Chicago is thrifty!

Hey all!  It looks like I'm gonna get snowed on here in Chicago starting tomorrow.  They're saying maybe 8" by Friday - eek!  But that's okay, I've been thrifting, so I'm prepared - check it out!

The tag says "Draper of Glastonbury, Made in England".
They're suede, with sheepskin lining, and they fit like a glove!

I picked these up last night (when the temperature was in the 50s!  It's really been beautiful here so far.) on an after-class thrift jaunt to the Village Discount Outlet in Little Village, which I think might be a neighborhood in the actual city of Chicago, since it sounds like a funny name for a town.  I have enjoyed seeing the bits of the area that I've seen - I've spent a lot of time on Cermak/22nd Street.  My class is just off of it in Oak Brook, my Hotel is just off of it in Westchester, and following it east it becomes a pretty interesting sort of main drag as you get to the more inner suburbs.  I love all the cool signage, and there are lots of hot-dog/italian beef type places and various other nifty restaurants, and lots of discount stores and laundromats and funeral homes and bakeries and whatnot.  Some of the fun signs:

Cermak Plaza Shopping Center had these windmilly things,
obviously fairly new, all around this cool old 50s sign.  Like!

Scatchell's Pizza, Italian Beef, Italian Sausages, Catering, Frozen Lemonade and probably a dozen other things. 

 I love it - it looks like a movie set.

Laundry World!  It's like a carnival for your blankets and things.

Old Warsaw Polish Style Smorgasbord's sign is the best.

Even the address part of the sign looks cool.

 I've had some pretty good thrifting luck on this trip, but other than the boots I brought up to the room in case I need to wear them tomorrow, everything is stashed in the rental car, so no pics of my other treasures, but I can show you phone snaps of some things I didn't buy (because they were too big) at the Salvation Army store in Oak Park this evening:

Funky mod 60s or 70s chrome/cork/etc table.

Very cool shelf/cabinet (that's the sliding doors for the cabinet intact inside).

Super cool 60s abstract painting.  I wanted this, bad.
But it's huge, there are spots of what I can only assume is
mildew on it, and it was $20.  I even asked if I might get a
discount on it, but the manager said no, because it's big.  Huh?

I did pick up a few things there, as I have at each of the thrift stores I've visited so far on this trip.  You know, I think Goodwill is cheaper here than in St. Louis.  Anyway, I better call it a night.  I'll try to post more on the stores and the finds therein soon.  Good night!

Bowling!

Saturday, to celebrate the birthdays of two dear friends, our whole big crew of goofballs went bowling.  The whole idea of bowling is awesome, isn't it?  It's probably not a particularly thrifty activity, but for someone who likes scouring thrift stores for vintage finds, it has quite the retro appeal, even if I'm not good at it.  At all.  I scored 80 points in the game Saturday, and felt good about it.  I even got two spares!  But the real point of telling you all this is to share the pictures!  I posted the pictures of people having fun on Facebook already, but I saved all the kitschy goodness for you all!

The moon through the window of the van on 70 north of
downtown, on the way there.

Crest Bowl, in Florrissant, MO has an awesome
old mid-century sign.  LOVE IT!

And look, the moon made it into that shot, too :)
So you know I had to give him some up-close attention!

Look how handsome he is!

Check it out - a bowl-relièf!

I don't know what the key is to, but I LOVE the keychain!
And look- tiny pencils!  They play a part in the two kitschiest
family activity/sports in the world.  I heart tiny pencils.

Concession stand, and the bar/pool-hall entrance.

Look at all the colors!  Why don't they make
footballs and baseballs in lots of random colors,
with swirls and sparkles and stuff?

The Glow Machine was not old - it's a vending machine
for glow-sticks and whatnot.  But  it LOOKS fantastic.

Cute mural.

I love bowling shoes!  You have no idea the amount of personal
restraint I have had to exercise not to sneak out with them in the past. 

Thrifting afield

It's a pretty busy week here at the 2ndhand casa, and I'm preparing to leave Sunday for a week in Chicago for software training for work, so I have a question for anyone who might be reading:

Anyone have any thrift and/or thrifty suggestions for my down time while I'm there?

I must preface this by saying that when I say Chicago, I really mean I'll be somewhere way outside of Chicago, so instead of this:

Chicago's nifty mirror-bean!

My view will be more like this:

Random industrial park

My class is in Oak Brook, apparently across the street from a giant mall (yawn!), and my hotel is a couple of miles away in Westchester, which seems from google maps to be home to mostly golf courses and cemeteries.  I'm guessing I'm at least a 40 minute drive outside of Chicago-proper, and will be in class 9:00-5:00, so the question is what to do in the exurbs, in the January cold, after hours when it gets dark early, on my own?  I'm a wanderer by nature and very much enjoy exploring by myself, but the conditions for this one are challenging even for me.  I'm sure I'll find a thrift shop or two to check out, and drive around looking for interesting neighborhoods and whatnot, and I'll definitely venture into the city a couple of evenings but I'm sure there's plenty to do outside of the city too; I just don't know what it is!  So if anybody knows that area and has suggestions to get me started (particularly suggestions of the free-to-cheap kind), I'm all ears!

I will have the Saturday after the class free before heading back to the 'Lou, and I'm torn.  Some of the things I've thought of:

Shedd Aquarium (which I'd like to see, but is low on my list because 1. It costs money and 2. I'm not sure how much fish will hold my attention, and there's a whole world of who-knows-what around any given corner I might miss to look at fish...

Checking Craigslist for estate sales - a chance to see Chicago neighborhoods and houses I never would otherwise, and the possibility of some vintage bargains of the exotic non-St. Louis-y nature for the shop.

A proper wander in some interesting, real (as in not too touristy, not too mass-market) neighborhoods in the city.  Not sure what neighborhoods those might be yet, but that's part of the fun!

So, again - any suggestions are welcome - got some?

Resolved and requested

I've never been big on the New Years resolution thing, mostly because I'm just not that good at keeping them, but that's all the more reason to put this in writing, and ask anyone out there who might be reading this to help me stick to it:

   I will, before the month of January is out, have items posted for sale in my Etsy store.  In fact I will have at least a dozen items posted.  My heart wants to start making promises for February too, but my head is busily reminding me that I'm not that reliable when I start making big plans, and starting small is far less likely to make a liar out of me.  Plus, if at some point someone buys something?  I will get good and motivated to post more!  So that's it, for now.  But please, please please - pester me about it?  I need to start selling some of the stuff I've accumulated.  If I start selling things, then I'll be a clever collector of vintage treasures!  If I don't, it won't be long before I really am just a weirdo hoarder.

A Tuesday estate sale - really?

A month or so ago (I really have no concept of time; it could have been September for all I know, but I'm pretty sure I had a coat on, so probably not) there was a random Tuesday-only estate sale right around the corner from my house in South City.  It just so happens that I'm off on Tuesdays, so that seemed particularly serendipitous to me, and I stopped in with high hopes.  I didn't find any one amazing, huge thing, but I found several small things that I quite liked, and that seemed like they might do well in this Etsy store I still haven't posted anything in.  First and coolest is this little Cuckoo clock-inspired looking plastic thermometer/"weatherhouse":

It's plastic, and in need of cleaning, but super cute! 

It says Made in USA, Chicago on the bottom, and there's a cardboard backing that says lots of other stuff, but I think it's still at the bottom of the box that I carried all my treasures out in, so I don't have the details handy.  I did find a similar one online that describes the little characters as "children" who come out when the weather is to be good, and a "witch" who shows up to portend bad weather, so while it's not very gingerbready, all I can think about now is Hansel and Gretel.

I love the marbly-swirled plastic of the house.  What's up with that?

I also picked up a bag of goodies by the sewing table in the back room which contained all of this:

Why do they call stuff like this "notions"?  Anybody know?

I particularly liked the advertisement/free book of needles from a local moving company from some time in the past, "Needles Moving and Storage"

They're "Lady Mary" needles, from England for some reason.

Oddly enough, there's one just like it on Ebay right now, except in their photo it's black and white, whereas the one I have is printed in green on a creamy cardstock.  

I also picked up a couple of linen items:

1964 Vera calendar tea towel.  Great colors!

2 Park Ave. poodle napkins.  Hee!

I always love Vera colors, and the napkins are uber-kitsch - love them!  One is pretty stained, and I'm not too sure about cleaning them because of the poodle-fur bits, but they are awesome just for existing.

I also nabbed a couple of things for the sake of the cool packaging.  The first was audio tape (not "an" audio tape):

Apparently, you could buy audio tape for $0.39 at some point in time,
and you could do so at Western Auto!

Nice that it looks cool, since I don't actually have an apparatus for playing it.

I'm guessing it was a recording of Julia Child, rather than one belonging to her.

The other was a tin that I believed to be for typewriter ribbon when I bought it:

I love the stylized art-deco-y gazelle!

But when I opened it up:

The spool inside was not for typewriter ribbon, but 8mm film:

I don't think that was the original contents of the tin, though, as it has "Underwood" clearly stamped on the bottom.

And finally there were coasters.  First an assortment of mid-century-ephemeral paper coasters:

I particularly like the Buffalo Ranch one.  These are "ROYAL CATCH-ALL COASTERS" according to the backs: "Used Exclusively by the Perfect Hostess for CARE-FREE ENTERTAINING" (all emphasis theirs).

But I know that the truly Perfect Hostess would use these next coasters, of the awesome melamine variety, with the much-less-austentations message on the back "Made in Boonton, USA":

I love the mid-century 4-colors thing and the speckling, and the fact that there are roses sculpted on the edges and daisy/star-bursts in the centers, like they can't make up their minds.

There was also a small bundle of rolled-up maps found in the closet with the paper coasters.  Fortunately for you, I don't happen to have pics of them at this point, but anyway, the moral of this story is, you never know what fun stuff you might find, even on a Tuesday!  Or maybe it's something like never miss an estate sale; they might have poodle napkins and plastic Hansel and Gretel weatherhouses.  Or maybe there is no moral, but just a bunch of pictures of some stuff.  Either way, have a lovely Tuesday, everyone!

RIP Eva Zeisel

One of the cool side-effects of the thrifting/vintage bug is that you learn a lot along the way.  Last month I posted about a set of dishes I found that were designed by Eva Zeisel (the fabulous pink-and-black abstract 50s pattern in not-great shape).  In researching the dishes I read the Wikipedia article on Zeisel herself, and felt like I was reading the plot to some epic novel of the 20th Century.  She was a Hungarian Jew from an intellectually-oriented family who decided to be a potter's apprentice, became Stalin's art director of ceramics in Russia, got thrown in prison when she was accused of plotting to assassinate him, somehow got released and ended up in Vienna just in time for the Nazis to invade, escaped on the last train out and fled Europe for America with her scholar husband, designed for some of the greatest names in pottery, had the first ever one-woman show at MOMA, and raised a family.  She was born in 1906 and designed a line for Crate & Barrel!  She basically lived all of modern history, and she died on Friday, at 105.  I heard about it on NPR today, and after reading her obituary, where they quote her;  "I'm always thinking about my friend, someone to whom I'm giving my loveliness, my friendship and my shapes,", I feel all warm and fuzzy about owning some pieces of her work, even if they are kind of beat up; she was an extraordinary woman.  Excuse me while I go add her biography to my wish list.

Eva Zeisel - design genuis, participant in
history and all-around fascinating person
who apparently also designed some rugs!

Happy New Year!

Contents of the gift bag from my New Years Celebration.

So Happy 2012 everyone!  I hope everyone found a fun, safe way to celebrate, and saw out 2011 with a new good memory.  I had to work New Years Eve until 9:00 PM so I hadn't actually thought about making plans, but my friends texted me in the afternoon with an invitation to join them, which I gratefully accepted.  Ronnie's Cinema had a deal going where for $15 you got movie tickets, unlimited soda and popcorn and a bag of count-down goodies for after the movie.  It was perfect for me because it was close enough to where I work that I was able to get there before the end of the previews, involved no effort or planning on my part, and for what it was, it was quite cheap!  It was also nice that it mostly involved sitting in a dark room, since I had expected to spend 12 hours alone in the office and then go home and watch the ball drop on TV, so I was in a grubby hoodie, my hair untouched since it air-dried that morning, wearing no makeup, and bleary-eyed from staring at monitors all day long, as you can clearly see:

There were bubbles in the gift bag - I LOVE bubbles!

But the very best part was that I got to see out 2011 watching my beloved Simon Pegg being GIANT and cute in an IMAX version of the new Mission Impossible movie.  I realize that most people consider that to be a Tom Cruise vehicle, but I've never much cared for Tom Cruise - even before it was clear he's as nutty as a box of cracker jacks.  If my friends hadn't picked Mission Impossible, I'm sure I would have seen it eventually, when it came out on Netflix, but only to see Simon Pegg, who I absolutely adore (he's the only man ever who could have made me like zombie movies, and his head is full of wonderful things).  But I'm glad they picked it.  I was pleasantly surprised about Jeremy Renner - didn't know he was in it, and he's a fantastic addition.  I've had him on my wanna-see-more list ever since his short-lived tv show The Unusuals a few years ago, which also starred one of my favorite oddballs: Adam Goldberg.  The movie was fun and exciting and a little bit queasy-making, and a great way to hype up for celebrating the new year.

And today has been great as well.  Church was inspiring and a wonderful kick-off for the new year.  We usually stay together all day and have our small group Bible study in the evening, but we weren't doing that this week so this afternoon after returning the church van and picking up my car Chester, I did a little shopping that wasn't secondhand.  I am supposed to leave in a week (no confirmation yet!) for Chicago for a software training class for work, and my warmer coat is 8-10 years old and starting to lose its lining, so I was thinking about buying a new one.  I didn't find one that felt right, but I did find a bunch of other stuff that was on super-duper sale.  So... I've pretty well decided that my coat is good enough for at least one more season.  I spent about the amount I would have been willing to spend on a new one (well shy of $100) on the following:
A new vintage inspired dress with matching belt, two blouses, a cardigan, a pair of ankle boots, a big floppy 70's style wool hat that I believe goes with my existing coat, some underwear, and a magazine for the trip.  Pretty thrifty for regular retail, I think!

By the time I finished that spendfest, the sun was already going down, and when I got home it was all twilight-pretty outside, if windy, and so I leave you with a view of this gorgeous evening, which bodes well for a beautiful new year: