Should I be flattered?

I was searching the Internet the other day, trying to find some information on this fabulous vintage platter hat I just bought, and I found a blog that had about 15 pictures from my Flickr site--all hats that I've bought and photographed, shown with a few paragraphs of text this person had written, and absolutely no credit given to me. They even included a few of the wonderful photos I have of my then 13-year-old son modeling a pillbox hat (he'd be so pleased to see the image is getting wide play).

I clicked around on this blog, and eventually it did link up to my Flickr, so if someone really cared they could find out who really owned these photos. I found it vexing, though I certainly knew the risks when I started posting on the Internet, and perhaps I should be flattered that someone liked my photos and collection enough to steal it wholesale.

And I have to humbly admit, it did make a fabulous blog posting. So taking credit where credit is due, here are just a few of the hats I have for sale. See my Flickr site for many more (many of which, alas, have already sold).

Black swirl platter hat, by Modernettes

Vintage red straw hat with feather pompom

Tulle and sequin toque hat by Luci Puci

Navy blue linen cloche with veil

Black velvet bowler hat, by Flechats

Vintage Wonderland, Day 14

Two weeks into the $10 gift certificate give-away on the Etsy Vintage Street Team blog, and it's finally my turn!

That's right, boys and girls. Hop on over there, make a post with your cyber-name and e-mail and a link to your favorite thing in my shop (bet you can't find just one!), and after 9 pm tonight (EST) there will be a drawing for one lucky person to win a $10 gift certificate to Callooh Cally.

The give-away will be going on through the rest of the month, with a different fabulous vintage shop every day, so be sure to check back!

Pictured here: Some of the fun new things I've added to my shop in the past month:

• An Olive Oyl marionette from the 1950s. This is one I'm really tortured about selling, which of course makes my kids just laugh. How could one be sentimental about a marionette? Of course, if I tried to sell my French bayonette, then they'd understand.
• A fabulous Hawaiian flower 1950s tablecloth. How retro can you go?
• A cruet and caster set in pressed glass and silver plate. At one time, every well-appointed table had one of these.
  
• Disneykins Babes in Toyland toy soldiers, by Marx. Babes in Toyland was one of the first movies I remember seeing--or rather, I remember the emotions of watching the film, with its terror and romance. These toy soldiers were released in 1961 after the film came out. Oh Disney, I don't know how to quit you.
  

Mr. John: Milliner to the Stars

There aren’t very many biopics I’d like to see made, but I just found a character who’d be perfect for one: larger than life, incredibly talented and successful, flamboyant, and yet with a touch of humor, even irony, about himself.

I’m talking (if you haven’t guessed) about Mr. John, one of the glitterati among mid-century U.S. milliners. His accomplishments, in a career spanning almost 60 years, were legendary, yet today he is largely forgotten

Mr. John--John Piocelle, or John P. John as he dubbed himself--led a sophisticated, glamorous life in Hollywood and produced some of today's most sought after vintage hats. He was also noted for work, before their split in 1948, as half of the John-Frederics duo, whose most famous hat was the straw and green velvet bonnet worn by Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. Often using pseudonyms, Mr. John designed Garbo’s hat in Mata Hari, Dietrich’s cloche in Shanghai Express, and Monroe’s headdress in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Outside of films, Mr. John designed hats for everyone from Eleanor Roosevelt to Gypsy Rose Lee, from Jaqueline Onassis to Wallace Simpson. Even my mother owned a Mr. John hat, one with a bobbing flower similar to the one in my Etsy shop (pictured above), which she assures me was considered quite fashionable. His hats often showed his sense of humor—a bannana hat with a zipper, a hat for an elephant at the Republican National Convention, an Eiffel tower hat, an airplane hat.

This sounds like enough for a great movie, but his personal life was equally flamboyant. His Central Park West apartment had a white and gold décor he described as “Louis Unrecognisable” and had free-roaming macaws, cockatoos, and parrots. Once he visited a friend wearing a floor-length gold cape and with a bird on his shoulder.

Despite all this flash and glamour, Mr. John was known primarily for his flattering, wearable hats. Even with the bobbing flower, my mother said she always felt great in her Mr. John.

Now for casting that biopic: I'm thinking maybe Robert Downey Jr?

--

Much of this information came from a fascinating article by Drake Stutesman.

Catching Up

It has been so long since I blogged, a friend asked my husband if I was sick. A few other friends (who I didn't realize were regular readers) told me they missed me! Aw, so sweet. But blogging is like going to the gym--once you stop, it is so hard to get going again.

And I need to do that too--but one hurdle at a time.

My life has been pretty crazy lately (whose isn't?). But so as not to blow all my blog posts in one sitting, I'll just mention one project I've been working on: getting some jewelry together for Steam Powered, the California steampunk convention going on now in Sunnyvale. I'm not there, but my jewelry is! Some wonderful people from the Etsy Steam Team (a group of Etsy steampunk artists who work together) have several vendor tables where they're showing jewelry from team members who couldn't make it there themselves. This is my first art show, and I'm not even there! But I've seen a few pictures and know that they look better in costume than I would!

It was fun to get together a group of pieces of one theme, and while I was doing this I listed very little in the way of new steampunk pieces in my Etsy store. But who knows? Some of them may return to me and be available soon.

Last Sale Day--Whew!

My week has been too busy--listing lots of new vintage items in my Etsy shop in honor of the vintage sale that's been going on all week. OK, today is the last day of the sale, and I've sold almost ten things through it so I'm happy. But I haven't blogged, haven't cleaned house, and haven't done much jewelry making all week.

So here's to the end of the sale! It goes till midnight tonight. The above treasury gives you a taste of what's available. To the right is something new I listed, a Fire King cottage cheese bowl. To see what else there is, go to Etsy and search for evstsale.

Garage sales: August '08

The middle of the country has many drawbacks, including no oceans and teeny mountains (yes, the Ozarks are mountains). But one thing we have in abundance is great summer garage sales. Hot, humid, crowded, and full of good junk at great prices.

Last weekend I hit a bonanza with two older women (now defined as anyone older than me) who were closing down their antique shop. I practiced great restraint and left with three bags full of goodies, including six vintage hats that I'll be listing over the next several weeks in my Etsy shop. The picture above shows some of my other finds, including a Red Wing Lexington pitcher, Red Wing planter, Hull swan planter, hand-painted Japan pitcher, tin of buttons, and a couple of trays.

These were great, but what really got me excited was the hats. Once I started looking at them, one of the woman started hauling them out of the house. And kept hauling--more than 50 in all. Unfortunately, many were not in great shape, but I picked out a number of the best. Pictured to the right: a rabbit fur felt number from Saks Fifth Avenue, probably late 1950s to 1960s. So soft, and it matches my eyes (but sadly not my head size).

What's going on

I've been in a neglect-the-blog mode again, so here's my quick remedy: five things that happened lately (hope I don't have to pad the list):

1. I got a request from a writer to include a photo of my vintage California Pottery bells in an upcoming issue of an Israeli home styling magazine.
2. I won a pound of coffee from Vintage Indie for a photo I took of a coffee cup (one of my lovely Russel Wright chartreuse mugs, sitting on a napkin that I intend to list in my shop if I can ever find where I put the other three of them).
3. I became a contributing writer to the Etsy Vintage Street Team blog (my first interview is in the works). Just what I need, right? Another blog?
   
4. I found a photo of one of my necklaces on Gothic News, a website that is too cool for me.
5. I had my 6-month Etsy anniversary. The stats: 76 sales, 156 items currently listed in my shop, 1119 hearts, 2965 forum posts, almost 8000 Flickr views, and 2263 blog visitors. (There's something wrong with these figures--I talk way more than I sell.)

Do I need a new model?

Things started out amicably enough. He was right there, usually in front of the TV or playing a video game in the basement, and always willing to help me out. He seemed to instinctively know the right way to wear my vintage hats--like a young Barbara Stanwyck, perhaps, or even Grace Kelly. That kind of elegance, that poise, cannot be taught.

Lately, however, I've been wondering whether I'm wrong to confine myself to just one model. I've had this happen before, you nurture their talent, teach them everything you know, and then one day New York calls, or Milan, and they're gone on the next plane without a glance back. To a life so exciting, even our new Halo 3 game cannot compete.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy with his work, but there's something I can't quite put my finger on. Some glint in his eye, a distance perhaps, that tells me he's thinking more about his next career move than my needs. Take these photos from our recent photo shoot--he starts out happy enough, but by the end... well, you be the judge.

Branching Out: The Pear Project

Beginning this week, I'm pleased to say that, in addition to my Etsy shop, some of my jewelry will also be available on the Pear Project, a website that carries a variety of goods made by artisans from all over.

Brooke Fuller, founder of the Pear Project, runs the business from her studio in North Carolina. In addition to being a savvy marketer, Brooke is a photographer, jewelry maker, and big believer in using recycled items (her bracelets made from repurposed tin are a great example).

"Artisan goods for everyday life" is the Pear Project's tagline. "A purse can come from a department store, or you can buy something unique that was made in a small quantity," Brooke explains. "Not only do you have a gorgeous bag, but you are also supporting an independent artist or craftsperson who is making a career out of what they love."

The shop carries bags and purses, household goods, jewelry, fine art prints, and paper goods "with a modern twist and utilitarian appeal, hand picked from a variety of submissions," she says. This is a small venue (one of its advantages), but it's expanding and constantly adding new artists and items. Here are a few of the other goodies you'll find there. (Guess which one's mine.)

Ways I can waste time

Like most other people (except those annoying overachievers), I have many, many ways of wasting time. One of them is curating treasuries, a collection of gorgeous and gorgeously photographed products available on Etsy. It's like my own mini art gallery, and I go back to look at it again and again, so pleased am I with the results. This is my latest one (available here if you want to go leave a comment).

Here, in no particular order, are another five of my favorite ways to waste time (for the complete list, you'll have to wait for my book...if I ever write it):

1. Get another cup of coffee, or heat up the one I already have.
2. Spend some time in the Etc. section of the Etsy forums, reading about someone's marital woes or participating in discussions on weighty topics (current threads--and I'm not saying whether I contributed to them!--include snorks vs. smurfs, cutest dog, dumpster divers, disgusting but true medical conditions, and anus waxing).
3. Watch the fights at the bird feeder.
4. Check the view counter to see how many people have visited my Etsy shop in the past five minutes.
5. Clean the house.

OK, that last one was a joke (my husband reads my blog). That's the kind of thing only an annoying overachiever would do.

Steam Team takes off

One of the fun ways of promoting your products on Etsy is joining a street team--a group of people with common interests, whether it's a locality, a medium, or a favorite cause. Some time ago I joined the Etsy Vintage Street Team, which has been a great way of meeting and learning from other vintage sellers. I recently joined another team, the new Steam Team, which includes artists and artisans in the steampunk genre. Some are like me, with only a portion of their stores devoted to items that could be considered steampunk, whereas others are thoroughly involved in both the art and the lifestyle.

And it's been fascinating, as you can see from the above treasury curated by ClockworkCrow--such a variety of approaches. There's gorgeous jewelry but also interesting artifacts and wild fashion. Keep an eye on their new blog for ongoing interviews and highlights from Etsy's steampunk community (plus, if you scroll down, some more of my cool postcards).

Bird fetish

"Do you have birds?" the woman asked me. I don't, but I was purchasing six vintage bird postcards from her, so I could see why she'd ask. In fairness, I also bought a polar bear, a beach, and a couple of wild futuristic air ships, but for some reason the birds were what attracted me most (many were set in Florida--maybe I just need a vacation).

These are a few of my favorites. The top one, a barn swallow, is from 1910 and was illustrated by the popular and prolific Ellen Nash. The two that follow are colorful linen postcards published by Curteich in 1948 (bird lady) and 1940 (flamingos).

Makes me want to get my binoculars and a ticket south.

Bloggers block (and other ramblings)

I think I'm getting worse at blogging instead of better. I started out with ideas and energy--what happened? Now I look at my last post and realize it's been a few days and think, aagh! What crap can I put up quickly?

In that vein: Here's a couple of necklaces I recently listed in my Etsy shop. More steampunk, yes, and fun to do, although I find myself in my basement sawing the pointy pieces off old clock parts, wondering if there's an easier way and also wondering why my children are so spoiled (or busy) that they turned down my offer to pay them to help (maybe this summer).

Recently someone on Etsy had a hilarious treasury (collection of artwork) saying that steampunk had jumped the shark, but given that most of the people you talk to are still unclear what it is, if they've even heard of it at all, I think we have a bit of time left before this goes the way of 70s shoulderpads. I figure I live in the Midwest, where people still wear Crocs. It takes a long time for styles to get here, even longer for them to go out of fashion.

Besides, as far as I can tell, it's alive and well. Witness the recent article in the NY Times, and now Etsy has a steampunk street team--a group of people who get together to promote a particular style or product. It's just now starting to get under way, but already has a blog and plans for a contest. (I'll have more on this later.) The more I see and read, the more fascinating the style is.

If nothing else, it gives me something to blog about.

Retro, kitsch, and cute: what's not to love?

The 1950s contributed so much to our culture, from the Big Bopper to poodle skirts. Much of it was something your mother might have called "tacky," "tasteless," or "junk."

The rest of us know better. The photos above (a picture of a Treasury, or curated selection of items, I put together on Etsy) show a few of my favorite figural planters from that era. Lambs were popular, as were swans and other animals (often hauling a wagon or something, where the plant went). Many seemed to have been designed as baby presents (which makes sense, during the height of the Baby Boom). Yesterday at a garage sale, I found a planter in the shape of a gigantic blue bow, a perfect gift for little Jimmie or Bobbie.

If you want to see more examples, visit the Vintage Figural Planters collection on Flickr (my own little pink boy is a recent addition). Cute, kitsch, and retro. Dig it.

Steampunk Style: Is WalMart Next?

Is steampunk going mainstream? A recent piece in the New York Times calls it "that rarity, a phenomenon with the potential to capture a wider audience, offering a genteel and disciplined alternative to both the slack look of hip-hop and the menacing spirit of goth."

The steampunk style, a neo-Victorian amalgam of a modern cyberpunk and the past world of Jules Verne--dirigibles and brass, high hats and lace--is stepping out of the shadows of places like The Steampunk Workshop and Etsy and into bricks and mortar stores like Gypsy Moon and the Bombay Company.

So if Target is the next thing to go steampunk, is that a bad thing? Jordan, one of the citizen reporters on the website NowPublic, poses this question in a recent article and has so far received a number of responses from his readers, most along the lines of "once these types of things get to the public eye, they are just over-produced and cheapened." (Jordan's article includes a slideshow of a number of steampunk designs, including one of my necklaces.)

Like everything else, if there's an interest in it and a way to make a buck, you can be certain that the retail giants will follow. So keep your eyes peeled--and tell Oprah I'm ready for my close-up.

Will work for trash

I have a new plan for stocking my vintage shop on Etsy: I'll help you clean out your mom's house when she moves into that nursing home, and all I ask for in return is a trunk of junk.

Last weekend I did that for a friend of mine whose mother recently moved into an assisted living apartment. They'd already had the estate sale and were sending some items to a consignment shop (plus her mom was there, and I didn't want to look too much like a vulture), so I didn't get the best of the best. But there was plenty left in the Good Will box for me to pick through.

This was a woman who hadn't moved in sixty years, who liked antiques, and who had a bit of a shopping habit. For a couple of hours, I helped bag up clothes to give away (including some suits that had been in the attic for 40 years and crumbled to the touch), and I hauled some things to the garage. In return, I came away with milk glass, pressed glass, drinking glasses with Andrew Jackson on them (who wouldn't want those?), junk jewelry, old silver plate utensils, a few squashed hats, and another bag I haven't really looked through yet.

So call me. I'll even bring my own trash bags.

Moesewco's That Girl Hat

Can't you just picture Marlo Thomas wearing this with a little mini-dress and colored stockings? Or maybe Mary Tyler Moore, throwing it up into the air?

Emily of Moesewco has done it again. Her lovely little mod cloche, in a bright cherry red, features one of my funkiest little pins--a mixture of vintage buttons in chocolate brown, pink swirl, and red bakelite ball.

Emily's hats are entirely hand made--blocked using vintage wooden hat blocks and stitched by hand. So it's a good match for my vintage buttons, which hail from an era before mass production. I love seeing how artisans can take the styles and processes of the past and update them for today.

Seller's remorse (part 2)

Last night a nice son bought a pin from my shop for a mother's day present, and I'm thrilled that it will end up with someone's mom, and at the same time sorry that I sold it.

This pin belonged to my grandmother, Alice, a woman who was less than five feet tall but still imposing. She was a schoolteacher until they made her quit when she got married. She was a good cook and a perfectionist, which meant that cakes went down the toilet if they weren't perfect. (And why the toilet? A throwback to the days on the farm when she had an outhouse?)

I have vivid memories of her big house in Kansas City, where she always had one jar of baby marshmallows and one jar of chocolate chips; she had celluloid reindeer on her mantle every Christmas; there was an attic with holes in the floor over toward one edge, but trunks of old clothes that we were allowed to play with; and she always made the lightest home-baked crescent rolls and a green Jell-O mold with cottage cheese that my sister loved, but not me.

One of my last memories of her, and one of the most vivid, is driving with her into downtown Kansas City at about 40 miles an hour in the left two lanes of the highway. It was the last time I ever let her drive when we were together, though she kept her car (an old Dodge Dart) for a number of years, unwilling to admit she shouldn't use it. It was at least three or four years after that before she was finally diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

I have other pieces of her jewelry, but know I'll miss this brooch and memories of it pinned to her precise little suits. I'm starting a collection of her china though (Russel Wright in chartreuse) and I have her roll recipe, which I haven't made in years. Maybe I'll try it out again for mother's day.

Pricing vintage

I've been buying and inheriting and coveting vintage items my whole life, but it's only over the past year that I've had to come up fair prices at which to sell them.

It started with my Barbies on e-bay--finding websites online that specialize in Barbies so I could look at their little butts and hairstyles and figure out what the model was and what year they were made. Then doing searches on e-bay and elsewhere on the Internet to get some idea of what they were going for, and how much it mattered if someone had gnawed off their fingers or drawn on a bra with red pen.

[Side note: My teenage son was helping me list these, and one of my fondest memories is of him bending down to take a close-up photograph of a Barbie butt. If only he hadn't had the camera, it would have made a priceless picture!]

Now for the past three months I've been selling vintage items on Etsy (in addition to my jewelry), and this has proved to be even more of a challenge, since I'm not a specialist and for each new item I need to find new resources. One of the first items I listed was a beautiful green dish with hydrangeas, made by Hutschenreuther Selb, Bavaria. First I had to figure out that the signature on the back said Selb, not Gelb (amazing how many e-bay sellers get this wrong). Finally after several hours of searching, I actually found a website (in German) that showed the manufacturer's marks and dates so I could tell that it was made before 1920.

Once I have a concept of the year and maker, then I need to do a search of e-bay, Etsy, and other online sellers to get an appropriate price. Seldom have I found the exact item, so a lot of it is guesswork. Fortunately, there's a great vintage community at Etsy, and they are a wonderful resource for relative newbies like me.

I can see why people end up specializing. Each new item--costume jewelry, a random leather purse, postcards, buttons--I've had to go through a similar process, and always I'm left wondering. Is this one of those Lisner necklaces that's worth $35 or $65 or $125?

You tell me.

My new necklace

I just finished a steampunk necklace on commission, and now I'm going to keep it. Sorry, Charmaine, hate to break it to you this way, but I like it too much to give it up (let's see if she can track me down).

Charmaine, aka High Desert Diva, sent me some of her grandmother's Victorian buttons, including a beautiful large black mourning button with crepe and beads. She also sent a box full of clock parts, and using some of those and some of my own, I put together a design for her to approve. The finished piece, above, is pretty much the same, with extra reinforcement in the back and a black leather cord.

It's going to look so good on me.