Summer Showers, Part 3

I was lucky enough to be the guest of honor for two bridal showers last summer. In August, my maid of honor Emily and mother-in-law Karen threw a 50's housewife themed shower that was out of this world. They sent out a recipe card with the invitations, and guests arrived with the recipe card filled out with one of their favorites to add to my new Rifle Paper Co. recipe box. I can't tell you how thrilled I was to open that gift- it's one of my favorite things we received for our wedding.

My mom and dad came to town to help with the shower. The guys stayed outside to deal with parking (after Sean took all these wonderful photos, of course!) and my mom helped with cooking and setting up the party. They greeted me at the door in pearls and aprons and ushered me in to open my own polka dot apron and a set of pearl jewelry.

Emily and Karen know I'm not one that likes being the center of attention, so they made the shower open house style. There were so many gifts, however, that I ended up spending the first half of the shower opening everything in front of everyone anyway, as all the guests decided to come at almost the same time! There's about a million photos of me doing the exact same thing as I'm doing in the pic below with all of the awesome gifts we received. I loved this one though- it's an egg tray that looks like a paint palette from Anthropologie, gifted by my lovely bridesmaids. I love deviled eggs, so we get a lot of use out of this tray.

My bridesmaids Anna, Crista, Emily and Becky below.

 One photo with the groom and the shower decor before we kicked him out to hang out with the other guys outside :)

Speaking of the decor, it was absolutely perfect! Karen noticed all of these vintage framed bridal ads at the local shop where she purchased her dress for the wedding. They were more than willing to let her borrow them for the day to decorate the shower. Gotta love small towns! There were also plenty of photos of Sean and I from our engagement shoot, and lots of other details to tie in the whole 50's housewife theme. They definitely know me well... there were Pyrex bowls, pies as game prizes, cookbooks, an old fashioned mixer, a rolling pin, more recipe cards, and pretty flowers.

There were two games- one was a scratcher ticket, and the other was a fill in the blank housewife game, both of which Emily found on Etsy. The guests had a really fun time filling in the ridiculous statements of what a housewife should be. They were all statements that used to appear in ads like this one that we all thought were hilarious when compared to today's standards.

 I had such a fun time at this shower, and again was thrilled to be the guest of honor. It's a good feeling when people want to celebrate you, and I couldn't be any more grateful for the memories of such a fun celebration leading up to our wedding day.

One last thing that I know I'll never forget about this day... just a few hours after Mary left the shower to go to another get together with some of her friends at a bowling alley, her water broke (yes... at the bowling alley, poor girl!) and baby Elliot was born the very next day. I'm really glad we have photos of her full-term belly just hours before she went into labor!

The Yellow Dress

I finally had a chance to take some photos of that yellow vintage dress I acquired by fate. I have to admit, though, after trying it on, that I

a. need to get an appropriate slip for said yellow dress (and not wear blue undies!) and

b. have to, as suspected, take in the seams on the bodice. Story of my life.

Here 'tis!

I have the top clipped in the images since the dressform is my size, just so you can get a better idea of how it will look once I figure out how to take in that organza at the top...

and a closeup of that beautiful embroidered applique:

I realized when I was putting it on the dressform that it has loops for a belt at the waist, but it didn't come with one! Thank goodness I've been building my collection lately, so I'm sure I have something that will work just fine. Adding this one to the pile of "needs alterations" in my studio...

A Never Ending Sea of Dresses

Maybe it's all the wedding dress shopping I did a few months back. Maybe it's all the dresses I've been trying on for a couple of weddings that we're attending in upcoming months. Maybe it's watching my mom try on dresses for our wedding. Or helping my bridesmaids find dresses. All of the above seem to be wedding related, but it's carrying over to my everyday wardrobe... Whatever it is... I've become slightly obsessed with dresses as of late.

They're easy to wear. One piece! All you need to do is accessorize.

They're great if you're losing weight... at least the dress will still stay on even though it's too big, as opposed to jeans that you're now a size or two too small for (this doesn't describe me at all, just looking for the positive side!)

They can cover multiple seasons. Add a cardigan and some tights and you're set for Winter! Leave the heavy layers behind and you're ready for Spring!

There's a dress at a local antique store that I drool over every time I go in. We're talking for about two years now, this dress has been in the same spot, making me drool. So yesterday I went in to drool over it again, and found that it was marked down from $55 to $27.50. Now for some reason when I buy vintage clothes I expect them to be less money than new clothes rather than more, and I had just gone on a bit of a Christmas gift shopping spree, so I sighed and put it back on the rack. It just wasn't quite cheap enough yet.

I swear to you- this next part is like an absolute dream. As I turned to leave the dress behind once again, a woman appeared, seemingly out of thin air, and slowly floated toward me. I stopped in my tracks, mesmerized by the look on her face, and she whispered to me, "You can have that dress for half off if you'd like." Imagine her hair swirling in the breeze, birds and butterflies playfully fluttering by and soft music coming from an unknown source, will you? And then came a HALLELUJAH! with accompanying organ music, and I was back to the dress in .0003 seconds to snatch it up, thank the woman profusely and be on my way to the register.

TWO YEARS people. TWO YEARS I have been lusting after this dress, and I finally got it, for $13.75 plus tax. It just needs a little adjustment in the shoulders to fit me and it'll be good to go. I didn't get a chance to take a photo last evening but I'll share it with you asap! I'll just say, it's a yellow summery tank dress with organza at the shoulders and hem and white and green floral appliqued accents at the bust and again at the hem. Very 50's. Can't wait to wear it!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I'll be back later this week.

All images of dresses found at modcloth and anthropologie

Creative Clothing Alterations

I bought this dress from Hinterland Vintage a while back and I absolutely love it... I know, it's red, right! The only red thing in my wardrobe. But it works when I accessorize well. It's a tad too big for me. Instead of adding it to my ever growing pile of vintage/stuff I got from thrift stores/stuff I can't part with but needs to be updated/has a hole in the armpit clothing, I've just been wearing it.

So most of the time this isn't an issue at all... however, today as I sat down at my desk I looked down and could see just a bit too much of my slip poking out from underneath. Solution? A simple, tiny little office supply that I never seem to use for actual office purposes but find many uses for elsewhere: a paperclip*.

Allow me to demonstrate illustrate, as it's hard to take a photo of my own back:

Figure one: get your straps and your paperclip ready!

Figure two: With the open end down, slide the right strap OVER the open end, but under the rest of the parts of the paperclip (putting the strap inside the first loop of the paperclip)

Figure three: turn the paperclip 180 degrees counter clockwise to secure the strap inside the paperclip.

Figure four: take your left strap and put the open end of the paperclip OVER the strap, and slide the strap through the paperclip into the first loop (so it's right next to the right strap) and then along the bottom so that it ends up in the second loop of the paperclip.

Let it go and voila! No more inappropriate gapage in the front of your shirt or dress.

*Note, you probably could if you wanted to, but I wouldn't recommend this method unless you've worn a cardigan over your shirt or dress that day to hide your minor alterations. No need to be tacky with your paperclips hangin' out... unless you don't realize it until you have no other options, and by all means, it's less tacky to have your paperclips hangin' out than your whatnots.

Asking my girls

Many brides already have friends in mind that they want to stand beside them on their wedding day. I did too, but what I didn't have narrowed down was how to ask them. I'm much too crafty to just pick up the phone, so my idea went through a few different gifts to give them before I finally landed on these:

You may have seen the vintage hankie invitation across the blogging world in the past couple of years. (I'm completely in love with all of Bird and Banner's design ideas, btw) I knew I wouldn't be able to afford to purchase enough and get them silkscreened as invitations for our wedding, so I opted to use hankie idea to ask my bridesmaids to be a part of my wedding day. 

I chose the iron-on route from the weddingchicks link above, as I don't currently have access to screen printing equipment. I wrote them each a little sentence telling what I love about each of them and said, "I can't imagine my wedding day without you standing by my side." And then of course, the question!

I packaged them up all pretty with vintage lace, a tag with their initial, and a little charm from an earlier idea that I had to ask them with that failed! and mailed them to my girls. Now, they do all live in the same city as I do, but I always love receiving unexpected packages in the mail, so I thought it would be a nice touch.

One by one, I got phone calls from all four girls the day after I mailed them, all saying YES! I'm so excited to share my day with each of these girls, and from the sound of the phone calls, they are too!

Octavia and Brown

Today's Found in the Forums was a no-brainer for me. I don't spend a ton of time in the Etsy forums, but when I do, I almost always see a post or a comment from Liz of Octavia and Brown. Since January 2010, she's been offering shop critiques once a week. She's critiqued over 300 shops already and wants to continue this as a way to check out new shops and help where she can.

Vintage Abingdon Horsehead Bookends

"I have always had a fascination with vintage stuff." Liz says. "I used to go to estate sales and markets with my mother when I was in high school. My first vintage purchase was a huge black steamer trunk with brass nail heads. I used it as a coffee table and night stand after college. I think it's still in my mom's house in PA. My desk in college was a thrift store find that I painted bright blue. Flash forward, I lived in San Francisco for six years following college and when to thrift stores around the city and Alameda Antiques by the Bay on a regular basis. From there it was a natural transition to start my own business. "

Liz currently sells these vintage finds as her full-time job.

Vintage Black Lowball Glasses

"I used to work in marketing and advertising and I definitely liked it,  however finding vintage items didn't feel like work and it was something I really enjoyed doing. I decided to make a big life change to move back to the East Coast after 6 years in SF and when I moved, I decided that it was also a good time to take a leap and start my shop. I figured I was young and now was the time to try something I'd always had a passion for. If it worked, fantastic and if not, I could go back to marketing/ advertising."

Liz advises that moving across the country (especially to a new city) and starting a business at the same time is quite the handful.

Vintage Brass Owl

Set of 4 Vintage Yellow Canisters

It's common in the forums to call each other by shop names- and Liz often gets asked whether Octavia is her actual name. "Octavia is a street in San Francisco where my last apartment was and where I thought of taking the leap and actually doing this shop. Brown is where I went to school and I liked how they sounded together." Her shop name is kind of a collection of times past- just like the items she stocks it with.

As you can see, Liz has a real knack for collecting excellent vintage finds for the home. You can visit Octavia and Brown on Etsy, Liz' blog, Twitter and finally, on Facebook. Thanks for being a part of Found in the Forums, Liz!

Happy Friday!

Liberty of London

While searching for fabric for a custom request I came across Liberty of London Tana Lawn and have fallen in love... why oh why must it be so expensive??

This Old Thing?

One of my coworkers recently set up shop on, where else, Etsy. You can kind of see my (neglected) dress form featured in this listing!

Megan sells vintage goods that she finds around St. Louis. Seriously... she's one of the best bargain shoppers I've ever met, so check it out!