It's hot.

When your air conditioning breaks in the summer it sucks. When your A.C. breaks in Georgia it really sucks. 

Let me tell you how my day went. My parents were visiting from New York this weekend. It was about 10pm or so. We were all sitting around chatting and generally enjoying our last evening together before they headed down to Mississippi to visit my Grandmother Bixler. 

As we're talking I hear something dripping. Thinking it was a facet that had been left on I went in search of the sound. As I walked up the stairs to the second story the sound became louder and louder. At the top of the stairs I noticed that our light fixture was leaking. What ensued next was a frantic search for buckets and towels. With that disaster under control my Father and Fiancé braved the attic to see what was amiss. 

The air conditioning unit's condensation overflow drip pan was overflowing with water. The men folk probably removed about three gallons (at least!) of liquid which we poured down the bathtub drain. Fun times. 

No one ever warns you about certain parts of homeownership. Certainly no one ever warned us that our attic might flood in the middle of a drought. Go figure. So we're without A.C. until Thursday when the HVAC people are coming to dismantle, clean, and flush out our A.C. unit's condensation drainage system. 

The whole incident got me thinking though. How did the folks in the the first half of the 20th century keep cool down here in the south? They certainly must have had some way or you wouldn't be able to live here year round. So I did a little research and found some neat things; specially designed houses, massive attic fans, hallways and of course vintage electric fans! 

Wouldn't you rather have one of these lying around your home instead of those ugly white plastic things we all have? 

Vintage Eskimo Fan - $24.95

Vintage GE Table Top Fan - $9.99. Display only, not functional. 

Now finding vintage fans for under $25 takes a bit of searching. There is a very large contingent of vintage fan collectors out there that you're going to need to compete with. Still, there are a lot of vintage fans out there and you're bound to find one that fits within your budget. 

1920's "Jack-Frost" Art Deco Desk Fan - Ebay Currently $5.00

Vintage Brown Art Deco Westinghouse Fan - Ebay Currently $9.95

I also picked up a few things while investigating vintage fans. As with all vintage appliances check to see if the fan actually works. If the listing says something like "great condition" or "looks like new!" but does not expressly mention that the fan works properly it's a good idea to contact the seller. Most likely the fan doesn't work or rattles and shakes so much that it's virtually unusable. A good seller will give you the lowdown on your fan.

What do you do to cool off in the summer heat? Would you buy a vintage fan? Do you collect vintage fans? Let me know!

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.