Dead stock, dead cute

I was just planning to sew myself an apron, when I found these cute vintage ones!

I found it so hard to choose that I got all four of them. They are probably from the late 70's and in perfect vintage condition. Oh, I just love to find pretty dead stock items! I ironed them and managed to choose one. The other ones are now available in my Etsy shop.

Etsy listing

Etsy listing

Etsy listing

Out and about

Photo by streetstijl.nl

The two of us went to Arnhem to check out a tattoo studio and do some shopping. We stopped by the lovely vintage shop Froufrou's and the girl working there wanted us to pose for her website streetstijl.nl.

What we found at the vintage shop? Juul bought tap shoes and a scarf, I bought a pendant with a blue faced girl, which I turned into a necklace.

 

Vintage design heaven

It's no secret that I love vintage furniture and home accessories. I have spend some serious time finding just the right stuff... thrifting my way through many cluttered shops and flea markets.

But what if you want to see 100% awesome vintage in just one shop? Then you can visit your local vintage design heaven. For me that is Decennia Design in Tilburg (NL). My boyfriend and me like to go there once a year or so, to drool over all the prettiness. Most of the time we get so overwhelmed by all the options that we end up with nothing much, a lamp or a vase... but we still love an occassional visit. Wanna drool with us? Here's some more pics...

 

Twiggy, Decennia Design's dog says hi!

Little cabinet of pretties

I was going to show you my thrifty finds from the 'Luikse Markt' in Utrecht this sunday...

... but when I got home I was inspired to do some serious hardcore crafting, and I got to work on this little cabinet I have had for a while and painted red some weeks ago.

I used scraps of paper to decorate the inside, and little screw-in hooks, ribbon and thumb tacks to hang the jewelry from.

I'm not sure it's finished yet, I am very sure that all my trinkets do not fit into it, but I'm super excited to have made this!!

Lock stock and three spools of thread...

Ladies and gentlemen, I just bought an overlocker! Or a serger, whatever you prefer...
I had used one in sewing class and liked it so much I just couldn't resist buying one. I looked around and thought they were quite expensive, especially the brands that I prefered. So I decided to look for a used one... and in just a few days, I found one!

It is an old and very rare model (Singer Ultralock 14U72A) but it looks like it has hardly been used and it has all its manuals and extra parts. The best news? It was fully threaded and the tension was already adjusted to perfect levels, so it was ready to use... A dream come true for a locking noob like me! I can't wait for my next sewing project...

Vintage brooch collection

As you might have noticed I do a lot of thrift shopping and whenever I see a cute brooch, I just can't help myself... So over the years I have gathered quite a collection of vintage and retro brooches. They are not a very popular thing at the moment, so they are quite easy to obtain... and so much fun to collect and wear!

Radio Ga Ga

Last week I thrifted this little eighties radio, still good as new in its box. I just had to have it, and not just because of its cute colour...

When I was a wee little girl, the thing I loved most in the world was watching Jem and the Holograms. I used to tape the weekly shows on VHS, then record the songs on cassette by putting my little pink radio directly in front of the TV set. I would sing along with that tape for hours. I can still sing along with some of those songs. They are in English but somehow at seven or eight years old, I understood almost every word my pink haired heroin sang.

That pink radio was exactly the same as this minty green one. It is directly from the fifties retro trend that was big in the mid eighties. Yep, there was a retro trend in a time that has been considered retro for some years now. Just have a look at Madonna's True Blue video from 1986 and you'll see what I mean ;)

My first thrift-find of the year

My first thrift-find of the year is a small red-and-black carrying case that I found at Het Goed (a second hand store in Nijmegen). It looks a little like a camera/binocular case, but to me it is a whole lot of other things:

Cameos for a magazine I recently discovered named 'Cut' (a diy fashion mag in German) and my handmade tape measure (I looove that little fox). My bamboo knitting needles are from Tiger and really not my thing, but they look much nicer than my favourite metal ones. In case you were wondering, my hexipuff count is approaching 100 at the speed of light: the last one is on my needles right now!

10 tips for successful thrift shopping

I grew up learning you don't have to be poor or cheap to go thrift shopping. What it does mean is that you are concious about what you are spending and maybe even about the environment. Or maybe it just means you love vintage!

The expensive holiday season is over now, so what better time to have some budget friendly shopping fun?

Here are 10 tips for successful thrift shopping:

1. Find out what thrift shops are near your home. You might be surprised, thrift shops are often located in unexpected spots. I have been to quite some good ones located in industrial areas.

2. Never go to a thrift shop for a quick visit, take your time to really browse the shop. There are much more individual items to see than in a general shop, so you kind of need an eye for detail.

3. A thrift shop is not a vintage shop. Vintage shops have carefully selected items, while thrift shops sell almost anything as long as it is in reasonable condition. If you like bargain hunting, go to the thrift shops and only visit the vintage shops to enjoy the eye candy and maybe buy a few really special things that you really couldn't resist.

4. Find out which flea markets are organised in your area and make sure you keep informed. You can check your local weekly newspaper or special websites like meukisleuk.nl for the Netherlands.

5. Most flea markets are organised in spring, so do some spring cleaning yourself and make room for some new treasures!

6. Do check the time a flea market begins. If you want to have first choice you'll have to arrive before it begins, but you will probably have to stand in line and it can be very crowded around the stands. Some flea markets I have visited were actually better near the end. That is when the prices drop (even further!) and you have clear view of what is offered because the crowds are thinning.

7. Check who organised the flea market. The best ones in my opinion are the annual ones organised by scouts, music groups etc. for fundraising. The fact that you're helping these organisations is a nice extra.

8. If you own a sewing machine, don't skip the clothing section. Some stuff that may look frumpy at first glance, can be changed into a favourite vintage item with a few simple changes. Just have a look at this revamped vintage dress.

9. Don't reject stuff automatically because it is not vintage. Of course it is nice to look at the cute vintage stuff that makes it all so interesting (like bags, cameras, vases, jewelry, fabric, small furniture, kitsch art etc) but finding a brand new carrybag for your rollerskates for only 50 cents is also a very good find.

10. Last but not least, you have to clean up and give some stuff away once in a while too, otherwise you will end up a hoarder... :)

Kitsch vintage art girls

On my many trips to flea markets and thrift shops I have seen heaps of terrible vintage art. Sometimes it's really hard to imagine that anyone, at any given time in the past, has ever loved it. Every once in a while though, something really cute catches my eye. I have a soft spot for kitschy portraits... especially those with a lot of character. These are my favourite ones:

The Poodle Girl
My mum just stared in disbelief when I cried out how much I loved and wanted this kitschy reproduction. Why would I want something so weird? Well, there is just something about her blonde hair, doll eyes and corny poodles that makes me swoon.

See it on my wall here.

The Scarf Girl
This small kid's print on wood has a sweet, melancholic touch to it. I don't even remember where I got it but I fell in love with it instantly.







The harlequin girl
A sixties harlequin girl with a doll face and a poodle... I didn't even care the print on wood was horribly yellowed. I needed this weird piece of kitsch art!

Tiny bit of crafty x-mas shopping

Yesterday my mother took me on a surprise mini-shoppingtrip to Kempen (Germany). In spite of the rain and the little amount of time we had, I had the best afternoon ever: Kempen has a gorgeous historical city centre and such lovely stores, it's really cute!

In our quick tour of the inner city we found a craft store, yarn store, vintage/antiques shop, 2nd hand treasure store, cute fabric & gifts shop and no time left for the second fabric store. Not to mention the lovely bakery (lebkuchen!) and the gorgeous christmas decorations everywhere!

German people are great at christmas, I tell you ;)







And, in case you were wondering where the needles from that Lana Grossa package went... I'm knitting this.

Thrift 2 Craft (or: yards of yarn)

So for my first ever blog post I decided to share a true Team Teacup experience: I did some serious thrifting for crafty purposes! After wading through yards of acrylic and fantasy yarns at a yarn-discount I found this gorgeous labelless 100% wool in pink and green. It looks handdyed, very pretty and I bet it has been lying around for 2 centuries. I'm no yarnsnob, but still a little picky about my materials.

So, at 1,95 a skein, I couldn't stop myself from almost clearing their stock. Winding it into manageable balls is another story, which, after a night of me cursing those knots and a day of him helping me, my boyfriend now knows all about. And as you can see, I'm not done yet...

Yarn discount, what's that? Do those even exist? It's probably only in a city which has no commercial cinema that can you find a yarn discount store. ('de Wolhook', Venlo) Any advice on what to knit is more than welcome, but first I must finish these socks. Almost there!! Oh, and you can find me on Ravelry (JuulVictoria) for more yarny updates.

Lucky thrift finds

It was only yesterday evening when I was looking at shirt dresses online, and pinning one on my Pinterest boards. Today my boyfriend and me went to a thrift store to actually bring some stuff for a change and guess what I found?

I will wear it with a belt, I am not much of a drawstring girl :) I love the rolled up sleeves. The red fifties/sixties bag was a great find too, and I put my bow wallet (Accessorize) in the picture to show that the pleather is an exact match.