ZOMG by Rockalily

Last night I got to go to the ZOMG Blogger Bash hosted by Rockalily and London Lipgloss. What a great night - thanks ladies! I really enjoyed it and wish I could have got there a bit earlier.
Naturally lots of bloggers were there so this post is quite filled with links. I can assure you that each and every one of them are part of an inspirational force on the UK vintage scene, so it is worth making an acquaintance with their blogs and checking them out. In person, they are the type of women who are genuine and there is a surprising lack of snobberishery involved. Surprising in that we are all associated with clothes and make up, so one might assume the opposite. There were more lovelies ladies of that ilk there and, if I could I would include many more. But you are on your coffee break so let's get rolling...

Just as I arrived, Lena and Margaret were leaving, but there was enough time for hugs, outfit assessments, and a quick pic. Both these ladies have such a different style to me and I love seeing what they wear. 

Ree Ree from Rockalily was looking particularly stunning with her new red hair (welcome to the club!). She is a fab business lady with masses of energy and does a lot to support and encourage other women. She also has some exciting stuff happening for her at the moment so she deserves a little "high five" for that. High Five!!

Me with Ree Ree. I'm wearing (at this stage of the night), "Roulette" lippy

I had never met Zozo from London Lipgloss before and I still haven't actually formally meet her..but..., now that I see pictures of her, I embarrassingly realise that it was her that I bounded up to and said 

"When I die, I'm gonna ask for YOUR legs before I come back next time." 

Hmmm. I can't even blame THAT on the alcohol!  But I don't think she minded too much. I guess sometimes my brain just has no "skip" button. Boy-oh-boy though, I just have to say, she has one heck of a pair of pins. (No pics of them sorry, you'll have to scroll her blog and check them out yourself.)

Ree Ree had all of her lippys on display for everyone to test drive. That is Charly's hand making a cameo appearance. We didn't get a photo together, but there might be one coming up on Gemma's blog. 

Lucy and Gemma sporting their little graduation hats as they man their Historial Sauces table which included lovely vintage lipsticks and some "how to do vintage" style books to look at. 

So, you ask, what colours did I choose? Well, it was very dark in there so I focused on building my paper chart that I could refer to in daylight. The ones on the right are old favourites that I am replacing. They are from other brands and are either discontinuted or they are crack my sensitive lips into crocodile smackers. As I don't have the same reaction to Rockalily lippys I am keen to get more flavours. The one here is my first one - Red Hot Red, which I love.

You can see that ZOMG is not far from my "Marilyn" colour, Mermaid is a bit more orange than my "Frosted Apricot" and Roulette (as recommended by Ree Ree for me) is a deeper, darker tone of my old "Cinnamon" colour, so those are next on my shopping list. Some of these are limited, so I'm going to go and do that NOW.

Shona x

PS: I'm still not sure how to say ZOMG - Zoom-Geh? Zoum-Gee? I dunno!!

Bag Lady

Hello and thank you to everyone who has filled in my little blog survey already. If you haven't but would like to you still can here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FQZY799 
It being January, and not too much going on (for which I'm thankful for right now) I've been on a bit of a personal tidy up mission. One bit of the house at a time...and last week included the handbag cupboard. I try to limit myself to one shelf of bags so that somewhere in my brain I can register "FULL".  While I like vintage bags, I also like easy to use bags, which are not always the same thing. Other people have a thing for bags like I have a thing for buttons, and that is cool too.
I had a good ole tidy up and bought myself an expanding shelf from Lakeland, so that smaller bags could double up and not get mushed

The shelf, and one of my favourite bags, bought from Gal Pal Jenny.

Starting to populate. This white Telephone wire bag I found in Texas. The leather Alligator one is from Bags of Style and I bought it for myself as a birthday present one year. At the back is a little brown 40s corde bag.

A few more dainties at the back, which is sensible because I am more likely to reach for a sizable grandma good-for-wholloping, sturdy purse first. At least now I can see the little ones. Some smaller flat clutches inhabit the bottom bunk. 

The stunning rose bag is a modern one purchased in Texas last year. It is the most I have ever spent on a bag and I have no regrets. The brand is American West and the designs are gorgeous.

And here we are fully occupied. 

The basket bag in the centre I got in New York, amazingly in a charity shop for $6.  SCORE!! 

One of the red ones (modern, but looks the part) at the back I have had for 14 years, and it was on sale to start with, so it has paid it's dues. I keep it cos it is so darn handy.

One advantage of wearing a style that is already out of date, is that you never throw anything out just because it is fuddy duddy. The main disadvantage of course is... that you never throw anything out! 

(Sorry if the pics are a bit dim, but that is what you get in a London flat in the middle of Winter, on the the inside of a cupboard!)

Pops of colour

Last week the Wolf and I headed out to see a show so a bit of glamming up was required. Since it is often hot as Texas at the old London theatres, no matter the weather out-of-doors, a short sleeved, easy-wear dress was essential, covered up with a nice thick coat of course! 

I bought these red Honeys and a sister pair in black a few years ago at Heathrow airport on the way out. The Wolf was mortified because we were trying to travel light but I knew I would love them and have them for years. Besides, they were on SALE! 

Some ding dong bright bracelets. Only the bright green one is bakelite and therefore "collect-ably" expensive. The dark green one is Greenstone from NZ. The rest are second-hand charity shop bargains. Below my dress clip you can just see a little dressing trick...I have gathered the sides of my dress with a pin which holds more fabric for longer than the dress clip on it's own. Of course, the clip ought to cover it!

And here's the whole outfit, sans coat. The dress is an early sample of the Mary dress. 

I am also completely make-up less, as I was still recovering from a bad allergic reaction to either cleansers or make up or both - ouch! With this and the settling lotion allergy, I've had a bit of a bad run!

Anyway before I met The Wolf in town, I had an appointment at the Clinique counter to try their Anti-Allergy make up so a bare face was essential anyway. I was impressed that a make over from scratch was free and I got lots of samples in cute pots. I'm a cute pot kinda girl. The foundation itself is still on trial so I will let you know the verdict once decided.

Thanks for letting me share some POPs of colour to brighten up winter, and, if you haven't already, please POP on over and fill in the little blog survey I have running - I wanna know what you like! Here it is: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FQZY799.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and do something nice, even just tea with the cat, for you. 

Recent Purchases

As promised, I have some goodies (otherwise known as "bits of old junk") to show you.

Firstly though, I would love it if you could help me out with a quick and dirty survey. It is to help me know what you want to see here on this blog - more of this or less of that - let me know your suggestions too!

Here is a link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FQZY799

Thank you! 

And now onto the bits of old junk

Here's some finds I got at the Hammersmith vintage fair recently. An enamel and bead brooch - possibly 30s, a wire brooch - likely to be wartime, and a green belt buckle - 30s again. 

I love belt buckles, but, as I have mentioned before, if they are on an original card I find it SO hard to separate them and use them. Rather pathetic isn't it? Don't you just love how it states it is the "Latest Novelty"?

Here's a dress that I got that needs some repair work (that'll be a post on it's own). I adore the print and it is a lovely floppy viscose, so it's ok that it needs some love. The buttons I got happen to match and are rather indistinguishable in age since they are quite plain, I suspect 50s or 60s but they could equally be 80s. I have a feeling they might end up on a jacket to match this dress though, so that would be 60p well spent!

Have a good day and thanks again for your help with the survey!

Shona

Hat Hair

One of my pressies from The Wolf at Christmas was the book "Vintage Hairstyling: Retro Styles with Step-by-Step Techniques" by Lauren Rennells. What a great hubby!  He's so clever! (ok, ok, I told him it was what I wanted). Anyway, I am so in love with this book!

available on Amazon

Over time I have worked out that I am allergic to most setting lotions and tried to ignore the issue. Diluting it only does half the trick and I still end up taking an antihistamine tablet in order to not be all blood-shot eyed and snuffy-nosed, which really defeats the purpose of getting ones hair all glam! 

Realising that I needed to see how my hair went with a wet set, using water only, I was feeling rather dubious about it until I came across the techniques in Lauren's book, and was doubly excited when I saw the technique called "Hat Hair". Up until then I had believed that my hair was really a bit too long and heavy for a small 50s hat.

I decided that the Sunday vintage fair at Hammersmith (a "goodies purchased" post to follow) would be an excellent chance to test it out and I spent all Saturday day in pin curls and rollers. Since I would be sleeping on rollers that I thought I would also try out what Charly has recommended to me in the past - and use perming rods where the recipe called for foam rollers at the back.

This was taken after the fair, after I had been rooting around in button boxes and trying other hats on, so it is now a little mussed up and fluffy. I was very happy with the way it worked out though and the curls and height stayed put.

But ha ha! Look at the frizz I got at the back!! To be fair, that was because I was running too late in the morning to spend long brushing it out and blending in pomade, which would improve it greatly. With today being Tuesday though, the curls have settled down nicely and are still going strong so a wet set certainly has more staying power than a hot roller set. With looser curls you are supposed to arrange them around the base of the hat which would give me both a suitable length of a 50s hair-do and be much prettier.

So all and all, I am very happy that I can work on fine tuning my technique and adorn myself with smaller 50s hats. Etsy/ebay here we come!

Lisa Freemont Street, who is enviably knowledgeable about hair stuff, has done a utube review of the book if you are interested (for those viewing at work, be warned: it has sound!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHHXBW5yAJQ


Have a good day everyone! 


Shona x

Resolutions... with cats

Welcome to 2012!

I was thinking of doing a 2011 round up, and I also thought about some chrissy pics, but both seem already out of date. So instead I just have a little brainstorm to share, I hope that is ok. I have resorted to the fun cat pics of icanhascheezburger.com to liven this post up - please excuse that, but I do love a kitty pic!

I don't know about you but with the start of a new year everything seems a bit dull. I don't just mean that the Christmas lights, parties and presents have all dried up, but that somehow the continuous every-day-ness of a new year doesn't live up to expectation. A new anything, even a new year, should be bright and shiny and smell of promise shouldn't it? 

We do tend to build New Years up so that it feels as if something wonderful and unexpected should happen. The sky could be pink, or the Queen could give out free chocolate, or someone could come and match all your socks, that at least would be a good start. Instead, it is just the same sort of day as yesterday. What's that all about?

Methinks we put a little bit too much store in the calendar to make us feel better, and we put too high an expectation on our ability to make well meaning resolutions come true as if by magic. 

The result is, within a week or so we are back at work and feeling more miserable than ever. I have had years when I made a list of resolutions and that didn't really end well. In fact I couldn't even remember them all. I have had other years when I chose just one, and that was not much better. And then I had years when I didn't have any at all, and that was ok, if a little disappointing in itself.

But this year I think I have come up with the best resolution ever. EVER!

That is, to believe in me. Three little words that, despite trying, I still find really hard to do. If I can master that, then I can do ANYTHING I choose -  any resolution, goal or new feel-good habit is possible. The very nature of it allows for changing conditions, changing preferences and for real limitations that are out of my control. So it is a lovely, friendly, accommodating kind of a resolution.

If I have a moment when I am wondering if I can do something or feeling at a low ebb, or frustrated with my progress, then simply recognising that it is time to practise believing more should be enough to rectify any desire to beat myself up (something I am surprisingly good at). The lovely rounding off of this resolution is that by practicing believing in me I am fulfilling my resolution! Result!

I hope you don't mind me sharing this with you, this being a vintage clothes blog and all. I might be a little bit enthusiastic, but wouldn't the world be an amazing place if we all believed in ourselves?

I hope you have a good start to the year, please throw some swaggers out there for me and more importantly, for you. Smooch!