Daisy Chain Fleur dress GIVEAWAY!

Hello everyone! 
We have just cranked over 400 followers and I am both thrilled that all of you are interested in joining me here, and a bit amazed that you signed up to listen to my ramblings! Thank you!
To celebrate we are going to do a a giveaway of the black Fleur dress with white daisys.

The winner can choose her size, from XS to XL. You can find more info on our website here. The daisys are vintage trims and are simply sewn onto the dress. If you wanted a plain black dress they could be taken off, or you could re-arrange them to your hearts content!
In addition to the dress itself, I have collected a lovely set of vintage earrings and a brooch that will compliment it perfectly. I found the earrings first, and then months later, found the brooch (to much squeals of delight). The earrings are lightweight plastic with clip on backs. The brooch seems to be the same plastic, and is the same colour, but is ever so slightly different because the petals are not quite identical. The difference would not be noticeable once they are attached to your earlobes and cardigan. 

The rules for the giveaway are the same as normal:

The competition rules are straight forward and offer three chances to get involved...

• For one entry, leave me a comment below. 
• For another entry, you can retweet my give away.
• For a third entry, post about the giveaway on your own blog!  Three chances! Whooopee!

Please take careful note that each time you enter you must leave a separate comment. Don't leave me one comment saying you've done all three things, as it will only be counted once! 

If you commenting to say you've retweeted or blogged, please post the link.
The competition will close Monday 7th November 2011 at Midnight BST
Good luck everyone! 

Jukebox Jive Show 2011

Happy Friday dear readers, and a big hello to my new followers that have taken me over the 400 mark! I am chuffed that so many of you are interested enough in my ramblings and want to read about my little adventures. Welcome!

As promised on Twitter (I am HeydayVS if you want to follow me there too), I have a give away planned for you to mark this milestone, so keep your eyes peeled as I will announce that over the weekend. YEAH! we haven't done one of those for a bit so I am looking forward to it.

For now I thought I would tell you about some of the neat jukeboxes for sale last weekend at the first ever Jukebox Jive show. I apologise for the poor quality pics, the lighting wasn't the best for my camera.

This one was my FIRST favourite and I might have dribbled a bit when I saw the colours. The colours in real life were a bit deeper and teal and red happen to be a fave combo of mine

It was on sale by these too chaps, Bill and Terry from the Jukebox Company. This crazy sputnik shaped one seemed to be their favourite as I saw quite a bit of  fondling polishing and dusting going on. Bill and Terry were lovely chaps and informed me that Jukeboxes started out like this, with everyone having headphones to listen at the same time. Hmmm... not so much dancing then huh?

Then I turned the corner and saw this one tucked away a bit and fell head over heals in love. It is from 1939 so that would be typical, as I tend to fall for designs of all kinds from that year. Note the colours and basic shaping that would lead to the "electric rainbow cathedral" shape that we are more familiar with. This one is the oldest one at the show but at £6250 it is not a bad price really, considering those colour panels are BAKELITE. yum yum! (NB: I turn 40 next year and I think this would be an ideal present)

The owner of the 1939 one also owned this one, which was the most expensive at £12,500 and made in 1956. You can see more at www.jukeboxgallery.com. Corwin, pictured here, came all the way from Holland to share these delights with us. I would have dribbled on a few more, but he was busy and one has to whip around quick when you are also manning a stall.

Lastly, I leave you with a quick pic of Katie the organiser. She undertook a mammoth job in pulling together her first show of this size, and while she was a little worn out by Sunday, I hope she decides to do another next year.

Have a good start to the weekend dear readers and watch this space for that giveaway!

Jukebox Jive Show and outfit post

Hi Y'all

We are a bit excited here at Heyday towers as we are trading this weekend and for a change we don't need to be away from home!  It is the Jukebox Jive weekend near Heathrow. Even though it is the very first one, Katy, the organiser seems to have pulled out all the stops - there are rows and rows of classic cars, bands, food, jukeboxes (well, naturally), music, and lots of shopping to be had. Do come along and visit if you can! Rocket Originals will be there as will Home Sweet Homestyle and Lipstick and Curls.  All of them are great friends so there will be a fair amount of catching up going on in the quiet moments.

Even though the word "Jukebox" makes one think of the 50s, all the traders there will have other decades for sale too, so if you are a 40s buff, there will still be plenty for you to dribble over. In fact, Jukeboxes have been around for longer than we tend to think anyway.

And now onto the pictures....!

I am making the most of the mildly warm weather and, wearing skirts and dresses before it becomes unbearable

This is one of our Olivia blouses teamed with a waistcoat knitted by a friend's Mother.  The big egg shaped tree behind me always amazes me, since I never actually see the gardener trim it (we have a shared garden, so it is not OUR own gardener btw)

The skirt is again the one from our wartime suit. It is getting good use right now!

And the shoes are old ones from Remix in the states.  WARNING: do not to click on the link if you are trying to save money!

I hope to meet some of you at the show, do come and introduce yourself if you pop by.

Bling Bits and Dancing

Last Thursday Mr Wolf and I went with a bunch of dancing friends to the International Ballroom Dance Championships at the historic Royal Albert Hall. It was the 59th (!) year it was held there.

First up - what does one wear? It is absolutely impossible to arrive overdressed at such an event, unless you happen to have a barrel of swarzkofski crystals and oystrich feathers you can dunk yourself into. A lot of people come straight from work, so the audience is just in "whatever". But me, well, I am, (as you might be aware) never KNOWINGLY under-dressed. To bridge the comfort + dressy gap I decided to glam up one of my Mary dresses with a couple of bling bits (bought in the States, not vintage). They are just brooches, and in a flash of inspiration I picked up two, not just one, to act as dress clips.

The effect was really very good, considering three ladies stopped me to ask where I got my outfit! Now, I know the dress is my design and all, but really, the effect of two cheap modern pins would work the same on any plain dress. Perfect for desk-to-date days and light weight holiday packing too.

The event, which was compared by a friend of mine (name dropper me!) Karen Hardy of Strictly Come Dancing fame was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. And that was just the outfits! Of course, they are not vintage - but "vintage" includes being obsessed with a darn good dress. Which I am.

Of course I took about a gazillion photos, and here are just a few. (sorry, some are a bit fuzzy, they moved a bit fast for my camera at a distance in the dark)

Weee!...Cinderella moment

Stunning colours in the heats

This lady was one of my faves of the latin finals, probably mostly because of her Marilyn-esque hair

This Danish couple won the Professional Ballroom division. And she got my vote for best dressed too.

If you have a young daughter I bet she would LOVE this type of event. Maybe not this particular one as it is long and runs late, although there was one tweeny in our row who was completely transfixed.

The men though, well, as nice as they are, I do prefer mine a bit rougher and hairier. Just as well huh?

Rocket Girl

Hello all you lovelies out there
Last weekend we were trading at the Hemsby Rock and Roll Weekender  and I just gotta say - weekenders tire me out! Oh man, I always start the week like death warmed up!  It might be the 3 days standing and talking, it might be the early dash to the Hemsby car boot on the Sunday, or it might just be that this is the last in a long run of events/trips/outings and it has taken a toll.

Fellow stallholders, Rocket Originals were there as always, and I treated myself to a couple of their jumpers for my early autumn wardrobe.  This is the first one to show you - The lovely Red with Ivory jumper.  Now, being a big busted girl (and "big" is a, ah-hem... polite understatement) you would think that a high neck sweater would make me look even more dumpy/frumpy and made of 95% boobage. But I have discovered that as long as it isn't chocker-high neck, and if the colour on the shoulders is lighter than the rest of the body, it actually does me some favours! I happen to be very narrow in the shoulders, so much so that I have learnt  never to buy shoulder bags with two straps as I can never keep the second strap on.  So the shoulder widening illusion created by the lighter colour, combined with the darker colour over the boobs balances me out.
The skirt I am wearing is the one from Heyday's Wartime suit.  I have found it invaluable in this warm but autumn weather - so easy to wear, doesn't crease, comfy, and, you know.. slims and skims the lumpy bits. I imagine it will be just as useful in springtime with or without the jacket.



So, back to telling you about Rocket Originals...I also  picked up a bit of HOT shoe news for you, Rocket are about to bring out their "Nancy" sandal (above) in a lovely dark green. Ohhhh! - can't wait! This shoe has got to be their comfiest yet and as I completely thrashed my white pair this summer, I have also picked up the red pair too as you can see. Already having two colours of the same shoe won't stop me as being a red head I have lots of outfits that will go with green shoes. Indeed, florals always seem to go well with green - Mother Nature being the queen goddess of design and all that!


Back soon with more vintage adventures,
Shona