i (love to)buy things.

so, seeing as im not the seamstress of the yin family, ive resorted to buying all my clothes extra large and keeping them extra large. extra large looks good on skinny and fits perfectly on fat. its pretty much a win win situation.

so when i say i love to buy things, i mean i REALLY LOVE to buy things. this past weekend/yesterday was no exception. mich and i finally made our way over to the barneys warehouse sale after much anticipation and excitement, and it was well worth it. afterwards we went to the intermix sale and that too was great heaps of fun. (and by heaps i mean boobs, mountainous boobs everywhere). between yesterday and the shopping excursion at loehmanns this past weekend, i racked up a good $800 on the old cc bill. the shame!

but heres a little sneak of what i have to show for it, and probably the only sneak i will post, since a) the stuff i bought from the sample sales are at the dry cleaners to remove random dirt marks and b) its all fall stuff that id like to keep hidden until the fall for when i do expose my new fits, i will be the envy of all fashionable bargain shoppers. yee ha!

this is a super baggy sweater/jacket that is cotton in the front and knit in the back. its fabulous but mich hates it cause as she states, "it either needs to be wide or it needs to be short, it cant be both". little does she know (or maybe she knows very well).... i love wide and short! (oh, but not in regards to men.)
marc by marc jacobs, loehmanns: $109.99

I like to (re)make things.

One of my favorite pass times (is that one word or two or hyphenated?) is to buy thrift/vintage store clothing and remake them into new and amazing things. Unfortunately I have not been very good in the past about documenting my work, both the before and the after. So now I will use this blog as a place to put pictures of my work.

Here's what I just finished today. Before:

Navy silk dropwaist dress. $1. Last Chance Thrift Store, Atlanta, GA.

This dress was on sale for $1 because the center back zipper was caught in the fabric. With a little force, I was able to get it free without damaging the silk. I bought this dress with the intent of just shortening the sleeves and wearing the rest as is, but when I tried it on, there was not much of a shape to the dress and the front was just too flat. The pleated skirt at the bottom was also too long to be flattering. So anyway, I decided to cut it up and this is the final result:


With the sleeves coming out of the waist, this is my nod to Comme des Garçons top. Not that I'm even trying to compare myself to the greatness that is CdG, but yeah, anyway.

It is meant to be worn with the sleeves tied at the waist, like you would tie a jacket around your waist (not that I am promoting doing this AT ALL because it is NOT OKAY to do it).

While making this, I've decided that I'm possibly the worst sewer ever... just one step away from rethinking my career as a fashion designer.

michelles got blood, ive got tears

a terrible terrible thing happened this past weekend. this is where good finds meets bad luck. as i was overly excited to have my recently purchased hamburglar join me in bed, i overscrubbed the poor thing in an attempted washing "incident". not considering the delicate threads and fabric of this 20 year old toy, i thought it would be a great idea to use tide detergent and a toothbrush to give him a bath in the bathroom sink. i ended up tearing through most of his neck, while stuffing bursted out like guts. whether it was pms or the reinactment of a terrible childhood memory of washing my bear "Brownie", i started bawling like a baby. heres what poor hamburglar looked like after his bath:

a half hour later, with the help of anthony, i managed to collect myself off the bathroom floor and search for a new doll on ebay. i instantly found one and "bought it now". his face didnt look the same and he definitely wasnt in the same plump condition, but i desperately needed to fill the emotional void so i went for it.

he arrived today and hes faded and floppy. hes no substitute for his brother and his face is ten times creepier, but i think i love him anyway. he didnt come with a cape like his brother, so they'll have to share. here they are, reunited and it feels so hood:


as you see in the above close up, i managed to leave the old one (right) facedown on the dirty windowsill to dry and now he resembles an auto mechanic.

hamburglar #2, ebay: $4.00 + $4.50 shipping = $8.50

Flip it real good

Crystal and I dream of one day starting a furniture flipping business. Between the two of us, we have found and redone so many beautiful pieces of furniture. I guess until the day we actually have real working space, we'll just do one or two at a time for ourselves.

After becoming increasingly annoyed with my apt, I've decided that I'm going to make my room a more pleasant and homey place to live. I want it to be my retreat from the crazy city. So now I am determined to paint, clean, organize, decorate, and rearrange my room. I went to Junk yesterday to see if I could find any inspiring goodies, and this is what I got:

Old school wooden chair with crazy front legs. $10. Junk, Brooklyn, NY.

This guy had a tear in the plastic ugly upholstery and was dirty and scratched up. I gave him a facelift:

I painted the wood parts over in white and I sewed two pieces of upholstery fabric I had (one pinkish/orange, one bluish/green) to redo the seat portion. I am still trying to decide if I want to paint something in the little square on the back of the chair.

In the midst of staple gunning the new fabric onto the seat, I had an accident. Two actually. The first time I slapped the back of my hand down on upward facing staples and it bled like a mofo. The second time, I was screwing the seat back in and I guess I must have scraped it against something because the wound opened up again. Needless to say, there are splotches of blood on the seat of my chair. Blood and tears man, blood and tears.

I'm back I'm back

Time to start posting all the crazy shenanigans I bought on my trip. We might as well start with my favorite: shoes. I have lots. I bought more. It's out of control.

Navy woven leather flats. $2.79. Thrift Town, Memphis, TN.

Black open-toe lace-up flats. $0 (it was buy 1 get 1 free with the above pair). Thrift Town, Memphis, TN.

Brown woven leather flats. $1.99. Americas Thrift Store, Jasper, AL.

Camel flat oxfords. $2.99. Last Chance Thrift Store, Atlanta, GA.

Burgandy patent croc lace-up booties. $5.99. Goodwill, Memphis, TN.

Those last two pairs of shoes make me so so so happy. Yay!!!!!!!!!

shes back shes back!

so michelle is finally back from her outing to atlanta, etc. and ive missed her very much this past week and a half. (yes, we are inseparable). so of course the first thing we had to do when we saw each other was make the weekend trip to the clinton hill salvation army. and boy am i glad we did!

on top of 2 shirts and a cardigan, i also got great jewelry. FOR $1 EACH! unthinkable, really. im so excited that i just got home and i already really want to post these. so here it is:

this is my favorite one, a great necklace with a bunch of stones, rose like things, and coins from India. it looks religious sort of but im not really sure it is. doesnt matter.


and the closeup:
heres an awesome cloisonne bracelet with an owl:
and this belt buckle that i will make into a brooch:necklace, bracelet, brooch, salvation army: $1 each

oh tres fabeaux!

goodbye blue monday

one of my favorite ebay purchases of all time is this amazing collection of kurt vonnegut books. i bought these just months before he died, which now makes me treasure them all that much more. the auction was for these 8 books, all in a variety of editions, but before they started printing them with the generic covers that are now available in every bookstore.


8 kurt vonnegut books, ebay, $23 + $10 shipping

I have no title.

I love vintage luggage but unfortunately most of the time the bags are not in great condition. The outside usually has all kinds of weird stains on it and the interior is torn up and smells like cat pee. Lucky for me I was able to find a really sweet luggage case in the middle of Alabama that was just the perfect size (big enough to hold all of the other amazing thrift store finds I picked up on the way) and in very good condition (no stains, no pee!). Here it is. What a beaut.

Vintage tweed soft case. $2.99. Agape Thrift Store, Jasper, AL.

Closeup of the front zipper detail. I like the little ring dangling from the zipper pull.

Closure on the side of the case. It comes with a little key so you can lock it.

i bought this faux birdcage about a month ago. it used to have weird metal vines crawling through it but i managed to twist them all off. the reason im posting this now is because yesterday at the PR office i sometimes work at, i printed out these images of owls by John James Audubon (someone im obsessed with right now) in the fancy color printer. i strung them in and i think they look kind of nifty. here it is:


and the closeup:
birdcage, salvation army: $2.99. owls printed on cardstock: free!

id gladly pay you tuesday...

ever since i was little, ive loved hamburgers. my parents would buy michelle and i the grocery store pack of 10 frozen patties so we could feed ourselves when they were at work. i used to put a patty on a plate, cover it with a wet paper towel, cook it in the microwave for 3 minutes, and eat it with wheat bread and kraft cheese. later in life, when mcdonalds had their 29 cent hamburger promotion on tues/wed, i used to buy 4 of them on the way to class at Cal Poly Pomona and eat them throughout the day. and now, i love hamburgers just as much as ever, though i always have a special place in my heart for the basic mcdonalds burger. i even dressed up as the hamburglar for halloween 3 years ago. to this day, my dad still wholeheartedly believes that the reason i grew so tall was from eating so many hamburgers. (which makes sense considering all the hormones in the meat... which is pretty gross if i think about it).

anyway, so i was looking through vintage toys online (one of my favorite things to do), and found a picture of a hamburglar plush from the 1970s. i instantly jumped on ebay and was able to get myself one. he arrived in the mail today and hes as cute as can be:



hamburglar plush, 17" tall, ebay: $2.50 + $10 shipping = $12.50

logo on back

he needs a good washing but hes ultra cool as you can see. what a bad ass!

Boys and Girls

Up until I started college, I was a total tomboy. Big baggy clothes, bad hair, and no makeup. Since then I've developed my style and not surprisingly, I still tend to lean towards a boyish aesthetic. Lucky for me blurred lines of sexuality are all the rage now when it comes to fashion. My favorite things to rock are boyish button down shirts and lace-up shoes.

Dexter shoes in tan. $4.99. Salvation Army, Atlanta, GA.

Sungrasses

I'm jealous that Crys keeps finding all of this good stuff for cheap. Lucky for me, I'm currently in Atlanta so I have a whole new selection of retail stores to dig through to find goodies. The first store I went into today I was able to score an awesome find:

Pucci vintage sunglasses. $36.50. Rag-o-rama, Atlanta, GA

Detail shot. It's like a reddish tortoise shell for the main part of the frame and then it's a greyish tortoise shell at the top and edge detailing.

I love Pucci!

good find + good luck

i used to think that carelessness and bad luck went hand in hand. that the reason for my terrible misfortunes had to do something with the fact that i didnt pay enough attention to things. that i stepped in crap cause i wasnt looking or that i dropped twenty dollars cause i didnt put it away properly. but then i realized, thats not completely true. if anything, its usually the dumbest, laziest, most clueless pieces of crap that have all the luck. (perfect example being dubya bush, though anthony would clearly argue that it has more to do with the merovingian bloodline).

anyhow, my point is we could always use a little more luck... and im not talking about that stupid take 5 guy in commercials. but LIKE the commercial, not really for big important life things cause i dont feel like my luck is so terrible there, but more for the small day to day things- like finding twenty dollars or stepping in a pile of gold. so i bought 2 horseshoes on ebay and they arrived today. i hope it will bring me tiny pieces of luck.

horseshoes, ebay: 2 for $9.00 (shipping included)

framed!

for the past 4 years or so, ive been collecting frames. im mostly attracted to beat up or gaudy frames- and probably have about 15 or so gold ones with fleurishes back in california. i also have a ton of wooden frames, all from vintage stores... usually ranging between $0.50 and $3.00. since ive been in new york, ive tried to cut down on frame buying (no where to put them) but have found a couple i just couldnt resist.

heres one i bought this past week:

blue and gold frame, goodwill: $1.99

heres one of my faves, got this about 8 months ago:

gold frame, salvation army: $2.00

and heres a basic one, i bought at salvation army this past weekend. it was originally brown and gold with a ugly green matte, so i painted both the frame and the matte grey. inside is a print by my good pal joshua cochran (check out his awesome work here).

wooden frame, salvation army, $7.99 (this one was pricey cause it actually had someone else's art inside when i bought it)

good old salv arm

one of my favorite places for good finds is salvation army in clinton hill, brooklyn. michelle and i ALWAYS come back with a massive amount of books, clothes, purses, etc. and today was no different. i used to live 4 blocks from this salvation army and though it's now a 45 minute trip for me to get back there, i still go at least once every 2 weeks.

here are 2 of the many great finds i picked up:

cynthia rowley dress, $5.99


paul smith (blue collection) cardigan, $3.99

Chop chop

Living in New York means finding the most amazing things on the street (careful of bed bugs!). Tonight on my way to the local bar, I found this on a bench:

Plastic axe. $0. Limitless possibilities.
(Ignore my linty carpet, random sandals, and newly pedicured toes)

Good thing I just decided today that I was going to get rid of all the unnecessary junk in my room.