Victory! ...rolls

This week I've had my dear friend Joyous to visit from Toronto, Canada. We tromped around every single antique store in the area, including one that isn't listed... because it's somebody's barn. We found lots of little treasures!

Joyous found a beaded coin purse, a sweet apron, a teacup and saucer, and several sets of cameo stud earrings. I had my eye on bigger quarry (as I do not have to lug it back to the north country) and came home with a lamp-slash-endtable, a teak letter-and-key holder, a small wooden recipe box, an embroidered table runner and a fabulous Pendleton Knockabouts jacket, complete with leather-patch elbows!

This week has been no less than victorious, not only in great vintage finds in our small town, but also in more hair experiments! First we thought we'd do pin curls for a mandolin concert this week, but time flew by and left us with too few hours to put it together. Instead - Victory Rolls!

As you can see, we made the most of it. We both have very straight hair, which I thought would prove more challenging than it actually did. Joy has lots of hair that's very fine, and I have thick hair but not as much of it. Soon I hope to post a video tutorial of how to do this particular hairstyle, but until then, here's what we did:

1. If you start with wet hair, throw in some mousse and blow dry. If you start with dry hair, hairspray the heck out of it and then brush it.
2. Take two vertical sections of hair from each side of your head and throw the rest in a ponytail.
3. Backcomb each of the four sections on the back side, using hairspray as necessary (we used quite a lot).
4. Use a 1"-barrel curling iron to curl one section towards the back. When it's sufficiently curled, use your hands to roll the section away from your face into the long rolls you see in our pictures.
5. Use two bobby pins to secure the roll at the top and the bottom. You can play with the roll to make it looser or tighter, depending on how much volume you want.
6. Do this for each of the four sections, pulling your bangs aside if you have them.
7. For those with said fringe, hold them straight up from your head, spray them, and curl them in a large curl towards the front. Leave it to cool, then backcomb the back side and roll them into a standing pin curl off to one side. Secure with a bobby pin.
8. Undo the ponytail you put up earlier. Curl the hair in sections - use hairspray to make sure the ends don't fall out immediately (it's not terribly important that they stay really curly).
9. Brush the curls and put your hair up in a high ponytail again. Split the hair on the top to make a pocket just above the elastic band, loosening the ponytail, and tuck the hair into it. Leave the last few inches of the ponytail untucked.
10. Curl the last few inches of the ponytail around the pocket of stuffed hair to hide it, and pin it with a bobby pin.
11. Spray, spray, spray! We took on wind and rain with this style, and nary a hair was out of place when we returned.

Cheers!
Marjorie

I'm a little teapot

I have been looking for the perfect teapot for years. Years. And just a few months ago, I found it - well, her. She was sitting on a corner table at the back of a newly-discovered antique store, and she commanded my full attention.

It's difficult to say what is so special about this perfect little teapot. Perhaps I just know deep down that if I were a teapot, I would be this little teapot. Maybe I saw her in a dream, or met one of her matching cups and saucers at an antique shop in my past. One thing I do know is that she spoke to me, and one should always buy, if one is able, the items that speak to one's soul.

This little teapot is named Angela for a cat-loving friend of mine who, when I think of her, always makes me want to curl up with my kitty and a cup of tea. My teapot does much the same thing, and it doesn't hurt that she has quite recently been clothed with a tea cozy of delicate design and delightful colors, making her all the more inviting. Many thanks to my wonderful Oma for the gift!

Another recent acquisition was this fanciful embroidered table runner, found for a few cents at an estate sale. Birdie and I have decided she needs a bosom, so I think I will attempt something innocently come-hitherish using my library embroidery books soon. I love her shoes, and I can only dream of bloomers with flounces like that!

Here are a few details of my lovely embroidered belle. Enjoy!

Antique expo excursion

After a few weeks of quietude from blogging (in which I moved forward on the novel, discovered an exciting new hobby in quilting, and acquired a surprise sewing machine), I have been revitalized by an escapade to Portland's Expo Center and a day spent with my favorite vintage blogger, Solanah of Vixen Vintage. 


Solanah, I was pleased to find, is wonderfully approachable and thrillingly knowledgeable when it comes to vintage clothing. I learned so much from her as we cavorted in heels for hours through the Expo, and was delighted to find a friend as well as a kindred spirit. 


We met quite a few people who also embodied the vintage spirit with fantastic vintagewear and hattery, including Janey of Atomic Redhead. My favorite, I must admit, was the muscle-bound, mustachioed man in the striped shirt! 


Enjoy these photos of the day's escapade! Soon to follow will be my own unique finds and ways to use them. 

Cheers!

Marjorie

Old to you, new to me

There are a lot of things about the past that inspire me to live life differently than the average life-liver. Antiques happened to me as a teenager, and I was bored and annoyed by them.

Since then, a series of events has opened my eyes to the endless variation of what I call “living material.” 

It started when a friend of mine got engaged and insisted on French netting for her veil, complete with a pearl-studded antique hair comb. We decided to excurse ourselves to the largest antique mall in town - about the size of a football field, not even kidding - and look for this elusive netting, which she couldn’t find at a fabric store.

As we wound our way down aisles named “Vienna,” “London,” and “Paris,” we found a plethora of headgear in the same family as my dear friend’s dream veil. Hats were abundant in that store, and the more we looked, the more we gawked. Hats with feathers, hats of felt, fascinators of all kinds began to garner our attention. Soon, we couldn’t help but take photos of ourselves in said hats. They were wild to us, but once on, you had to admit that they gave you a look, and it wasn’t altogether bad.

I don’t know if she ever found the French netting she was looking for (honestly, she should have just tried the internet first), but it was the beginning of a new phase of life for me. She and I spent nearly a year going to the antique mall every few weeks, and the more I saw, the more I learned. What’s valuable to collectors, what people bring in that’s really junk, and how obscenely small women were half a century ago. I’ve acquired several articles of clothing that are worth their weight in gold for the compliments I receive, and I always find something new, no matter how many times I go a-hunting.

Lesson for the day: When shopping antique, have an item (or a few) in mind that you’re looking for. Your brain will punch in the code and your eyes will almost automatically be drawn to that item in a sea of various whosits and whatsits. Case in point: my mother and I once went antiquing, and she mentioned it would be nice to have a perch for our miserably noisy and kermudgeonly cockatiel. After that, all I could see in the antique mall were birdcages, and no matter how hidden, every single one caught my eye. Let that be a lesson to you!