LET'S PARTY! MY FAVORITE PARTY SUPPLY SHOPS

This week one of my favorite bloggers—Jordan from Oh Happy Day—announced some big news. Not only did she release a gorgeous new blog design, but she also debuted her brand new dangerously fabulous party supply shop. I mean, you know me, this stuff is like crack! Pretty candles, balloons, confetti, banners, containers, favors, you name it, Jordan has got it. And now my craft closet is yearning to snatch it up! Seriously, do yourself a favor and check out the goodness here. The styling of every single item is perfectly playful, including the happy striped awning masthead. I love it all and you will too.Seeing Jordan's party planning skills on display in her new shop made me think about all the other online party goods shops I have bookmarked over the years. Just in case you are a fool for festivities like I am, click through the link to find a round up of my favorite sites to seek out for silly, celebratory supplies.

BRIMFIELD RECAP

Every year my Mom and I go to a huge antiques/vintage goods show in Massachusetts called Brimfield. Usually we go as buyers, but this year we decided to mix things up a bit and act as sellers! And guess what: it was exhausting but so fun! Here are some shots of my favorite things we had on offer . . . 

Tiny plastic doll food!

Baby ironing boards, toy irons and tea sets!

And how about this 1960s-era Pillsbury Dough Boy? Perfect condition!

We had lots of great vintage board games and kids toys, including my Mom's personal favorite—a Howdy Doody hand puppet.

We also had a big rack of vintage clothes, lots of old magazines, and random decorations.

My favorite, by far though, was dishes of silver, pretty cordial glass sets and funky late 60s-era gold coffee pots.













































And how great is this little barware set we put together? That huge mixing glass with cocktail recipes, that green ice bucket!

And fondue forks! Nothing more vintage than fondue forks!

It was a great weekend! A lot of hard work, some wonderful quality time with my Mom, and a tidy little profit to boot. Not bad, all things considered.

And you know what? I did manage to steal a couple minutes to do some shopping on my own, picking up some great things for my own collections, like this mini metal globes. How awesome are they?


Like hearing about Brimfield? Check out previous posts here.

FABULOUS FIFTIES ROUNDUP

I have never gotten into Mad Men, but I can appreciate the chicness and modernity that permeated design and fashion during the 1950s. This round up aims to fall somewhere between Jackie O and Charles and Ray Eames with items inspired by a super stylish dinner party, complete with a gorgeous ride to get you there and the perfect party frock.

one | flensted three movement mobile, $69.50

two | kate spade billie heels, $345

three | vintage polka dot dress from millstreetvintage, sold!

four | jeepers peepers cat eye glasses from asos, $14.82

five | porsche speedster type 354A, $300,000+ (good luck finding one!)

six | vera vintage polka dot scarf from alessandrasvintage, sold!

seven | kate spade carroll park adelaide clutch, $298

eight | carlo hauner credenza from r & company, price upon request


Now I'm off to lay a patch with a hip cat. Later, Daddy-O!

BRIGHT AROUND THE EDGES

Alicia and Tony, of the beautiful blog and custom painted furniture/home shop Chroma Lab, know what's up. Their blog posts are overflowing with big juicy color—fun products, beautiful artwork, and much more—and when I saw this post about Marisa Swangha's photographs of the vivid pages of vintage books, I knew I had to share it. Consider these at the tippity top of my wish list.

See more of Marisa's fabulous work at her Etsy store here, see past tips from Chroma Lab here.

MUST SEE: MOONRISE KINGDOM

How was your weekend? I spent mine being both lazy (reading, dozing, hanging out with some friends) and being hyper productive (cleaning, prepping for the wedding, organizing). But my hands down favorite part of the weekend was an impromptu date with my fiancé on Friday where we went, on a whim, to see Wes Anderson's latest movie Moonrise Kingdom.




It was amazing. Seriously, the best, most heartfelt and artfully crafted movie I have seen in a long, long time. This clip of the adorable narrator, played by actor Bob Balaban, was Anderson's fabulous way of setting the scene of this vintage-inspired but altogether fanciful movie. The color palette, the costumes,  and the props (oh the props! swoon!) are just beautiful.




Here, for example, is one of my favorite moments in the movie. It wouldn't be a Wes Anderson movie without Jason Schwartzman and he totally delivered in his cameo role.

Moral of the story: go see this movie! It's a delight!

FULL PAGE SPREAD: HERMAN MILLER

If you follow modern design, you already know that Herman Miller is one of the coolest and best places to get sanctioned reproductions of design icons like Eames' molded plastic chairs. But did you know they have been doing it for over thirty years? Miller's super cool blog, Lifework, recently shared some of the advertisements the company has used over the decades. I love that they mirror the clean lines and bold shapes of their products; advertising is always at its best when the ad encapsulates the style and ethos of the products in its layout.

Check out more of the ads here.



If you are familiar with the O.I. you know that I have a few regular features (see the list in the top right column) that have fallen slightly by the wayside. My favorite, and apparently one of yours, was the 'In the Classroom' column where, as an art history graduate student, I wrote about what we were reading in class that week. Well last week I finished my last class of graduate school (hooray!!!!), but I still have three to four more years of studying for oral examinations and writing my dissertation. So I am going to revive 'In the Classroom' by talking about these new things I am studying, including giving you previews of artists I am writing about in my dissertation. 


Are you still with me? Fabulous! To connect the dots, let me tell you that my dissertation will be on the intersection between art and advertising! So while I am going to bring back 'In the Classroom' I am also going to start a new column, with today as my first post, entitled 'Full Page Spread'. It will be about other great advertisements (new and vintage) that I stumble upon and want to share. Hope you like it!

CHEERS!

In honor of yesterday's illustrious holiday—National Beer Can Appreciation Day—here is a little round up of all the goodies you need to throw a fabulous Beer Bash. And even if, like me, you are not a big beer drinker, I can promise that all of these things will work just as well for a party with hard cider or soda or whatever beverage you prefer! :)

1 ::::: Mexican Craft Beer, Cervecería Sagrada
2 ::::: Vintage European Beer Coasters (Set of Four), halfpintsalvage, $14
3 ::::: Tubtrug 3.5 Gallon Storage Bucket, Amazon, $6.99
4 ::::: Alessi Marli Bottle Opener, Amazon, $26.42
5 ::::: Lucky Lager Beer Tray, cocodot, $30
6 ::::: The Beer Book Beer Appreciation Poster
7 ::::: Stratton 22 oz. Beer Mug, Crate & Barrel, $11.95


Check back in tomorrow; we are doing a big (delicious!) giveaway!

THE WEDDING FILES: VINTAGE STAMP SOURCES

I came across this wonderful website, called Beyond the Perf, yesterday that previews all the upcoming year's stamp designs. I instantly fell in love with this new design design to celebrate the centennial of Washington DC's cherry blossoms. It was created by artist Paul Rogers and (this is the best part) it will be a forever stamp! Thank goodness, finally a forever stamp that isn't completely boring!

(N.B. The image above shows two of the stamps together . . . each individual stamp will only be half this image)

This got me thinking about the stamps that I want to use on my wedding save the dates and invitations. I always had it in my head that I wanted to do something special—partially as an homage to my grandfather who was an avid philatelist and partially because it is an easy way to make a big visual impact. I thought about designing my own stamp through a site like Stamps.com or Zazzle but I just didn't feel like they had enough personality for my liking. So this morning I went on the hunt for some reasonably priced (uncanceled) vintage stamps to use instead.

Needless to say, I had great success! There are many stores that sell some lovely sets of vintage stamps, especially if you are willing to shell out a bit more money than normal postage.

If you are looking for only enough stamps to cover 5-10 envelopes I would recommend Etsy shops like Treasure Fox, Verde Studio, or Precious Owl. But if, like me, you are looking for an economical source of stamps to cover 100+ envelopes, I would point you in the direction of larger sellers like Kenmore Stamp Company or Champion Stamp that have slightly difficult to navigate websites but good deals. If you are looking for a site that is a little easier on the eyes you can try The Paper Nickel Stamp Co.

With that said, I had by far the best luck with US Mint Sheets, which sells full stamp sheets (like all those you see above) for very reasonable prices. For example all of the sheets I purchased above have between 18 and 50 stamps on them and cost between $5 and $15 per sheet, with free shipping on orders over $50. Not bad, right? You can even search by key word (say 'love' or 'Massachusetts') to narrow down their selection.

Now the only problem is trying to keep myself from buying out the whole website . . .

p.s. There is an good article on 100 Layer Cake that walks you through the whole vintage stamp process (and, admittedly, sent me in the right direction for most of the stores I mention above). The best part about the article is that it tells you how to get your post office to hand cancel the envelopes—in order to avoid those big barcodes the scanning machines at USPS add on these days.

p.p.s. If you still want to add a little something extra, Martha Stewart Weddings points out that you can actually work with a postmaster to have your invites mailed from (and thereby canceled in) towns with appropriately amorous names. Going this route your postage will seem to be sent from towns like Bliss, NY, Loving, TX or Romance, AR. Just remember to add your return address on the back (so that any erroneous envelopes don't get sent across the country by accident)!

WEEKEND UPDATE: BRIMFIELD

My apologies for the short radio silence here at the obsessive imagist—I had a weekend full of adventures that had me going non-stop from Thursday to Monday. I spent two days hanging out with my Mom, including wandering around the annual Brimfield Antique show* (see last year's post here) and snapping up lots of goodies. Some of my favorite purchases were: letterpress type to use in crafting my wedding invites, vintage metal lockers, a full set of blue pyrex mixing bowls, and several vintage Ball jars to store my growing collections. Still, as you can see above, lots of other things (high end and low, silly and sophisticated) caught my eye. Hope you like the them, too!

Learn more about the Brimfield show here. And get excited for another weekend update post (with links to new drool-worthy shops) tomorrow!

*As some of you may know, a month ago a freak tornado touched down in northern Massachusetts, wreaking havoc and devastation in many small towns, including Brimfield. The amount of support amidst the heart-wrenching damage (countless trees simply uprooted and tossed aside, homes destroyed and several lives lost) i witnessed in Brimfield was inspirational. If you are interested in donating to the relief effort, please go here and here.