, I have discovered several things:

1) I'm not the only one who fancies these bowls

2) There's a site called Ebay, and all sorts of people sell all sorts of stuff, and it's very addictive.

3) These bowls are made by a Finnish company called Arabia Finland, and were designed by various people in the 60's and 70's, most notably Kaj Frank .

4) There are also vaguely similar but equally fabulous Scandinavian enamel bowls made by Catherineholm,a Norwegian company, which have the most beautiful Lotus pattern in various colors. A different object than the Arabia Finland bowls altogether, but altogether as fabulous.

5) You may find some of these coveted items on Ebay, and for seemingly little money, but you will never actually be able to purchase them, no matter how much time you spend trying or how much money you offer.

Here I am, working on little sleep, and what sleep I had was peppered with fantasies that my bid was accepted and oh my god exactly how many things had I bid on, anyway???? What if I "win" them all??? (I love that, as if, in the end, not only am I lucky to have gotten them, but am also left confused as to whether or not I have to actually pay for them.)

Here I am, exhausted and still without a Scandinavian Enamel Bowl (other than the redhearted one, which is looking better and better every minute). I did stumble upon a very interesting online vintage store, which had one mushroom bowl, but it was already sold. They also had a cool blog, and seemed like nice people. I guess that's the best result from my one night stand with Ebay; I found a new online "friend".

image from threepotatofouronline.com

But nowhere was there anything resembling the bowl from Pink Street (the mushroom one comes close, though!) And I have depleted my sources (well, my energy)...so if anyone knows anything more about these bowls, has one they want to sell to me, or can tell me where to look, please send me a line!

So, in the meantime, I'm thinking that Scandinavian Enamel Bowl Obsession might be a great name for the band. What do you think?

Turning in early. Thanks for reading.

tt