Retro/Vintage Archives - Be Kind, Thrift and Rewind

I finally got my first Etsy shop up and running! The shops name is HabershamVintage. The shop is named after where my great-grandmother lived out in the woods of Habersham County, Georgia. She loved living out in the woods, and she passed on her love for vintage and the land to me. She collected salt and pepper shakers from around the world and she wore handmade clothing. When most elderly women wore their hair short and permed in Georgia she wore her hair long and left it that way until she was 95. Only when she had to move to a home for the elderly did she cut her hair. So this shop is created with that spirit of being unique, standing out and doing your own thing.

I will be adding new stock fairly regularly within the next week. I have a lot of beautiful brooches that I have collected for the shop. Some are from the 1940’s, very Art Deco. The one that is featured in this post can be worn as a pendant as well. It is a beautiful piece. Many of the vintage brooches from the 1940’s to 1980’s are really gorgeous.

I have some vintage clothing in the shop. At this point it is mostly blouses, scarves and a small handful of ties. I was able to find a few blouses in various sizes that are from the 1940’s to 1960’s. I found some blouses in larger sizes since I have been told by friends that it is often difficult to find vintage if one is a size 10 or larger. So whenever I shop for vintage clothing for the shop I will continue to try to find a variety of sizes. I am featuring one blouse in this post. This particular blouse is from the 1970’s and is made of a poly satin fabric. The pattern is very unique. I think it is one of the prettiest blouses that I have seen from the 1970’s due to its pastel colors and the little scenes in the pattern.

I featured another item, a 1950’s kitchen apron, in this post. It is a lovely, bright, and colorful piece. I even found one very vibrant, colorful long apron from the 1970’s. I will post that one in the shop very soon. Another unique item is a vintage wallet from the early 1990’s with a cowboy scene on the front.

HabershamVintage will be having a grand opening sale starting today. Through the end of May, you may use the coupon code: newshop for a 25% discount. Please use your code prior to checking out.

Currently I am working on getting the other shop with handmade items together. It will mostly be my costume jewelry designs to start out with. Depending on how much free time I have I will have some other items as well.

Getting this all together has been a wild, busy learning curve but fun. My studio apartment has had a lot of activity going on around here. I am sure it will continue to evolve! I will keep you posted of the progress.

Vintage Art Deco Silver Tone Brooch Pendant with clear and blue rhinestones $25.99

Poly Satin 1970’s Blouse on Etsy $29.99

Vintage 1950’s Red and White Floral Apron $17.99

Vintage Cowboy Scene Wallet $14.99

I’m Covered in Green Hearts!

April 30, 2016

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I found this early 1990’s vintage heart-print dress a couple of months ago. I liked the colorful green hearts immediately. The blue is a navy but out in the sunlight it casts off a bit of a periwinkle color. It is made of a soft and comfortable cotton. I wanted a short dress. So many of my dresses tend to be mid-calf since I like them that way. It is nice to mix it up though, particularly in the spring and summer months when it gets warm!

One of the great things I have noticed about not dwelling on trends much is that I really buy significantly less. I stick with the classics and occasionally I find something else that I like that I add to my wardrobe. It is a nice to feel that my closet is full enough. I also have more time to focus on my crafts and other pursuits since I am far less inclined to go out and shop to keep up with trends. When I see a trend I like I either figure out if I want to participate in it, or how I can make something similar myself, or find something similar either thrifted or vintage so it is further down the chain of production. I haven’t had time but I want to make myself a pair of slacks that have that Japanese loose but feminine look with the fullness that almost looks like a skirt or harem pants. I am in awe of the ideas for designs that the Far East has for slacks. They make the slacks in the United States look so standard, while theirs are avant-garde and unique.

I bought the dainty gold necklace at Accessorize. I really like some of the designs in their shop. They have a lovely collection and variety of designs. I liked how the necklace is so thin and delicate.

My stocking come from Trendy Legs. My sweetheart gave them to me as a gift. I also have a pair with hearts on them but I like these with the paisley pattern paired with the dress’s green heart pattern. They are really nice for us ladies who aren’t into tattoos, we can get kind of the same effect but without the tattoo.

I have been quite buried working on getting the Etsy shop up and running. Then after the first one is opened I am going to create another with handmade items. It is a learning curve and a big project but I have been reading a lot about it. Plus it is exciting, all the more so since I get to focus on pieces of myself that I haven’t had that much time to really let loose and watch evolve in many years. I have a real reason to bring the things I enjoy and the things I like creating forward. I get the opportunity to focus on my hobbies and interests but on a larger level so I can share them with others. In a certain way it makes me feel twenty-one again. At twenty-one my brain was as if it was on fire with creativity!

I hope you are enjoying the beginning of spring and hopefully it will get warm enough so that I can take some blog-post pictures outside again!!

Vintage 1990's dress

1990's green vintage dress

trendy legs tights

accessorize necklace 1990's dress

1940’s Green Floral Jacket with a Thrifted Sage Green Dress

April 9, 2016

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When I first saw this 1940’s floral jacket I didn’t buy it since it was in need of some rather serious repairs. I left the shop and thought about it for a few weeks though. When I came back in later it was still there and I decided to give it the TLC it deserved and to enjoy it. I like that it is colorful and lively with all its flowers. Plus I figured it’d go nicely with this sage green dress I thrifted last summer from St. Luke’s Thrift Shop in the West Village. It is a Three Dots dress and they usually go for about $90. I paid a fraction of that and to top it off got it when the thrift shop had a sale.

The bracelet I have on is a vintage bracelet I found at a garage sale years ago. I bought some new shoes recently, Born oxfords, and they go well with this outfit. They are super comfortable!

I am slowly working on opening an Etsy shop. I hope to have it ready to open in the next couple of weeks. It is quite an undertaking but having a blog has been good training for starting an Etsy shop. Plus I hope to open another one with my costume jewelry designs as well. Eventually I will add some other crafts.

I haven’t had time to finish my Dottie Angel dress but I will get to work on it before too long. I am eager to wear it this summer and spring! My daughter gave me some lovely fabric for Christmas that I am using for part of the dress.

Gardening season is upon us and I am juggling multiple things. I do hope to get into the garden soon and do some planting. Seeing the spring flowers as I am out walking is a beautiful sight.

Well I hope you are enjoying the coming of spring. I will keep you posted on new developments as they happen with my Etsy adventure!

1940's jacket

thrfited three dots dress

Vintage Rhinestone Art Deco Shape Earrings

March 30, 2016

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Recently I had a birthday and my sweetheart gave me a pair of vintage rhinestone earrings from the 1950’s as one of my gifts. Mind you these are the type of earrings I’d never buy for myself. I don’t generally wear large, shiny objects of this proportion on myself. He thought they’d look good on me, plus Chris, the manager at David Owens Vintage, and David, the owner, thought they would too. When I thought about that I realized I have to wear them. I mean any woman who knows three men she likes and appreciates, who all agree she’d look good in something has to give it a try!! So I did. I haven’t worn them outside yet. I did finally decide on which dress to wear with them. I wore them for Easter at home for dinner. I hadn’t gotten the dress right yet. I had on a black skirt and a nice top but I felt like I looked like I was wearing a work outfit. After dinner I thought perhaps I should try on a dress my mother gave me that I haven’t worn yet since it is so fancy. I don’t generally go anywhere that would require such a fancy dress. These earrings need a fancy dress or a very simple elegant black dress, which I don’t have right now.

Meanwhile this dress was in the for-trade bag but the first store I took it to didn’t want to trade for it. Maybe it was because it is not in the height of fashion or a trendy look. It looks very much like a dance dress with its flouncy sheer fabric at the hem. I like dancing but I really don’t go out dancing much at all at this time in my life. Anyway I put the dress on and I asked my sweetheart if he liked it. He had a big smile on his face. Sometimes that kind of reaction matters more than anything. I mean if we have a fella we like to get a good reaction when we get dressed up, right? So I guess I am keeping this dress and wearing it out to dinner or something nice soon.

Meanwhile I didn’t really have the right shoes but for this post I wore my old red Kenneth Cole Reaction shoes. I just bought a pair of black Born shoes which will be better for my feet. They don’t have quite the heel these red ones do but generally I like to make my feet comfortable since I have foot problems. My black lace-up oxford type of Born with a heel might need a vintage shoe clip to dress them up a bit. I will have to look into that. I recently read you can use old clip-on earrings as shoe clips.

Anyway so that is how I ended up with these shiny rhinestone 1950’s earrings; something new that requires stretching my wardrobe to a degree that I need to get a bit fancier. Or keep an eye out for a simple black knit dress like I had before which would put all the main focus on the earrings, aside from my figure. I like how these earrings have such an art deco shape in their six strands of rhinestones that dangle down from the top two larger rhinestones.

I hope you all are enjoying the arrival of spring. I am enjoying when it is warmer but we still have some cold fronts coming in here in New York. I became a bit overwhelmed for a while with a temp job in midtown, back working for a brief period in the fashion district, but that is over now and I am back to looking for work again! I also have many creative things I am working on that hopefully I can share with you before too long. I am always trying to find new things to work on and to keep myself busy with being creative!! It keeps life exciting and gives me a reason to feel inspired when I wake up in the morning.