Way-Out Wednesday: Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems

Welcome to Way-Out Wednesday! And in case you're been wondering: why yes, today's title does come from a Notorious B.I.G. song, thanks for asking. My second choice would've been 1970's Funky Dollar Bill, Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow by George Clinton, so there you go. All this talk of money will make a helluva lot more sense in a second, I promise. The references to gangsta rap and funk? Probably not so much.




Since you haven't been truly terrorized by bizarre, unearthed vintage items from the evil clown underworld in a few weeks, today's your lucky day my friend, because I give you this:


Vintage Scary-Ass Clown Piggy Bank:



Could you imagine waking up in the middle of the night, rolling over and seeing THIS staring back at you? I'm repelled yet oddly want-y of this little guy!


Bank-o-doom is currently available on Etsy for a mere $12.50 from seller Luna Park Foundry, who has, in fact, quite a charming shop full of lovely vintage bits and not filled with, say, evil clowns of evilness, I promise.

My Triumphant Return!

Just a quick pop-in to say I'll be back to my regular blogging features as of tomorrow, right in time for Way-Out Wednesday! I've missed you all SO much and missed reading your blogs! Thanks to a most un-characteristically dramatic personal life crapstorm involving, but not limited to: a heart attack, double bypass surgery, multiple sclerosis, job loss, moving, and most recently, breast cancer, my commitments have been to my family and sadly my blog has taken a temporary breather.

(No need for concern- most of what's happened has NOT happened to me, but still, when it happens to your family, well, it might as well happen to you.)

Many thanks to those of you who dropped me a concerned line, phone call, telegram, secret note, (or whatever)- you guys rock so hard you don't even know it! Special thanks to my good pal and soul sista Cherry Bubbles of Past Life blog fame, who puts up with my flakiness and scatterbrained-ness for some unknown reason and deserves an award so grand and fabulous, it hasn't even been invented yet.

So no worries, mates. Tomorrow is another day (or whatever) and we'll be back on track with Way-Out Wednesday. See you then, loves!

Prints Charming Sunday: (Don't) Return To Sender

Welcome to another Prints Charming Sunday!



You know what I have zero of? Long-sleeved vintage dresses. Seriously. Not a one. I just never came across any cute frocks with long sleeves, I guess-- and not because I have especially long arms and legs, making it a feat against nature to find anything that doesn't make me look like I'm wearing a kindergartner's dress. (Ok, so maybe I do have that problem, but that's not the reason for no long sleeves, I swear.) So upon waking this morn to a particularly fall-ish day (cold, grey, rainy, blah-yet-ohmygawdilovethisweather), I decided to search for vintage long sleeves (in novelty prints, natch) and found this awesomeness, this Vintage 50's Letter Novelty Print Dress, available on Etsy from seller Sixsexsix (LOVE the shop name, btw!):






So, OK, it's technically only got 3/4-length sleeves, but oh well. That's a sacrifice I'd be willing to make with a fun print like that. Cold arms be damned!

Way-Out Wednesday: Keep Your Hands To Your Elf

Today's Way-Out Wednesday pick is kind of...hmm...special, maybe? I don't mean "special" as in: needs to wear a helmet in the bathtub and a spork is too dangerous a cooking utensil special, more like it's not weird, gross or creepy (though a bit off-kilter and pretty dang cute, which we LOVE), it's rockin' some aqua so technically it could be a choice for Aqua Blue Heaven Friday (which, OK, so I haven't done that theme in a while, back off my jock, homies), AND it's also a novelty print, so we could've used it for a Prints Charming Sunday pick. You could say that today's pick is such a non-conformist that it breaks all boundaries and cannot be put into any one box, man. But I wouldn't say that hippie "I'm-OK-you're-OK" crap. I'd say shut the hell up already and get to showin' the pick for Way-Out Wednesday. So I will.





Behold! Wacky elves! Aqua mushrooms! Terrycloth...fabric... OK, that's a little odd. I'm hung up on that part. I LOOOOVE pixies and elves, but damn, what would one make with terrycloth? I guess a dress/skirt/blouse/ANY sort of fashion (outside of a swimsuit cover up) would be weird to wear when made out of a towel. What would YOU make out of this? Do tell! (A good choice if you're in, say, the porn business, no?)

Incredibly perplexing-yet-wickedly-awesome 2 Yards of Vintage 50's/60's Elf Novelty Print Fabric currently available on Etsy from seller Hillbilly Filly.

Prints Charming Sunday: Mucha Muchacha.

Welcome to Prints Charming Sunday!




Today's pick is this a-MAY-zingly cool Vintage 50's Mexican Dancers Novelty Print Dress & Bolero, currently available on Etsy (and for a very decent price, homies) from seller Metro Retro Vintage:







It's a GREAT freakin' outfit (and that cut is always truly flattering on a chick's bod), but I do have a question. Or many. I've been looking at this dancin' duo for a while now and can't exactly seem to figure out what's going on here, exactly. Is she just thrown over his hip, like he's hauling a sack of flour? Where, precisely, are her legs? Perhaps she lost them in a Dance-Off gone horribly wrong, involving a too-hot tortilla, a mariachi band on speed and ill-fitting sombreros? And is he not wearing pants?! (Because I fully condone Pantsless Dancing, I just need to know.)

Way-Out Wednesday: Hands All Over.

Welcome to a better-late-than-never Way-Out Wednesday!




Some things I always love/admire/give shout-outs to (in no particular order):

* vintage
* kid leather (sorry my loves- but back off my jock, PETA)
* bedazzled crap
* crafty bitches
* crap with a vaguely Victorian/sorta steampunk/mostly "what-the-hell-would-you-call- this" vibe
* eccentricity
* crazy-ass costume & "statement" jewelry
* upcycling crap into other crap
* highly creative peeps
* homages to Janet Jackson's 1993 Rolling Stone cover


...yet even though today's pick has all of the above, I'm beginning to question where my list went wrong...




Why yes, that is an Eccentric Neck Adornment (the Etsy seller's title verbatim- and true on all counts), made from shrunken kid leather gloves and turned into a necklace that reminds me of a 15-year-old trying to cop a feel in the movie theater while trying to employ the cliche and zero-success-rated "pretend to yawn, stretch and put an arm around the shoulder of the chick sitting next to him while his hand dangles precariously within boob-reaching distance" move, thanks for asking. Then again, my mind takes up residence in the gutter quite often, so take it with a grain of salt.




(Huh. Woody Allen has "no apologies." Shocking. I bet he's used that movie theater trick on more than one 15 year old girl in his day. Hey-yo!)

Way-Out Wednesday: Children Of The Scorn.

Welcome to Way-Out Wednesday!




Bet you thought I forgot, didn't you?! Well, no. It's called being "fashionably late".... you know, if it was 1982, which is probably the last time anyone even called it that, like if I was going to a Bacardi-and-blow party of some high-strung, child-free bachelor stockbroker in Manhattan named "Chip" or "Brad" and I didn't show up until after midnight- you know, "fashionably late"- wearing a shoulder pad power suit, with a bottle of Valium in one hand and this new-fangled cassette tape of Hall and Oats, the scent of Charlie wafting in after me. You know, like that. These days it's called "holy crap I gotta write today's blog but ohmygod I just remembered there's still wet laundry in the washer from yesterday and I bet it smells like death by now and I'm gonna have to wash it all over again and oh man, what's today? is tonight garbage night?! I'll drag the cans out to the curb later, after I finish this Valium-tini and Danielle Steel novel but what time is it, is it really 6:00 already? I guess dinner will be a bowl of bran flakes and what, last night's brussels sprouts, and the fam will just have to like it, dammit." So there you have it. It all makes perfect sense now.

Speaking of those little crumb-snatchers (and considering it is Way-Out Wednesday after all), I present you with this Vintage Meanie Doll, currently available on Etsy from seller Pugpink:




This is why I don't like other people's kids.


Maybe those 1980's yuppies were onto something.