Vintage Etsy Wedding Finds under $25.00

I feel like this blog is taking a turn towards a wedding blog, so I solemnly swear to cut back on the wedding stuff after the new camera comes. Lucky for all of you it should be waiting for me at the P.O. box today.

Mostly life around here has been the continued hustle and bustle of engagement announcements and venue searching. I think we may have settled on a date. We've definitely found our dream location for the reception. I don't want to give it away until we secure the location, but I will say restored art-deco ballroom.

So after looking at that venue and after looking at the vintage wedding gown photos I've got a vintage inspired wedding on the brain. I looked for a few 1940s dress patterns, but saw little point in purchasing any. It is after all very bad luck to sew your own wedding dress. Still out of curiosity I went through some of my vintage patterns to see if I already had any wedding gown patterns. I have a few, but they are very 80s and way over the top. I keep them mostly for the pure enjoyment of owning them, not because I plan to ever reconstruct them. In fact one of my patterns showed up over at Male Pattern Boldness' Ugliest Pattern Contest. She lost to a much uglier and much more deserving ensemble.

Anyone want to wear this to your special event? Yikes. The 1980s were a bit of scary time for fashion, but they certainly had their own style. It's hard to look at an 80s dress and not know exactly what decade it came from.

After the pattern search I went on to search for some wedding accessories. Here's a few wedding themed vintage accessories that you can add to your vintage wardrobe. All for under $25.00 of course.

Beautiful Sheer 1950s Ladies Tea Gloves with lace cuff. Wow! If one of you doesn't snap these up I will. They're going for $8.00!

1960's Proxy Floral Pumps. Love love love! Waaaaaaay cute, and a great deal at $13.00. Very tempting for my own big day, but I think I should find the dress before I start picking up the matching accessories.

Gorgous Rhinestone Orchid Blossom Earrings. So cute. I just love these, but I have pierced ears so clip ons are not very comfortable for me to wear.

1980s Glass Pearl and Rhinestone necklace. I'm so in love with this. Sure it's a bit tacky 80s, but it's fun and very kitschy. It's selling for $17.00.

Great pair of 1940s Leather strap peep-toe pumps. Sure wish I was still looking for vintage white shoes to go with my Ruby short outfit. They're currently selling for $20.00, a great price for a pair of vintage shoes.

And to top it all off a Lovely White 1960s Hat with Bows. This is going for $7.99 which is an excellent deal for a hat. Someone better snatch this baby up. I'm trying so hard to resist from buying this. It does need a good dry cleaning and reshaping though, so take that into account if you're thinking of taking this baby home.

Have a good weekend! See you on Monday!

MADE at Whipstitch

Apparently the blogging world is also in wedding mode right now! Lucky me!

Couture Allure has a great post on stepping outside the box to find your own vintage wedding gown. She even explains the importance of finding the proper undergarments to wear under those gowns (a woman after my own heart).

I also wanted to post about something fun I did this weekend (before the big proposal). Saturday I headed up to Whipstitch in Atlanta (above photo from their blog) for a sewing demo by Dana of MADE. She makes the worlds cutest children's clothing and she was just the sweetest person ever.

Dana was so cute and so entertaining! I just adore her! And I only wish some of her creativity wore off on me during the demo. Look at some of these skirts from her blog!

Just darling!

Her demo was about drafting patterns and making up children's tee-shirts from old men's shirts. It was super fun and super easy. I almost wish I had a little kiddy to make clothing for, but one thing at a time. Her and I definitely shared a common love of thrift store fabric "harvesting." I felt a little silly taking pictures with a cellphone, but until my new camera comes from my Mother in the mail it's all I've got. It's gotten bad, friends. My Fiancé and I took our engagement night photos with a disposable camera.

Some more of her creations that she let us pick up and play with after the demo. Totally digging that bag.

I had never been to Whipstitch before, but don't think I won't be there again! They had some of the cutest fabrics I had seen in a long time. Lots of retro patterns and some great deals on bolt leftovers. I saw a package of nearly 3 yards of bolt leftover for $8.50.

They also had a rack dedicated entirely to tea and coffee themed fabrics. I could barely resist. You can more than likely expect to see the tea pot fabric above in a vintage styled apron or belt sometime in the future. It was a bit pricey at nearly $9.00 a yard, but it would make a great accent fabric.

Weekend update

So this is as far as I got this weekend on the Ruby shorts.

Made some darts and hemmed the pocket. Still have no clue what Ruby wants its pocket seam allowances to be. I went with 3/8 as that seemed to make the pocket the right size. I think on Purple Ruby Shorts #2 I'm going to omit the back pocket. It's cute, but it is detracting from that 40s vintage vibe. Of course, Purple Ruby's fabric colors are already detracting from its vintage vibe. Purple Rubys I think will have much more of a 70-80s look, while Pink Ruby's will have a nice 1940s or 1950s feel to them. I'm already planning to pair Pink Rubys with a white button down blouse, a large brimmed hat and some white vintage sandals. I need to swing by the goodwill and my favorite consignment store before I pick any shoes up on the internet, but these are at the top of my list.

Currently they are $20.00 on etsy. I've been dying for some white vintage shoes since I saw this post by the Vintage Baroness. I, of course, was not willing to pay for any of the shoes she posted despite how glorious they were. I was, however, very inspired and went in search of something a little more reasonable. To me dressing Vintage is about having a vintage look that evokes a certain time period, but is not necessarily accurate.  I suppose you could say I lean towards the Rockabilly side of vintage fashion in that way.

Luckily for me, fashion is cyclic. What was once in style will be again and again and again. The sandals are probably from the 1960s or 1970s. The maker is Corelli. The heel is just perfect for the vintage 40s look. It wasn't very common to see different colored heels at the time. You'd be surprised at how difficult it is to find a pair of white peep toes with a solid white heel these days, but if the white heel isn't important to you etsy has a lot of white 30s and 40s looking strappy shoes from the 1970s and 80s under $20.00.

I'm also on the lookout for a sweet 40s red lipstick shade to go with the look. Besame has some great Vintage Reproduction lip colors. I'm leaning towards Merlot for my 40s look.

What do you think? The 1940s look is characterized with a flat foundation, light eyes, a dark liner over the eye (cat-eye optional), a thin highlight under the eye and a dark lip. I'm worried Merlot might be a little too dark for my pale skin, but maybe not. Here's a cosmetics ad from 1947.

Blue Red is pretty dark as you can see. Besame's Classic Enchanting Lipstick even comes in a vintage styled lipstick tube. How cute! The designer of their lipstick collects vintage lipstick tubes and designed their packaging accordingly.  Besame Classic Enchanting Lipsticks come in a large variety of colors, are quite thick, are highly pigmented and are about as close to the lipstick of the 1940s as you are going to get. The tubes sell for $15.00.