Etsy is all about handmade, but it's just as much about vintage goods. A lot of the vintage on Etsy is crap (read: shoulder-padded dresses from the '80s for $40 - but maybe I'm just biased), but some of it is just fucking awesome. Shopping vintage not only keeps stuff from going into the landfill, but it gives your personal space a touch of nostaglia and uniqueness. It also keeps alive eras from the past and shows us how cyclical style really is. (Have you seen any teenagers recently? They all seem to be wearing the neon orange/square sunglasses/tapered pants/hideously shaped blouses from my terrifying youth in the late '80s and early '90s.)
Here are a few of my favorites that I've discovered recently on Etsy.
These two awesome shortening tins are two of my newest, favoritist things. They used to hold Fluffo, a shortening that started its career in the 1950s. I don't have any idea what's going to go in them, but I have enough craft crap that they won't go empty.
The graphics are so modern that I was pleasantly surprised to discover that these tins were made mid-century. The style reminds me a little more of the '60s, but I don't know my decades well enough to settle on exactly when these were designed.
Next, here's a cool pair of silver earrings. I've been eyeballing them for months and it's been a good while since I splurged on a fun pair of earrings. (Well, okay, the last pair I bought was in May, but who's paying attention?) These flowers were were scavenged from an antique shop, their original purpose unknown. The seller cut off the flimsy stems and turned them into stunning jewelry.
If you know me at all, you know that I love to sew, but don't make nearly enough time for it. I'm a vintage-sheet GEEK. The colors and designs from the '60s and '70s are a visual joygasm for me and I have a small collection started. I LOVE those vintage color combinations: blue and brown, or burnt orange mixed with gold, avocado green, and brown.
Here's a clutch I purchased, and an example of a sheet I want real bad for my sheet collection. Vintage sheets are so soft and the designs so fun, they're perfect for any project where you need a lot of fabric. I like to use mine for yoga mat bags, or just for fun new pillowcases, and they'd be awesome for skirt-making. Most of my sheets come from GoodWill, so they're priced at under $10 (which, for how much fabric you get, is a real steal.)
When I own a house, I want this lamp. Real bad. Right now. I love lamp.
Recently, I was reading in one of my geeky DIY design mags about decorating with vintage paint-by-number paintings. If you're not familiar, paint-by-number is exactly what it sounds like. It has a distinct look to it, with simple lines and shading, and has also appeared on Apartment Therapy, a famous design blog. Naturally, I like nature scenes and spotted this gem that immediately got added to my Favorites.
The last thing on my list of vintage 'wants' is this tea towel. I love the citrus colors and theme. Something so simple can make a big impact in your kitchen (or framed on your wall).
I've been so used to shopping at thrift stores that I came to think that thrifted goods had to be shabby, flawed, and essentially someone else's unwanted thing. I've started to shift my focus more towards interesting vintage goods because, when you find some awesome thing buried under a pile of antique dust and must, it's really like finding a hidden treasure. I know it's only a thing, but I've always believed that if you surround yourself with beautiful things that make you happy just by being near them, it's not nearly as materialistic. (Bullshit? Maybe. But it relieves some of my guilt.) It's more about surrounding yourself with beauty, I guess. Maybe it's the repressed artist in me. I don't know why, but it just feels better to have thrifted nostaglia than something-I-bought-because-I-needed-one-but-wasn't-really-stoked-about-it. Vintage gets me stoked. About kitchen towels. And rusty tin shortening cans.
At any rate, I hope you've enjoyed my completely random thought for today. What kind of vintage things do you covet?
2 comments:
In my house I treasure the vintage Tonka truck of my husband's childhood, my 1960's Salton yogurt maker, my grandmother's hand mixer and food processor from the 1960's.
I recently received many vintage lacy tablecloths/bedcovers. Not sure what to do with those yet...ideas? They're not exactly "lace" but more like knotted strings? Don't know what that's called.
So cool! There are tons of awesome things do to with those - if I'm thinking of the same things, they kinda look like doilies? If I were going to use them, I would sew them over some awesome fabric and make pillow shams, curtains, a scarf, a tablecloth, hangable art... oh man, the list goes on!
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