Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanks all around.

Happy Thanksgiving out there in blog-land! I'm so thankful for so many things this year!


My sweet sweet Matteo and My darling 3 little piggies,


My family (my mum and brother shown....others not available for school photo, but I still adore them),




my killer friends...whom I never see enough of....since we're so scattered about =(
My steady jobbie,...no I don't sport this look everyday, but when I do it sure is exciting!

The fact that we are living in a major city again, wee! so much fun!

 and I'm finally starting to get out of debt!!! YAYYY!!!! Matty and I have been able to really pull our money together and get some amazing high ticket items that we really could never have bought before like our killer sofa and chair set:


chair obviously not pictured. sorry this is an old pic! the plaid by the way is on the underside now!


Anyway...I hope everyone had a wonderful American Holiday today and I'll leave you with a pic of me and my babies after dinner:

full AND sleepieeee! I'm also thankful that we can feed ourselves and that we have this place to call home. :)



All the best in luck, love, and turkey
xoxxoxox
Angela

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Let's Play CATCH UP.

Hello all bloggeteers!

So sorry for the longest delay of all time! It's been a busy couple of weeks in the land of thifting, jiving, and huslin', and I'll just have to do my  best to catch everyone up to the present and pleasant....

I hope everyone had a wonderfully spooky holiday. Unfortunately, I was on call for a good part of it (I guess that comes when you're one of the last hired at your jobbie), but we tried to make the best of it.We went to the Rocky Horror Picture show to celebrate what we could the Friday night before. I was dressed as a TRANSYLVANIAN this time around.

I love going to Rocky Horror!!! It's so much fun! I was surprised that it wasn't showing anywhere in Philly Proper (this was our first Halloween in the city), but we were lucky when I spotted a sign for it at our "local" dive theater (it's actually out in the suburbs, near the hospital I work at, the land that time seriously forgot in a little bubble of a town called "Lansdowne").

The theater ("Cinema 16:9") is locally owned and plays mostly films you can't catch at your regular ol' REGAL theater like foreign, classics, and independent wonders.It's a super cute place and the owners are nothing but fun. For example, every Tuesday they feature "Terrible Tuesday" where the worst of THE WORST movies are played for about $5. I think I saw the marquee read "TROLL 2" playing a few weeks ago. BRILLANT! Check them out if you have a minute! We had a BLAST!

Here's their website and here's their facebook.

Dia De Los Meurtos and the Glorious day of my Birth came and went as well. I'm never one for exciting birthdays and they always seem to bring me down, even when I was a kid probably because I didn't have alot of friends growing up to celebrate with. Even when I was in my early 20's and wanted to go all out I never could for some reason, or plans always fell through. Now, don't get me wrong, I had a FANTASTIC bday this year. Matty got me Benny and Joon on DVD (LOVEEEEE that movie), and a few other cute things:

these adorable little sparrow earrings from Classic Hardware Jewelry

...and the Stitch-It Kit by Jenny Hart !!!! omg I'm been trying to get this FOREVER!!!It's out of print and always really expensive when you actually find it NEW, but leave it to Matty to make a girl's stitching dreams come true! =)  I have a ton of Jenny's patterns and have been seriously trying to get into embroidery for the longest time, so now I finally have everything to get started the non conventional way!!! Her patterns are so awesome and if you're a craft person you'll totally want to check out her stuff!


As far as vintage and thrity finds for the last few weeks we've had quite a bit of luck!!!! In no particular order, here are all the little treasures we've found::

Matty found the raddest lil' antique embroidery scissors yesterday for a buck!! They were all rusty and nasty but he cleaned them up and found out that they are SILVER~!!!! What an eye he has! They were hiding in the very back of a case. I'm so lucky!

And of course Matty haddddd to score this all metal Kazoo made by the Kazoo Co. from Eden NY. Here's a little history on metal Kazoos

We also found this Mid Century Atomic looking plate at GoodWill. Not sure where it was made or where it came from, but definitely thought that it fit our style =) Anyone know anything about these plates?

2 of these handy plate or dish display stands were hiding at Philly AIDS Thrift, one of our favorite weekend spots to shop, so we snagged them up! I think they're either walnut or teak, and for 50 cents you can't go wrong!

I absolutely LOVVVVE Lustro ware!!!!! Their stuff is so fun! They're mostly known for their kitchen canisters.This little scoop was 25 cents. =)
(Please excuse our laptop!) This mid century-style vase was one of our finds at a new spot our friends recommended to us across the river in New Jersey

This place WAS HUGGGGGGE! Alot of the items were a little too pricey for me, so Village Thrift won't make it into heavy rotation, but along with the vase we also scored this

...terrific cobalt blue planter!  Not too shabby!
In our travels, 2 of these dandy little Butterprint Pyrex mini casserole dishes made it into my collection. I was bummed that they didn't have the matching lids, but I'm such a sucker for Butterprint that I could care less!

...and thank you (another random) Goodwill (and Matty) for supplying me with these brand new (to me, and possibly EVER) Fondue Forks (with teak handles). The original price tag is from Woolworth =)
This space age looking bowl (which will become my new fruit basket) is just plain awesome! It was a little hard to photograph so please excuse the microwave and kitchenwares =)
This precious little creamer HAD to come home with me the other day! I'm not sure of it's origins but it has a nice little "USA" printed on the bottom, and I believe it's earthenware. TOO CUTE!


We also finally picked up that cabinet I posted about a few weeks ago. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

It turns out that it really was this AMAZING AQUA/TURQUOISE color and not white like the pictures I saw on Craigslist made it appear. It was in a basement and in the basement light and with all the filth on it (I think they were heavy smokers) it looked like a nasty green so I was dead set on painting it and was a little bummed out about it at first.The condition was really good though considering it's age. This darn thing was really heavy and the elderly couple that sold it to us couldn't help us lift it (and we wouldn't expect them to), but Matty and I weathered the storm, and got it out of the basement, and home safe. After a little windex, chrome polish and some cleaning,Matty made this baby into a true beauty! We are still going to shelf paper it in white to really make the shelves pop (they're deeper than I thought )  but other than that it's going to stay just how it is AND I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!



In other news it's getting REALLLLY cold here in Philadelphia...


so yesturday we put up some plastic on the big window in the living room and one of the smaller windows in the kitchen. Last year at my mother's house we put some up for her and her heating bill went down about $100 a month which I'm all for. She had some plastic left over and so I snagged it up and hopfully it will help us out as well. We just, this past week, turned on the heat in our house, and I'm seriously biting my nails over it. Our heating bills were so scandalous last year while Matty was living here that until I finally moved down in May he took to living downstairs only with a space heater. These silly row homes--brick ovens in the summer and catacombs in the winter. I still have 3 more windows to cover (by the way, FROST KING makes an excellent weather proofing plastic that once it's on the window properly you CAN'T TELL AT ALL that your windows have plastic on them!! you can see right through them, and you might even forget that it's there). I also want to pick up some V seal brand weather stripping for around our front and back doors. Our house is really lop-sided and the threshholds really need help. On a sunny day you can see light in around the door where you shouldn't. =( I really love this house, but I'm realllllllly glad we don't own it.

We also rented a storage unit for all the stuff that was in our "spacous and dry" basement. A few months into living here all of our excess furniture was soon covered in 2 kinds of mold. how wonderful. We are in the process of cleaning out the basement and for the time bring we put a"damp rid" bucket down there to suck up the moisture, which seems to be helping. I seriously can't wait to move out of here!

Well I guess that's enough ranting and bragging for one blog!!! I hope everyone's doing well, and happy thirfting!
xxx
angela

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Dia De Los Muertos

Feliz Dia De Los Muertos!

So sad that there aren't many public celebrations happening here in Philly for this beauitful Mexican holiday.
Here's 2 photos from 2008's Day of the Dead celebration at Hollywood Forever Cemetary in Hollywood of Matty and I.



Sometimes I really miss California
xoxoxo
angela

Sunday, October 31, 2010

HAPPY THERE-IS-NO-OTHER-HOLIDAY HOLIDAY!!!!!

The Happiest of Halloweens to all of you out in blog-land!! Sorry I've been such a fair-weather blogger over the past 2 weeks. Things have been really busy with my real jobbie and traveling for vintage gold, but I promise I'll be updating on the magical finds we've come across and picked up and cleaned; and adventures we've had. Until then enjoy the day and watch out for ghouls and goblins (one in our neighborhood smashed our pumpkin already last night).

Here are a few of my favorite Halloween images I've seen over the last year or so. ENJOY:











xoxoxooxoxox
angela

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Glorious findings this weekend

Surprisingly, we didn't have any huge purchases this week, but we did find a few fun things that made me squeal with a little delight so of course I've decided to post them. =)

Deal of the WEEK:  this cosco stool in MINT condition (just needs a little cleaning, no rips in the seat and seriously NO rust--which equals no elbow grease for me OR Matty) and we got it for 5 bucks!!!!

please don't mind Matty phone's charger, the fixed hole in the wall, or our laundry basket....OOPS!


even the label was still in awesome shape!! Now to sell or not to sell?! We already have a yellow one in this style:



...and hence the reason why it's surrounded by all that crap! haha sorry about that.

We also scored some melted plastic popcorn decorations

And we got the vintage little cardboard pumpkin for 25 cents at the thift store a block from our house. WEEE! Matty strung them up with thread so they hang in the window. Seriously, how fun are they?!?! AND at 80 cents a piece you can't beat it! It's strange I've seen these little ghosties go for quite alot on ebay but I feel like I see them every where??...all well, glad I finally got a few, myself! I'm still looking for the Thanksgiving turkey, indians and pilgrims...<3

I'm such a sucker for these!!! so holiday user-friendly!

We also got this crazy thing....we THINK it's a wine or liquor rack

At first I was REALLY skeptical. the wood was really dry and dirty.Here's the bottom of the piece, if you can imagine the rest of it looking like this you would have passed it up too when you first saw it. It actually looked home-made to me.

but Matty stood by it and with a little help from our good friend Old English...
the wood looks super healthy!
It's defintely danish too. If you turn it over there's a label burned into the wood.

Matty's been doing a little research and he told me he found out that "DANSK" is a danish company that made/makes bar and kitchen items. That man of mine sure has a great eye! We don't have the room for a bar in our current house so right now we're using it as a plant stant.

Either way, it's growing on me. Anyone know anything else about this piece that we might have missed??

and last but not least, Matty finally got the his skinny trash can that will fit in the crook between his desk and the wall.

aww, adorable!


Anyway, next week is going to be filled with treasures! Matty and I are both off this coming weekend, and we are going to pick up the cabinet I listed a few posts ago. I CAN'T WAIT! plus, we are finally renting our storage unit for some of the overflow we've accumulated. Our basement is a little too musky for our danish dining set and my grandmother's blonde 1950's formica wood bedroom set (pics to come once we dig them out). Our second bedroom has also become a dumping ground for things we are "going to sell", and we can't have that anymore. I hope I don't need an intervention soon!!! ;)

Happy Thirfting ALL!!
xoxo
angela