The Five Dollar Thrift Challenge

Halogen shirt and sweater

Handmade skirt

BCBG heels

(entire outfit thrifted)

I didn't start with a $5 thrift challenge in mind, it ended up being these two garments that weren't meant to go together, kept calling to me.  Some thrift shops here in Northern California offer a dizzying array of discounts, color coded with certain exceptions, all very confusing. At the final ring up I don't ask questions, the total is usually much less than what I have anticipated.

The sweater ended up needing a couple of small fixes.  I repaired a french knot that had come undone and a flower edge that had frayed.  The skirt was handmade, it appeared to be someone's quick sewing job for perhaps a fashion design class.  

I first tried to fix the pink lace border by ripping out the stitches of the portion that was basted on the wrong side of the skirt.  When I tried to sew the lace back on, it was a disaster.  Back to ripping seams, I decided to finish off the skirt with a scrap piece of material to give it more of a finished look.  

I bumped into a new-to-me blogger in my internet travels.  Her interests align directly with mine - thrift fashion revitalized - refashionista.net.  This image is from one of her unsuccessful refashionings.

Linking with one of my favorite groups notdeadyetstyle.blogspot.com, Vising Out on a Monday.

I think I qualify to linkup for spygirl-amb.blogspot.com for her weekly fashion prompt of Rust with that color flower in my skirt.

Just got my hair did and boy did I miss out - I should have gone Opal!  It is kind of My-Little-Ponyesque.

It took some searching but I finally found another blog challenge group write31days.com for a writing challenge every October, every day.  Blog challenges are good for at least two reasons - the topics stretch your imagination and you discover new-to-you bloggers.  

With October being my favorite month of the year, it will be a snap posting each day.  There are numerous fashion and other linkups that I will include, perhaps a Pattern of the Day or a babydoll mugshot.  

1964 Horsman Doll

My new position with the grand State of California focuses on preservation of the Sacramento Delta.  During the 31 Days I will be posting some waterway images. 

Stay tuned for tons of fun!

MinkAndPearls and the Cat's Meow

I had a couple of epiphanies the other day, I discovered that I had enough vintage clothing inventory (12 pieces in all) to begin selling in my Etsy shop MinkAndPearls.  The badge is now displayed at the top of my sidebar. 

  

The criteria is for the clothing to be considered vintage it has to be 20 years or older.  That is an easy one, most of the classic pieces I have are 20 years older or more. 

My other epiphany is that I want to focus on the things that truly make me happy and make sense for my future.  I have decided to stop taking college courses.  At least not taking the heavy duty ones like math, science, stats.  I may consider a fun course now and then but for now, I am going to see how successful I can be as a vintage clothing reseller.  I do have an A.S. in Business - might as well put it to use!  This would be great if this is the type of business that I could run after I retire and am traveling. 

Thrifting produced a 70s/80s ceramic jaguar with green sparkly eyes for $4.  I am going to enjoy him for now, knowing I can always resell him for a tidy profit.

These past few months I have been following thrift resellers.  They post where they are listing their items and how much profit they make on each item.  For a number of years I have been following bloggers that resale on the fair circuit.  I have sold through EBay before but only used college textbooks and other miscellany.

Let's throw in a Pattern of the Day, one of the earliest that I have collected from 1954.  

Since I don't have an indoor photography setup, I began by staging the clothing items for sale for an early morning photo shoot when the lighting is the best. I may try my hand at selling altered/embellished garments under the craft section. At the very least maybe I can make a few dollars towards Christmas gifts or future vacations.  

Other clothing scored in the weekend thrifting at hospice/food banks were white Pendleton shorts (NWT $38, thrifted $5), a New Identity colorful jacket ($5).  I am going to wear the two together along with a colorful pink blouse to a educational science field trip at this month's end. 

This Sag Harbor Hawaiian print maxi, (and not shown) two other articles of clothing, five Christmas CDs and a 1970s book on entertaining were all essentially free when I purchased the $15 cute blue and green jewelry set. 

The necklace now adorns the lamp shade in my bedroom until I find the inspiration to do a fashion shoot with that Hawaiian maxi. 

Vintage resellers - what has been your experience with Etsy?

Hilo Hattie and National Sewing Month

Visible-monday-157-welcome-back from summer hiatus.  My offering this month is a concession to casual Friday where I am wearing a Hilo Hattie longboard print lounging with big cat public art in downtown Sacramento.  

September is National Sewing Month.  Here is the 1940s version of upcycling from the 1945 The Complete Book of Sewing.

My log cabin quilt squares are nearly complete (the-trailer-quilt-log-cabin-style).  Thrift shopping on the North Coast resulted in a $1 bag of floral fabric remnants, so my quilt in progress took a turn to more color.  I also like to incorporate applique in my quilts.

Image via 1961 BHG Sewing Book

My fashion analysis class assignment this week is to identify a movie that has had a big impact on the fashion industry.  Two movies that keep coming up are Breakfast at Tiffanys and Flashdance.  One movie I believe has made an impact was Pretty Woman.  Whenever I see a taupe dress with cream colored polka dots, I think of Julia Roberts.  

Pattern of the Day is a 1954 Vogue Vintage throwback.

Now we can all be a Princess!  LA Splash Cosmetics has created a line named after the Disney princesses distractify.com/disney-lipsticks

Just for kicks and giggles, here is a tune for my fellow thrifters.  
(Language warning for sensitive souls)

The interview suit and rogue blogging

Having survived my first week at my new job and my fashion analysis class assignment being to post an "interview suit" image, I have one of my thrift shop finds as a go-to classic - an Anne Klein skirt suit.  

I finally found the bulk of my scanned-in pattern images.  I lost the folder on my backup drive, having saved the folder within another folder of pictures.  Has that ever happened to you?  

Here would be an interview suit ala 1967 Pattern of the Day.

On the blogging front, it seems it is harder to make money as a full-time blogger.  I ran across an article in The Altantic Can mommy-bloggers still make money?  I enjoy blogging and would find it hard to bend to a corporate sponsor's demands.  My niche would be hard to categorize - I don't sell anything or link to any specific organizations.  Guess you could call me a rogue blogger.  *grins*

Quilt posts will be updated soon having this Labor Day weekend time to finish up a couple of projects.