Prints Charming Sunday: A Rose Is A Rose

It's time for the first Prints Charming Sunday of a brand spankin' new year! I'm sure like for many of you, here in the northeast it's been exceptionally windy and cold and, well duh, winter. So I thought we could all use a little summer kick in the pants today, with this adorable Vintage 40's Rose Print Puff Sleeve Dress.



I realise it's not really a novelty print, but you have to admit, it is really adorable, so there. Dress currently available from Julie of Damn Good Vintage.

Prints Charming Sunday (On Monday): In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Welcome to Prints Charming Sunday, but on Monday! Don't fret, it's always going to be on Sundays, but I just got hung up on a long and craptastic weekend that I forgot all about yesterday! So I'm sorry for the delay, but it's only a day, so no need to get your knickers in a twist.

Today's novelty print pick comes from Julie of Damn Good Vintage. That's a shop name I never get sick of saying: Damn Good Vintage. You know, I do like the swears. I think more shops should have swears in their name. Like "Go to Hell Vintage: Jebus Hates You If You Don't Wear This" or "Fuck You, Just Buy My Vintage: For the Jerks Who Need to be Told How Not to Dress Like a Schmuck." I should've grabbed that name years ago. Live and learn.

Anyway, today's novelty print is very cheery and summery- 2 things I am not. Yet I can't resist the screaming pinks and fruity...well, fruit...of this Vintage 60's Serbin Fruit Print Shirtdress. Who cares that it's November and craploads of cold outside? Throw a cardigan sweater over it, wear some cotton tights and you're golden, Ponyboy.

Happy New Year, Baby

Happy New Year's Eve, peeps! Don't forget to eat fish today and pork tomorrow...that's some kind of good luck tradition- I think it's a Catholic thing?...frick, I should know this...All I know is that you have to eat fish and pork today and tomorrow to have a lucky 2009. That, and you don't want to piss off Jebus. Or else. Jebus will smite you. He will smite you good! Do you think Swedish Fish counts as the "fish" part of the deal? He really should have specified trout or bass or whatever. Darn you jebus for sabotaging my New Years luck!

I thought I should give back to some of my vintage friends who have done so much for me, if I ended this year on a good note and give props where props is due. Also to prove that I really am not made entirely out of piss and vinegar, as my German Grandma used to say. So it's linky-linky time! Here are a few that were either really helpful throughout the year, or paid me off really well for my friendship, "Can't Buy Me Love"-style. In no particular order, here's a shout-out to my friends and homies who I couldn't have done it without. Done what, you ask? Perhaps commit arson, maybe plot elaborate jewel heists, you'll just never know.

For pretty much the best vintage shopping ever on the interwebs, you must check out: Dorothea's Closet Vintage, Damn Good Vintage, Couture Allure, Glamoursurf (she has the most incredible vintage swimsuits for sale you've ever laid your peepers on)....And (if you're crafty and can sew your own clothes I envy you very much), you might dig these vintage pattern sellers: MomsPatterns, The Ornament Gal, Vintage Fashion Library...

There are so many more homies I'm forgetting to send love to, so I'm sorry if I missed anyone this time around. Maybe next year. (Get it, because next year is tomorrow? Shut up, it was too funny.)



But most of all, thanks to all of you kindred spirits of nerds, freak and geeks out there who read my stabby blog! Hopefully you take away something from it. I loves me some of you guys and you keep me going when I sometimes feel like a nut...and sometimes I don't (stolen retro commercial line!). Keep posting your comments and let me know you're listening/laughing/crying/loathing and keep sending your hate mail! Have a rockin' New Year's Eve! (Dick Clark not included.)

...On the ELEVENTH Day Of Christmas...

...My true love gave to me, 11 pipers piping...

Have you noticed that no one smokes pipes anymore? Not counting, like, your grandpas who've been smoking pipes since the Great War, I'm talking about considerably less-old people. I want to see pipes in vogue again in the under-40 crowd, if for no other reason than to viciously mock their pseudo intellectual beatnik-chic. I'm not sure what that means, since I just made it up. But it sounds snarky fabulous and I'm going to start using it in everyday conversation. Observe: "Did you see John at Starbucks yesterday wearing a turtleneck, smoking a pipe, fake-writing on his laptop at a vain attempt for attention combined with his growing-in chin pubes and reading The Grapes of Wrath?"... "Ohmygod, I KNOW. He's such a pseudo intellectual beatnik-chic poseur. Plus, he never called me after we 'went out' last month, so I hate him."

The last time pipes were cool was probably in the 1970's. This is how I picture men who smoke pipes: 70's English Lit professor wearing a corduroy blazer with suede elbow patches, key party in his log cabin with his students, red wine, Jim Croce record playing in the background, hot tub and qualudes. I guess that's not so much "cool" as it is "really gross".

So today I'm homaging creepy pipe-smoking men in vintage ads and patterns! (But what's the deal with guys on pattern covers looking so homo-erotic? Even when they try to make the guy look tough, it's an epic fail in heterosexual masculinity.)




Stripey Boxers: "As soon as young Benjamin over there is done yakking up the Roofie-tinis I gave him, this all-male "pajama party" is ON. He won't even know what hit him. And tonight, I'm keeping the penny loafers on.



Stripey PJ's: "Oh Rooo-beee? I'm wearing my pink pajamas and coyly pretending to read this book full of blank paaaaaa-ges! You know what that means?!"

Yellow PJ's: "Yes, dear. But tonight...the midget watches."

(The above 2 patterns are available from my friend Julie over at Damn Good Vintage )





Wrong. She's not making that face because she likes the way you look with that pipe. She's actually thinking of how she can make tire tracks over your back look like an accident.





Cateye Lady: "Oh. My. God. Is that Betty and Rick over there? I can't believe they had the nerve to come to the lodge this weekend, when I told her we wanted to be alone. Bitch. If she thinks she's getting my recipe for Meatloaf Surprise, she's crazy! Crap, don't look now but they're walking over here. I said DON'T LOOK."

Pipe Guy: "Damn. Has Rick been working out?! He is working those ski pants."




"No one understands me like you do, little glass unicorn figurine. Just you and Mother."

Bitchin' Camaro

Did you ever make a hasty decision about something only to regret it and wish you never did it in the first place? I don't mean the kind of regret like say, becoming a hitchhiking axe murderer ghost on Dead Man's Curve, nay, something on a much smaller scale. The kind of regret that's enough of a kick in the pants to get your ass working on fixing that damn flux capacitor so you can go back in time and make sure you don't screw up the Enchantment Under The Sea dance. And do I make too many Back to the Future references? Readers vote: "Yes! And please continue to do so!" Ok, no you didn't but let's pretend you aren't sick of my desperate clinging to my youth by using played-out movie references, shall we?

A year ago I made the worst decision of all time that forever changed the course of history as we know it (no it didn't). For over 10 years I had red, red, Lucy-red hair. But there came a point when I was sick of being known for my hair. Well that and of course my magnetic personality, large boobs and Maxim-esque body. So last spring I thought "Hey, I have a great idea. I should do something wacky and drastic and spontaneous and not well thought-out at all. What could POSSIBLY go wrong." And I dyed the red hair jet black so by the time winter came I couldn't stands no more. Chances are if you have black hair and you can rock the hell out of it, you have the right skin tone to pull it off. Me? Not so fortunate. Black hair aged me about 10 years, making me have the sparkling appearance like that of a a well-worn bar hag smoking Lucky Strikes and drinking whisky sours and thinking the 21 year old Joe College frat boys I'm hitting on are laughing WITH me. Granted, I'll turn into that broad ONE day, but it's not my time now. Down here, it's our time. It's our time down here. Goonies never say die!

So I've been growing out my hair since last November--NOVEMBER. And let me say that I haven't seen such amazingly awesome white trash 2-tone hair since 1987 when girls named Tiffani dotted their "i's" with hearts and dated guys named Rick and Brad who drove Iroc-Z's to Whitesnake concerts.

Moral of the story: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if you do decide to go ahead and screw with it, make sure it doesn't look like ass.

In honor of my 1/2 brown, 1/2 black 'do, enjoy some 2-tone vintage eye candy while I'm at Tiffani's House of Feathered Hair and Dorothy Hamill Wedges.

From yours truly and awesomely at Fast Eddie's Retro Rags this vintage 50's silk blouse and full circle dress set by Cadillac Sportswear:



From Damn Good Vintage, this tiny but wonderful vintage 40's brown and pink deliciousness. BROWN AND PINK, bitches! You heard.



A message to you, Rudy: get crazy on this kickass 2tone spectator handbag from Listit Vintage Cafe. Great price too, at 18 bucks. That's just crazy talk. Someone better JUMP on that, suckas.



And although I'm officially bored to tears of the keyword "Kramer" being used for these shirts (1996 is over dude. What...is UP...with THAT?), I still must give props to the random ebay seller who has this up for auction:

Forty Miles Of Bad Road

I'm sorry (not sorry), but I can't take any more talk of floods or rivers or water or flooding rivers. Unless of course something truly kickass happens, like the flood washes out a carnival and a gang of midgets (little people, SORRY) riding on top of elephants who are eating the organ grinder while his monkey is singing O Solo Mio is floating down the street, I can't talk about it anymore. I just...can't.

Mother Nature is a beotch. Weather happens people, why do we always get so surprised when the weather takes a dump on us somewhere in the States? Well let me make a few predictions. I bet this summer the West and Southwest will get really, really...wait for it...HOT. Record-breaking kind of hot. The kind of hot that everyone will talk about for a week straight, including water shortages, bans on washing cars and Ye Olde Swimmin' Hole drying up and who will think of the children?! "It's gonna be a hot one today"- you THINK so genius? And my amazing psychic powers of powerful psychic amazement don't end there, let me take a stab at what this winter will be like. I'll bet this winter there will be...wait for it..SNOW. And I bet there will be aLOT of it somewhere, say, New England. I bet there will be SO much snow somewhere that the township will be in a state of emergency. I bet schools will even close. Take THAT Miss Cleo, I can predict the future too.

It's hot. White hot. From MY weather beotch (I don't know what that means either) Julie of Damn Good Vintage.



Too bad it's on hold. Sorry (not sorry), I couldn't help myself from showing it off. See?! The lesson: Life will always be full of sick humor, it doesn't stop but eventually it's funny. Next stop: Tornado in the newly rebuilt Kansas trailer park!