Singing in the Rain

I bought "Singing in the Rain" on dvd on the weekend and it's safe to say...I have a crush. That Gene Kelly is the most. What a handsome man, plus he can sing and dance, sold! :)
Above is my favourite of favourite scenes, Debbie Reynolds is just such a darling. This routine is so so cute...looks like so much fun...anyone else want to dress in pink, throw streamers, jump out of a cake and dance the charleston with me!!!



I love this routine, plus check out Debbie's shoes!!!! Another thing I love in this film is the friendship between the characters Don Lockwood and Cosmo Brown, even though Don gets all the glory Cosmo is forever pumping him up and being a good friend, their relationship is so endearing. Oh and Lina's voice when she says "Whoort's the beeg eye-deee-aahh, cairn't a goil geet a woird een eedgewoize"...Love it!

Progress in the 50-esque garden...PAINTING!!!

Above is the start to 50's-ing up the garden.

The pots are terracotta painted with a brush and water-based enamel in pale blue (a "mis-tint" from Bunnings, yay.)

They now house all the cuttings of Geraniums and Palargoniums...some from friends, some from Nanna, some from walking...cough cough snap woops, best not to waste the broken bit, I shall plant it...I only do that if the plant is in somewhere commercial of course :). I keep telling myself that I will knock on the door of houses we drive past when I find one that I haven't got yet, I suppose I will one day...

Spray painting the pots from our "Bali inspired" garden...We came back from Bali and I was all inspired to create a Balinese tropical garden...what was i thinking, it doesn't go with anything in the house, plus the balcony comes off the main living area so it kinda has to match yeah?  So the bronze, deep blue, deep green pots are now going to be pastel blue, pastel green, pink and red....basically the colours of the harlequin cannister set on the kitchenette, because they are my favourites.

 Glazed pots take to being spray painted really well, with terracotta it is best to use a brush.

 

Oh yeah AND I have painted the drawers to the sofa table, it wasn't quite meeting the 50's-esqe criteria so I used inspiration from a recently purchased 50's table to give it a makeover. I'll put a photo of the 50's table when my spare room doesn't look like a bomb has hit it :)
                             
Here's the sofa table with it's new "shabby" drawers, I'm not usually a huge fan of "the distressed look" but this area of the apartment was looking too new and it needed to be "roughed up" a bit. I love baby blue and red together, and bashing it up was kinda fun too!!! I used the bottom of the paint can to dent into the wood a little bit and sandpaper plus a pair of scissors to scrape and scratch. Mr in Wonderland says that they still need some more scratching around the handles as if they've been opened and shut over 60 years of use...quite clever attention to detail there I thought. Those vases used to be green, they got the spray painted treatment too,they look like they've always been blue.
                                  

Now I'm just on the lookout for some chrome "boomerang" handles or some red bakelite ones to finish it's fabulousness...

A New Swinging Pair of Shoes

This morning I bought a pair of fabulous Bleyer 1940's style swing dancing shoes from ebay. I did some research and on one U.K website they were 50 pounds, not including shipping.

The previous owner of these had also had hard leather put on the soles for spinning. I won them for $61aus....woo hoo!!!

They are the same as this white pair, plus the laces can be replaced with different ribbons to match outfits. I am so thrilled with these, I have a pair of bowling shoes that I dance in but i feel odd in flat sneakers with a dress, these have a little wedge without being too high.....aaah swoon!!!
I can't wait to get these babies on the dance floor!

Swinging The Alphabet

D,A Day, D,E Dee, D,I Dicky Di, D,O Doh Dicky Di Doh, D,U Du, Dicky Di Doh Do.
I can't get this out of my head, it's so very sweet! Be careful...it's contageous!

The weather outside is frightful......so I'm off to buy vintage negligee?!!!

So today i had planned to finish painting pots and get the garden all fabulous THEN along came the storm of the century, days ago it was all summery and (really) hot then BOOM, gale force winds and pouring rain...so this project will take longer than expected i think...
On another note...tucked up warm inside, away from the high pitched squeals of the wind and the thud of trees thumping the walls of the apartment.

I've been on the lookout (on-line) for nice pj's for summer with the nights becoming warmer as my collection is looking a little worse for wear. I haven't really taken my love for all things vintage ever into the realm of sleepwear, often because the pieces tend to be a be flashy (in the sense that you flash yourself lol) and up until a little while ago we've always had house-mates. So now that Mr and I live by our "onesies" (Pirates of the Caribbean reference) in Wonderland now begins the search of vintage slips etc instead of a borrowed pair of boxer shorts and a singlets that have passed their "can wear out of the house" expiry date.

Now for the fun part... the treasures!!! The first of my purchases, I'm going through a "peach obsession", so as soon as i saw this i had to have it, I think this may have been the beginning of the pyjama update idea!

This is a 1940's peach satin robe, it has quilted detail and lace, aah and even a heart-shaped pocket, an Ebay splurchase.

Next is what I've bought today, I braved the weather and went to my favourite little Red Cross Shop....

 The beige lace slip $3, the pink broderie anglaise trim pj top, $3, and beat this....the cami in the middle is ALANNAH HILL......drumroll..$5!!!! And it's blue label, the best season in my (and my AH fanatical mum's) opinion. What a score! 

This GORGEOUS 60's robe is quilted all over, only minus one button which I'll replace with the bottom one....$5, I almost fell over. It looks much better on than it does hanging up. Sure it is more "stepford wives" than it is "vintage vixen" but it's so darn cute!

 

Soo all in all I'd say today was a success in the pj finding department, couple more slips to add to my collection, a super cute pj top and a nice, warm and tremendously kitsch robe to roam around in.

Oh and ofcourse some other treasures I found and couldn't pass up.....

   Some vintage knitting needles in yellow, peach, duck egg blue, sky blue, cherry red and green to add to my collection, at the moment they are sitting like a little bouquet in a vase. Soon they shall be used to knit a cardi or something from one of the patterns from the Australian Home Journals I've been collecting.

The Christmas baubles are so very 60's, I am a bit obsessed at the moment, Ebay has some fab 50's string lights that i am just in love with, I'm not so sure about plugging in electrical devices that are almost 60 years old however. I have already flooded the apartment this year with a 60's twin tub, do NOT wish to add setting it alight with 50's lights :) I want a set that I could pull the plastic covers off and stick onto a new (more reliable) set of lights.

Lastly the pink plastic plate...i bought because it's plastic and PINK oh yeah, and only 50c, it'll be good for sorting my vintage buttons whilst sewing...

Anywho...I'm off to buy tea and sugar, I have some dress patterns from the 1940's and 1950's to cut out and it just can not happen without TEA!

Our Wonderland

I thought I'd give you a few little snapshots of our apartment, forgive the photography, the batteries in the camera died and i was left only with the camera on my blackberry, but you'll get the gist all the same.

This is the lounge area, in the corner you'll see my computer sneakily hiding, this is where I write my posts, curled up on the sofa.

A close up of the coffee table, I seem to have a fascination with bringing kitsch versions of outside, in. Gnomes , bunnies and birds are my favourite, They still have that "stylised" look however, which I think makes it look quirky without looking TOO tacky. By the way, yes that is faux grass on the floor as a rug. We "picnic" on it often when we have dinner.


This is a vintage treasure I found out thrifting, it was $20 and although i really didn't have anywhere to put it at the time, I simply had to have it. I'm not usually a fan of natural wood, but there's something beautiful about the curve of the top and those little bun feet. Of course little birds on the bottom, they look all puffy from the cold, sweet. The doilies are hand appliqued with strawberries, aahhh, and i picked these up for about $2. I'll get a closer picture at some point because the work in these really is quite impressive.

Art Deco mirrors, oh how i love them, the one on the left has a lyrebird etched into it, I found it at a swap meet and almost spat all over the woman in shock when she told me she'll take $3 for it. The other one is amazing, it has little hinged wing mirrors on each side and a mirrored shelf at the bottom, for $20 i was wondering why none of the antique dealers hadn't picked it up already at the crack of dawn like they do. This one is very special, i haven't seen one even remotely like it since.
Yes, in future I will clean up before I start taking pictures, the dining table is a 1950's laminate and chrome with 4 matching red chairs, the yellow and blue ones that you see here were a drink induced purchase after having a lovely lunch at a Mexican restaurant with a peach pina colada, yes one, it's all it took. Now that the guilt has worn off, they are truly fabulous, don't you think? The kitchenette is one of my favourites, she holds our red and white polka dot and green an white polka dot dinner sets, she was lovingly painted pink to begin the pink kitchen!!!

Pink Kitchen, well as best we can do, we're renting, if it were up to me there would be a real 1950's push-button cupboard kitchen in pink, but you do what you can. There's a pink kettle, blender, colander, bread box...I could go on. The gumball machines are vintage, put in your 10c, actually I wouldn't they taste terrible :)

The bathroom
Oh boy I love 50's plastic flowers, I'm kind of obsessed, yes I do realise how tacky they are but they make me smile. Wait I'll show you some more.....
Look at these roses, the guy i bought these from said that the roses are from a laundry powder promotion from England in the 40's/50's, you got one for free when you bought a box, I've also got a set of these roses from my great grandmother's house, that are now all white from sitting her windowsill for the last 60 years. Oh they are just so bright and smiley with such wonderful stories!
He he, this is a tiny two bedroom apartment so i really shouldn't have things like these but they are just too lovely to part with, the little 50's/60's pouffes are from my grandparents and great grandparents houses and were given to me by Nanna and Grandfather, I don't think they understood my hyperventilation whilst explaining how fabulous they are. They are the coloured, textured vinyl so they are a bit fancy, the blue I used to eat my dinner balanced on it when I was a littlin :) The art deco drink trolley was spotted from the car driving away from a market. I almost gave poor Mr in Wonderland a heart attack "ahhhhhhh STOP THE CAR", quickly jumped out as a elderly lady was packing it back into her car. $60 thank you very much!!!

So I'll put the camera batteries on recharge and get back to you all with some pictures of what I've been up to this weekend.

Self confessed hobby addict

Don't know about you but I am one of those people who will always have a 101 projects on the go. I also live with the belief that it can all be done in a single day.

Mr in Wonderland often has to stop me from my freak out, and make me choose ONE project for the day. When I've made my choice I love how he asks me "Now, if that's what you do today will you go to bed having had a good day"...."umm, yes...but i might also do ____and____", he stops me, "Ashliegh choose one". "Aaaalright, today I'll do the garden". If i wander off and get distracted I hear..."Aaaash, what are you doing?". Hehe, He's my project personal assistant. I need one you know because i am a shocker....

A while ago I woke one Sunday morning and decided that I must paint ALL of my lounge room furniture white, don't laugh I really did this. This also was to be finished by that afternoon, needless to say even after recruiting two lovely assistants into my craziness, it didn't quite go to plan. I got so disappointed, my dreams of freshly painted furniture in one day, crushed. Mr in Wonderland has seen it time and time again, no wonder he's now keeping my crazy down to small dosages. :)

Anywho, I am slowly but surely painting pots and 50's-ing up my garden. Plus replacing the plants from my last attempt, who knew plants need water? I'll post some piccies soon, xxx Ashliegh