Change

You may have noticed my blogs taken a little turn in it's posts - predominantly a bit more vintage with the odd what's going on around me post. Many moons or years ago I use to feature a lot more vintage on LOTS - I guess changes in myself in moving pushed that to be back a little. I've always wanted my blog to flow and change as me and my tastes do and being surrounded in vintage stuff through estate sales, collecting compacts and selling vintage treasures is what my life is right now alongside being a cat lady and an English gal aboard. 

I know vintage, picking, and etsy stores aren't everyone's cup of tea - I can tell that because they don't get a lot of views and or comments. But I intend to get back into blogging for what I want it to be rather then pointless posts just to be fitting in with the crowd. That's not me and I wouldn't be being honest to myself or my blog if I was doing that. I refuse to sell out my blog to be popular - it's not worth it and working out that I wanted this change to happen is actually what's drawn me back into writing after my little lull towards the end of 2012. 

Plus i'm a girl who loves vinyl and hardbacked books - I don't belong in this modern era and I need to stop fighting my belief of having to fit in constantly.

Hopefully you'll stick along for the ride. 

Vintage Bangs

So I wanted to post today about one of the great vintage goodies we came across at the weekend - I'd seen it in the photographs for the estate sale but hadn't a clue what it was and a google search wasn't turning up any gold - that's until I got my hands on it and I knew I had to buy it. Published in 1957 this is a Robert Curley (think American hair style product brand) guide to hair styling. There's everything you could ever need to know about how to condition and set your hair yet alone how to set it into bustles, pixie styles and curls. If I could actually do something useful with my hair it would be a must to try. Instead I'm willing it away to a good home via etsy - hopefully it will find one. 

1960's Housing Advertisements

 

Going around estate sales if a perfect pastime if you love being nosey when it comes to houses and their interiors. Most of the houses are 1950's built, sometimes they haven't been changed in years - the same shag pile carpet, sometimes really old fridges and appliances. They are a great social history step back in time adventure. It always amuses me the amount of fully stocked and serviced bars people have/had in their basements with vintage cocktail glasses and bar stools.  A lot of the houses still do look like this advertisement feature that someone had cut out and kept within a pattern I found which dates to 1962 - the walls of glass, perfectly designed kitchen and walk in closets and bathrooms. They certainly give you great ideas for when we get our own place - I could certainly do with that amount of storage in my kitchen. 

Of course using my sociological head the women are all shown in their domains - the kitchen, in the bathroom applying make up and greeting guests. She is first and foremost a housewife. The man is in his territory - the basement, the man cave. But of course that is apt and fitting for the time. 

Reading

 
One of the challenges I set myself in 2012 was, like many, a challenge on Goodreads for how many books I could read in the entire year. My goal was 50, which I happily managed to achieve at the beginning of December. It was a great way of seeing just how much (or little) I read and actually got me back into reading after having a big break - which for me was weird, I was always the kid with her head in a book after the move I went months without even turning a page.

Luckily we have a really good library in our city and searching around on Goodreads I have a list of books to read that's longer then the day is long. But this year I'm determined to get through the huge mountain of books we have on our bookcase, and on top of the bookcase and now piling around said bookcase. Yeah books are another collection we have and picking up second hand hardback books from the 1940's and 1950's is a particular pleasure of my own. 

There's something magical about hardback books, maybe it's their smell or their bindings to being able to feel their weight - all the total opposites to the ever growing digital reading world we find ourselves increasingly surrounding in. Feeling their weight makes their stories feel more real, more presence then a screen. 

So my mission is to not only achieve another Goodreads challenge - this time 75 books in the next 12 months. This is alongside my mission to work my way through some of the lovely hardbacks we have - a Gone With The Wind edition dated to the 1950's, a gorgeous book on the history of Ballerinas to Wordsworth poems and Churchill's London in WW2.

Are you challenging yourself and your reading list this year? If you're on Goodreads add me - I love seeing other peoples reading lists.