As I mentioned in my last post, Bee and I headed to Olds for an All-Alberta Vintage Blogger Meet-up in Olds to hit up their antique show with Krista Dee and Cee, both from Calgary.

To sum it up, it was a hoot! My sides still ache from all the laughing we did.

The Olds show was way smaller but (in my opinion) much better than the Edmonton one. More variety (but no clothes) and better prices. I picked up this mint (my favourite colour) radio from the 1950s. It still works and only gets AM, plus it will go great in our new kitchen (somewhere) so we can rock out to CKUA.

RCA Nipper XI radio, $35

Moving sidenote: we pick up our keys on Tuesday! We plan to go in, take a second look, take some photos and also take measurements so we can do a bit of a floor plan before moving day next Saturday!

I (well, Cee pointed them out to me) also found these two knitting booklets from $5. The Monarch (orange) is copyrighted 1946, but the Beehive (B&W) has no date, but judging by the hair I'd date it from around the same time.

Knitting booklets are not only great resources for knitting, but for hair inspiration too!

I love, love, love this sweater.

We met a very sweet older fellow named Fred - nicknamed by us as Sing It Again Fred  - from Sylvan Lake who told us all about the steam trains he has sitting on his acreage. Do I smell another road trip in the future?

The antique show was held at the Olds Legion, which had a display case of mannequins dressed up in military uniforms. Very awesome.

I love their cute but sensible shoes.

Then, as we were about to leave to meet my sister for lunch, we noticed there was a tank outside. So, of course we clamoured on it - but not me or Cee, we were too busy capturing the moment. I don't have any group photos of us sadly, but I know the other girls do!

I'm pretty sure these two were separated at birth. Their similarities were bordering on scary.

I think our foursome overwhelmed the show a little bit. At one point, Krista had about 5 women crowded around her as she showed off her seam tattoos and more than one vendor wanted to take our photo. Then, when we were leaving the restaurant the Progressive-Conservative candidate for Olds asked if he could be in a photo with us. I declined, since as a journalist I want to remain completely neutral when it comes to politics. I guess he wanted the whole package or none at all because he didn't take a photo with the rest of the girls either.

At lunch Mac gave me a Titanic book! I've always been fascinated with Titanic ever since I was a little girl; I can't believe she remembered. She's so sweet and smart too - we celebrated her earning yet another scholarship for school over lunch.



I bought this 1960s house dress from Cee that I had been eyeing on her Etsy page (and there were lots others I wanted to take home but I was trying to be sensible) and then she gave me a few more clothes.





I have some very sweet friends. She also gave me a tea set for a housewarming present, but it's still in the car as I am just going to drop it off at the El Mirador on Tuesday.

Phew - I think that's all! Now I'm off to pack up some more trinkets and maybe some clothes. I can't believe next Saturday is moving day. Expect some radio silence from me for a little while, but when we're all settled I'll give you a tour.

XO Laurie

Oh man, I feel like I haven't blogged or even read blogs in forever. I jumped head first into my new job, and with a three-hour a day commute I have little time left to do "fun stuff". I don't mind at all - I love, love LOVE my new job - but I can't wait to move so I have more me time.

Last weekend before all the craziness happened I had a lovely, full-on vintage day in Edmonton with  Bee and Joanna (who is about to embark on a journey to Turkey!) at an antique show.
I only bought a few things, but I was very pleased and thrifty with my purchases. First up, a housewarming present to myself: A trio of canisters for only $12!


There was also a matching set of yellow ones too. They're probably from the 70s (?), but I dig lilies and it was the first time I found canisters, so I didn't want to pass them up!

Then we found a huge basket full of $2 earrings. We are not the kind of girls who just skim off the top, so we nicely asked the vendor if we could dump out the basket and dig through. these are the gems I found.

THEN, the creme de la creme is when Bee spied this sweater clip on the $1. Jo had found a very similar $6 clip a few tables before and Bee already has two, so I went home the victor in that one (Thanks girls!).

$1!

Later that night, Bee and I went to the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra's 50s night. What a blast!


A lot of people thought we were in costume and we were getting comments the whole day. I think when people just see one vintage girl they just think it's a little odd, but our trio were getting stares and comments the whole day (sadly, no great deals).

Now this weekend it will be a bit of a repeat. Tonight Bee and I are having a sleepover and tomorrow morning we're heading out bright and early to Olds for an All-Albertan Vintage Blogger Meet-up  (the AAVBM, if you will) with Krista Dee and Rueby Retro, who are from Calgary. There's an antique show in Olds that we'll be hitting up and I think I speak for all of us when I say Olds won't know what hit 'em! I feel like maybe I should have gotten my sister Mac (who goes to school in Olds, FYI) to put some warning posters up for us.

Now, what on EARTH am I going to wear?

xoxo Laurie

Happy Thursday readers! I have been a little uninspired on the blogging front lately because I've been wrapped up in job transition stuff. Tuesday (March 13) is my last day and so I've been busy wrapping up loose ends, saying goodbye to folks I've gotten to know and figuring out what in my office is mine (actually, it's quite a lot!)

I've also been thinking about moving - G and I spent Sunday just walking around Edmonton in our favourite neighbourhoods looking for vacancies that weren't posted online and this afternoon we are going to view a few apartments as well. Since I have five days off in between ending my old job and starting my new one, we'll have sometime then to get housing settled and maybe even start packing!

My main goal for packing will be trying to determine what we really want to take with us. We have at least one tote in the basement full of things we weren't using for the last 15 months, so I will start from that. We also will probably look to upgrade our TV and get rid of a single bed that we have but don't really have a use or need for. Everything is in good condition so we'll probably look at giving it to the ReStore (which also picks up stuff - Score if you have a teensy car like me).

Something I'm also been thinking about a lot is MONEY and specifically budgeting. We had a bit of a budget in this place but it kind of went off the rails (I blame the electricity company and their ridiculous fee hike that sent our power bill through the roof) so what better time to get back on track when we're moving to a new home in a new city with a new salary?

Credit

Betty Bee had a great blog the other day about budgeting the old-fashioned way which also gave me a bit of a kick in the butt. It's one thing to know that you should be budgeting, but she broke down the percentages for each area (shelter, food, savings etc) that you should be budgeting for, via the 1930s book "The Book of Hints and Wrinkles". I'm not going to re-iterate her post, you really should go and read it if you haven't. Another vintage book on spending that I have come across is Guiding Family Spending, which can be read for free on Google Books, if you are interested.

Credit

What I am going to rave about however is Mint.com. I know Mint has been around for a while but I stumbled upon it 'eavesdropping' on Twitter last week (I do that a lot). If you've never heard of it either, basically Mint logs into your banking information to track and categorize your spending and it creates budgets from your amounts.

Instead of having to track spending in a little black book, Mint does it all for you online with all your accounts that you add. So if you have a chequings, savings and credit card like me, it will track spending from all of them. It also reminds you when you have a payment coming and will alert you when you're close to going over budget. I love it!  I think you can also add in another account from your spouse, but we haven't done that yet, so I'm just personally tracking my spending.

Did I mention that's it free?!



So with the helpful information from Betty Bee's post, I created my new budget and have already set the parameters on Mint. At first I was a little worried but then I remember that it was just my spending I was tracking - G obviously contributes half of everything as well but I hadn't added that into my budget. I'm very excited to get back into an organized mindset for spending.

I must confess that I spent a wee bit of money today at my favourite store Imagine Vintage, but I just had to! I'm leaving soon and I won't be able to pop in whenever I feel like it. :( That said, I am sure Bee and I will road trip to Camrose once in a while to go shopping a visit Peggy.

 I love this floral raw silk housedress. I'm not a huge fan of buttons running all the way done, but in this it works!



I also fell in love with this 60s dress - it so springy! It fit like a dream too, which is always comforting in a back-zip dress.

I also got this embroidered skirt. I'm not sure what year it is (there is a care label inside though) but it was made in India. I love embroidered skirts for summer.

I also bought these darling red gloves to wear once it warms up outside - they're a little thin to be wearing quite yet. Bee gave me a white trench coat so I think bright red gloves will go great.



I also got two 50s necklaces. Surprise, they're teal!



Peggy also gave me these two Better Home and Gardens from 1957 and 1946 as a going-away present. She is too sweet! They are in such great condition and I can't wait to scan and share them with you.

Issue from 1957 on the left, 1946 on the right.

From 1957. Do I even need to say how badly I want a washer that colour?

From 1947  - I love the little vanity.

Then after visiting Imagine I stopped by Twig. Nothing really caught my eye except for the slips (I sear, it's the only place in Camrose I've been able to find them) and this necklace, which doubles as a watch and a magnifying glass. The only thing is that once I got home I found that I couldn't change the time on it :/ so I am going to find out if I'm even supposed to be able to or not. It ticks, so I don't see why it would be designed not to.




A few days ago I happened to be in the mall and I swung by Ardenes to pick up some new sunglasses. I love getting sunglasses there because they are cheap yet sturdy knock-offs (I am really good at breaking and losing sunglasses, so I never buy the real things). I remember lusting after the Prada Irregular Frame sunglasses after seeing a gorgeous back-page ad in a magazine. Of course, the Prada ones are probably a bajillion dollars, where these were 2 for $15.

Prada ones

I also got these tortoise shell sunglasses, which are pretty similar to the Michael Kor sunnies Vicki shows off here.


Oh, I almost forgot - I bought a snood from Arthelia's Attic on Etsy and I love it!



So long story short, i'm off to see if there is any money left in the bank.

XO Laurie