I've never been one for horses, which is funny because my mom used to compete when she was younger! But, after stumbling upon this book, I have a new soft spot! - or it might just be the pretty pastel watercolors, and the adorable cover.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Today's Inspiration: A Horse Book
Monday, December 15, 2008
The Letterpress Series
Saturday I kidnapped Jeff and we invaded The Distillery for the evening!! (this is also the place where I shot some of my first etsy photos!) I work with a really sweet girl who happens to live in the most amazing space and she was so kind enough to let us spend the evening shuffling things around and setting up lights in all the little nooks of her loft.
My original idea for the clothing for this series ended up taking a totally different turn - I have this amazing black dress I wanted to use and was thinking I'd pair it with pretty cream dresses and fur collars - but then I found the dress with the pockets and stripes and instead I was inspired by the the bright colors of a carnival .. and also the small town ladies and children who get dressed up to go to a carnival!
I had plans to sell everything, but as soon as I put those dresses on I couldn't part with them! So, as of right now I'm being a greedy little thing and holding onto them - BUT, there are a few other pieces I had picked out that we didn't get to photograph that will be going onto etsy within the week (or maybe weekend!) so be sure to check there for them! (including a really adorable purple wiggle dress, and a great red pseudo-tuxedo/ascot style blouse)
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Mass Market - today!
Yesterday Alice and Katharine baked up some delicious cakes (while I was off takin' photos with Jeff) and soon we'll pack up the car and be off to Mass Art!!
I ended up taking a lot of clothing I wasn't planning on selling today .. mostly because I don't really want to deal with listing it online later - so if you come by there should a few really good pieces for grabs! (we'll also be taking credit cards, so that's an added bonus!)
I don't think I'm going to be doing another one of these markets... or at least not for a long time. So if you live in the Boston/New England area be sure to stop on by!!
Details:
today from 12-6
at the Mass Art Pozen Center
621 Huntington Avenue
Boston
$1 Admission (proceeds are going to Aids Action Committee of MA)
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
lazy Sunday
Lately I've been feeling pretty uninspired by my closet. I don't know what it is - but getting dressed has been impossible and I feel like my outfits have consisted of the same few shirts/skirts/dresses rotated on a weekly basis. I'm watching three amazing blouses on ebay right now, they end tonight so - fingers crossed!!
So, since I have no outfit posts, or new and exciting happenings to share here's the little bits of clutter and junk I've been happy to look at every day. I'd show more but there's too much stuff laying around and it'd probably make you feel crazy at the sight of it!
I've been spending most of my free time by this window lately. The two pillowcases are from my gram's attic and the three quilts were found in the same room. I'm determined to find all my linen's from my gram's house and I'm sure that it won't be that difficult to do.
This is a little snippet of my bottle collection and only a small, small portion of my glass insulators. The big bottle with the stopper is my newest addition which was found in my gram's china closet.
Actually, I take back what I said about having a lack of clothing inspiration, it's just cold weather clothing that's gotten me down. Friday night I was taking a little nap and I woke up to Alice throwing this little house dress on my head. I think this is the best way to wake up from a nap and I CAN'T wait to wear this dress all by itself come warm days. I love antique malls in New Hampshire, and I love Alice.
This is one of the walls of our extra room which acts as my closet/work room .. it's totally unorganized but I've been working on the walls as a means to clear up clutter. I just put the clutter on the walls instead of finding a normal spot for it! I recently purchased that hat at Artifaktori and I can't wait until beach weather to wear it with red lips and big sunglasses. The top of my windowsill is also acting as a temporary home for my newly acquired wooden thread spool collection - also found in my gram's attic.
We found this set of wooden drawers at our favorite flea market. It used to hold little tools, now it holds all my shipping needs. And it's a nice place for my glass bottles and other silly junk.
My room, and all sorts of dresses piled atop each other.
I know I've already posted a photo of these suitcases but I don't think I've ever shown off the box in the middle. I found that when Sarah came to visit. It was purchased at the same flea market we got the drawers at and it's one of my favorite things! It's an old turn of the century tea box!
And then there's me, amidst more clutter and borrowing a camera from a friend since I dropped mine and now it DOESN'T work anymore. Luckily I have some very kind friends who'll let me borrow theirs for the time being - but, every penny I make at Mass Market is going to go to the New Camera fund.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Upcomings
So, there are a few exciting things coming up in the very near future. First - the Bazaar Bizarre on Sunday December 7th. I won't be selling anything but my bffffff Alice of Forest Bound will be selling a whole lot of really wonderful things and I'll be her little assistant for the day! Every time she finishes something new I tell her she can't sell it because I'm going to buy it - so, trust me - it's going to be amazing!
This morning she updated her etsy shop with really wonderful limited edition crystal necklaces (I helped model!!) they won't be for sale at the market - so you all should scoop one up now!! (Alice also has the best packaging for her things as well, so that's even more of an incentive to hop on over to her shop!)
And then the following Sunday is Mass Market at Mass Art! I'll be sharing a table with Alice and my friend Katharine who'll be baking cupcakes. Vintage clothing and cupcakes, how could one table get any better???
Saturday, November 22, 2008
The cold weather is here and it's not budging. I made a promise to myself not to turn into a 100% anti-social lazy hermit this winter. Things were looking grim for a while, but I'm hoping to shake the lazy chatter bones once and for all! (Of course I haven't figured out how, except for making a pinky promise to myself that I'll be good and stay out of bed!)
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
z is for zebra
I really do love the idea of Halloween- books holding special powers, magical elixers, black cats and full moons, and even the possibility of stumbling upon secret hidden curiosity shops. Of course every Halloween ends up being a little bit less then enchanting, but I think this year I'll try and put a little more effort into enjoying the evening. The above photostrip is my first attempt at participating in the festivites - next up, conjuring some sort of costume so that I don't have to fall back to good 'ol plan B again (the same silly mouse costume I stitched up a few years ago)
PS As I was typing this post my roommate was messing around with a little harmonium on our dining room table. I made him record a spooktacular sound clip for all to enjoy!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Holy Land and Thirteen Eighty-Five
The website is finished (although it needs a few minor changes here and there) but I can finally post the photos we've been working on!! This is just a few pictures, to see the entire thing - go to the website!!
If you're wondering the location on this, some of the photos were shot at Holy Land, an abandoned religious theme park in Waterbury, CT. The rest were shot at the bear cages in Franklin Park. I wanted to capture that carefree, late afternoon, Indian Summer feeling with this collection, and I thought these strange abandoned parks would be the perfect place! The dresses have that warm autumn feel to them, and are perfect as they are or underneath scarves and little jackets.
So, from here on out Thirteen Eighty-Five will be hawkin' it's wares through different themed collections. One of my best buds in the entire world, Jeff Allen will be taking the fancy editorial style photos for us and everything you'll see in the photos will be for sale!!!
I wanted to start doing it like this for a few reasons - it's easier for me to have a theme in mind so I don't go crazy when I'm out shopping for the store. Unfortunately, I can't sell clothing full time - so I do this when I have a free afternoon (or when I start running out of room in my house!) Selling clothing in separate collections makes it easier for me to prepare little by little for it, rather than everything all at once! And also, I just have a hard time letting go of some things!!! Taking pretty photos of the dresses with Jeff is going to be a really good way to help me let go of those pack rat tendencies. It's hard for me to find a dress I think is really wonderful and not want to do more with it before I send it on it's way to another home. So, it'll be fun scheming up locations and ideas for new shoots. I already have the next two ideas pretty well thought out, and I'm excited to see how they'll turn out! It's going to be fun to play dress up but not feel too guilty for keeping all the clothing!!!
PS The ebay listings aren't up yet. They're in the works though. And I'll be sure to let everyone know when they're ready!
PPS I know this is totally hypocritical of everything I just mentioned, but I might be doing a one week long etsy market sale from the Baked Fresh leftovers. I'm not sure yet, but I'll keep everyone posted on that too!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Baked Fresh!
I'm still sort of recuperating from Baked Fresh. It was such a long but fun day and the lovely folks who put it on did such an amazing job with finding sponsors, great vendors, and making sure lots of people came to shop around!!
When I was shopping on ebay for a tent I saw this silly yellow thing and knew it had to be that one! It was a really grey cold day but when you were in the tent there was this lovely yellowy glow on everything. I guess that's probably not the best thing to have when shopping - but I certainly didn't mind being in there all day!
I still have a lot of clothing left over, so hopefully there will be another Mass Market at Mass Art or maybe I'll lug that tent out again and do a SOWA market before the season is over!
PS If you see something that sparks your interest or you saw something at the market you liked and didn't buy - let me know! I'll check and see if I still have it and send pics/more specifics your way!
PPS click that picture for a bigger version with better details!
long weekend!
This outfit was from yesterday - which was a really wonderful day. Sunny and warm enough for NO tights!! I'm trying my best to hold onto the last bits of warm weather before I'll be trapped under layers and layers of clothing for the next 6 months.
The farmers market was also setup near work and I took home lots of sunflowers, some dried lavender, tea that smells soo wonderful I'd rather not drink and instead make sachets with old hankies, a pumpkin shaped sugar cookie and I also enjoyed a glass of herbal lemonade on a park bench with lots of silly pigeons. We later met up with Emma and her boyfriend Vinney for some sushi and silly candy shopping. My boyfriend purchased the most amazing mens fashion magazine from Japan and his nose was stuck to it all night!! I have to admit, it's about 5 million times better then any American fashion magazine I've ever seen!
Today is another warm day and it also happens to be a weekend I've been waiting all year for - HONK FEST! Honk Fest is basically a two day festival for brass marching bands and it is SO fun! Last year we only saw the end of the parade and caught What Cheer Brigade's performance in Harvard Square, but walking around the square with all the marching bands resting under trees and playing music in their little groups - it was the closest thing I could think of to a dreamy gypsy musician lifestyle.
Anyway, if you live in Boston - GO! I promise it will be fun and impossible not to enjoy!
Friday, October 10, 2008
can't wait!
Jeff sent over a big fat email with the scans from our shoot and I am wayy too excited to share! I'm supposed to wait until everything is ready to update (ebay/the website) .. but I can't wait and I have to share something! I decided to use a different version of this photo for the final thing, so I decided its okay to post this one for now!!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Almost!
yayayay! the mysterious 1385 project I've been hinting around is finally almost ready! Jeff is working on scanning the polaroids as we speak and I'm hoping that by the end of the week this will be all ready to go! Last week's weather was terrible, which is why this got pushed off until now. Today was a warm sunny day and I only had goosebumps toward the end of the afternoon - which is good because we've all been bundled under jackets and scarves these past few days!!
Baked Fresh was wonderful too - I was soo exhausted afterwards though - and I'm still recovering - our house is still recovering! I'll post pictures soon though, I promise!
Saturday, October 4, 2008
the arboretum
This morning instead of doing the zillion and one things I'm supposed to do for Baked Fresh I decided to go run around the Arboretum. It was totally worth it because it was a perfect fall morning. It seems like the first sunny day in a while. This week has been grey and dreary. I actually did go with a purpose, I went to try and find more of these funny things..
Which sadly aren't ready for plucking yet (once it gets cold and frozen I'll be in luck!) I don't know what type of plant they are, but I found them by one of the ponds and it's strange because they're dead at the ends, where it looks like the flower - but the stems are still green. I wonder what they look like when the flower is actually alive. Is anyone familiar?
On our way into the Arboretum we were greeted by these lovelies flowers and it seemed like everywhere we went the sun was peeking through the trees in just the right way and made all of our pictures look so pretty! I wish that sunny warm days like today would stay forever!
Heather from it 'aint me, babe tagged me to list my 4's - usually I'm atrocious with these things, but I'm still procrastinating....
- buy a fancy gold Fisher Space Pen at Bob Slate, the best 'ol timey stationary store in Cambridge
- Visit A Good Yarn in Brookline Village and pick up some soft grey tweed yarn to knit a scarf for my boyfriend
- Went to Cafe Society where I purchased some fabric for the canopy in my room and a cute little 50's pink and black metal stool that I plan on using tomorrow at the market
- Went to Anthropologie and purchased a new fall coat which I can't wait to wear tomorrow! Also, can I just say: Anythopologie, you make me so mad with your beautiful antique displays that I'll never have and share the same price tag as a new car!
4 things on my to do list:
- Get my act together for Baked Fresh, TOMORROW (it's 9:30 PM and I still have a LOT to do)
- Really and truly organize my bedroom and workspace and fill them both with pretty plants and terariums
- Send out all the packages that are waiting to be finished and sent to Meggy, Marcine, Rhiannon, and Kaori. Girls, once Baked Fresh is over I promise they'll be on their way!
- Visit New York and spend my gift certificate at Lyell
4 of my guiltiest pleasures:
- Eating candy right before bedtime
- Cleaning the little dirt things from dog's and cat's eyes (I know this is gross, but how else will they get out of there?)
- Terrible cheesy girl movies (ones with Meg Ryan are best)
- Sesame tofu and vegetable fried rice from my favorite neighborhood Chinese food place ... I'm eating it now actually!
4 random facts about me:
- My real name is Francesca! Effie came about a few years ago when a friend was introducing me and couldn't decide on what name/nickname to give. She rattled off all of the common nicknames my family and friends have given me along the years (Frankie, Frank, F-Checks, French, Frenchka etc. etc. etc.) and then we decided that I could go by anything that starts with the letter F and so - Effie was born!
- I have a little grey dot on my left knee from kneeling on a piece of mechanical pencil lead when I was little
- I grew up on Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg
- When I was in high school I started up my own little non-profit thrift store. I ran it on the weekends and sometimes after school! The best part was when the older ladies and gents would bring in donations! Always the best things!!!
4 bloggers that I am tagging:
Anyone who's up to it! Leave your answers in the comments, or post it in your blog!
Friday, September 26, 2008
sneak
I'm alive, I swear! The past three weeks have been a total blur - seasonal/job/life transitions have taken up all of my time and it hasn't left too much room for the computer (this was that period of quietness I talked about before) But, here's a little sneak of the 1385 plans I keep hinting at. I wanted to get everything online by Sunday - but we ran out of light and this weekend is supposed to be all grey skies and rain clouds - so I'm hoping to get everything all set and ready to go for Thursday or Friday!
PS New England: Don't forget, Baked Fresh is October 5th. I'll be there under a bright yellow tent and there's going to be a whole slew of other lovely vendors - so please, please come visit! I'm excited - but until then, I have the longest to do list.... ah!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Beacon Hill
This weekend has been nothing but rain and I think I've mostly just laid around and slept for the majority of it. Today I got to hang out with my two favorite boys (my boyfriend and my twin brother Jeff, wink) and we ended up testing out Jeff's fancy polaroid camera!
These pictures were taken on some cute little street in Beacon Hill. I miss working in that neighborhood, the little narrow brick streets are charming and I love looking into the shop windows.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
some more dresses for sale
I think this is going to be the last of the ebay auctions for the next few weeks. I have something good in the works though, just trust me on it!!
(I'm cheating in one of the photos for the little sundress listing - I'm tilting my head back so my hair looks longer then it is.Hair, please grow faster...)
oh, and also - boy shoes!
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