Twenty-Something Days of Xmas: Happy to be home

Well, it's been a long, busy week, including a whirlwind weekend trip out of province. Long, busy, but great! But now here I am, home in Charlottetown, in sweats, on the computer. No shopping, the parties are done for the night. In honour of being home, how about some house and home gift recommendations, then, shall we? Six days' worth!

This recommendation is less for a gift than it is a store. Cottage Industry is a cool modern home decor shop downtown, on Grafton near the CIBC, that carries hip Canadian furniture lines and funky odds and ends. I'd love to outfit my space in modern stuff like this Gus sectional. (Someday!)

Moving Designz, also on Grafton, is another spot to check for neat household items and furniture. They've got lots of smaller items, like coral, vases, and toiletries if you're looking for cheap but stylish home buys. Their esthetic is more fresh, cheery and feminine than Cottage Industry, which leans more to the modern-rustic-industrial.

I am also a big fan of Cattails Woodwork by Brenda Watts, out of Hermitage, PEI, where you can get a badass Burled Maple Charcuterie Board, above, famous flamed French rolling pins, and cute wooden acorn-adorned things. Brenda also has an Etsy store that you can check out if you can't pick up her wares in person!

For your nerd friends who have homes, and empty walls measuring fifteen feet or more, you can get them this Entire First Level of the original Mario Bros poster from Packmania. 

My mom got a sheepskin for me as a baby, and I still have and use it. You should do the same for a baby you might have (or someone else's, that also works). Springwater Farm has great sheepskin products of all sizes, available at the Charlottetown Farmers Market on Saturdays.

And, for the last of the six days, MacAusland's classic, famous wool blankets. People debate whether or not you can be an Islander if you weren't born here; maybe you should only earn your status as a true Islander once you own one of these beauties from Bloomfield.

Whew, six more days along in the Twenty-something Days of Xmas. Stay tuned, especially if you procrastinate and still don't know what to get!

Outfitted: Early winter Canadiana

When the weather starts to hover around the freezing mark, I start to give in to what most other Island ladies are all up in: skinny jeans, work socks, and ankle boots. I would love to get a pair of hand-knitted, made-in-PEI, Island wool work socks from Northern Watters Knitwear, but for now, I'll settle for any old pair. To up the Canadiana ante, I've added a pristine vintage cinnamon Danier suede drawstring jacket and vintage men's flannel. Cozy and very Canadian indeed.

+ thrifted vintage Danier suede jacket

+ thrifted vintage royal blue scarf

+ thrifted vintage flannel from work

+ thrifted vintage men's braided leather belt

+ Old Navy Rockstar jeans

+ Sears-house-brand work socks

+ Leather lace-up ankle boots, Corney's Shoe Store

+ Sky-blue floral earrings from Love Charlie

Thrift Week 2012: Important Brands Edition

Moving along, Thrift Week 2012's third post brings us some pretty fabulous brand-name finds. My two favourite types of brands: high-end designer, and heritage (local, at that). First up, a Great Northern Knitters sweater, possibly vintage but likely not - it's in excellent shape so I'd be surprised. People do take good care of their GNK sweaters, though, so who knows! Either way, they used to run about $140, I bought this one for just under $5. Huzzah!

(For anyone not familiar with Great Northern Knitters, it was a wool products company based in Charlottetown that was famous for its ridiculously thick, cozy Island wool sweaters, mittens, worksock-patterned garments, and more, all made on the Island. It closed a number of years back and has more or less been replaced by Northern Watters Knitwear.)

Next up: Oh, just a vintage Christian Dior Monsieur t-shirt, monogrammed all-over, for, oh, $2.95. Yeah. And it's not the first Dior I found this week, if you can believe it! 

Dig and ye shall find. Happy hunting!

New items on Milk & Amber Etsy Shop

Well, it took most of my afternoon and early evening, but I managed to upload quite a few new items on my Etsy shop. Pop over to check out all my items, including this neat stuff!

*Remember, if you're on PEI, I offer 30% off your purchase if you'd like to do local pick-up. Making Islanders more stylish one vintage item at a time, haha...

The Eagles

First Saturday off in over a month, you know what that means: Farmers' Market! Peter and I walked all the windy way on the trail this morning. It was so cold, I really needed this parka! But it was sunny and beautiful, very much worth the chill.

+ Thrifted vintage wool parka, with fox fur and

four (count 'em, four) embroidered eagles, made in Canada

+ Vintage lilac grape earrings

+ Mom's vintage brown scarf

+ That thrifted Alternative Apparel shirt I haven't stopped wearing

+ Old Navy Rockstar jeans

To market, to market!

Microfilm: Fashion

A selection from my vault of neat-o microfilm: fashion edition! Sourced from PEI newspapers from the late 1800's to 1940's.

The 70 Mile Yard Sale: The Finds

Now that our purchases from our 70 Mile Yard Sale (70MYS?) excursion have settled in, it's harder to corral them to get some good pictures. Missing from this non-exhaustive list are two genuine non-ironic vintage nature promo tees, a vintage Molson Canadian baseball tee, some retro kitchen stuff, some antique books and so forth. Pics to come, maybe! But for now:

Mixed in to our growing record collection were some Beach Boys and some 60's compilation discs. (Not really pictured.)

A handmade-in-Alberton-PEI mixed-wood pen holder, for, yes, $1.00

An enormous cobalt-and-turquoise vintage enamel flower pin so big, it eats other enamel flower pins.

Some ultra fancy deco clip-ons from my new favourite yard sale spot, just outside Murray Harbour, PEI

Some more jewellery (of which there was sadly little), including some black faceted gem clip-ons and a rhinestone grape pin

A pristine, handmade vintage 60's turquoise dress. FOR TWO DOLLARS.

More deets of the above dress, so awesome.

An antique cigarette roller, "The V-Master," with papers (!) included:

Vogue Strips, "Hi-Dro" - can you even buy these anymore? Whew. The set and papers were only eight bucks!

A Pyrex gravy dish saucer, to go with my gravy dish! Only a buck.

Will post some more scores. Maybe I'll post a drawing of my map sometime too!

What I Found At Work

Working at a thrift store is what I should have been doing since I was a teenager - it just suits me. I am already passionate about what we do and sell, so it feels like "Finally!" And hey, we all know the perks: getting to see all the neat stuff that comes in, staking out the real treasures... So expect What I Found at Work (WIFAW?) to become a recurring segment.

Today's edition: a sunny yellow vintage souvenir t-shirt for my birthplace for $2.95! Love me some retro Canadiana like this gem.

The CA ID number is registered to Teesta Intl of North York, Ontario. Provenance!

Retro Canadian pins

The 70's in Canada weren't just the heyday of politics, but design too! Retro Canadiana is all I want, be it clothes, crafts, or cool button pins like these beauts.