New purse, and raid my closet!

The summer antique show is coming up in less than two weeks, and I need some spending money! So it's time to clean out my closet of things I no longer wear, or no longer fit into, and put them up for sale in my shop on Etsy. So not exactly going back into selling full time, but I'll be adding things here and there if I find the odd thing at estate sales and such :)

So thats what I did today, and before having some friends over for a little get together to watch Wipeout, Sam and I walked to a local beer shop, By the Bottle, to get some fancy beers. I just got cream soda, because I think beer tastes like fermented death, but, I got to pick out cute bottles for our friends.

On our way home we found a cute house for sale and explored around it, peeking in windows and making friends with kitties. The house was pretty cute, but they had completely remodeled the kitchen which just infuriates me like nothing else. If I'm going to have a house with new kitchen fixtures they are going to be from Big Chill. I guess I'd better start saving up now :)
But it does bother me that realtors tell people to replace their original kitchen features (or other things), in order to sell the house for more money. I'm telling you right now realtors, I want a house with original features! I will decide what to keep and what to update, not you.

Anyway, getting off my soapbox for vintage houses, this one had a cool shredded cellar door in the back, which I had to take pictures by. Only problem was that it was kind of creepy, and I was afraid zombies were going to come up and grab my feet. Hence the questionable expression in the first picture :)

Last but not least, meet me new satchel, Darcy! Named after you know who. I've been watching lots of Jane Austen lately :)

1930s bow dress-Made by me from a 1930s pattern

Belt-Thrifted

Coach satchel and shoes-Urban Eccentric Vintage

Hat-Forever 21

Spice rack makeover!

So the other day while hitting up some yard sales with my grandma, I came across a little wooden spice rack I've seen many times before at thrift stores and estate sales. It was kind of cute. I liked the lettering. But not blue, like the rest of my kitchen. I decided to spend the $1 on the rack, and see if I could paint it at some point (probably never).

I got home and had some time to kill, so I popped into the hardware store and found a shelf full of "paint samples", which were little jars of pre-mixed paint, including just the color I needed! I went right home and got started, and it looked better and better with each coat of paint. For the "spices" text at the top I decided to do a banner with some (unintentionally) scribbly script.



I think it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself!

Now I'm going to keep my eyes open for cute little vintage spice jars, I think it would be great to have a bunch of mis-matched containers on it :)

Random pictures from Saturday

Saturday morning I woke up at 6:30 to go to an estate sale with my grandma in Camas Washington. My grandma has been taking me to estate sales since I was a teeny little girl, so I was trained well :) We had a lot of fun, the estate sale was great, I got some clothes I brought into work, a bit of fabric, a basket to take to the farmers market to carry produce, and a needlework picture of a kitty. I call him Flufferton.
We also spent time at a neighborhood sale, which was for the most part great. It was in a wealthier neighborhood, so a lot of the people selling were just downright greedy with their prices (for instance, $20 for a used girls easter dress). But we did walk away with some clothes for my cousins and nephew, and I got a spice rack I painted (pictures later). And I think my favorite and most amusing find of the day was a Coach mini tape measure, which is now in my purse. I always need to measure things, but never remember to buy a tiny tape measure. Problem solved!

After that I walked down to the farmers market to see my aunt who was working a space at the recycled arts festival. I got some fresh fruit to fill my new basket, and my cousin, her friend, and I could not resist the heavenly scent of the mini cinnamon doughnuts, made right before our eyes.

Later that day, after painting the spice rack and taking a nap, I tagged along with my sister in law and her boyfriend to Forever 21 in downtown Portland. We stayed until they closed, Caitlin found an entire summer wardrobe, and I picked out a cute pair of pants and a boater style hat. You will see it so much over the summer, you'll probably get sick of it :)

The Grilled Cheese Grill

This afternoon I went with my aunt and her girls to The Grilled Cheese Grill for lunch. Food carts are huge here in Portland, so there's lots of competition for the best food, and coolest setup. This place was set up in a gravel lot, with the kitchen in an airstream trailer (who doesn't love an airstream?), and the dining area outside with picnic tables, and an awesome old schoolbus. We sat in the schoolbus, that had an amazing mural on the ceiling, original bus seats set up like booths, and a little bar with barstools on the other side. And the tables were covered with yearbook photos!
I had the The Hot Brie, which was great, but The Babs sounds so good, and maybe The Jaime for dessert!

And when Sam and I were walking to my grandmas, we stopped at our old house and took pictures in my old ally for old times sake. Oh how I miss that mossy old roof.


Dress-Kit Cornell by April Cornell

1930s hat and 1980s shoes-Urban Eccentric Vintage

Phony flapper

In 9th grade we were given an assignment to write a paper on anything we wanted.

I picked Coco Chanel.

Ever since then I've loved her, and everything she did, and designed, and wore. As a result, in high school, I was obsessed with 1920s fashions, and tried my best to emulate flappers and schoolgirls by wearing cloches, long strands of pearls, and bobbing my hair (which used to wave perfectly on it's own and look like fingewaves, oh how I miss that!).
However it was not meant to be, as my figure is the opposite of the 1920s ideal, so I looked a little "off" in the straight, low waist dresses. I still get a craving to do a 1920s look, even though it's not the most flattering thing, but hey, on one hand it's comfortable!
This dress is actually from the 1980s (Byer Too), and the cloche from the 1990s (Liz Claiborne), and I think they do a pretty good job of looking deco! I can wear them without worrying about ruining a 90 year old garment, which is always a good thing.

Speaking of Coco Chanel, I did a small post on the Coco Avant Chanel film on my other blog The Bird Hat. Oh you didn't know I had another blog? I totally do.

Dress-Scuda Vintage, Long Beach (no longer there)

Cloche-I don't remember....

What's the deal with my pictures today?

Ok, first off, I look pretty damn sad in the first photo. Not quite sure why, since I had a nice day at work (I love stylish customers). So ignore my face.
Second, the last photo makes me burst into laughter. Like, what on earth am I doing with that poor dandelion? I'm not paying attention to it. I'm just gazing off into the distance while showing it to you.
In all honesty I was a little shy since there was a group of people not too far away, and at one point a guy passed by and I said "I'm not a weirdo I swear!" as the timer was beeping. It's so awkward taking pictures of yourself when other people don't know what you're doing.

Anyway, this dress is actually a 1950s housedress. Housedresses were something you would wear during the day at home either over your slip, or over your clothes, so your nice clothes wouldn't get dirty. For instance you could go grocery shopping, come home, replace your day dress with your housedress, clean the house, and then put your day dress back on later to visit a friend. Or whatever.
This housedress has some stains and is well worn, which I love, it was obviously someone's day to day housedress. And the print is irresistible.
I see them every once in a while, always is pretty prints, and I think belted, they make great dresses, especially since most have big, roomy pockets!

All items in the outfit-Urban Eccentric Vintage

Cakes, pies, and tattoos.

Saturday my aunt invited me over to make a big batch of pie crusts with her and my cousins. Since it was going to be fathers day the next day, Pearl (the one in the black shirt) made her papa a Boston cream pie, and Ruth (the oldest) made a chocolate meringue pie, both turned out beautifully. As you can see baby Dottie also helped out :)
After we finished everyone piled into the car with the Boston cream pie, and we headed to Portland to surprise my uncle at work at Deluxe Tattoo. The girls always get temporary tattoos, and this time they colored them in, which was pretty cute. You can see more on that subject in a post I did here. Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Rainy day wedding

Sunday afternoon Twila Jean and I attended a wedding, we had some much needed time together! As you can see I didn't take tons of pictures, it was a little rainy out, but someone was nice enough to take our picture, when we tried to do it ourselves, it failed pretty bad. We ended up sitting with some fun people during the reception, so laughs all around.
Oh and the dress code was black clothing, so Twila and I looked alike yet again, it somehow always happens, but at least this time it was kind of unavoidable :)

Dress-Beach Picnic Dress in After Dark, compliments of ModCloth

Hat and gloves-Thrifted

Birdie pin-Gift from my mother, from Decades Vintage

Locket-Gift from my boss, from Urban Eccentric Vintage

Blogger meet up with Bombshell Bettie!

This morning I met up with Nicole of Bombshell Bettie and her husband for some coffee and antiquing. They kindly took a detour out of their trip to meet up with me, and we hit an antique mall together (found a cute little wool top, it's never going to get hot here, so what the heck, I'll invest in more wool).
It was great to finally meet her, after only knowing each other on Facebook, I hope we can meet up again!
Oh, and isn't her outfit fantastic?

Columbia river gorge

This morning was Sams last day of school, so to celebrate we took advantage of our synched up days off and drove out along the colombia river gorge. It's a scenic route dotted with waterfalls, old towns, and windsurfing.
Our first stop was Multnomah Falls, a beautiful waterfall, full of tourists and a few hiking trails. We had a nice picnic lunch, it was actually pretty nice out. Not too hot, and I pulled my jacket out from under the bed (so much for a summer wardrobe).
Sam makes amazing music mixes, so we had a great soundtrack for our little day trip. She and Him, The National, Beirut, all the good stuff.
We drove our way there on the Oregon side, and went the way back on the Washington side, but at one point the road was closed for about an hour, so we went an "alternate route".
After about an hour of going nowhere near the direction we wanted, and passing buffalo ranches, and Mt. Adams, we had this conversation:

Me: "Maybe we should turn around."

Sam: "We'll be fine, it's not like the highway will just end."

A few minutes later the highway ended.

Sam: "Well at least we're on a regular road."

We pass a sign that reads "One lane road ahead"

Sam: "At least it's not a dirt road."

Sign reads "Pavement ends."

So finally, when we ended up in the middle of nowhere, we headed back the way we came. But there was lots of laughter along the way :)

Blouse-Trina Turk, via Buffalo Exchange

Jacket-A vintage store in Akron Ohio

Skirt and boots-Urban Eccentric Vintage

Sunglasses-Magpie Vintage