But sh*t,it was 99 cents!

This has been making me giggle despite having the flu or perhaps the fever has affected my brain and I'm giggling because of the flu. If you are a thrifter , you should get a kick out of it like I did.

 

 

Church Sale

Who doesn't love a good church sale?  Just added a bunch of items to the SALE section of the shop, everything there is only $10! (Wh-WHA!)  Yup, just in time for those who didn't fulfill their 2012 resolutions to buy more vintage, or those who want to get a jump on their 2013 ones. Start the New Year right, buy vintage and then drink lots and lots of champagne! 

 

Happy New Year everyone!

 

enter here

 

Elf on a Shelf (Live Action Version )



Elf on a Shelf (live action), the resemblance is freaky

pajamas // source

 

Who needs a $30 elf from Amazon when you can dress your four year olds in elf pajamas and perch them on top of the furniture? We're all about keeping it real here. 

 

After the in house photo shoot we pulled an elf flash mob at the local mall to have pictures with Santa. They made quite a scene and totally stole Santa's thunder.  Jack loves the camera as made evident above, but when he finally met Santa he sort of went into shock, I think he might not even be breathing here:

Liquor Makes the Time Pass Quicker

 

 

 

 

 

But If there ever was a day to find your inner Fitzgerald today is it!  Happy Repeal Day!!  Hopefully you all will remember where you parked your livers in the morning.

Fixtures

I'm selling some of my store fixtures, sorry about the clutter in the photo but we've undertaken a major clean out to make room for a new project and hopefully a move.  There is still an additional two sections not photographed. 

These can accomodate any ceiling height, and you can have one entire section just filled with shelves if you want, completey customizable for business or home.   You can check out the listing here.  If interested just reply to the ad! Looking forward to clearing out the space.

A Bit O'Green

I panicked a bit last night after putting the babes down for bedtime, I walked out of their room and the, "oh my God tomorrow is Friday and I have not done one shop update yet this week!"  I don't even know how that happened when I purposely stopped working in the daytime not only to be focused more on my children but because I could get work done quicker without interruption in the evenings. Need to re-evaluate, but seriously not going to sweat it

So here is Thursday's update which is technically Monday's.  Certainly containing older pieces that I normally would hoard, but the need for a bit o' green is calling especially with the height of my buying season fast approaching.

Birthday Honk Honker

                                                                                
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Happy birthday Dr. Seuss!! Thank you for nurturing the creativity and imaginations of children for so many generations and Marc Jacobs' Fall 2012 RTW collection.....ummm, okay maybe not that last part.

Memento Amore

This is what my husband gifted me for Valentine's Day. Or rather I picked out and he payed for, haha. Nothing says I love you more than 14 K and a dead person's hair. I think it's rather romantic, for someone to love someone so much to take a piece of them and memorialize them in such a way to make it possible to always have them with them. 

The hubs is very aware that he will be expected to do this with me in the event of my death, but just between you and I think he'll be kicking the bucket first and my dreams of becoming jewelry when I die will never be realized, sigh.  I guess we're just going to have to wait and see, hopefully for a REALLY long time.   Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

NOTE: A memento mori is not a mourning ring, BUT a mourning ring could be considered a memento mori.  The difference being memento mori's were not made to mourn any specific person, but as a reminder that you will die.  Mourning rings were made to commemorate a person who has died and as a subsequent result becomes a reminder of ones mortality.

You Really Shouldn't Have




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For me for Christmas please?!?  Though 1500 issues of the original covers and magazines would be better, but I will compromise and settle for issues from the first half of the century if you are seriously thinking of going that route for me.

No Autographs Please!

Did I mention that I am in a movie? The above poster represents what I am doing this weekend. I will be attending the premier of Club 27, a film short I participated in (I'm the one in yellow) over the summer and also provided vintage clothing for.  It is part of Project Twenty1's Philadelphia Film & Animation Festival . I've only seen clips, so I am really excited to see it in it's entirety. 

 Also this momma gets to dress up!  I had to raid the stock room for something to wear but had no problem with shoes, even though I never go anywhere worthy or practical for heels I have quite the whore-ish shoe collection. Doesn't everybody? Everyone should have at least one pair of whore shoes, it's a happy maker.

So if you are in or near Philadelphia this weekend why not attend the screening?  Show your support for independent filmmaking. What you need to know:

Club 27 Premier

Saturday, October 1 · 1:00pm - 3:00pm @

 

The International House
3701 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA

PRICE: $10

The Church of Vintage Roadshow

Arts, Music & Antiques Festival


It's been a very busy week! Took an impromptu vacation with the family over Labor Day weekend, which was nice considering the hurricane, flooding and other natural disasters that occured the week prior. Didn't want to come back, but eventually we had to face the repair work and clean up that we had been avoided for almost a week while away. Plus I had to start getting ready for the Arts,Music & Antiques Festival on Sunday, September 11th.




I don't normally do things like this, it's not really great for the clothing - people can be rough, weather can be unpredictable. But I've been getting stir crazy and I thought maybe a couple of sacrificial lambs might be worth it;) Not to say if I see anyone manhandling the vintage I won't do anything, on the contrary...if any brutality towards vintage occurs in my booth I will upcycle the deviant a new A-hole. Just call me the vintage vigilante.




Hope to see some of you there...tent pitching party 8am!



Name Dropping

 

So since Etsy changed their default searches to be based more on relevancy it officially became the end of an era and death to the art and poetry of title writing for listings and potentially disappearing into an ocean of "1950s dresses" in the searches.  So I decided the best way battle shop anonymity and title writing ennui was to throw a few designer names out there in the updates, because in my opinion Diane Von Furstenberg makes a dress pretty relevant. 

Here are a few designer favorites currently in the shop. For additional designer names click here.

1970s DVF wrap dress

1950s Givenchy sweater

1970s Malcolm Starr

1960s Mary Quant skirt

1980s "punk label" Betsey Johnson Dress

An American Girl Wannabe

I really want her shoes, actually I'll take the whole look thank you...sigh.

Imgaes courtesy of  RUTH ORKIN Photo Archives

HORNY: A Children's Story

                                                  

Buying vintage always creates an opportunity to find unusual and one of a kind pieces.  Also weird and offbeat things as well.  Was going through my office the other day and came across this book:

The main character's name is "Queen Horny", just thought that needed to be added in too.  Not exactly "Jane kisses Dick" from those bastards of grammer Dick and Jane, but it's a keeper.   I think I do not need to elaborate I have the emotional maturity of a 12 yr. old boy, but for further amusement I have listed below a few more titles of vintage children's book that speaks to the 6th grader in all of us, let the snickering begin:

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Seems something really queer was going on with marine life during the 1950s and 1960s;)  But sometime during the 1990s Opo lost his gayness, now the book is just titled, "Opo the Dolphin"....poor Opo.

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And lastly, not exactly vintage but needed to be included because this was the mother of all double entendres when I was in 6th grade:

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Heady Hedy



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During her time Hedy Lamarr was considered one of the most beautiful women on film, but there are few people who seem to be aware she was probably also one of the smartest on film as well.   Hedy Lamarr was actress and inventor, she was responsible along with a friend for inventing the technology that without would render our cell phones and wireless connections useless. 

The technology referred to as "Frequency Hopping" was originally intended to jam enemy signals to make radio controlled torpedos harder to detect.  She gives being a bombshell a whole new definition I'd say.





This and That Update

In acknowledgement of finally getting photoshop installed in my new piece of poo computer I scraped together a mish mash of pieces that really wanted to be added to the shop today.  My favorites having to be the "Modern Geisha" top and shrug, the top courtesy of a recent wardrobe downsize. 

You can find more details by squeezing your butts through this link HERE.

What's Going On?!?

It all started back in April.... after two years and with only one week left of unemployment benefits the husband found a job. Michael had lost his former job with his families business, a business in the community since the late 1920s. This all started happening around the same time we bought our home and moved in with our 9 month old twins and when I started my business.  As a result I threw myself into my business, pretty much neglecting and missing out on so much, the things that really matter and create true wealth, but "true wealth" doesn't pay the bills.  By the time Michael found work again I burned myself out and I crashed, I just stopped.....seriously stopped, I didn't even open the brick and mortar shop anymore because I just couldn't, my brain wouldn't let me.  All I wanted to do was be home with my babies and catch up. 

I did come to a point where I thought I might have regained more balance in my life and started to think more about work again and updating my Etsy but then my laptop died(SHIT!)  And went through periods of trying to get the piece of poo fixed followed by buying a new one which didn't work either then exchanging if for another one that will do though I want to take it back too, but I am so over the idea that I might actually get a good quality laptop based on my current budget.  But I still have a week left according to the return policies so who's to say I won't panic at the last minute and take it back even yet.  I figure with the store's return policies I can just have a new computer every two weeks for the rest of my life, no more worrying about fans breaking.... only bloatware, refusal to acknowledge any of my software/ printer and shoddy manufacturing.

The conclusion I've come to on my hiatus....I don't like selling vintage clothing, I really just love hunting for it and buying it.  I want someone else to run the selling aspect of my business, mainly the online sales portion of it which eats up the most of my time so I can just keep traveling/shopping and hanging out with my kids.  There has been talk of relocating home and business to Philadelphia to be closer to Michael's work, which makes more sense for my business compared to where it is currently located and may be more conducive to hiring someone to work sales for me.  The only thing that is certain at this time is that moving is inevitable, whether the brick and mortar shop will be able to be moved as well is a big fat haunting question mark.  It's hard to be motivated and inspired with that sort of uncertainty.

Self Deprecating Shop Update Post

Seriously working on some proper posts for this place, so a shop update will have to do for now.  Don't normally do posts like this but I figure some content is better than none at all. Like a sign of life...so please take my ass out of the crematorio yo.

Picture quality isn't so great with this batch, my apologies. I find squinting or a couple of glasses of wine will fix the problem.  You can shop until your hearts content HERE!  Uninhibited drunken binge purchasing welcomed as always.

Happy Weekend!

I just love weekends more in the Sping and Summer.  The family and I will be attending the Appel Farms Music Festival this weekend.  Gogol Bordello and Ani DiFranco are the more recognizable names that will be there among a slew of others. What can I say, nothing says pre-K more than gypsy folk punk and feminist rock. 

I have to say though the main selling point was that the event is only 20 minutes from my house, a great thing when going out with two 3yr olds:) 

In Memory of Lara

Memorial Day I found out Lara of Plaid Pony Vintage had lost her battle with cancer on May 9th.  Such is the nature of online friendships to not find out these things right away.  I am completely dumbstruck and it goes without saying completely saddened.  I just didn't expect it, with her brother having passed not even two years ago I thought the reaper would have no further business with her family at least for awhile and the cancer was just a trial intended to make her stronger for the rest of her life once she overcame it.  Lara was so full of life and energy, I really thought she would beat it.  It's amazing how extremely ones life can change in just a moment, it's amazing how life just stops as easy as that.   Lara you are and will be missed.