Vintage Round-up: Red Plaid

Nothing says fall like red plaid. Here are some great finds that will keep you warm this fall!



Men's red plaid Pendleton short sleeve wool shirt, by retromanvintage on Etsy, $24



50s red plaid shirtwaist dress by Soubrettevintage on Etsy, $58



1960s red plaid Pendleton hat (Yes, I have a thing for Pendleton), by Rustology on Etsy, $24



Vintage red plaid (you guessed it) Pendleton ladies fall coat, by Bathhousevintage on Etsy, $48

Happy shopping!

Vintage Round-up: Snuggle Up, Girls

I know it's chilly, girls. Here are some ideas to keep you cute and warm out there.


Vintage goldenrod belted sweater by OliverandAlexa on Etsy, $48


Vintage green Pendleton skirt by Sweetbeefinds on Etsy, $68


Vintage Levi's brown boots (OMG these are so beautiful), Ebay, buy it now $49.99


Reversible plaid fringed blanket coat by Friendlyfoxvintage on Etsy, $68

Happy shopping!

Getting ready for Halloween: vintage costumes

Got your Halloween costume ready? Yeah, me neither. I'm kind of the night before kind of gal. Or 20 minutes before. This year, though, I had a little fun looking for some costumes online. Here are my ideas to get you started...


Undead Homecoming Queen

Pink party dress by mittenthings on Etsy


Do it yourself zombification

Minnie Pearl

Vintage square dance dress by PARASOLVintage on Etsy



Just hang a price tag off this cute hat from SuzisCornerBoutique on Etsy and you're all set!

Michael Jackson Thriller

Vintage Michael Jackson jacket by RecycledStylez on Etsy


Those unmistakable penny loafers by ThePerennialPast on Etsy

Okay, did that get you thinking? Here's the Pinterest board I started to collect kids costume ideas. Please share your in the comments, too!

Save the world: at the thrift store

Last night I got sucked in to the documentary about No Impact Man, the guy from New York who tried to live for one year making the smallest environmental impact he and his family possibly could. At the time, a lot of people basically poked fun at how he and his family could go with out essentials like toilet paper. One of the components of his "experiment" was to not buy anything new. As I watched, I thought about how shopping at the thrift store (or garage sale, estate sale, etc.) instead of the "regular" store can help us all make a smaller environmental impact.

Here are my ideas for how an average person make a smaller environmental impact without having to go without toilet paper:

Buy cloth napkins and stop buying paper ones

These ones I found on Esty are cute. We only use paper for parties, so we have about 20 - 30 cloth napkins for our family of 4 (so we don't have to do laundry all the time).

Get some great kids toys that are washable and have lots of life left

These building blocks are a great example. They are cleanable, cute, and at least with my little ones are sure to get years of play.

Dishes

When I worked at the thrift store in high school (name is opposite of Badwill), dishes that didn't get purchased after a certain amount of time ended up in the trash. Broken, filling up landfills. It's really hearbreaking to see all those dishes get trashed when I know people go out every day and buy brand new stuff at Crate and Barrel or wherever. Why? The thrifty stuff has character, is cheaper, and works just as well.

Books, books, and more books

Okay, so you probably won't (although you may) find the latest bestseller at the thrift store, you can find tons of great books -- cookbooks, fiction, kid's books, gardening, etc. -- at the thrift store for cheap. The library is great, too, but if you find books at the thrift store you can always see if your library wants them (or your friends/coworkers) when you're done. Or, donate them to an organization who needs them.

Clothes, duh

I buy almost all of my clothes secondhand. I can't tell you how many expensive brand-name items I've picked up this way. Banana Republic, Dansko, J Crew, you name it. I also find great kid's clothes with fancy brand names like Hannah Anderson, too. If you can't get out and about, I was just introduced to ThredUp.com, which is an online kid's consignment store. Kids often outgrow stuff before they wear it out, so this is a genius way to trade your kid's old stuff for some "new" stuff that fits. There is an adult version (or lots of them) called SwapStyle.com, but it is truly a swap (rather than a buy/sell deal) so for me I would rather just hit the thrift store than deal with it.

What else could you get from a thrift store, and thus avoid buying new? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Our shop is overflowing!

And it's about to get even fuller. We've been picking up some great stuff this summer but have been too busy to list a lot of it. I'm telling you, LOTS of cool stuff is coming up. We have stockpiles of Christmas holiday vintage goodies that we haven't even sorted through yet. So as fall gets into full swing, expect lots of new stuff arriving daily at the vintage stuff shop.

Hope you had a wonderful summer and a great Labor Day weekend!

Collecting Garfield Stuff

Oh, how I loved Garfield as a kid. He was just the right amount of smarmy and sarcastic and I loved how he treated that dopey dog, Odie. Like most cartoons, I loved the holiday specials the most. The one I remember most was the Garfield Halloween show. Enjoy!


When we recently bumped in to someone's insane Garfield collection at a thrift store, we had to pick up a few things to resell in our Etsy shop. But it got us thinking: are there Garfield collectors still out there. Yes. What do they collect? Everything. Are certain things more desirable? Yes. As with most things, the more rare it is, the more valuable. For example, a quick search on Ebay found that the Garfield arcade kiddie ride and the standing Garfield with the serving tray (3 feet tall!) got the top bids recently.

If you're interested in collecting Garfield, here are a couple more things I found:

A friend in need

Over a month ago my cousin was in a major vehicle rollover accident that has left him paralyzed from the waist down. He's at the Mayo clinic getting speech and occupational therapy. I'm hoping to help raise some money for the myriad of stuff that might make his new life a little more comfortable.

Me blowing out the candles on my birthday cake. My cousin is the one with the party hat. 

He looks ready to party! 

If you have birthday or shower gifts to buy, please check out my other Etsy shop, Pumpkin Girl. For the foreseeable future I'll be selling everything at a discounted price and all proceeds will go to my cousin and his medical needs. My tie tee shirts are made with real men's vintage ties and I sew them all myself. I also have a few cute things for girls, like a clothesline bodysuit with little vintage clothes hanging on the line.

Thanks for taking a look!

Freaky Tiki

Tiki bars. Tropical drinks with an umbrella tucked in. What says hot summer nights better than this? We recently stumbled across a huge matching set of black tiki mugs, and I kind of got to thinking about the tiki culture. I know there are tons of people out there who collect the stuff. And I've seen shows about people who have turned their entire house tiki. But what's up in my neighborhood  -- the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area -- as far as the tiki scene goes?

Here are some cool finds you may want to check out:

Foundation Tiki Bar, Milwaukee
At Random (not really a tiki bar, but of the same era), Milwaukee
Tiki Tuesday Boat Tour (haven't done it but sounds fun

If you can afford to travel, the Tiki Oasis in San Diego appears to be where it's at.

And if I were going to Tiki Oasis, here's what I'd wear:

Tiki turtle dress by Rococo Vintage



White carved Hawaiian shoes by 1Susanfunk1




Basket purse by CuriousFawnVintage



Tortoise bracelet by MekealohaClassic

Are you tiki crazy? Do you collect anything? I'd love to hear about your tiki obsession!

Hello from 1993!

Today had me feeling nostalgic for my years in high school for some reason. I miss those days! Winona Ryder was my style icon and I loved my black hair and black nail polish. I remember borrowing certain weird things from my parents' closet, like my dad's duck hunting jacket. I also remember wearing a really cool mail man jacket. Where has my style inspiration gone to? I used to love wearing interesting weird stuff. These days, it's whatever takes the least amount of effort to put on.

Oh well, remembering the "good old days" is still pretty awesome.

What were you wearing back in the day?

A Thrifty and Vintage Wedding Idea: Dessert Buffet

I'm coming up on my 8-year wedding anniversary. Phew, we made it this far! Here's hoping for 10! I really loved having a wedding. By not having a ton of money to blow on it, I got more creative and had more fun figuring out how to make it unique and suited perfectly to us.

So given that wedding season is upon us (and that I had the old photos out to find that photo of me in the sweater I had stashed away since high school), I thought I would post something that I thought turned out super cool. You could do this for your wedding and save all that money most people spend on cakes. Of course the "cake" part was one of my highest priorities with my wedding. I absolutely loved how this turned out.

I asked five or six of my friends if they'd be willing to bake something for the wedding. Now, normally I think the pot luck thing for a wedding isn't that great (who wants to cook when they're gettin' all fancied up to come party with you?). But I have friends who I know love to bake, and I knew this would be right up their alley. I didn't put any stipulations on them. All on their own they came up with what you see here.

They brought pies, truffles, cupcakes -- even an insane chocolate layer cake with green flames, topped with a vintage wedding cake topper I bought on Etsy! All I had to do was provide the decor for the table, some white Christmas lights, and it was done. It cost me next to nothing and my friends were excited to play a role. I think some of them were a little nervous that what they made wouldn't be "fancy" enough, but there wasn't a crumb left at the end of the night, so I'm pretty sure the guests didn't notice.

Did you do anything cool, vintage or thrifty for dessert at your wedding? I would love to hear your ideas! Because I liked getting married so much I might just do it again (yes, to the same guy) at 10 years. Who knows!

Learning about vintage men's shirts

One thing that makes my hubs so great is that he's as obsessed as me with vintage stuff. He's crazy about men's vintage clothing, and has developed quite an expertise. He's always asking me "does it have a box hem?" or "is it Sanforized?" and honestly, until recently, I was pretty clueless.

So, I did what all nerds would do and I made a little cheat sheet. If you're interested in men's vintage clothing as a buyer or seller, you may find some tips here on dating and identifying your vintage shirts. And BTW, I didn't include this, but a box hem is apparently the type of hem that you don't tuck in -- it's straight hemmed all the way around.

Vintage embroidery

A few weeks ago I scored a few really old (40s?) embroidery patterns and this week I gave one a test drive. Spoiler alert: if you are a friend of mine expecting a baby soon, avert your eyes! If you aren't familiar with embroidery, you usually transfer the pattern onto fabric with an iron. The design transfers onto the fabric so you can stitch over it, but also washes off afterwards so what you have left is your finished product, not the lines.
Here's the result (close eyes preggo friend):

The photo doesn't totally do it justice. It turned out cute, thankfully, because I haven't done any embroidery for years. There are zillions of resources out there, but I bookmarked the Home Sewing Projects site because it gave me a good refresher on the basic stitches. For this project, I mostly used the outline stitch.

If you haven't ever done embroidery before, I highly recommend it. I was even teaching my 4-year-old and he really enjoyed putting the needle in and seeing the colored thread start to form pictures. It's great for kids to learn small motor skills and they get a kick out of seeing what they can make.

I Love 80s Stickers!

If you're a Gen-Xer, you may have also called yourself a sticker collector at one point in time. I know I personally had multiple sticker books and was engaged in heated negotiations with my friends, with whom I liked to make trades. You want that puffy unicorn? That'll cost you at least one of those scratch n' sniff oranges, if not two. This was big business. All the "good stores" had stickers on rolls, and the sparkly or glittery ones were always in high demand. My absolute favorite sticker of all time was a brontosaurus that was filled with some colored goo that changed color when you pressed on it. Be-u-ti-ful.

When I came across a massive stash of stickers at a local estate sale recently, I got to thinking again about this long-ago passtime. I wondered if there were still people out there who collect these things. What are they worth? What do people (grown-ups?) do with them? What I found is that lots of people collect stickers. There's even a reference book out there about scratch-n-sniff stickers to help you figure out if you've hit a goldmine of sticker goodness.

Well, the sticker collection we scored isn't worth a mint, but we all had a lot of fun with them. My kids liked the football helmets (son) and hot air balloons (daughter) the best. I personally loved the scratch-n-sniff pickles, which amazingly still smelled like pickles after sitting on a shelf for 30 years.

What about you? Were you a sticker collector? What was your favorite sticker?

My big, fat vintage weekend

This weekend we crammed a lot of vintage-ing in, including a trip to a thrift store (major Garfield-themed scores including a really awesome Garfield phone), an estate sale (smaller, but very cut score of a tartan plaid pencil case from England), and the Vintage Flea & Finds Pop-up Market. The market was small, but we had tons of room to spread out and a great view of the lake.

It was great for shoppers, because the tiki bar (yes, there was a tiki bar out by the lake) had a special on Bloody Mary's and Sugarbomb was selling the most amazing cupcakes. So right there you've got a mass-load of deliciousness to go with your flea finding. Our two kids came along to help and they were super well behaved so the heavens were in alignment for us on many levels. I now have to put my feet up and rest up! Thanks for coming out if you were at the flea market. It was lots of fun!

Getting ready for the flea market

We're all super excited that we're going to be hawking our wares at the Vintage Flea & Finds Pop-up Market at the East Side Club in Madison this Sunday. But, we're also kind of panicky and nervous. None of us have ever done a flea market before, so there's a lot of unknowns. What we're darn sure of, though, is that we have a TON of stuff to sell, so we're hoping for a few buyers!

Here are a couple of highlights. This sweet little doggie ride-on toy would look so cute for a display. It's wood and in really nice condition. I don't feel too bad about selling it, because even though she looks happy enough on it in this photo, in the other photos she kinda cried being in it. I don't think she liked that she isn't quite big enough to get in and out of it herself.

We're also bringing about 15 vintage suitcases, TONS of patterns, jewelry, lots of men's and women's shoes, hats, and records both for listening and making into some crazy craft project.

If you're in Madiosn, please stop by and say hi!