Film Reviews: Fashion and a Wedding

Last night I watched Designing Woman (1957) and Father of the Bride (1950) that I had DVRed for myself and never watched.

Designing Woman (1957) stars Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall as two people who meet on a Californian vacation. After a whirlwind romance, they get married and return to New York City where they both live only to discover that they come from different worlds. Mike Hagen (Peck) is a sports writer on the tail of a mobster who is fixing sporting events. Marilla Brown (Bacall) is a fashion designer with a swanky apartment and a bunch of artsy friends. Drama ensues when ex's come back into their lives and the mobster gets tired of Hagen's stories.

Check out this cute, casual boating outfit.

I really loved this film. This is the first film I'd seen Lauren Bacall in and she certainly delivered. The costumes were lovely, especially some of Marilla's creations! I'm definitely putting this on the list of films to watch again.

Fashion designers are always fashionable.

The fashion show! I adore the red floral gown and coat in the front.

Father of the Bride (1950) is exactly what it sounds like. Stanley Banks (Spenser Tracy) is thrown for a loop when his daughter Kay (Elizabeth Taylor) announces her engagement. The shocks keep piling on as one after another expensive wedding bills comes in. There are all sorts of emotional upsets from all of the characters that show just how crazy planning a wedding can be. There is, of course, a gorgeous wedding scene.

Father daughter bonding.

This film was great. My wedding was much less of a hassle and much less of a production. All of that stuff is much easier to watch than to go through. I'm not sure how related it is to the plot of the 1991 version, since I haven't seen it, but the original is generally better.

The mother (Joan Bennett) wore a fabulous dress for the wedding. I imagine it would have been pink but who knows.

The big day!

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday!


I started school this Wednesday so my schedule has been all crazy. Quite to my surprise, my microbiology professor showed us "The Story of Louis Pasteur" (1935). I quite enjoyed the part we watched today (though perhaps I was the only one...). I definitely picked up on more of the humor than the rest of the class. Guess that's what comes from watching a lot of old movies in the past few months.

Vintage Jewelry: Earrings

I love jewelry, especially anything shiny! My husband's grandma gave me some of her old jewelry and I thought I'd share with you. I'm don't really know much about dating jewelry so if you spot something you can place, let me know.


They all came in this cute jewelry box! I love the floral print inside the cover. I got two pairs of clip on beaded earrings. So cute! One pair is clear and the other is opaque.


Black danglely earrings for a professional look. Heart danglely earrings that are very juniors. Floral studs in two tone gold. Gold swirls. Nice, sophisticated amethyst studs. (Too bad it's not my birthstone!) Rhinestone earrings with a yellow center and two orange ones on each side. Also a great pair of Rhinestone earrings. Check out how the danglely part can be removed from the stud and worn with another colored stud.

There were also some odds and ends. A mouse earring! Seriously! I wish the other one was there! A wishbone. A blue danglely earring. A white flower. A red stud. A pink flower. So sad that there's only one of each of these. I have worn the pink and white flower together for a modern mismatched look.


This is perhapse my favorite pair-screwback flowers with a Rhinestone center! I've never worn them as the screwback makes me nervous. I'm afraid they'd fall off! I feel a bit crazy but I'm sure I'll wear them eventually.

Who doesn't love to shop?

Today I visited a local vintage store (The Look on Brown St). It was very fun! I'd visited there once before, but it was early in my vintage stage and I didn't really know what to look for. I had been wanting to go back and since I go back to school tomorrow, today was the perfect day.

I didn't take any pictures in the store but here are a couple of the things I found that were just not meant for me:

1. A fabulous red velvet dress perfect for making a statement at any party but teeny tiny.

2. An adorable summer dress with sport print featuring hockey sticks, shuffle boards, and a variety of balls but (again) too small and the fabric had uneven yellowing.

3. A brown dress with black diamonds that had a peter pan collar and a brown velvet bow that fit everywhere but the bust. :(

4. A simple blue shirt waist dress with a matching belt that I'd seen in the store window but too small.

5. A pale blue dress made in Hong Kong with an embroidered Chinese letter over the heart but it was missing a button. The rest were made of matching fabric much like buttons from Asian style dresses that were so popular. I didn't think I could make it work...

I did find two lovelies to take home with me, one of which I'll share with you today.


Top: New York and Company
Skirt: ?? I've had this forever.
Necklace: Banana Republic
Shoes: Payless
Hat: vintage

I love hats! I found this cute green one and just had to take it home with me. I don't have any vintage pieces that will match it but I think it'll look good with modern clothes too. (Or I'll just have to go on the hunt for a matching dress!) I do think I'll need a hat pin of some kind. I used bobby pins today. Maybe the U shaped ones would work better, but I only had the grippy kind.

What would you were this type of hat with? Do you love a fabulous vintage hat?

New hair flowers and a day to evening look

Yesterday my satin hair flowers from GracieLuv Creations came in! (Remember that I won a $15 store credit on my friend Bonnie's coupon blog Just a Clip Away.) They are so cute! Each is made of satin with pearl beads in the center. I chose a pink flower with glitter tole and a purple flower with leopard print. In honor of the fact that one is cute, girly and day looking and the other is sexy and night, I thought I'd do a day to evening outfit with my new hair flowers!


The base of my outfit is a simple black top and a fun skirt. I love this skirt because it has black, white and brown so I can really play with mismatching. I did my go to hair style (which you can see Casey's Elegant Musings' tutorial for here.). It's a great silhouette that works with or without bangs and with a variety of options for the back of your hair. Here is the day look:


Skirt: New York and Company
Top: Charlotte Russe
Belt: thrifted
Shoes: Express
Necklace and Earrings: American Eagle
Hair flower: GracieLuv Creations

Cute, girly jewelry, a light colored belt and flats make this outfit light and perfect for day.


I love the way it pops against my hair!

The evening look:


Belt: New York and Company
Shoes: boutique in Maine
Necklace and bracelet: gifts from my husband :D
Earrings: New York and Company
Hair flower: Gracie Luv Creations

More bling and a dark belt and heals turn day to evening.


My tanzanite bracelet helps pull the purple from my hair flower into the outfit. Animal print always goes!

So cute! Wish my hair would stop falling over it! Must use more bobby pins next time.

C'est fini!

I finished my apron last night! It was a very fun yet frustrating project. I did learn a lot and the next sewing project will be much easier. First up was more rick rack! Here's where I decided to get creative. I opted for two different colors of rick rack. What I didn't know was that the pattern called for a continuous strip of rick rack where I wanted to change it up. It was perhaps a bit much for a first project, but that's what happens when you decide to be creative before you look at the pattern. I made it work.


The straps were pretty easy but I did attach the first one to the apron wrong. It's fixed now! I was a bit nervous about the slip stitch, but, lo and behold, not a minute into the video tutorial, I realized that I'd done this before! woot! I did start over with this part because I realized I could do it and not have it show in the front. I'm glad I did. It looks much nicer now.


So for my apron photo, I thought I do an outfit post as well. Again, nothing I'm wearing is vintage (except, sort of, the apron) but I thought it went well with the whole doing-housework-in-pearls thing from the 50's. A woman should always be able to look glamorous!

I didn't have a wooden spoon so I grabbed a pasta scooper to pose with.

Skirt: Banana Republic
Shirt: New York and Company
Sweater: Ann Taylor
Necklace: New York and Company
Shoes: Payless
Apron: handmade by me from a vintage Butterick pattern

I look a little wonky in this pic. :/ But yay for getting contacts tomorrow!

This apron has pockets! I adore things with pockets!


The fabulous shoes my husband bought me yesterday that I cut off in my outfit pic.

Crazy Weekend of Sewing

Yesterday I went to Hofbrauhaus in Newport, KY with one of my girl friends, so I didn't get started sewing until late! The evening was pretty much a crash course in using my sewing machine. I had a pdf of my sewing machine manual and Brittany's blog post up on my laptop and the pattern directions up on my kitchen table and muddled through making my apron. I did pretty well until the gathers, which gave me all sorts of trouble for some reason. I'd seen my mom make them before but never made them myself. Once I completed those, I moved on to the pockets. They were slightly more complicated but I did one and moved on to the next.

My tiny sewing space on my kitchen table. I had my laptop up there too!

But about halfway through the second one, I realized I did the first one wrong! No big. I took apart pocket #1 and started over. The rick rack was simple after that and before I knew it, my apron had pockets! This was about 10 pm. I crashed.

My apron so far!

Brittany had to delay day 3 of the sew-along until tomorrow, but that's ok with me since today was pretty crazy too!

Much Ado About Sewing

Today was the first day of Va-Voom Vintage's sew-along. Bright and early this morning, she had a very detailed post with pictures and directions. Not only did it make navigating the pattern directions much easier, Brittany wrote her post in a way that took the training wheels off slowly. It was a great help.

I have had some experience sewing. My grandma is a big quilter and I've done some quilting with her. Over Thanksgiving weekend 2008, I even made two quilts-one for me and one to send to my then fiance now husband while he was in Iraq. I also once hand sewed on a seemingly endless amount of lace to the hem of a vintage wedding dress that I removed the train from to turn into a Christine costume (that'd be Phantom of the Opera Christine, not crazy prom killer Christine). So, I'm pretty comfortable using a sewing machine and hand sewing.



But I'd never used a pattern before! I was pretty nervous last night, but after reading Brittany's post, I bravely charged forward! It was kind of difficult cutting the pieces out on my living room floor, but I think I did ok. We'll see tomorrow I guess.


While I cut pattern pieces, I watched the 1936 Romeo and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Having already seen the 1968 and 1996 versions, I was still impressed. The costumes were lovely and the acting was great. I really liked the death scene at the end. I'm not a fan of Juliet's death in the '96 version (her last line is one of my favorites!) but this one past muster. It was a nice little film for me to watch while I was working on my apron.


Speaking of aprons, I could really have used mine today as I made peanut butter sandwich cookies to take to a friend's tonight. yummy!

Red, black and blue

Yay outfit post! Today I got all cute and decided to share with you.


I love this outfit! The only thing is ...... none of it is vintage! But it looks cute and vintage-y.

Dress-Forever 21
Shoes-bought on my honeymoon in Portland, ME
Earrings- studs- Claires
flowers- Forever 21


I love this dress! It is so cute and so comfy! And it has pockets! I adore dresses with pockets! I wear it everywhere, but today I was just hanging around the house.

So, after I'd done the whole awkward photograph myself with the mirror thing, I discovered that my camera had a timer! Woot! Now I can take much better pictures of myself. :D



I tried out some new stuff with my hair today. I'm still getting used to the new length. And I haven't forgotten that I need to do a pin curl and (possibly) hot roller style with this new hair. I've been working out in the mornings (go me!) but that doesn't exactly jive too well with pin curls...

Shopping for Sewing!

So my pin curl set yesterday was a total flop.... but I did get to go shopping for Va-Voom Vintage's sew-along! I got some really cute fabric for the vintage apron we are making. And today (after I cleaned out some space in the kitchen for my sewing machine) learned how to use my sewing machine-hopefully well enough to make it through this sew-along!


All of my stuff on my (mostly) clean kitchen table.


The pretty fabric and rick rack I picked out. The pattern only calls for one color of rick rack but I thought I'd switch it up and use two!


My sewing machine! My lovely mother-in-law picked it up at a garage sale for me! All I had to do was dust it and find the manual online.


The pattern I'm going to be making. The sew along is for the red one on the left.


My sewing basket. One of my good friends got it for me for a wedding shower gift. So cute! I'd love a purse in that print.

I can't wait for Friday!

The Baby

So, today I got my hair cut in a vintage style. I the baby hair diagram from 1940's Hairstyles to my hair stylist. It is similar to the Middy style but shorter. I plan on continuing to grow it out in order to end up with a longer style, but, as my last cut was a super short bob, I'm working with what I have.


Here is a before shot.


And some after shots. I did keep my Betty bangs. They look super cute now that someone other than me cut them.

I plan on doing a pin curl set here soon and we'll see how much the cute changes the curls.