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!

july.

Okay! I really cannot believe it's already July. This year is moving so fast, but hopefully that just means that Fall will be here before I know it. I usually allow myself to start being a little ridiculous about Autumn towards the end of July and definitely in August, so I guess don't have much longer to wait. I sneakily bought Fall candles the other day and recently pulled out my Beistle 1930s reproduction Halloween die-cuts that I got in Brooklyn last October and now I really can't wait to decorate this year. It's no secret that I don't like Summer, but since it's clearly here to stay for a while, I figured I would try to appreciate some of the better parts of this hot season.


Antique cotton clothing - After a long, self-prescribed moratorium on knick-knack spending, I finally broke my 'no antiquing' streak. I took money from my rent fund to spend on tea cups, vintage buttons, and antique cotton slips. When I mentioned it to my mom, she asked me but how many are for your shop? I like how my mom helps me justify my frivolous trinket spending habits. This antique cotton crochet vest was one of the things I bought, and I can see this being a staple all Summer long...I think it would pair nicely with flowy skirts and high-waisted shorts and I don't think I would die from heat stroke.

 Berries- available all year in Florida, but much always so much sweeter when the weather is hot. If I don't have pink-red stains on most of my clothing by the time Falls comes around, I'm doing something wrong. This little pink glass teacup is one of the new treasures from antiquing.

Lemonade is one of my favorite Summer drinks. I like it ridiculously sweet, like the kind you get at carnivals and state fairs, and I try to make it different each time- mint lemonade, black tea lemonade, and of course, raspberry lemonade.

And an instagram of the final product:

Summer, you're not so bad sometimes.

cat snaps / house peeks.

After looking in nearly every antique/used furniture shop in town, I pretty much gave up searching for a kitchen table... but when my downstairs neighbor was moving out I took a peek at that apartment to see if I liked it better and I noticed his kitchen table was the only thing not moved out, and it was exactly what I had been looking for. I asked him what he intended to do with it, if he was selling it, and he said it belonged to the building and had been there when he moved in, so I went right ahead and usurped it for my own apartment.

It's normally situated right under my front window, where there's lots of nice light to enjoy while drinking my coffee and eating blueberry scones and reading in the early afternoons, but the other day I tested it out on the opposite wall (where my elusive future yet-to-be-found settee will eventually go) and I quite liked it. It didn't stay for long, however, because Oliver and Gus were so excited to finally be able to reach all those frames they'd been so curious about, and they almost knocked one or two down. Oliver managed to grab that little dried pod/stem branch and pull it down, so I decided maybe it was best to move it back for now.

And here we have Oliver looking so fancy on the tabletop. The cats are normally not allowed on the table, and they're usually very good about it, but with the novelty of the new location they were extra curious so I let them hop up a time or two. (also, please excuse the mess that can be seen in my room. there were cat toys laying all over the floor that I couldn't be bothered to pick up for these photos).

I wore this dress on Easter but I only went to my mom's in it and no one saw me so I thought it'd be okay if wore it again a few days later. I bought it from one of those cheap mall shops about five to six thousand years ago when I was working at the mall, and I had never worn it all those years for some reason so I pulled it out on Easter and it seemed just right for the occasion. I was much cooler in this than in the 1920s dress and slip I wore last Easter. It seems the perfect warm weather dress so I can see myself wearing it a lot this Spring and Summer. The cream bow fascinator was a gift from my friend many many years ago, she bought it for me from an antique shop in Hawaii.

I found the pretty lace treasures hanging on my door at an estate sale a few weeks ago, the pink lace dress is 1950s and the ecru ruffle top is Edwardian. Both need a few mends and then they will be put right in the shop. The white one in the center is a big fluffy crinoline which I will be keeping for displaying clothes in shop photos. I have two others but neither is as full as this one and I've been searching for a new one for quite some time.

I hope you all had a nice Easter and have been enjoying this nice weather we've been having! (I'm just assuming here that we've all been having nice weather). I am still stalking craigslist for a new bike, which I'll hopefully find before the hot Summer rolls around.

gloomy days

It's such a rainy, gloomy Sunday. There was supposed to be a shop update today but there's no light for picture taking so I suppose that will have to wait. I have about five or six nice 50s and 60s dresses that would be perfect for fancy Spring lunch dates... they'll be in the shop before the end of the week, if the sun ever comes out, but who is thinking of Spring lunch dates when the weather is so gloomy anyway?

 oh- I got a bed! I put it together last night and I think it looks quite nice. And I managed to grab some shelves so I can finally unpack my books! No more boxes cluttering up my floor! I also picked up a few plants that I though would be okay for kitties- a peace lily and a cute but tragic looking aloe succulent- but it turns out that peace lilies can be toxic to kittens so that one is either going waaay high up on a shelf, or out in the parlor of my building where my kittens never wander. I'm researching cat-safe plants that are also easy to care for so any suggestions are welcome! I have visions of greenhouse-living but am completely inept at anything more than an occasional watering when it comes to plants. 

I bought this edwardian blouse at the beginning of Summer last year but had to wait for the weather to cool down to wear it because it has long sleeves, and you also have to layer it under something because it's super cropped, too cropped for even my highest of shorts! And then I sort of forgot about it over the Fall/Winter season but I saw it hanging in my closet today among the other pale/cream/cottony/lacy blouses that make up over half my closet and thought it would be perfect for a gloomy day like today. The collar is pretty amazing. I'll take a big floppy scalloped embroidered edwardian collar over a regular collar any day! 

The sweater is 1950s and the color is some kind of slate/lilac/gray hybrid which actually makes it a pretty nice neutral. The high-waist sailor shorts are from forever 21 (womp womp, I know), I do not typically shop there but sometimes they're okay for cheapish basics and I had been looking for a pair of shorts like this for aaaages and these happened to be just what I was looking for and so cheap too!

improvements and a shop update.

I've been really frustrated with my shop lately, so this past week was dedicated to making improvements in my inventory (or lack of) and photo set-up. I posted an ad on craigslist last week stating that I was interested in buying vintage clothing from the 1920s-60s or earlier, not thinking I would get any responses, but the very next day I had an email from a lady who used to have a booth at a flea market in town. She sold vintage clothing there for years, but had to stop when she had a baby a couple years back so she had a bunch of inventory left over from her days of selling. She said she had a lot of vintage dresses from the 40s-60s, so we made an appointment for me to look through her stuff last Friday. She ended up being really nice and we shared many of the same interests, and I left with armloads of dresses, purses, hats, shoes and other odds and ends. I filled three huge boxes and two giant bags! I was so excited. (I'm sure many of the other finds will be popping up in my blog eventually, as I set aside many of the pieces for myself, oops.)

Saturday I made my mom accompany me to look at paint samples and new flooring for my photo area, and we ended up coming home with gray paint ("creamy mushroom") and samples of hardwood flooring to test out in the area. I didn't waste any time getting to work painting the wall so that it could dry overnight and I could take shop photos of some of my new inventory today, which I did. It's a subtle change, but I think it makes a big difference. The white paint was too reflective and made my old shop photos look washed out and shadowy, but I really love the way the gray photos turned out. I picked a brown theme for today's update, because I thought it would nicely bridge the gap between the end of Summer and the beginning of Fall (hurry up hurry up!). The lighter wicker basket bags reminded me of sunny bicycle rides and picnics and the rich, warm brown items made me think of hot chocolate and cozy fires. So it worked out nicely. (see the numbered links at the bottom to click through to the item listings!)

from top:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

The woman I purchased from on Friday told me about some great upcoming markets in the area so I think this Fall (when it's not 100°) I'm going to set up a little booth and sell vintage for a weekend or two. I'm so excited at the possibility of setting up my own little booth and making it pretty and boutique-y and selling lovely olde dresses and wares and I already have so many ideas swimming around in my tired little brain that I can hardly wait.