What the (arma)dilly-yo!?

I love anything with a cute little animal on it.  I'm impressed (in awe of?) wildlife and maybe I'm just a little too easily amused by personified objects.  This has been an ongoing problem for me.  Stuffed animal and doll storage was a huuuge issue when I was a kid:

My bed, circa 1991.  The slightest movement resulted in random lights flickering and sound effects heard, or worse: an avalanche.  (And don't think I didn't take a trip down memory lane 'researching' those names!)

I've finally accepted that Beanie Babies will never, ever, be as popular as they once were.  (Seriously?  I waited in line for over an hour for a stuffed platypus named Patti?  What the...)  And it wasn't until embarrassingly recently that I whittled down my stuffed animal collection to the essential dozen or so relegated to a single plastic storage bin.  Save for my main squeeze, Bear, the creatively named plush toy (that's actually a puppet with a workable mouth and arms!) who remains a fixture in my bedroom...

Today I collect animals in the form of random figurines that I get from thrift stores, usually made of brass but I don't discriminate and also have critters made of ceramic, chalkware or other materials...and in other non-figurine decor things, like wall art and trivets!  Weird color? Sold!  Homely looking?  Sold!  Big-ass eyeballs?  Sold!  Here are some favorites:

I'm like a unicorn.  But cooler.

How often do you come across cheetahs hatching from eggs?  Not often enough.  (Fun fact: Platypuses, like Patti the Beanie Baby, are one of the only mammals that hatch from eggs.  Cheetahs are not.)  I discovered this miracle of nature a few years ago while organizing the shelves one afternoon at the thrift store I worked at.  Customers were not amused by this discovery.  Co-workers were not impressed by it's rarity.  It made my day to become its proud owner and it makes quite the conversation piece.

This guy is usually hanging by his tail from my curtain rod.  I also got him from the thrift store where I was working.  He's kind of tattered and completely useless as an eyeglass case (what we think it's designed for) but how could I resist those sparkly eyes and big, dopey ears?

I've got brass birds perched throughout the house and this (tiny!) elephant is  supposed to hold matches.

Animals on the walls.  How adorable is the long-legged owl?!

And a few more critters I rounded up for pictures: bunnies and squirrels and frogs, oh my!

Stay tuned for my episode of Hoarders where I sing amongst my figurine collection like a deranged Snow White in an enchanted animal kingdom.  (And also, stay tuned for some of them making an appearance in the shop.)

They make for great (not at all creepy) accents throughout the home.  Station one in a windowsill, on a bookshelf, a nightstand, part of a tablescape, whatever.  Add some whimsy to your vintage-y vignette!

The more random the animal, the better.  I feel like cat and dog related items are everywhere.  (And a cat lady without a cat figurine collecting dust somewhere in her house is not a cat lady...)  Owls had their heyday in the seventies and have made a huge comeback (hipster spirit animal?) and foxes more recently had their moment in fashion.  I'm still searching for a brass monkey.  One of these days...

Last year I found this belt with an armadillo buckle while out thrifting; and I even styled one of the skirts from the Holidayz Collection with it:

Skirt is available here

Aaand since that's almost impossible to see, here ya go:

Ready for his close-up...

The cashier thought it was an anteater, or an aardvark, but I'm pretty sure it's an armadillo...and that's only because I remembered what they looked like from this level on Donkey Kong Country.  (Granted, mine my kid brother's was for Nintendo 64, but this looks about the same...)  It's not like armadillos are the too-often seen squirrels and pigeons in my neck of the woods...  So I was all "OMG!  Isn't that an armadillo! What?  That's sooo random!  And sooo cute!  I love it!"  (And once again, like with the hatching cheetah, no one else in the aisle was amused or impressed by my find...)

But.  When I was at Madewell recently, I saw this necklace and ring (apparently not even online yet) with armadillos, too!

Awww, look at that little guy!

And here he is again...with Mom!  Hanging on a necklace!  With tassels!

Great minds thinking alike, Madewell, great minds...  So armadillos are officially trending.  Get yours now: the belt is in the shop and we'll have some other (non-armadillo but equally cute and random) friends joining him...because the animal collection (of mostly figurines) is coming soon here!  Prepare to be amused!  And impressed!

Here's a shot of the whole gang going to the shop...they were a hard bunch to round up for a group picture.  Kitty is not impressed.

Holidayz Collection Highlightzzzz

It's been a crazy productive month for the Vintage Adoption Agency!  Cray-cray CRAAAAY-ZAY!  I want to keep this momentum going into the new year...because I love it!  And I hope you're loving it, too!  As promised in the last post, I updated the etsy shop with a ton of bags and now the Holidayz Collection is up, too.  Unintentionally, it features a lot of the color red...and I love it!  That color is everywhere, and for good reason.  It looks amazing.  Here are three of the fancier dresses from the collection:

Painting the town red, anyone?

The dress on the left is one of the pieces that I've reworked.  As explained in the description, it came with these *awful* *ridiculous* sleeves and they've since been removed.  Now the dress is looking a million times more sophisticated.  I can imagine an Old Hollywood star wearing this...with sparkly jewelry and opera gloves and either a long velvet cape or a mink fur on her shoulders.  The sequins on the body are soo pretty; they're a really shiny, opaque red that I've never come across (and I've seen many, many sequins...):

Oooooh. Pretty...

There are a couple of other reworked pieces in the Holidayz Collection that I'm quite pleased with: a red and gold skirt made of the most A-mazing material, a metallic purple skirt, and a really cute little dress that has a neck sash that can be tied into a bow.

A-mazing, right? No exaggeration.

And now, the rest of the skirts from this collection in all their horribly-edited glory!

Well, you get the idea.

I had a lot of fun styling these looks.  I tend to wear vintage pieces in a more casual way, so my instincts were to dress-down the fancier skirts with an army jacket or over-sized shirt.  Obviously, they'd look great with a nice silk blouse or a button-down shirt but I  hate when things start to look too precious and I didn't want to show you, savvy reader, anything too obvious.

(Speaking of obvious, or just an observation on Christmas party ensembles: why is it that the kindest people wear their 'ugly' Christmas sweaters with sincerity and (a good majority of) the people wearing them for 'ironic purposes' are probably on Santa's shit list?  Is there an inverse relationship between good taste and good manners?  Dedicated to all the grandmas, elementary school teachers, generous uncles and unusually friendly cashiers at the grocery stores rocking their Christmas-themed sweaters, sweatshirts, and musical socks with pride this holiday season...  I support you.)

While I don't have anything overtly Christmas-y in my outfit rotation for the festivities, I like the idea of giving a subtle nod to the holiday by strategically pairing the colors for my outfits...something not-necessarily-Christmas-y in red with something else not-necessarily-Christmas-y in green, et voilà: a subtle Christmas-y look!  Here are four skirt looks from the Holidayz collection that prove the formula: they work year around (or at least all winter) and can go in a more seasonal, Christmas-y direction with the right accessories:

Red + Green = Festive.

Looking at the picture of all the skirt outfits also reminds me: shoes will be coming to the shop soon...and I still have to add the belts!  That belt with the silver bow buckle is a personal favorite and it will be for sale in the shop.  It got a lot of mileage when I was styling this collection.  It's made by Mimi Di N and from the eighties.  

Mimi Di N Vintage Silver Bow Belt Buckle and Black Patent Belt

This designer and princess (yep, for reals!) had some really quirky belt buckles in the 70s and 80s: seashells, leaves, elephants, koi fish...  It looks like many of the designs are available through the 'official' website but you can get a better deal on eBay or etsy.  I'm always excited when I come across them for really cheap in thrift stores. (Seriously, if you're an avid thrifter, eventually you will come across one and it will be your lucky day because they seem to never get marked up/priced too much higher than whatever the other belts are selling for.)  

My all-time favorite belt buckle is by this brand and the belt part (and some other random bits of lace and ribbon and other notions) had been bundled into a plastic bag for about $1.50...I figured the leaves were some kind of old door ornament/brass decoration and planned to use it in a mixed media project.  I was VERY pleasantly surprised when I realized it was a belt buckle...and the tan strip was the attaching belt!

Does the Thrift Store Score Dance #407 

Weirdly, but as seems to happen in the universe, shortly after I scored my first Mimi Di N belt, I came across this one, also with leaves:

Collecting them all, apparently.

Another fun belt in the collection is this gold-tone one with a cool nautical-looking crest on it:

So preppy and nautical...

Which I show styled over one of my latest (non-vintage) purchases from Madewell and under a beaded jacket from the collection:

Clearly, I'm loving this color-scheme right now...

So the rest of the belts and shoes will be added shortly...in the mean time, have you seen all the time I've been wasting fun I've been having with all the vintage-y, Old Hollywood-y, Christmas-y, cutesy, street-style-y and fashion-y imagery on tumblr?  A (belated) Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!