A place to call my own?

Sorry that posting has been a little slow recently. Last Thursday I picked my best friend up from the airport who had just arrived from Germany so there has been a lot of catching up over long coffee breaks going on. We are also trying to plan a 3 -4 week road trip through the South Island (of New Zealand) early next year so my mind has been a little preoccupied.
Anyway the other thing that has been on my mind a lot recently is opening my own little vintage shop (online to begin with). I had been thinking about it for a while but after lugging home another armful of old loot the other day my boyfriend suggested the idea too. I get such an enormous kick out searching for beautiful old things that I have much more than I could possibly know what to do with so I've been wondering, could I actually make a bit of a living doing this? I know that some of you have online stores on places like Etsy and was wondering if it works out well for you? Eventually it would be amazing to be able to open a real store but my concern would be that there simply isn't a big enough demand for vintage in New Zealand (although I do try to collect as many 'Made in New Zealand' items as possible), oh and I simply refuse to buy/ sell clothes dated later than the 1960's... I can't stand all the 80's crap you find in every shop here!
Phew, ok that's all I wanted to say about that. Any tips, feedback or idea's would be amazing!
And just so it's not all text today, here is a bag I bought last week which has become my new favourite for Summer. It's not vintage but I did get it on sale for only $10. I usually tie a bright scarf or flower around the handle.


xx

Over the top...

Thank you so much for this Rosina Lee. I am extremely flattered especially considering I have a grand total of ummm 6 followers to my blog!
So here goes...

1.Where is your phone? Handbag

2.Your hair? Bob

3.Your Mother? Amazing

4.Your Father? Confusing

5.Your favourite food? Japanese

6.Your dream last night? Awake

7.Your favourite drink? Coffee

8.Your dream/goal? Happiness

9.What room are you in? Bedroom

10.Your hobbie? Vintage

11.Your fear? Zombies

(12. is missing)

13.Where were you last night? Boyfriends

14.Something that your not? Unhappy

15.Muffins? Banana

16.Wishlist item? Dress

17.Where did you grow up? Germany/ New Zealand

18.Last thing you did? Email

19.What are you wearing? PJ's

20.Your TV? Off

21.Your pets? Brooke (cat)

22.Friends? Priceless

23.Your life? Changing

24.Your mood? Tired

25.Missing someone? Nope

.26.Vehicle? Feet

27.Something your not wearing? Coat

28.Your favourite store? What Katie Did

29.Your Favourite colour? Grey

30.When was the last time you laughed? 20mins ago

31.The last time you cried? Sunday

32.Your best friend? Forever

33.One place that I go to over and over? Paris

34.Facebook? Sometimes

35.Favourite place to eat? Anywhere!

I give this award too...

gatsby and me, esme and the laneway, the dizzy dame, little rascal, punastus, Kafferepet, Ms. B, Katie Senior

xx

Tattoo's and lampshades

TATTOO's
Late on Sunday morning we managed to drag ourselves out of bed despite the grey rainy day and headed down to the Auckland tattoo convention. Although NZ has the largest amount of tattooed people per population in the world these kind of conventions don't seem to happen very often so the turn out of both tattooists and tattoo fans was pretty amazing. The tattoo's on display ranged from absolutely stunning to extremely bad! I'm not sure why it is always the really bad ones that enter the tattoo competitions, although my boy (who is covered in really beautiful ones) pointed out that those who have nice work don't need to enter competitions to get re-assurance... good point I guess. Once again excuse the quality of the photographs, I really need to get a new camera!




There was not only machine tattooing but also Samoan hand tapped tattoo's happening. It does look quite painful but it's something I've always been curious about.


Not that you can really see but this was the only girl in the competition who really did have fantastic tattoo's, the rest seemed to be mostly busy faded out dragons etc.


Each tattoo shop had a cubical where they sat and worked constantly over the course of the weekend. My favourite tattooist Rose Hardy moved to Melbourne a couple of years ago and although she was at the event she wasn't working... so it looks like I'm going to be planning a rather expensive trip to Melbourne in the not too distant future!

AND LAMPSHADES
On a completely different note, I passed by my favourite junk shop yesterday afternoon (I always find something to drag home from there!) and came out with quite the loot, in fact it was such a big loot that I had to catch a taxi home.

These three matching lampshades are in almost perfect condition, I have no need for so many lampshades at all but I just couldn't leave them sitting there in the shop! I also bought this old picnic hamper underneath them because it's quite big and the perfect size to hide all my sewing/ craft bits in.



Then I fell in love with these green lampshades however they need a very good clean! Does anybody know what the best way is to clean fabric lampshades? Would you use upholstery cleaner? I am quite eager to get them looking great again so that I can use them in my bedroom.


My boy found these and gave them to me as a present yesterday. I love the crazy shape and will probably use them as candle holders.



And lastly I bought yet another handbag (I've got to stop I'm out of control here!). I bought it off Trade Me so just had to hope for the best when it arrived. I do like it but unfortunately it is made out of stiff plastic which makes it look a tad tacky.
Anyway so there you have it, what Ive been up to and where I've been spending all my hard earned $ (not that any of it cost me very much).
Hope everyone is doing well.
xx
P.S On the to-do list today... re-dye my hair, it turned out bloody awful the other day!

Why I'll never be the next Martha Stewart...

Probably my favourite cake in the whole world is a big creamy black forest cake. I've always been meaning to make one but being that I am more than a little challenged in the baking department I have always managed to talk myself out of it... until today that is. I had the day of work today and was feeling very inspired to get busy in the kitchen SO I got up extra early this morning and walked all the way to the supermarket (ok by all the way I mean about 20minutes down the road but I'm not the biggest fan of walking places so it felt like a big deal) to buy all the ingredients I needed. I finally made it back a couple of hours later (because there are a lot of antique shops on the way that I can't pass by without popping in for a quick peek) and got stuck into whipping and melting and sifting and buttering and measuring before finally getting my gooey mess into the oven. It had been in there for about 25 minutes and just starting to smell amazing when I remembered that I had an appointment at 12:30 to get my eyebrows done. The damn cake was only half cooked but what choice did I have but to pull it off and run to my appointment? Half an hour later I was back and put it back in the oven (I'm sure this is a MAJOR no no when it comes to baking anything!). Needless to say things didn't really work out how I planned, after what felt like hours I finally lost patience and dumped the cake on a cooling rack... the result: Crunchy on the outside and completely uncooked on the inside! Not good considering this was a three layered cake and I had to cut it into three even slices. Anyway here's the evidence...
Here's what the cake was supposed to look like:


So I got my ingredients (mostly the cheaper ones because I had a feeling things might go pear shaped):


Mixed everything together:


Cleaned up my mess while I was waiting for the cake to bake the first time round:


Finally took the cake out and waited for it to cool (watched Oprah in the mean time):


Prepared the icing:


Cut, creamed and cherried the layers with great difficulty (things are starting to look a whole lot less attractive):


Tried to make my sorry looking cake look more attractive my smothering it in chocolate icing and chocolate shavings which just ended up making it look like a giant donut:


Reluctantly cut the first slice:


Did the taste test:


The verdict: hmmm it was edible but certainly not amazing, and oh so rich that I'm still feeling sick from it!
So there you have it, one of the many reasons why I will probably never be an amazing housewife! At least I had fun doing it. Right now I better go because I have a head full of hair dye that I was supposed to wash out 15 minutes!
x

A collector

For as far back as I can remember I've collected things. Sometimes I wonder whether it has to do with being a Virgo, the fact that once I start collecting something I go quite crazy and feel my life will not be complete until I own every little piece of a set. Anyway the reason I bring this up is that I spent the entire morning trying to re-arrange my room and find suitable homes from all my newly acquired bits and bobs. So I've narrowed my main collection addictions down to hats (no surprises there), scarves, handbags, old horror movies (I'm such a scaredy pants that they are the only ones I have the courage to watch), books about vintage anything and hair flowers. As a result however things are getting a little crammed (this is after trying to downsize this morning).










How does everybody else keep their treasures? Perhaps it's time for me to become a little more selective.

A successful treasure hunt....

Ok and now for my treasures. Last weekend (or was is the weekend before that now? Anyway the Sunday after Halloween) I was feeling quite sorry for myself after celebrating but finally mustered up the strength to and get fish and chips from up the road in the afternoon. While I was waiting for my order to be ready I wandered across the road to rummage through a second hand shop that had opened recently and is usually just filled with junk... but that afternoon I got lucky!
My best find of the day was this beautiful Oroton bag which on the inside looks like it had never been used. There is one thing I am a little confused about though, on the label it says Made in West Germany yet when I google it it tells me that Oroton is an Australian label. Does anybody know how that came about? Have a got the name mixed up?


I picked up this sweet little purse for $1


I also found this one for $1 as well although I'll admit it needs a bit of a clean up.

Anyway when I got home and opened it I found it stuffed full of old cigarettes! We've figured out that they are from the 1960's, there was also an old packet of matches in there from the 'Donnie Boon golf club'. Now I don't smoke but to find these old unopened packets was still somewhat exciting. Question now is what to do with them!



Also on the same day I found a fantastic mustard coloured 1950's wall clock which I plan to hang in my kitchen after I've given it a good clean.

Then a few days ago a friend and I drove out West to go and hit all the old thrift shops out there. It ended up being mostly second hand clothing shops which were a bit of a let down but I did manage to find a pretty blue blouse as well as these pictures for my bedroom...

I'm embarrassed to say that I can't remember exactly who did this one (can't quite make out the name on the bottom) but I know that he only painted roses and that a friend has a book about his entire collection. Needless to say I was quite happy about this find and it looks perfect on my wall. The second picture is perhaps a little bit tacky but I love it all the same. I particularly love when picture frames start cracking and the paint peels.


And lastly a bought yet ANOTHER hat! I have no idea where to keep them all anymore. Any idea's? I do keep the special ones tucked away in hat boxes and others hang on the wall but I don't want them to get ruined by dust and sunlight. Anyway I just love my latest purchase. It is also made in New Zealand which I always find extra special...


Ok that's enough for the time being. I think I am going to start having to be a little more selective in what I buy because my room is going to burst at the seams soon, the problem is I fall in love with everything old and am convinced that if I don't care for it it might be lost forever!
xx

Julia & Julia

Well i was going to gloat about all the lovely treasures I found recently but I just got home from the movies and felt so inspired by the one I watched that I decided to write two posts tonight. Has anybody else seen the movie Julie & Julia? It was so adorable and the best part about it is that it is based on not one but two true stories! I don't want to give anything away but I'll tell you it involves the 1940s/ 50s, lots of delicious French cooking, and blogging... what more could you want!