Hollywood Regency Fashion Show!

That's right, this is coming up in less than two weeks! I am very excited and becoming a little nervous...I still have to write the text and make the dress CC is going to wear....it is my interpretation of the polka dot dress that Betty Draper wore in season 2 where she has her meltdown. Everyone's outfits are picked out and tried on and I finally found shoes to fit one of our girls, thank god. She wears size 10+ so that was fun....! Have to pick up a Playboy Bunny costume for Lolita to wear, find a pipe for my Hef, and get a pair of pants shortened, figure out what the heck Louis will wear. It's coming together. If it works like it should, this will be the best one we've done.

Just cross me some fingers out there in blog land, ok?

A few goodies

So I have been trying to get this new house together, and I decided to get out a collection I have that I have not seen for a long time. There was a time there when I was really into Gilner Pottery pixies, and every other elf/pixie thing I could find. They are a little harder to find now, but I am happy with what I have. It's nice seeing these fellows again!





I was at Big Lots not too long ago, and spotted this cute retro clock in mint green and baby pink, and once my old alarm clock died I decided to blow $15 and get the pink one. I love it! It sure has a clanging alarm, though, but it does get me awake!




I went over to the Goodwill recently and found a few little doodads...the red belt is patent and I have been looking for a wide red belt forEVER, so I was quite happy to find this! The pattern is from 1998 and I was very pleased to pick it up in my size for 99¢! I saw it on eBay for $32.99 BIN, which is just crazy expensive. The skirt looks a little long so I will shorten it, but I have this lovely piece of emerald green rayon that will be just perfect for this. I plan to do the 40s style dress first. The party book is a scream from 1932 and even has the complete plans for a real minstrel show! It also has ideas for just about any kind of theme party you could think of. The copper set is on eBay now because I can't wear that color at all.

So, there is a little bit from here-more to come as I unpack boxes and hopefully hit some estate sales soon!

Glider project

I bought this fabulous vintage metal glider about 10 years ago in a suburb of Phoenix called Maryvale-which for you non-Arizona folks, is a place I would call our own version of Levittown. Built in the 50s, it was an all-inclusive community full of cookie-cutter houses, shopping centers and schools. It used to be a great place to live, and the houses are huge! Now, unfortunately, it is full of undesirables, renters who don't care about where they live and has acquired a reputation for being dangerous. I used to go to some amazing estate sales out there. I still love going to look at the houses because you can still get a sense of what it was supposed to be. But I digress! :-)

I bought this from a house where it had sat for about 40 years on its own little concrete slab. It had been painted to match the trim on the house! Its original color was dark green, which I would have liked to save, but there is lots of rust, so i will have to use Kilz on the entire thing. I wanted a dark raspberry pink, and so I selected "Watermelon" from the Krylon line of colors. I LOVE it! I need to get this done because I am dying to see the finished look. I plan to make some vintage fabric pillows to go on it as well. It will look good with my repro yellow and turquoise metal motel chairs. What do you think?

Argh!

Well, we just moved three weeks ago into our new-to-us-house and I have been busy getting it set up and DONE, which of course when you have ninety million boxes of STUFF like I do, that is a distant dream. It is nice to see my stuff again, though-it's been a year and it's almost like Christmas. :-) I am sorry that I haven't updated recently, but I have a couple projects I am working on and would like to share, hopefully get to posting about that this week. I've also made a couple of things for me that are fun. So, pictures and all this week, I hope! Moving in, sewing, working, mom-ing....someday it'll all run smooth. I'm so darn busy living my life I have no time to write about it! More to come soon, complete with eye candy. :-)

Some new goodies

One of my jobs is working with my friend who runs estate sales-and the one this week is huge! I restrained myself a bit, though, and only got a few things. (There is a giant church sale Thursday morning that I have been waiting for for a month, so I am trying to save to be able to go to that one.) Anyway, here is what I brought home today!

I have a thing for those plastic covered fabric sewing boxes-my mom had one. I LOVE that this one is pink. I now have three-oh NO, it's a new collection! The leopard thing is HARD TO FIND cinch belt elastic-a couple YARDS of it, and oh YES some of it will be adorning my waist very soon. The velvet pincushion is a lovely faded aqua blue-usually these are red but I LOVE that this is blue instead-it's rare. The Mother poem picture is for yet another collection of mine-I love motto pictures, especially the sappy Mother ones. They are just so sweet. Double daisy flower hook is Italian tole and destined for my workroom at the new house. And how can you go wrong with vintage thread in colors like that? I never buy new thread, ever-I don't need to. Plus the colors are better working with vintage fabrics. Any readers need thread, let me know-I 'll pick some up for you. We sell the large ziploc bags of thread for about 3-4 bucks at the sales. You can get pretty much anything you need sewing-wise, sometimes, at these sales, for next to nothing. Why do y'all think I have ended up with a big ol' stash of notions?!

Now, think good thoughts for me at the church sale-I'm getting up stupid early to go to it. I am excited-I haven't been to a proper sale in months and I'm ready to score some stuff!

A fun project I did!

My daughter turned 21 whole years old yesterday! She had asked me beforehand to make her an apron for her day, and so I turned to one of my handy 194os era Sewing books, and found this neat idea, cobbled it together with some cute dragonfly fabric that my son picked out for his sister, and here we have an apron, vintage inspired but totally modern for my new-things-only-loving daughter! I am quite pleased with it! I hope she likes it!! This is one of the first times I have taken an idea out of a book and made an actual garment-I am a total slave to patterns (it's a comfort thing, I guess) but this was easy enough to figure out. I liked working with the bias tape and even made two matching potholders and a bib for my grandson, just because I could. :-)

Back on the 'Bay today!

Just wanted to say that I have some lovely vintage textiles and other fun stuff listed on eBay tonight..go check me out, if you'd like. Sorry, I don't know how to link properly...

http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewListedItems&include=0&since=-1&rdir=0&sort=12&rows=50&userid=bettys-vintage-house