Hey Mom!

Just came across some funky old pics of my mom and I figured all you retro lovers would enjoy the mod fashions.

My mom, Cyndee, was pretty damn interesting. My dad, Nolan, was also a character. Their good parenting made me grow up to be good, their bad parenting made me grow up to be better! (Lots of bad parenting hahah) I think that whole 50s and 60s era that they grew up in...may have skewed their views of parenting.....Hey, its all good.

I was raised by two artist hippies...in Detroit....what could possibly go wrong?

WHY oh why did she not save this kick ass zebra print jacket for me? WHY mom?

She told me she only dated this guy because he drove this sweet Corvette. HAH....the funny thing is that little did she know, that she would end up marrying my dad, and her father in-law was the supervisor of the design team who designed the first Corvette...(My Grandfather). My  mom was a playa!!!
She also gave me this bit of advice: When you date someone, tell them that your birthday is the following month, so they have to buy you something. Well when her and my dad married...the truth eventually came out. So he always ended up giving her two birthday cards: One on her real birthday and a funny card and gift on her fake birthday. (good man!) Thankfully, he had a sense of humor about the whole thing.

He always had a beard. This was the shortest his hair ever was. Ever.

After a while she went back to brunette. The leopard chair (they are a set of two), we had these in our house. Seriously comfortable too! I wish I still had them, I don't know where they ended up.

They got married and moved into this cool old house (1926) in Detroit. They moved in to it in the 70s, but this was the original picture, before the other houses were built (now which most are boarded up or torn down)...but this house still remains, I paid her a visit this past summer...still hanging in there. I loved living in this house, glass door knobs, leaded glass windows....just on and on with vintage coolness!

My mom won 2nd place in the beauty pageant, and boy, was she pissed off (I think that may be why there is some staining on the winners face)

 

She did some really trippy modeling. We had a bunch of these crazy pics all over the house. Kinda scared me when I was young...like, what the hell was wrong with my mom?!

 

 

She was a bridesmaid in a wedding....I think she must have starved herself to bones!

Seriously, throw that lady a sandwich!

See what I said earlier about my dads hair. Actually all of our hair! My brother hated how he had "girl hair" as a child. The shirt I am wearing...I remember it. It was a house with a mouse family and it was my very favorite shirt in the world, I wore it almost every day!

Again lots of hair in this family. Hahaha....look at my brothers clothes and a BOWTIE! I hated wearing tights I was pretty tall and the tights were never long enough. I hated wearing tights, but I guess with how bizarrely short my dress was, I had no choice but to shove my pork chops in those red tights. (OMG, mom, I think I needed a bigger dress)


So there you have it....My dad died when I was in my 20s and my mom died when I was in my 30s...(Damn you Viceroy full flavored tobacco!)

My brother is still in the Detroit area. I would like to say he has better fashion sense now, but that would be a lie.


I really do have tons of vintage goodies to show you and tell you about, I was just feeling a bit too lazy to get them all together. Some are on Instagram @RandomGoodsVintage....(secret coupon code!!) Anyhow, I just came across these old pics and felt compelled to share them.

So despite their odd parenting style, at least they weren't boring. I hate boring. Oh the stories I could tell......

You got any good childhood stories? You know, the real crazy shit? Do share!

 

Special Finds and Special Talent

In continuation of last weeks post regarding what thrift stores do right and what they do wrong, these are just some basic irritations. I know those of you who thrift know exactly what I'm talking about and could probably add a few:

**Thrift stores that use packing tape to tape together board games, dish sets etc.
Packing tape on vintage board games...well it destroys the box. I have seen a few thrift shops that wrap packages in clear plastic wrap and then tape it up. I know it takes a small amount of effort, but totally appreciated. I will gladly pay $1 more for the plastic wrapped item. When dishes are taped together, it usually does not ruin the items, but I have to spend a pretty long time using "Goof Off" and an old credit card trying to scrape away the residue. I have also had the packing tape rip off patterns on certain items where the pattern is painted on!

**Thrift stores that use a giant wax marker crayon to mark the prices on everything. Yes, in most cases it can be simply wiped off, BUT on anything porous, it will permanently stain. (Book covers, bottoms of unglazed ceramics, wood etc)

**Thrift stores who use a giant price sticker that has an industrial adhesive. Yes, I could buy a set of six glasses from Goodwill and have to spend the next hour letting "Goof Off" soak and once again, use my old credit card to scrape off the glue residue. Goodwill is the biggest offender with their stickers!

**Salvation Army is the ONLY shop that I can say does their pricing perfectly. They use tiny stickers that peel off easily, They also use these same stickers on glassware and dishes. They don't price the set individually, they price just a few items of the set, which makes the clean up easy...just peel off the few stickers, give the dishes a quick wash and done!

Okay, enough griping.

I had a fantastic shopping week, I am trying to bump up shopping before the holidays start, my sales have already picked up tremendously, so I know I have to kick it in high gear.

I came across some more dishes and dish sets. Dish sets usually sell well before Thanksgiving, for obvious reasons, and hopefully these will find new homes, because I hate storing them (they just take up too much space!)


This is a really large set, which is hard to find, includes serving platter, serving bowl and cream and sugar set, it was a sweet discovery!

 

It was such a large set, I had to photograph it by my pool outside and stack everything up as much as possible. There are lots of plates and bowls, such retro yum yum 70s glory. My son thinks we should keep them. I know that they would just get too banged up if they were used in my family, so they are listed and hopefully off to a new home for the holidays!

SAND AND SUN DISH SET



I couldn't resist this next group of dishes, just dessert plates and bowls, but I fell in love with the retro fun pattern. There was at least twice this amount at the shop, but half of them had major chips along the edges, really bad ones, I don't even know why they had those damaged one on the shelf, needless to say, I just left those on the shelf, inspected the ones that looked intact and then put them in my basket.

These are just so much fun, right? Yep, I was definitely not leaving these behind!

RETRO CIRCLE PLATES AND BOWLS


This next gem was one of my finds when I was in Detroit shopping the delicious garage sales, I hadn't listed it yet, because I wanted to try to spread out some of my northern finds. Its finally found its way to my shop!

 

Mid century hot pot, Great for keeping your coffee, tea, cider....nice and hot, heats up to five cups (which is my coffee serving size!)

MID CENTURY HOT POT


This next one is my very favorite find in a long time. My son Evan and I were stopping by FELICITOUS coffee house, where he has his art displayed until the end of October. We pop in there here and there to see how things are selling and if any of his prints need to be restocked. So we were on our way there and- lo and behold we pass a flea market. No big deal about the flea market, because it is a junky one that we don't even bother with. However the parking lot was full of sellers, my favorite kind of sellers: the ones that just lay blankets on the concrete and pile up the junk (just like FUN LAN does), Yea the vast majority is complete junk, however if you sift around, there are treasures to be found. Evan got this super cool old rusty gigantic bolt cutter thingy. He is the master of negotiation. It was $30, and Evan asks if he will take $5 for it (haha, Evan, that was ballsy!) The guy said he would take $10....Evan wasn't even going to stop there, he then asks if he will take $8! Well, my little champ got that thing for $9! Way to go little man! He wants to hang it on his wall. Its at least 2 feet long and heavy as shit.

Then I saw it! The coolest mid century chalk ware lamp! These are not an easy find, so I was thrilled! The funniest part was (Oh how I wish I took a picture!) that on top of this lamp, this person matched up a plastic fake stained glass shade that was 4 sizes too small. It looked like a shade that she got from Bennigans before it went bankrupt! So I asked her for the price, and she told me. Then I said, "how much for just the base, I don't want the shade?" I figured she would take off a buck or two. NO, she actually reduced the price by 75%! Like she thought that the shade was the real money maker of the pair!! Haha, she probably thought it was a Tiffany! So I happily purchased the lamp and it rolled around in my trunk with that damn giant vintage tool that Evan bought, I was terrified that those two were going to go to war....and that tool would have definitely won that battle. The tool and the lamp ended up being amiable and because of that tools gentle heart, he let my lamp live.  Thank you giant tool thing. Thank you.

Here is my happy lamp that survived the long ride home! I just love her so much! Did I mention that she is really large (no offense, lamp), she measures 28.5" tall!

MID CENTURY TABLE LAMP



I had lots more to say and items to show, but I guess that I will have to save that for next week. I just saw the time and every Monday is early release day and my kids schools, so I have to head out on my several hour commute.

Meanwhile I would love to hear about your thrift shop annoyances!