Vintage Motel Signs

Hi all, sorry, I haven't posted in forever! Studying in America has been amazing but I'm leaving in two weeks :-( Then I'll be travelling for about a month, THEN BACK HOME TO AUSTRALIA!

I have seen so many beautiful vintage signs over here but most of my photos are taken out of the car window and are super blurry. But here are a few of my favourites that I got semi-decent snaps of. Enjoy xx

Thrift finds

Ok so I've been super bad at posting on here, I'm at uni now and I've been so busy! You will just have to ignore the terrible quality of the photos and admire all the tacky goodness. 

The thrift shops in America are AMAZING! I've been to about 5 in the past few weeks and all have had so many goodies. It's been so hard to resist, knowing that I somehow have to get it all back to Australia. 

There is so much american kitsch stuff here. I am in love! I am especially taken with the 1977 plaster horse wall hanging! Pretty darn ugly, but so good. I have two that are really similar, so that makes it a collection, yay!

I hardly ever find vintage planters and one goodwill had a whole heap, all for $1-$2, each! Isn't the donkey one too cute? Can't wait to plant a cactus in him :-)

 I've also found about a dozen beautiful cards to add to my ever expanding card collection. I find it so hard to actually use them because they are just too lovely! 

Hope you're all having a lovely week and having good luck at the op shops! 

Kitsch ♡

So I'm off to America soon so my sister gave me my christmas presents early, yay! All three things below are from my big sis and they are wonderfully kitsch. 

I'm particularly smitten with this tacky music box. Isn't it hideously wonderful! 
(sorry for the terrible angle but the background is a mirror so I couldn't get a good photo) 

Anyway, hope y'all are having a swell week x

Collection Post: Patches

 This is my latest obsession. At the moment they are all blu-tacked onto my wall but when I collect enough, I have grand plans to sew them onto an old woollen blanket like this one (isn't it perfect!) and pretend I'm a scout.

The one's above are probably my favourite.

This is basically my whole collection so far (minus a few that didn't quite fit)

I like vintage ones best, but I couldn't help but buy these new ones from the internet. I'm meant to be saving for my trip to America but I have no restraint >_>

Speaking of travel, I am off to Tasmania with the fam on Saturday - we're going to be hiking in cradle mountain in the freezing cold (wish me luck). So I will be back in the blogging world in a week or so, but until then, adios xx

Incoming Mail

I received a lovely parcel from Kathya the other day. Inside was the most amazing vintage christmas wrapping paper! She also sent a vintage card, sweet page markers, a tote bag and cute socks :-D

thank you ever so much kathya!

☆ MERRY CHRISTMAS ☆

I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and a wonderful day!

Aluminium

Last week I went to Townsville for my cousins 18th and of course my mum and I managed to fit in some op shopping on the side. Golly gosh am I glad that we did because I found an aluminium christmas tree.  It's probably my favourite oppy find of the whole year! 

I'm definitely no expert but I get the impression that aluminium trees weren't as much of a craze here in Australia as they were in America? I see them everywhere on people's blogs but I had never actually seen one in real life. I've been wanting one for ages but the trees online are way out of my price limit so I was so thrilled when I saw this one for $8!

Now I have somewhere to display my meagre collection of glass baubles (another thing I don't think were very big here because the majority of these were brought back by my mum from America).  

Last week was quite a big week for finding aluminium things because we also found these: 

I have a bit of a thing for anodised aluminium so these planters had to come home with us. A fact which caused us a lot of trouble because they are actually quite large and didn't fit in our bags (we thankfully were able to take them on as hand luggage on the plane even though the customs man was dubious). They are a lot prettier in real life and I can't wait to plant something in them!

I also found this aluminium canister set. I think it's missing a size but I still love them!

I'm linking up to alivingspace and sirthriftalot :-)

Pretty things

Just a few little things I found lately :-)

 pineapple salt and pepper shakers and a crazy eyed deer.

Vintage fake flowers

Oppy Finds

These are some of the things that I've found at op shops over the past few weeks. 

Some epic shiny holographic dinosaur stickers, cardboard christmas coasters, vintage airmail envelopes, and some vintage cards. 

Lovely wrapping paper. I can't get over how great the dog one is.

I found all these beautiful nativity sets on the same day and they were all in their original boxes :-D

 

A pot holder and an almost matching tea cosy from separate oppies

This is a 1950's lino square that I got from an antique shop - it wasn't the cheapest but I couldn't resist coz it has a cactus and I intend to hang it as a piece of art. I am so going to have a kitchen with vintage lino on it one day! 

I'm linking up with sirthriftalot :-)

Christmas Mail

I finished exams! hoorah! Since finishing my mum and I went on a little op shopping trip to the blue mountains so I have some purchases to show you when I get around to it :-D

Seeing as it's almost christmas (or it feels like it to me anyway, I decorated about a month ago), I feel that it is time for me to send out some christmas mail! I have a whole pile of vintage christmas cards because I always snap them up and I would love to send some out. So if you want a little bit of christmas in your letter box just email me your address to em.odonnell94@gmail.com and I will send you a card :-)

Below are my favourite cards so I can't promise that you will get something quite as cute (I am such a hoarder and can't bear to part with them) but I will try my best to send something lovely.

Collection Post: Tea Cosies

Golly gosh, I feel like I haven't posted in ages! I've been studying for my uni exams (only two more to go!).  I managed so sneak in some op shops in between study so I will eventually get around to posting those :-) Until then here is a post about my tea cosie collection that I had saved in my drafts and quite forgotten about. 

Sadly I can't lay sole claim to this collection. It started off as my sisters collection, but my mum and I probably bought about two thirds of them at op shops and so we claim it as ours as well :-P The craze has died down a bit because of storage space issues, but whenever we see a cool one for a few dollars or less we usually buy it and add it to the pile :-) 

  

The Koala ones are probably my favourite. The one in the photo above is hilarious because of the position where the spout comes out ;-)

This pineapple(?) is fluro orange and I simply love how tacky it is.

The doll one is a tad creepy but I kinda love it for that reason. 

I think this ones supposed to be a mushroom?

We have about 50 now but my sister has some at her house. So there's our tea cosy collection. Hope you enjoyed it :-) Which are your favourites?

Op shop goodies

I went for an op shop day last week with my mum and we came back with quite a haul. All this (aside from the deck chairs which my mum bought for $8 each) cost $30 which I thought was pretty good seeing as the lord of the rings books set me back $15. They were a bit pricey but they are from the 1970s and in perfect condition -also I'm a massive fan ;-)

The wooden board is apparently a cheese platter, which I have absolutely no use for but I love kitsch Australiana and it was cheap. The wire thing is a record holder, which I'm awfully happy with.

A cute saucepan, little orange dish and some pyrex. The mint one isn't actually pyrex but I really liked how it looked with the orange one.

The hideous golden thing is a thermometer made in Japan. I have a few of them now, they are so tacky! I actually found this one at the same dump recycling place I found my last one almost a year ago which I thought was a bit of a crazy coincidence. The rose wall hanging was made in West Germany and I love it!

And it wouldn't be a good op shop haul if I didn't pick up some christmas goodies.

I am in love with these deck chairs. They are so darn comfy!

I'm linking up with Sir Thrift A Lot and A Living Space :-)

Christmas seals

I'm hopeless when it comes to vintage christmas, I just keep buying! I bought a heap of seals off etsy and I can't wait until I can send out some christmas mail adorned with these! These are my favourite ones :-)

Op Shop Finds

I only went to two op shops this week but I still found a few things :-) 

This little tin globe was $8 which is usually more than I pay for anything but it was just too sweet to pass and my mum collects vintage globes so it will make a good chrissy present :-)

A great pavlova plate and some weird 70s coasters that seem to be made of marbelised sand (there are 6, but only 3 made it in the photo)

And some sweet unused vintage cards

I'm linking up to Sir Thrift A Lot and A Living Space and We Call It Junkin :-)

Oppy finds

Thought I'd share some of the stuff I found last week at the oppys. It all seemed to match a colour scheme by some crazy coincidence. 

I am in love with this orange thermos, but sadly my boyfriend got to it before me :-P The hedgehog one is pretty sweet though and it was made in West Germany :-)

My mum collects these vintage Japanese teapots and cups so they will go in the stockpile for christmas :-) 

The yellow floral wallpaper in the photos I found for 50c. I also found three unused rolls of 70s wallpaper in a street junkpile which made me awfully happy because there is enough to do my wall! My brother found two working turntables in the same junkpile! It always amazes me what people throw out- he looked them up on eBay and they are worth about $100-$200 each!

I'm linking up to Sir Thrift A Lot and A Living Space :-)