thanks, LRL.

Today is the first day of school here. Before I ushered Tyler up to campus, we had a pancake breakfast and contemplated this new semester. I love being involved in a university but not actually attending. I get all the thrills of the new year without the doldrums of studying.

I made some progress on my sweater knitting, completing the back over the weekend, and started on the fronts.

This weekend I went with some friends to the nearby town to go to Ulta and my favorite Salvation Army. (Yes. My town is that small that I will drive almost an hour to get my makeup/polish fix.) I picked up a new polish by butter, the glittery rosie lee just caught my eye and I had to have it.

At Salvation Army I found what I have always been searching for, that perfect vintage chambray shirt. A bit loose, but trim in the arms and that perfect light denim color. I spotted it on a rack, and I heard a choir sing. A vintage Ralph Lauren linen shirt, still with professional cleaning tags on and it was monogrammed, the mark of a real preppie.

Thanks Lilly Raven Labaron.

vintage haul

It's been a bit since I posted my thrift scores, which doesn't mean that I haven't been going. My most recent trip was pretty good, we got an old bottle opener, some fun patterned fabric, a rectangular silk scarf, 3 tiny bowls to add to my buffalo china collection, and a leather chair.

The chair doesn't seem too vintage, but it's really comfy. We just don't have a place to put it. Right now it's bouncing between our bedroom and my studio. We just have too many chairs! I couldn't resist the neon 90's print stripe fabric, don't know what I would do with it, but neon's having a moment, so we'll see.

new things

:: friendship bracelet from my sis (yours is getting put in the mail soon I promise).
:: vintage jar from Norway, perfectly picked by my mom.
:: playing around with new materials
:: nail polish. when Tyler tells me multiple times: "that color is so cute" (and he even says the word cute) I know it's a winner.
:: my polish has been on for over a week in this picture so this new topcoat has definitely lived up to it's reputation.
:: chicken wire reinforcements to keep the animals from climbing up our stairs to our deck (nibbling on my plants).
:: serrano peppers!

a need for aid.

a recent thrift find: a vintage first aid kit that included a lot of the original pieces like a tourniquet, smelling salts, and eye pads for days.

I'm having one of those weeks where the internet feels like my worst enemy, making me feel terrible and beating me down. I'm feeling sad that I can't be with my sister as she prepares for my sweet nephew's first birthday party, finding jimmies the perfect shade of blue and baking. I miss the everyday interaction I wish we could have. There are times it really depresses me.

So I'm going to try and recover by throwing myself into things that are tactile, I started a knitting project which always calms me. See you soon.

chair hound.

Chairs. We have quite the collection. I am very proud of the fact that we can sit 15 people in comfortable seats in our living room area without bring in extras (and it's not even cluttered). This last weekend Tyler had to go to a nearby campground, and while he was touring the grounds with the owner she showed him a family cabin, and these beauties were inside, dirty and neglected.

He instantly knew they were krueger chairs (a company that was making knock-off Herman Miller fiberglass chairs in the 60's) because we already have 7 of them. 3 armchair (connected laundromat style), we bought off someone's porch, and 4 small children's chairs that are the same style and color as these. The shape of them are just slightly off from the Herman Miller ones, but they still have the same vintage feel for a tiny tiny fraction of the price.

Of course he offered to buy them on the spot, but the woman didn't even like them, so Tyler just has to bring back 7 chairs to replace them. We have quite a few in our basement so that shouldn't be hard.

Tyler cleaned them up and scrubbed off the rust, and they look great as our new dining chairs. We have a few extra, but we don't mind. :)

haul

This Saturday we woke up with a start at 8:20. Tyler remembered that the yard sale he'd been waiting for all year started at 8:30. It is a huge sale at the retirement home nearby, so lots of old stuff just waiting to be found. We were up and in the car 3 minutes later. Tyler parked and ran as fast as he could, as the crowd was already pretty big. We got a good amount of stuff, the only thing pictured here is that shoe thing. I think it's for a cobbler for making shoes, but whatever. It's old, it's cool, it's now in our house.

We also went thrifting and I found a dusty lavender blouse, a super camping shirt, and what I've been dreaming about since my road trip of feasting: an elastic waist skirt. This one is really casual and prefect for summer, knee length and broken in (and only $1.25). Tyler usually finds me a tee or two, and this one was a gem, wrestling graphics are just...awkward. That's all I'm going to say about that. 

Tyler also got our vintage glass pendant light hung, and it looks so great in our living room. We've just been using something really lame just waiting for something just right to come along. 

Sometimes I think I should just make a haul vlog with all my vintage finds, then I could explain all the odd things I get. That would be fun but seeing myself on video makes me dry heave. Maybe gigi could do it. She's got a flair for the dramatic.

celebrating the last days of my quarterlife.

I have to work the night of my birthday, which isn't too bad, because then you just get to celebrate longer. We started it off this weekend, with some sunny weather, thrifting, 3 naps and wearing my clogs out for their first steps. And of course food, indian, pizza, thai, with the token cake and ice cream (that tyler convinced me not to make myself). 

I got some of my favorite flowers, which always remind me of a time where at a wedding, a strange woman came up to me with a confident air and said "I'll give you $100 dollars if you can tell me the name of those flowers." I looked at her and didn't hesitate to say "ranunculus." She muttered something about how she wasn't going to give me the money, and walked off, defeated. I was by myself but it took everything I could to not yell "sha-bang!" combined with some kind of gesture. Which now, writing it, sounds beyond lame, but you know the feeling.

I hope you had a relaxing weekend, I'm crossing my fingers for a break from the rain.

reveals.

Finally got around to wearing my silk thrift find, and I realized that ironing really wrinkly silk reveals many things. Like oil stains, and running threads. And maybe I transferred a bit of magenta crayon...(don't use your clothing iron for mixed use!). But it's good enough to layer with a sweater on this half springy day.

I was loving the morning sun on my ornament by my house party. I need to get a few more, it's pretty lonely by itself.

Happy Friday!

patina

I was so happy to go home and reconnect with family. Living across the country makes me really value that time more. I got to celebrate my grandpa's birthday, and spend some time with him. While we were home, I got to have a little vintage dream come true.

My Grandma was a collector of spoons. She had them lined up all around her kitchen, all different shapes and sizes. She ended up with over 300 spoons, collected all through her life. When any of her friends or family would travel, they would pick one up for her. She didn't have the chance to travel all over the world, but those spoons did.

My sister and I once had the pleasure of cleaning and polishing all of those spoons when I was younger, I think for some dance dresses my grandma had sewed for us (she was an expert seamstress). It was a lot of work, but I was so excited to be able to take down every spoon and look at it up close, and Grandma would tell us where she got them from.

My Grandma has sadly been gone for while now, but while we were home we were able to pick out some spoons from her collection. The whole family picked out their favorites, I probably picked the most. I couldn't resist! I picked the Charles and Di one first, with the shovel bottom and their faces on top. I have always loved that spoon.

I was really thrilled that I was able to have the first spoon that started her collection, a simple spoon she received from a pen pal in Denmark in 1949. It is beautifully engraved on the back with her name LaWana, and Denmark is spelled Danmark (the original spelling). That first piece to a collection is so special.

I obviously have a soft spot for collections and that I can have some of hers is like having a bit of her in my home everyday. I would love to have them beautifully preserved and displayed in my home forever.

invisible.

Remember those girls in high school who would rat their hair? Started out small, eventually it just got bigger and bigger, until their heads were almost separate planets. (read: snooki)

Those small teases "just to give volume" were actually a gateway drug to delusion. Sometimes you just don't know when big is too big.

Hopefully I can learn a lesson from snooki that bigger isn't always better.

I got back my vintage icelandic glasses yesterday, and I am kinda in love with them.

Having clear glasses is an adjustment, I feel like I could hide behind my glasses before, but now I have to pay attention to my eye makeup and make sure my lenses and the frames aren't smudgy. But I'm happy to have my eyes not hidden anymore.

They are just a bit bigger than my last glasses, but please someone stop me if I get too Sally Jessy Raphael. I may have lost control by that point.

please excuse the second day hair, I am so bad at taking pictures of myself. Just held the camera up self-portrait style. I tried to "smize" in the second one.

afternoon stroll

Today was a balmy 60 degrees. I ran a bunch of errands with the windows down (for gigi mostly) and then came home and took a little walk to the thrift store right by my house that is open on Thursdays. Didn't get much, a couple sweaters and a tiny jelly jar.

I think it's my destiny someday to have a round door. I don't care how it happens, it will happen. 

Other than huge muddy puddles from melting snow, it was so nice to walk around and not think about the cold weather. That puddle in the first picture, I stood there for a few minutes trying to plan, go left through mud or right through melting snow. I choose melting snow.

I'm sure it will get cold again soon, but it was a nice little break to get me thinking about spring.

***bit of maintenance, for all you RSS readers old and new out there, I would urge you to update your feed subscription url to this. I changed my domain a while ago and I just want to make sure it keeps working in the future, and I know there are a bunch of you that are still using my old address. Any questions let me know.  

silky + wrinkly.

Yesterday my friend and I went spur of the moment to Goodwill. They were having a big sale, and we had some time to kill. Usually I don't find too many things there, but I did find a few dresses + these shirts. My friend Kim found a bunch of stuff too, which included some of my dresses I donated last week in a closet clean out spree Tyler and I had. Whoops!

We found these two 100% silk shirts. The first is an off white (not peachy ombre, I wish.) and is pretty perfect for the slightly over-sized silk shirt moment going on right now. Maybe?

The other is a vintage jcrew, probably from the 90's, and the fit is superb, but the color is a bit too much 90's vomit on my body. The picture doesn't do it's color justice. So this is going to be my I'm-going-to-modify-and-make-do purchase. I'm thinking I would like to dye this, maybe a navy or gray? Anyone dyed silk before?

Lastly, there are always dresses at a thrift store I pick up because I just have to try it on. The fact that this garment still exists is a treasure. Because I love you guys, and I'm a bit self deprecating, here it is.

Don't say I never did anything for you.

clear souvenir

So I haven't really shown any of my trip finds (coming soon I promise), but this one is probably one of my favorites. We went to an antique store in Reykjavik and Tyler found these beauties in a drawer full of plastic specs. I've been looking for clear frames for years, and these are just perfect. And they were only 5 krona (about 3-4 dollars)!

I have an eye appointment this week to get a new perscription, and hopefully get the lenses for these bad boys really soon. Because they were so cheap I'm totally going to spring for non-reflective lenses. You glasses-wearing friends know what I mean about that. I want people to see my eyes!

I did have to convince Tyler that I should use them, because once he tried them on we realized that they look pretty smashing on him, but his handsome mug can pull off anything, so I get them.

jangle bells.

Since getting our record player, we have been hunting for records to add to our tiny collection. We really wanted some Christmas records. We went this weekend to a thrift store and found a few, most notably a Barbara Streisand one. That one is gold. Yesterday we got a package in the mail from Tyler's dad, who sent us the Christmas records that Tyler grew up listening to. Tyler's dad has an amazing record collection, and an awesome knowledge and love of music. I was so thrilled he shared a little of his collection with us. I know what we will be listening to this week!

Do you have any favorite Christmas records?

**another side note about my shop, it will be opening back up Jan. 10.

getting ready.

Yesterday we got  a little tiny bit of snow. It was more of an insult really, if it snows, I want it to really snow! It's been in the 20s here, so it's almost been too cold to snow. This is okay, for now.

I got my boots in the mail today, they are vintage sorels I got from ebay. The color isn't the greatest, but they fit perfectly, and they are waterproof and lined in shearling. I really wanted good boots to travel to Iceland and Denmark, I didn't want to be clunking around in makeshift rain boots. These are actually really comfortable, and I have enough room for thick socks. Thanks 1970s!