"There are many good reasons for drinking, One has just entered my head. If a man doesn't drink when he's living, How in the hell can he drink when he's dead?
Anyone who's in the process of mid-century-modernizing their home knows how hard it can be get it "just right", down to the last detail-but also knows how thrilling it is to find something that you either never knew existed or never realised you had to have until to see it. (Being easily thrilled helps in the process.) Make sense? I didn't think so.
You may ask: "What's so "way-out" about that?" It's not creepy or disturbing, true. But it's wacky (always good) and anything anthropomorphic is usually always a good time. I find the set hilarious for a few reasons. First, googly eyes = win! Second, thanks to the wonders of time and aging, the banana's a little rusty 'round the peepers and now looks like he's beginning to rot. (Why do I find that amusing? I don't know. I just do.) But most of all, the apple is doing the Rerun dance! A million percent win! Anyone that does the Rerun dance is OK in my book.
For those of you who don't know who Rerun is or his "poppin' & lockin'" sweet dance skills, he was a character on a 1970s American tv show called What's Happening!! (Yes, with 2 exclamation marks. I'm really not yelling the title at you.)
I couldn't find any decent stills of Rerun dancing, but here's a youtube clip, should you be feeling funky and needing to get down wit' you bad self:
I'm a dork for vintage clocks, like I'm sure most of you are. I think this one is one of those that you'd probably glance over quickly or maybe not notice right away. But then you look at the details and all of a sudden you gotta have it. (Maybe sell your firstborn for, who am I to judge?)
Simple details like the yellow. Who thinks of yellow right away for a kitchen clock? Maybe everyone. But I usually don't think "Hey, you know what this kitchen really needs? (Besides a cleaning lady. And a live-in chef. And a robot that spits out any food you want in 5 seconds, like on the Jetsons.) It's a yellow clock." And for some reason I really dig that fat little arrow. But what I love most is how each number square instantly reminds me of a Scrabble tile .... Whaaat? That's not your first thought? (Nerds of the world unite!)
Welcome to Prints Charming Sunday, my little love muffins!
You know, I haven't worn anything with a cherry print for going on 7 years now, thanks to places like Hot Topic who've been cranking out these so-called "50's style" dresses smothered in cherry prints. Certain large repro companies make it seem as if the cherry was thee Official Fruit Of the 1950s, and it's gotten so that you can't swing a bag of cats without hitting something "retro" with a damn cherry on it. I respect the small "Mom and Pop" repro-ers out there who are doing it right and not flooding the market with even more of those little red monsters. I dunno. Maybe I've been around "the scene" for so long that I've just burnt out on them. In my 6 years as a vintage seller, I personally handled an actual vintage cherry print exactly *twice*, so where this bastardization of one single fruit came from, I have no idea! I'd love to know, actually. My only guess is someone took the idea from Marilyn's cherry print dress from her 1961 movie The Misfits, and ran like hell with it:
Even Marilyn is annoyed.
But when I come across a for-reals vintage cherry print, it makes all the stabbiness go away and makes me full of gid! Or at least, something resembling joy. It's like finding a ray of validation in a sea of Hot Topic tulle and stretch cotton-lycra.
I love it because it's not just cherries, it's loaded with Carmen Miranda-worthy bananas, pineapples....uh, guavas...I dunno, some other random fruity specimens. Anyway, my point is that obviously I'm not a fruit lover and can't even name them, but also it's a really especially rockin' summer frock that I think would make Marilyn full of gid, too. Or at least, something resembling joy.
Spring will be here soon and that means cute shoe weather. Please, no more with the Uggs or those knit sweater Eskimo bootie type things. Comfy? Yes. Fug? Even bigger yes. I'll admit to owning a pair faux Ugg boots (AKA Fuggs)- black suede ones by Airwalk I got at Payless last year for a million times less than the cost of real Uggs. But you know what? I'm in Pennsylvania where winters kick your ass, so looking cute from December to March isn't really an option. Anyone living in frosty areas get a fashion pass for Ugg necessity! Everyone else, you're on your own. Like the California girls who wear them with denim mini skirts and "wifebeaters". I don't get it. It leaves me with many questions. Two, actually. One is: what the hell? And 2 is: are those types the equivalent of our east coast Jersey Girl guidettes? You know, leaning toward the slutty end of the fashion spectrum and rocking perma-Cheeto orange faux tan. (AKA: the female version of a guido.) Needless to say, I'm ready for warmer weather, ready to pack away the damn Fuggs and move on so I can start making fun of people who wear socks with sandals.
It's been a while since I've shown off a perfectly good (read: petrifying) creepy-ass vintage doll in a while, so today's the day. Today's disturbingly awesome pick is this Vintage Clown Marionette from Etsy seller Shermancat. (Which, by the way, all proceeds from the sale of it go to the Humane Society of York County. See? Good can come from scary.)
(Green Day-inspired guyliner?! Tiny blue hands? WHY?!)
Today's vintage pick is this incredible Vintage 1950s Artsy Atomic Print Dress, in a very decent size (38-34-44!), in a very decent colorway (pink and teal!) for a very decent price (80 bucks!), currently available from Lucitebox:
You know what I most dig about it? It's how the "chicken scratch" print reminds me of the scribblings of a writer, ie: "It was a dark and stormy night" ... no, that won't work... "Once upon a time in a land far, far away" ...nah, too cliche ... then out of the dank alley of 1880's England emerged the butcher knife-wielding madman"... that's it!...
Did you know there's only 20 more days until the first day-o-spring?! It can't come soon enough, I say. If I never see another snowflake for 3 more weeks I'll be a happy camper! (Of course, give it a few months and I'll be bitching about how hot it is.)
Let's kick off this rare, positive & hopeful mood I'm in for pleasant-er, spring-ier weather (I love warm yet grey & rainy & windy spring days over lovely sunny days. Shocking.) with this to dieVintage 1950s Windy Day Novelty Print Sundress, currently available on Etsy for a decent 95 bucks from seller Catbooks1940s:
My favorite part of this print is the little girl taking off with the umbrella! That's hilarious! Adios, kid! Wait. That sounded wrong. Kinda creepy. You know what I mean. It's just a killer, entertaining spring print is what I'm trying to get at. Sheesh.
PS: Do you have the 1967 song "Windy' by the Association stuck in your head now?! Mwuahahaha, that's my evil gift to you! Damn. I have "eeee-vryone knows it's winnn-deee" in my head now too. Evil-doing backfire.
Today's pick is a little off the beaten path (what? nooo.) Shocking, indeed. It's not a to die for aqua dress or some kind of crazy cool, over the top jewelry or even an amazing piece-o-furniture. It's....sheet music. Now before you start runnin' yer pieholes about how it couldn't possibly be more boring (hello, Chandler Bing), (also, now I want pie), this isn't any ordinary sheet music. It's polka sheet music. Hell yeah, it is!
It's called "The Too Fat Polka- She's Too Fat For Me" by Arthur Godfrey. I know what you're thinking: "oh my gaaaawd, that's so awfuuuul, how ruuude, I'm offendeeeed", (apparently I envision you all talking like 1980s valley girls). But as a not-size-0 gal myself, I'm telling you, ya gotta get over it and appreciate it for what it is~ campy, delicious corn from the 1940s! (Also, now I want corn.) You're still not over it? Well, that's OK, because the Andrews Sisters retaliated back in 1947 with their version called "The Too Fat Polka- He's Too Fat For Me". (Right on, sisters!)
And for your listening pleasure, here's the foot-stompin', finger poppin', head banging, actual song by the actual Arthur Godfrey:
I found thee coolest buffet on Etsy today. There are 2 reasons I'm not hoarding it for myself like the obsessive hoardy-pants that I am. Because:
A.) I'm nowhere even remotely close to Forth Worth, Texas to pick it up in person.
And
B.) I bet the shipping cost to haul this sucker is ridonkulous. Plus I'm way frugal and can talk myself out of most big purchases if I don't absolutely *need* it. Hell, I talk myself out of $9 shoes from Payless.
But if you're in need of a swell vintage buffet and/or live near Forth Worth and/or are a Mr. and/or Mrs. Moneybags and can shell out the clams for shipping, may I submit to your approval, this:
It's not in perfect shape (hence the $100 price tag), the seller's pictures are not phenom and there's alot of crazy going on with it (makes me wonder how much of it is original and how much has been added/altered?). So I'll explain in short sentences:
Aqua glitter laminate top has black starbursts.
Faux marble clock front. (Really, you ask?! Really. How deliciously odd and unnecessary. My 2 favorite things.) Etched glass sliding doors.
Green sides/front drawers have gold dots and black starbursts.
See what I mean? Lots of crazy- but that's why I dig it! Am I crazy? Have I lost all sense of cool? Am I void of good taste? Probably. But what do you think?
Welcome to Prints Charming Sunday! Today's post title will be alot more amusing in a minute when you see what today's vintage pick is! Actually ... come to think of it ... I'm probably the only one who's easily amused by these corny puns and cheesy titles, sooo ... it probably won't be very amusing at all.
Today's vintage novelty print is this Vintage 1950s Chicken Print Blouse- and good news, it's neither impossibly tiny at a 44" bust or ridiculously overpriced, at a decent 50 clams!
Look at all that cock. (Awww, come on, you know there's no room for good taste here! Surely you saw that one coming?) The blouse is currently available on Etsy from seller Coronet Weeds Vintage.
Happy Fastnacht Day! For those of you who don't what it is, Fastnacht Day is generally a Pennsylvania Dutch thang, and is the day before Lent starts, with it's historical roots going back to Germany. (AKA "Fat Tuesday" for my Mardi Gras peeps.) Fastnacht literally means donut, so the day before Lent (the day you begin fasting), people would rid their kitchens and pantries of the things to be given up for Lent- most often sugar and fats (lard) were kicked to the curb. So in a rush to get their last kicks in, deep-fried donuts were made and scarfed down on tuesday.
I'm sure there's a lot more to it than my pathetic little explanation, but this is what I remember from being a kid, when my Mom would make homemade donuts in an electric deep fryer that sat on the counter and I swear to all things holy they were the best damn donuts I ever ate in my whole entire life. (Screw you Krispy Kreme, you ain't got nothin' on lard-fried donuts in a 1970's deep fat fryer!) I could Google the background of Fastnacht Day, but that just means, like, effort and fact-checking, and that's just not how we roll around here. So the details are a bit sketchy and incomplete. But whatevs. Any excuse to eat donuts is fine with me! And if you don't eat at least one donut today, the terrorists win.
I wasn't even planning on looking for any donut-themed vintage to share, because when have you ever in your whole life seen any 50's donut novelty print dresses laying around? That's right, homies- never. But shock and surprise, while it's not exactly a to-die dress, I did find this cutesy little Vintage 50's Doughnut Ladies Folksy Table Runner, currently available on Etsy.
The pictures are crap, but can you make out the cute, plump folksy women in their cute, folksy kitchen making cute, folksy polka-dotty donuts? Also: I swear on a stack of fastnachts I'll never use the word "folksy" again.
Welcome to Prints Charming Sunday- and also Happy Valentines Day! I hope your roses are free of thorns and your chocolates free of fat. Wow, that sounded like a really lame Hallmark card.
I'm not going to rock a Valentine's Day novelty print theme today, because I've already done it over the past week or 2 and frankly, I'm kind of over all the hearts and pinks and cutesy. Instead, I'm thinking about tomorrow, which is President's Day here in the US, honoring our country's forefathers and whatnot. I thought about what could represent the day in a novelty print and came across plenty of red, white & blue bicentennial/1776-1976 vintage stuff but it's just wasn't exactly was I had in mind. And then I remembered the Colonial/Americana theme.
The Colonial/Americana theme for home decor made it's way into the home starting in the 1950's and carried on well into the 1970's, from the oversize plastic gold-painted eagle plaques to the Americana drapes, which also matched the fabric on the hulking, heavy wood furniture. Good...lord. Fug. And while I appreciate the patriotism of it ... it was not pretty. Yet, it was more common to see that in the average Joe Schmoe home in anytown, USA than the idyllic, mid-century modern/Heywood Wakefield/atomic/boomerang decor that we like to assume homes looked like in the 50's. The colonial crap was cheap, easily accessible and the furniture wore like steel. So there you have it.
It's not too gaggingly colonial, not too cutesy, but the perfect combo for old-timey sweetness. Blouse is currently available on Etsy from seller Decades of Baltimore.
Can I just say how much I'm so over the snow? Good. I'll say it, then: I'm so over the snow. It seemed like a perfectly charming and idyllic idea, say, in December. But by now, it's starting to become a bummer, like spring will never get here and it'll be eternally a snowy tomb around here. (That's pretty damn cheerful, no?!) My homeslices in Cali probably can't quite understand, seeing as though you're always mudsliding or on fire, which is the extreme opposite of snow and all. Point is, we're all sick of our weather and wake me up when it's spring, with a frozen daiquiri in one hand and a plate of nachos in the other and no one gets hurt.
So for today's theme, we're gonna rock some pretty, twinkly, girlie, sparkly, shiny, glisten-y, bedazzle-y vintage jewelry, because it's a helluva lot better than twinkly, sparkly snow! Or twinkly, sparkly mud & fire.
Vintage 50's Aqua Rhinestone Necklace, from Etsy seller Moontree Boutique. It's so over the top and wonderful, in that "rich bitch who falls for the hot, poor guy in some random 1950s romantic comedy and there's probably some wacky hijinks in there too" way. Or possibly a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor. And if there's one thing Elizabeth Taylor taught is, is that over the top jewelry is never wrong.
Since everyone was properly skeeved-out by last week's creepy vintage Valentine's Day card for Way-Out Wednesday, I figured why not do it again this week? Sweet!
This week's batch of cards aren't so much creepy as they are passive-aggresively aggro & threatening, my second favorite disturbing theme. Let's see what kind of sweetness and light the little rapscallions of the 40's and 50's were all about:
"I'm out to trap you- Be my Valentine! Or else...I'll shoot you.
"I am aiming straight at your heart-Be my Valentine" Or else...I'll shoot you.
Here we see the rare aggro female, not often seen out of a dress or not being the one hunted by her male counterpart! Well played, sister. "Don't tr-rifle with my affections big boy!" Or else...I'll shoot you. (Also: "big boy"= hilarity.)
No one's demanding love under penalty of hot lead in the ass... but... he's a wolf, so there's that. "Don't high hat me, Little Red Riding Hood-I'll get you yet...For my Valentine!" Or else...I'll eat you.
"Hey Stupid-You be mine or I'll picket Cupid!" This one's my favorite of the bunch! Take note of the even more rare use of aggro language. Aww! That's how boys show they like you.
Kim~ vintage clothing seller (Fast Eddie's Retro Rags) on Etsy, old-fashioned rockabilly gal, retrophile, crossword puzzle junkie (shut up, they make you smart), Twilight Zone nerd, Jedi master of sarcasm and all around malcontent. It's your lucky day.
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Fun Fact-O-Rama: I was born & raised in the small town that Jayne Mansfield is buried in!
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