It’s been in the works for months now, and I’m so excited to finally announce it now!
Etsy is hosting a Crafty Blogging panel next Thursday, August 5th from 7-9pm (ET) with a number of really fantastic bloggers, including me!
Lish, Crissy and I are flying together to go to next weekend’s BlogHer in New York City, and last time Lish and I went to New York we had a fabulous time hanging out in the Etsy office and meeting everyone there. We thought, wouldn’t it be great to kick off our this trip with Etsy again, and it all began.
The panel will be moderated by Danielle at Etsy, and the bloggers on the panel are:
Crissy Herron from Indie Biz Chicks, and one of my favorite Michigan gals!
Alison Feldmann, a writer and editor of Etsy’s blog
and Me!
We’ll be discussing self-promotion through creative blogging, and taking questions from those in attendance. Won’t be near Brooklyn? No problem, it’ll also be broadcast live in Etsy’s Virtual Labs!
If you will be near Brooklyn next Thursday, won’t you join us? There are only 200 seats available, so RSVP right away here!
I just got this tour shirt a few months ago at a clothing swap, and I absolutely love it. I wish I saw who brought it to the swap so I could have thanked them. It was in absolutely pristine shape, and looked like it had hardly ever been worn. It’s super comfortable, and I do quite a lot of lounging around the house in it and a pair of leggings. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing that tonight, after my bike ride.
A couple of months ago, this shirt spawned a heated discussion at a party…who was better – Bon Jovi or Skid Row? I was firmly on the Bon Jovi side, but totally outnumbered. Shocking, at least to me! Who wins in your mind?
Dan and I both took Friday off to get everything ready for our big party on Saturday. First we had to find a new entertainment center for our new (used) flat screen TV, so we happily spent the afternoon at Ikea!
I was in a very 70’s mood obviously, sporting my newest vintage T shirt in my collection (gift from a fellow vendor at the Royal Oak Garage Sale), my huge bell bottoms, and having just finished making my new purse!
Made from 70’s drapery fabric, and a vintage belt!
As always, we left with so much more than we planned on getting – had to get matching coffee tables too, of course!
The party was SO much fun! We had so many friends come by, and loved showing our home to a lot of them for the very first time. We ate barbecue, fresh veggies I’d picked up from the farmer’s market that morning, roasted marshmallows on the fire, and tried our best to play lawn sports in the dark backyard (even tougher, and more fun after a few drinks).
I just wanna say, I think we’ve got the best dang friends! Besides everyone coming out although we live quite a ways away from the city, Crissy helped me prep dinner, Mark and Josh brought us firewood to use as ours had gotten soaked in the storms, and we were given a bunch of really great whiskeys (we’re big whiskey connoisseurs in the Nixon house) and other super cool birthday gifts. We were so happy to have everyone over and hanging out in our home (and Kona was loving it, too)! It was the best party ever, and I didn’t even notice we’d stayed up hours after bed time.
We made chicken and waffles for the breakfast club, and I have a feeling this will be a new tradition – so good!
and oogled the crazy awesome carved wood signs for our websites that Mark made us!
Then capped off the end of the best weekend ever by watching Fraser’s fireworks in my brother’s front yard party.
After selling nearly all the housewares out of the shop at the Royal Oak Garage Sale, this week was all about loading up new items to refill the section, and making new notebooks for next weekend’s Craft Faire at Maker Faire Detroit!
Dan and I are really excited to be getting a new TV and entertainment system today (we’ve had the same one for 12 years now), and to be throwing our summer party on Saturday! Keep your fingers crossed for us that we won’t be rained out – or rather rained inside!
Adrienne Vittadini is both a wonderful designer, and a brand.
The woman, originally from Hungary, began her career designing in 1967 for Sport Tempo, then for Rosanna (owned by Sport Tempo), where she had her own line called Adrienne for SW1 until 1971. In 1976 she began working for Kimberly Knits, until she established her own company in 1979 – first called AVVC, then she changed the brand to simply “Adrienne Vittadini”.
Adrienne Vittadini is known as the “Queen of Knitwear”, and is regarded as making casual wear that is modern, simple and ageless. She used unique yarns from Italy, and created sportswear with fantastic color and texture. They are high quality, so a vintage Adrienne Vittadini piece will not only remain stylish, it will also last you decades!
In 1998, Vittadini sold her company, after branching out in many other ways – glasses, perfumes, handbags and swimwear.
Some of the Adrienne Vittadini items we have in the store right now:
Late 60’s Sweater
1980’s Sweater Skirt
Other Adrienne Vittadini items on Etsy for sale I love:
Once again, we had a great time at the Royal Oak Antique and Garage Sale! I got to meet some internet friends in real life, visit with my family and buds, talk with fellow vintage sellers, and see a bunch of my regulars from past shows!
It was an exhausting, great time. Oh yeah, and we sold a TON of stuff.
Dan kept joking that he was going to put this sign out when I wasn’t looking.
The Royal Oak Antique and Garage Sale always has a lot of vendors selling stuff you don’t want – sham wows, cheesy printed blankets, crystal nail files, Tupperware, bootleg and random DVDs (like the vendor next to us)….but also always has hidden gems that make it all worthwhile. I picked up one more piece of the vintage polka dot Pyrex I’ve been hunting down over the years (now I’m only missing one bowl!), a 1950’s Girl Scout troop leader dress, a cool skeleton key to wear as a necklace, and a 70’s T shirt – all for less than $25 dollars.
As usual, I totally forgot to take pictures with most everyone who came by to visit…but I did remember to ask Dan to shoot a video! Why yes, I do have mad skills folding T shirts (years of working in the mall when I was younger all paid off).
In the parking garage on Lafayette and 6th Street in downtown Royal Oak, this is one of my favorite weekends of the year. I’ll be packing up the entire website and setting up shop in the garage with Dan, stop on by you Michiganders! We’ll also be selling a bunch of our personal collection not on the site, like our Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and N64, about 100 different video games and a whole bunch of melmac and 80’s drinking glasses (Strawberry Shortcake, Cabbage Patch Kids, Star Trek…)
For those of you eyeing something on the site, you may want to order that special something in the next few hours before I close shop for a few days… The Royal Oak Garage Sale is a favorite of mine because we sell SO much. Come Monday when the website comes back up, your favorites might be gone!
For those of you coming, we’ll be in space F65 on the first floor of garage, and it’ll look a little something like this:
Except I’ll have way longer hair and an even bigger smile on my face.
Last night, Anna said “Lets go on an adventure!”, so we did.
(Adventure = going to Zoomance in the middle of a thunderstorm, being confined to a couple of buildings, then being kicked out as soon as the rain let up for some strange reason)