Spending Hiatus + Etsy = Unbearable Temptation!

Okay, so I've been spending way too much money lately, and have put myself on an unofficial spending hiatus. Only essentials...food, gasoline, utility bills, etc...are allowed to be purchased while I get my bank accounts back into shape.

Unfortunately, I spend a lot of time "window shopping" on Etsy.

This is not a good combination!

Today, for example, I just spent a little bit of time searching for vintage sewing/embroidery tools on Etsy. (To go with my new hobby, of course!) And what did I find, but three of the most perfect vintage items...items that long to be in my hot little hands, I'm sure of it. They're all vintage, all sewing-related, and all have owls on 'em! (I also love owls.)

I mean, would you just LOOK at these fantastic things?!

Vintage Owl Scissor and Push Pin Duo
from The Vintage Treehouse

Okay, so this is the best thing ever. It's a pair of sewing scissors and a pin cushion...shaped like an owl! The finger holes in the scissors are the owl's eyes! :-O

White Owl Pin Cushion
from Definitely Different

And SPEAKING of pin cushions, look at this beauty! If you put it on a shelf and turned it just right, it would look like a nothing more or less than a decorative owl statue. Yet you turn it around, and it's functional as well! I love it when functional things are beautiful as well.

Vintage Owl Thimble
from Whimsey's Vintage

And, okay, so I don't usually actually USE a thimble while I'm embroidering, but for this little fellow, I might have to make an exception! Precious, mais non??


Hmm....I'm starting to think that in addition to my spending hiatus, I might have to declare an ETSY hiatus as well! :-O

Vintage Finds

My recent most favorite vintage finds are actually both things OTHER people found, but gave to me as gifts! There's nothing like the thrill of digging through a pile of junk and coming up with treasure, of course, but gifts are wonderful in their own special way, because a well-chosen gift really tells you how well the giver knows you and how important you are to them! At least, that's how I feel, ha!


So the first wonderful find is this fantastic old camera magazine put out by Eastman Kodak in the early days of film photography. It's called "Kodakery" and this issue dates to December of 1924. My father found it and gave it to me for Christmas this year. It's really quite fascinating! I read through all of the articles and a lot of the advice given still has relevance today, being more about composition and photo ideas than about film speed and processing chemicals, or anything like that.

Perhaps one of my favorite things about it was seeing how some of the language has changed. The book often refers to "Camerists" instead of "Photographers" and the photo captions refer to being "made with" particular cameras rather than "taken with" them. I'm quite taken with the word "camerist" actually. I like that!


And the second find is a wonderful wee squirrel to add to my collection, discovered and purchased most sneakily by my partner in crime, my husband! Apparently, he found it while we were out antiquing together. I was a few booths behind him and he managed to not only pay for it but get it out to the car without my noticing his absence. He's a gifting ninja!!

My grandmother has a squirrel like this hanging on the wall in her kitchen....bigger, though. At an antique mall years ago, I found one just like hers. Since then, I've started collecting them in both the small and large size, and in both brown and grey, whenever I find them.


What have you found (or been given!) recently that you love? I always love seeing the things people collect and hearing about why they love what they love!

Saturday Antiques

One of the perks of running a vintage shop on Etsy is that you have an excuse to spend your weekends poking around in thrift stores, rummage sales, and antique shops. This weekend, we did two of the three.

There was a church rummage sale right down the road which we hit before even going out to breakfast! It was pretty small and was mostly peoples' basement junk. I did, however, find a pile of old embroidery patterns. There are seven with the days of the week and a pattern of a little Dutch girl doing various chores, intended for use on towels; and also a few other images of the little Dutch girl sans day of the week. Just $1! I've added them to my collection. Perhaps I'll scan them in and upload them at some point. Vintage embroidery patterns are always fun to share!




After eating, we drove up to a big indoor/outdoor antique show. My parents were there, too...I guess thrifting and antiquing run in the family! We managed to find multiple items for our Etsy shop. Lots of owls, for some reason! But also a very cute set of salt and pepper shakers shaped like a squirrel and a big walnut. Since I love squirrels so much, it's going to be hard to sell those!

But my real find this weekend was a new addition to my vintage camera collection...a Yashica Mat 124G! And this one, I want to actually shoot with! I'm not sure if she works or not, but she seems to be in lovely condition and she was so, so inexpensive. They often go for hundreds of dollars on Ebay, and I got mine for $25! Isn't she pretty?