summer days

One day last weekend, my mom came over to get lunch and walk around downtown a little and poke around in all the antique stores. We started to walk there and only got about half of a block before we decided it was just too hot to walk. So we took a few photos under the shade of a big oak tree and then made our way back to the car to drive. When we arrived at the little cafe where we planned to have lunch, it was closed, and then we realized it was Sunday and everything in the historic district was going to be closed. So we made other plans and started to walk back to the car.

There's this little tiny red, white, and blue building downtown that used to be an old hot dog stand/diner. It's so cute and quaint and has a row of carnival lights across the top and a tiny window for where the vendor would serve the patrons. It's one of my favorite buildings in town, and I've been wanting to take pictures of it for the longest time. It's been up for sale for so long with no takers so I was worried it'd be torn down soon...so since I finally had my camera we stopped here to snap a few photos on the way back to the car.

...and then this happened:

Not only will the building not be torn down, but apparently someone already bought it, and turned it into a little hair salon. This hilarious guy came out to see what we were doing and when he saw that we were taking photos of the building, he made us come in and take a tour. One of the other men working at the salon said he loved my outfit ('it's like so, vintage or something'), and demanded that I take a photo of it against his backdrop or he would be utterly offended. So I did.

I got this skirt in an ebay lot last Winter and had designated it a "Fall skirt' because of the colors and pattern, but I pulled it out of the back of my closet the other day and realized it would actually make a nice Summer skirt too. And then I realized that it would be the perfect thing to wear with my new antique top. 

Right then... it's really hot today so I'm going to go drink another cream soda with a fancy red and white striped straw and traipse around in a vintage bathing suit eating handfuls of berries and waving sparklers til the sun goes down. I hope you are all having a lovely holiday if you are in the US, and a lovely regular day if not!

seaside.

Every year when Spring and Summer roll around I crave all the nostalgic things that remind me of my childhood Summers, like kite-flying, carnival rides, and boardwalk arcades, but it's usually too hot here to do any of those things. We had a few strange days this week where the weather felt like early Autumn weather...sunny and warm but with a cool breeze during the day, and chilly and crisp at night, so I decided the boardwalk would be the perfect place to enjoy the uncharacteristic weather. 

I was really excited about wearing tights...tights are a rare sight after January or February, it gets too hot so quickly, so I wore my favorite polka dot tights paired with high-waisted sailor shorts (which I seem to be living in lately), a light blue blouse, vintage cat-eye sunglasses, and a pastel vintage scarf tied in a big floppy ridiculous bow in my hair. This outfit was inspired by candy shops, 1940s girls vacationing seaside, ice cream, all the pretty pastel colors of old fashioned boardwalks, and a tiny bit Lolita (it was old Vlad's birthday, after all).

I had to stop in here and get taffy of course. It reminded me of Candy Kitchen on the boardwalk in Ocean City...so nostalgic. I remember going in as a child and being overtaken by the sweet smells...all the pretty pastel taffy lining the walls and shiny, colorful rock candy in glistening bouquets...ohhhh I miss it so. I think some of my favorite color combinations as an adult are directly inspired by old fashioned candy shoppes.

We played some junky old arcade games that kept taking our coins, but we mostly just wanted tickets to trade for silly cheap arcade prizes. Isn't that the best part? We mostly picked out things that could double as cat toys- plastic leap frogs, striped spinning tops, miniature lizards, and some of those rubbery inverted domes that you turn inside out and they pop! up in the air. The cats loved those. I also got silly ridiculous things like a purple pinky ring with hearts and a plastic neon yellow gun on a hot pink keychain. I wanted one of those parachute things or a glider plane, but they didn't have either. Those are like, the main boardwalk prizes, right?

One of the main reason I wanted to go to the boardwalk was to take photobooth pictures, but even though the damn thing took my money and took four photos, a photo strip never popped out after waiting for fifteen minutes. I was given my money back, but still I was pretty disappointed. I took this weird funhouse mirror photo while I was waiting for 'the photo strip that never came.'

After the arcade we walked on the boardwalk a little...I really wanted to go on the ferris wheel (my favorite ride) but there were no other takers. It was really windy though, so it probably wouldn't have been the best time to ride anyway. We watched the go-carts and tilt-a-whirl for a little while and looked at the ocean and took some photos, then realized how much time had passed so we had to scurry to my car because the meter was definitely up. But not before getting some ice cream on the way out!

Such a perfect day. 

dreamy light daze.

Some photos taken during a visit to Sugar Mill gardens last month. I hadn't been to the gardens in almost ten years and had almost forgotten they existed even though they're just a short drive from where I live. Basically, what is now acres of botanical gardens was once an old sugar mill built in the early 1800s. The ruins of the sugar mill are still there as well as huge life-sized sculptures of dinosaurs that were built in the 1940s when the ruins became a tourist attraction and the garden was a theme park called 'Bongoland'. The dinosaurs were one of the main reasons I wanted to go but they're mostly located far back on the paths and it was getting a little creepy in there with the hazy, dying light so we thought better of it. The weather was perfect this day and the light so beautiful, but the garden was closing so we had to leave after just a little while.

° ° °

I planned to go back but haven't gotten a chance yet... of course, now it's getting hotter and more humid so there will probably be too many mosquitoes to actually enjoy it. Oh- there is also a tiny little green 1850s cottage that is now a reference library- 'The gardener's library for reference and pleasure'. It was closed but I really wanted to go in there! I was trying to peek in the windows but it was so dim that I couldn't see a thing. I'm imagining a tiny room filled with dusty antique botanical books with beautiful flower plates... Hopefully we'll have some cooler days before the dreaded Summer weather begins so I can go back soon.

gone wandering in woods.

Probably my favorite kind of dresses are floral cotton dresses from the 1930s and 40s, they're just easy and pretty. I bought this pretty one just the other day, and it's easily become one of my favorite dresses already.


These days I've mostly been lazing about; I wander, read Voltaire. Take naps with my kittens. Debate taking up painting once again, when I spy my lonely easel resting in the corner, but remember how fruitless it always is. I bore so easily. or distract, rather. A million unfinished books and paintings and half knitted scarves. It's inevitable.


I'm still waiting on Winter to arrive, Fall even. It's been quite mild here and although I do like that sort of weather, a bit of frost would do to help me feel more festive. Something feels a little off this year, I usually get excited about the holidays pretty early but that just hasn't been the case lately. Maybe I'll dedicate this week to baking and pom pom ornament making. St. Augustine is still on the schedule since we didn't end up going last weekend like we planned, so maybe that's what's missing.

(I can't tell if these photos are really blurry or if my vision is just off from lack of sleep. having kittens is like having a newborn, I swear. I was awoken extremely early this morning by Beatrix jumping on my face. So, sorry if they are.)

dream within a dream.

This past weekend and the end of last week were uncharacteristically nice weather-wise, instead of the mid-ninety degree weather we'd been having, it returned to a late Winter/early Spring-like (for Fl) mid-seventy degrees. I had a big list of things to do on Saturday but when I felt how nice it was outside I decided that those things would just have to wait and threw on this cotton 1930s dress I'd been really excited about wearing, grabbed a picnic basket and hat and out I went. It was such a lovely, lazy day filled with peach iced tea in pretty glass cups, warm grass, and just enough sunshine. I snapped a few photos for my shops, and some of them unintentionally turned out sort of Picnic at Hanging Rock?

The dress. The dress is a light pink cotton 1930s dress with navy blue swiss dots, little ruffle sleeves and three little navy colored bows at the neckline. Oh! and the buttons- big, carved plastic, perfect 1930s navy blue buttons down the back. I'm facing a bit of a dilemma, however. This dress as it is is quite the dream dress, kind of a pretty lawn dress inspired sort of thing, but I'm not sure how practical (for me) it is right now and I'm really considering removing the ruffle at the hem. I'd really hate to alter or hem a vintage dress, and it's super pretty how it is, but I feel like if I removed the ruffle I would not only like it way better, but I would live in this dress, like wear it to pieces until it was a pretty little scrap to be hung on my wall I would wear it so often. There are a few scattered stains on the bottom so it's not like it would be pure frivolity, right?

vintage straw hat available here

antique picnic basket available here

UPDATE: I went ahead and pulled, yes pulled, the ruffle off, and I don't feel one bit bad about it. I inspected the seam more closely and there had been numerous poor mends in the past, and it seems that the ruffle may even have been a later addition using the same fabric. So I found a spot (there were several) were the seam was already separated and gave it a gentle tug and the seams pulled right apart, no seam ripper required.