Dress Perfection

Still Alive

Hello my poor little neglected blog that I doubt anybody reads anymore. I've been fairly MIA. In April I moved from my 1902 apartment into a little 1898 apartment. This was only the second time I've ever moved and with the large amount of stuff I own it was quite a production. It took exactly two weeks to move everything and I'm still not 100% situated.


Clyde is doing well. He likes to spend HOURS looking at himself in the mirror. If he's not doing that, he's playing in water. I call him Mer-Clyde because I think he's part mermaid. Also note the old hardwood floors. I have wanted hardwood floors FOREVER and now I finally have them and I will never go back to carpet as long as I can help it.


The store is still doing well. I don't think the excitement of someone coming in with an armful of still to sell/consign will ever get old. I want to do this forever.

Vintage Green

Left: 26 inch waist
Right: 24 inch waist
$39 each

Photo Dump/Around The House

Things I Love Saturday 4/02

The giveaway winner was Michelle! Please send me an email at cominguprosesvintage (at) gmail.com and I'll get your goods sent off! Thanks to everyone who entered and reads my ramblings!

Yesterday I got to dig through the vintage collection of someone who had been collecting since they were twelve. Heaven! I scored many great things but this 1930s dress with (painted) butterscotch bakelite buttons is probably my favorite. It has a big matching buckle in the back! Other than some wear to the paint on the buttons it's pretty much mint!

Getting to to through an abandoned 1920s hotel earlier in the week (with the owners permission for the first time in, well, ever).

(Not the building, but this was across the street).

I am still completely in love with these Docs. Getinmyclosetplease.

Tomorrow is my husbands birthday but we're celebrating tonight so I gotta run but I will get the video of the store up as soon as I can!

This Weeks Project

Skeleton key necklaces for Mourning Market on April 17th.

The crystals are off a broken antique chandelier but I might not use them because they're a bit too big...wish I could find smaller ones (inexpensive and locally).

Things I Love Saturday 3/19

I was asked to do the display window at the antique mall my store is in with my personal stuff but to kinda advertise the store. It has really worked! If you'd like to see bigger pictures or hear me go on endlessly about any of this stuff, I can certainly do that. Of course, I have TONS more, but I tried to stick with a pink/cream/black girly theme.

Someone really wanted to buy that pink purse today, and I was about to sell it, until I got it out of the case. I just couldn't do it. I felt like I was on an episode of Hoarders being forced to part with my stuff. It's a Bobbie Jerome and such a fantastic shade of pink! I guess my friend was right when she said "you're a tidy hoarder." Haha.

This picture of Billy and Clyde I took yesterday is easily one of my favorite pictures of my cats so far. It makes me melt!

This was once an unfortunate 80s mannequin head which my friend transformed with just a little bit of craft paint. I really wish I had taken a before picture because the difference is amazing.

That's all for this week. Don't forget to enter the Vintage Green Giveaway. I'm going to attempt to make a YouTube video of the store tonight, if it turns out okay I'll post it tomorrow.

Vintage Green Giveaway!

Time for a giveaway! No special reason, I just feel like it. Since it happened to be St. Patrick's day yesterday, let's go with a green theme.

This giveaway contains...

A vintage green gingham apron with white hand embroidery (they even embroidered the ends of the ties, so cute!)

A little green hankie with great art deco detailing in all four corners

A green floral eyeglasses/change/makeup/anything holder

A vintage costume jewelry ring with a green stone

A vintage green and yellow floral card

My favorite green eyeshadow - "Cicatrix" by Archetype Cosmetics (in their XL canister, you can't buy this color in this canister, you'll only find it here!)

A green depression glass plate

20% off any order from cominguproses.etsy.com (which can be used any time for any amount of things. I recommend waiting though, as the shop is pretty empty and amazing things are coming very soon...)

All you have to do to enter is:

Be a follower of this blog and then leave a comment. Simple! You must do this entry first to be eligible for additional entries.

To gain additional entries, you can blog or tweet a link over to the giveaway or "Like" Coming Up Roses Vintage on Facebook! Just be sure to leave a separate comment for each entry and leave the link to each one.

Overall that's four ways to win!

A winner will be announced March 31st. Good luck!

(PS: If you don't particularly care for what is in this giveaway, stick around. I will be doing many other themed giveaways!)

Things I Love Saturday 3/5

Here I am, blatantly copying many other bloggers. But it's a good idea! Let's see how long I can stick with it...

This sign which my husband made for me. I wanted something super simple and easy to read from a distance. I'm going to add my logo to the empty space and probably Buy-Sell-Trade-Consign to the bottom.

This treasury we were kindly put in, which inspired my first giveaway that will be posted later this week (and also made me notice how washed out my pictures are...eek!).

This amazing photo, via flickr.

And I am currently really loving how quickly the store is progressing. Don't get me wrong, I'm not rolling in money by any means, far from it, but my dream has come true and that's better than any amount of money in my opinion. I love that I have regular customers, that a big time vintage dealer called the antique mall and asked for me by name, and that people (like the lovely Sue of Vintage Rescue Squad) are sending me incredibly generous gifts. On the downside, my Etsy is badly neglected, I haven't been able to even start on all the handmade things I want in the store and I hardly ever see my husband. Hopefully all remedied soon!

I had a baby (cat).

My best friend asked me to go to the animal shelter with her. She was considering getting a dog and just wanted to look. Just look.

Yeah...that didn't happen. We each fell in love and took someone home. Meet Clyde. He's about six months old and currently passed out under a lamp in the back of my store.

Grand Opening!

Having the store has been so much fun! I love watching people fall in love with something, knowing where I "rescued" it from and being able to hear what they plan on doing with it. Little things like that which make it personal are one of the best parts.

I miss having some of my displays at home, like Edith here, which is totally silly. I wish i could clone her.

Tomorrow starts the big three day city wide antique sale and I'm going to have my grand opening in connection with it. It finally feels ready even though I've been open since November. I'm spending the rest of the night getting everything ready. I even bought balloons!

We're also trying to move right now and not having much luck with finding a decent place. I just got done looking at this cute little 1915 house. ADORABLE with it's chippy paint and overgrown ivy on the outside, sadly not as cute on the inside. The living room was okay with built-ins and a bay window but the two bedrooms and the kitchen were approaching dump status. Sigh. Oh well, it WILL happen eventually.

Have a great weekend!
xoxo

Antique Pink Quilt

I could have included this in my last post, as it was a 2010 thrift store find and yet another thing I got for pennies because they just looked at it as a rag. It is falling apart, full of thread rot and stains of who knows what. The darker pink fabric just disintegrates at the slightest touch.

And I love every hand stitched inch of it.

Top Thrifted Items of 2010

Here are what I consider to be the top items I thrifted in 2010, and when I say thrifted I mean only things that were found in thrift stores. I also found many fantastic items at estate sales and antique stores but for this I'm only counting thrift stores. Also I'm only counting things I'm keeping in my own collection, there were also many other fantastic things found that I passed on to new homes.

Victorian Blouse

I have always wanted one and I still can't believe I ended up finding one in a bin of complete junk. It has a few tears so they considered it a rag and I ended up buying it for pennies.

Souvenir Photo

Nothing spectacular, but again, I had always wanted one of these with the paper frame. At 19 cents it had to come home with me.

1950s Patent Leather Purses

Kelly purses are hard to find around here without paying a ridiculous amount. I use one everyday and I like to have a number to choose from and rotate them so they don't get too much wear. I like them fairly plain, but with a little bit of detail that make them stand out from the rest. These were found at two different Goodwills at about $5.00 each.

1950s Lamp

So the shade wasn't found with the lamp (I got it on eBay), but the lamp itself was a $1.00 thrift store find. It's in perfect condition and could not match my living room any better. Please excuse the cell phone photo, I took it right after I got the shade and was really excited!

1950s I. Magnin Grey Lace Dress

This dress was completely mint until I spilled some refried beans on it...luckily I got it mostly out. It fits like a dream and has the most amazing tiers of lace. I call it my cake dress because for some reason anything with tiers makes me think of cake.

1950s Park Avenue Mink Collar Cardigan

I suppose this should only get an honorable mention because although it was from a thrift store, they knew what the had and priced it at what it would have been in a high end vintage store. Still, I happily paid it because, well, it's AMAZING. I've lighted the photo for the details to show but in person it's not faded. It was new with tags. The mink collar is removable with Velcro and I would have thought someone did it themselves if not for the tags mentioning the "New! Velcro Technology!" The rhinestone buckle is attached and the sleeves have little rhinestone buttons too. I love this sweater to bits and I wear it...um...often.

These are only my best thrift store finds off the top of my head, there were many more! 2010 was a great year for vintage hunting.