catching up!

oh hey there, blog.  long time no talk!  Dreadfully sorry for the lack of communication over the last couple months!  We just realized the other day that it had been over two months since our last update!  September flew by in a rush of events, and October has apparently slipped right through our fingers as well.  So.  Let's catch up, shall we?

September:

September was mostly about Brimfield.  I mean, half the summer was really about getting ready for Brimfield, but September is when things really got cray.  We were vendors there for the first time ever, having only actually been there once to shop the year before, so we were obviously nervous and didn't have any idea what to expect, and simultaneously super, insanely incredibly pumped.

Clockwise from top left: Me, looking real tough in my Dad's truck that we borrowed, Caiti with Oscar (the tent puppy!), and us in the truck on the drive down to Brimfield... being ridiculous.

Pictures of our booth!

It was incredible.  It was a lot of early mornings, long days, and early bed times (seriously, we were both in our tents by like 8:00 each night. we'd read and then be asleep by 9 at the LATEST), and so so so much fun!  We were obviously very silly the entire trip, as illustrated by the photos above... long days and stress make us into giggly goofballs. We met so many amazing people, did some great shopping, and can not WAIT to be back next year!  We've already signed up for a double spot in the same tent for May...  come visit us in the Donnaland tent in about 7 months, will ya? :)

THEN... after a short recovery period, we went to The Vintage Bazaar, in Salisbury, MA.  If you've never been, it's a great fair full of vintage, antiques, shabby chic, and all sorts of fun things.  It takes place on a farm in Salisbury, and they have beautiful gardens, a pond, and a few animals to gander at (I said hi to the pig every morning we drove in).  

Clockwise from top left: big ole typewriter in our booth, signage & numbers, an amazing sandwich we had on Sunday (yeahhhh it's chicken fingers and mac and cheese in a sandwich.  caiti's had buffalo sauce. i happily exclaimed "THIS IS LIKE FOOD I'D MAKE MYSELF WHEN DRUNK!!" while eating it), Caiti gets stuck in a sweater while wearing her Cats shirt.

We were really happy with how our booth turned out... and we set it up in record time!  We're starting to get good at this whole setup/breakdown process.  The Bazaar was a Saturday & Sunday event, and while Saturday went fabulously, we were REALLY concerned about the weather Sunday morning.  There was practically a 100% chance of bad weather.  So we took our time, went to the Italian bakery down the street from the house we were staying at, and really just didn't expect the day to be anything but a flop.  But... the weather turned out amazing!  It was great to be so pleasantly surprised.  Overall, it was awesome.  We sold a fair amount of stuff, chatted with lots of fun, enthusiastic people (some of whom apparently actually read our blog! hello, if you're reading this now!)... it was just a great weekend :)

And for the verrrry end of September, we did the Artisan Market at Doc's Marketplace in Cumberland.  It was an adorable market at a cafe... best lunch I ever had at a show! It was even brought to me on a REAL PLATE! people who do shows understand what a luxury that is. There were a bunch of great handmade things, and we were really the only vintage there.. which I was sort of nervous about, but it ended up going really well! Everyone there was great, and I got to check out lots of handmade pieces from places I'm glad to have discovered!

And then October...

Most of October was just things around the shop & the flea, and taking Halloween pictures with the shop cats.  Oh, which... by the way - we have shop cats now! I don't think I ever updated ze blog about that.  Our neighbor at the shop found a couple little kittens in the woods near his house and rescued them... and now they live in between our two shops!  They're very cute, very happy, and very distracting - it's hard to get a lot done with a big, fat purring kitten on your lap.  This is obvious by some of the photos where we dressed them up for Halloween:

The cats look miserable in the photos, but believe it or not they were purring the whole time.  If you want to see more of our ridiculousness, you can see more photos of this nonsense on our Facebook. There's technically a few days left before Halloween, so I'm guessing we'll do a few more...

Aaaaand that basically catches us up!  Now we'll be back to our regular bloggity-blog schedule!  We have some neat DIY posts scheduled, and things like that.  So.. let's stay in touch, shall we Internet?

xo,

Jess & Caiti

Coast to Coast Vintage Mobile Shop

As soon as I met Jaimee of of Coast to Coast Vintage, I awkwardly blurted out something about how she's living my dream life and I'm super jealous of her... because it's totally true and also because I am the best at first impressions.  

But, seriously... look at this..

DREAM

LIFE

Coast to Coast Vintage rolled into the parking lot of the Portland Flea for All last Sunday and I obviously became immediately smitten.  Jaimee and her beau Adam have been roaming around the U.S. of A. gathering & selling vintage treasures since this past spring in their rad looking Scotty camper. 

They have lots of fun pieces, from flowy dresses to fun denim cutoffs.  The inside of the trailer is so dreamy looking, with whitewashed walls and a silver ceiling, and shelves with all sorts of quirky things (i mean, who doesn't love a troll doll?)

They're both super nice people, so even though they're living my dream life, I ain't even mad.  It's really inspiring to see people around my age making something so amazing happen, and I hope that all of their vintage wanderlust dreams come true.  

If you see them in your hood (they're currently in New York) be sure to stop by and check it out!

and maybe, sommmmmmeday you'll see a vintage Lucille's camper on the streets :) 

mid week flea market adventure

There's something sort of wonderful about a mid week flea market.  In my mind, flea market adventures are generally reserved for Saturdays or Sundays, so something about going on a Wednesday makes it feel like an ultra adventure - like you're playing hooky from school to go on a field trip, or eating dessert before dinner.  It just seems out of place and completely delightful.  So obviously, I was super excited to check out the Monstweag Flea Market last Wednesday.  

I showed up around 10:00, which is egregiously late by flea market standards considering the vendors get there by 6:30 at the latest.  I couldn't help but think about all the deals I had probably missed, but I still had high hopes.  My high hopes were immediately rewarded - when I parked I noticed a chair directly in my line of sight, which I promptly got out of the jeep and bought.  

After that, I wandered around the rows of tables, first looking at the big pieces in the middle of the aisles, since I was mainly in the market for furniture, and then taking another lap to look at all the small trinkets on the tables.  A girl could start a pretty serious jewelry and accessory collection just by shopping here. 

One of my favorite areas, shown in the picture above, was one of the little shacks that's set back towards the back of the field.  There are a handful of them back there where the vendors can set up a mini shop.  I was looking for a woman who used to be up there who did mid century furniture, but she seemed to have been replaced by a woman who did all kitchen pieces.  Although I should have been bummed that there was no mid century furniture (which is what I was actually shopping for), I was too enthralled by the color coded shelves of kitchen beauties. So much Pyrex! and Fire King! and yes, there was some Jadeite, my new obsession.  The way she organized it by color made me feel like I was in some sort of glass candy shop!  I kept visualizing how my house would look with all these colors in it... and then I just stopped doing that because my house is a crappy apartment, so I just started visualizing an amazing house with all this stuff in it, and quite frankly, I wanted to buy it all.  But... alas, I didn't.  I did spend plenty of time swooning though.  

I ended up leaving with a few old photos, a couple things for me (whoops), a small gray electric fan, and a dreamy mid century vinyl chair.  You can see the vinyl chair and the fan in the picture above - that's the setup we did at the shop the next day.. and the fan already sold online! Now, if only I can find someone to buy the chair, then I'll have an excuse to go shopping again....

Anxiously waiting for Wednesday,

Jess

Weekly Wantsies

Welcome to another edition of Weekly Wantsies... where we torture ourselves by making lists of everything we want to own!  Window shopping is a cruel mistress, isn't she?

Caiti's picks:

1.) The sewing bug has been buzzing around me so bad. I want to make a million dresses with this fabric!

2.) It's no secret that I find shoes to be lovely and wonderful. I'd wear these with my moth dress for sure.

3.) Jess and I were just talking about how much I love gin. Gin and tonics are the best!

4.) I would put gin in these puppies! Also I like gin.

5.) Since I'm all about gin today, how about playing gin rummy with GAME OF THRONES playing cards!

Jess's Picks: 

1.  I found this dress on Asos the other day, and decided I'd wait to see if it went on sale... I went to pull it up today for this post and it's SOLD OUT.  My husband asked me if there were any dresses similar to it elsewhere and I played "Nothing Compares 2 U" and pouted because obviously there isn't.  Basically, what I'm saying is that I love it and if it doesn't come back I might be forever heartbroken.

2.  We have a big blank wall in the living room that needs a vintage pull down chart, and this one would be perfectamundo!

3.  I love typewriters. We sold one last week without realizing that it apparently wrote in bunch of amazing fonts, including cursive, so I soooooort of wish we'd kept it.  I love how industrial this one looks.

4.  GIVE ME ALL THE JADEITE.  We sold some Jadeite cups recently, and I miss them already (are you noticing a theme here? IT'S REGRET), and I desperately want my own jadeite collection now. 

What do you think of our picks?  Anything you're drooling over now?

xoxo,

Caiti & Jess

putting the pieces together

Sometimes it's a lot of fun to go shopping in our own store and put together cute little outfits.   We tend to shop/create in themes a lot without realizing it, so it's fun to piece it all together.  Here's an outfit I just made of some items we've got in the shop right now:

adorable, right?  I like that it's a super elegant, feminine print in really comfortable fabric... it's such a nice, flowy summer outfit.  Also, it's pretty obvious that we're a bit obsessed with florals at the moment, isn't it? 

You can find everything in our Etsy shop or at our brick & mortar in Westbrook, if you so happen to feel like recreating this at home.  (skirt here, shirt here, handmade necklace here)

hot hot heat

IT IS TOO HOT.  Lately we've been dealt the kind of weather that's really only good for lounging around in either A). an air conditioned space, or B). a pool, lake or some body of water.  However, we have an adorable little shop to run, so.. we've gotta haul ourselves out of the water and take care of business.  

These are the outfits we came up with to hang out in the heat..

OH, AND! We also both cut all our hair off.  Also due directly to the heat.  And Ginnifer Goodwin.  Damn her cute pixie face. 

 

Caiti borrowed liberally from the shop.  She's wearing one of our dresses, an anatomy necklace, and a belt that we have for sale.  Geez, girl, get your own closet.  Just kidding, this is our closet (we wash everything before we put it back. don't worry about our germs, okay?).

And Jess is rockin' all her own stuff.. a mixture of thrifted and target, as per usual.  Housedresses kind of rule, don't they?

Those Bee Earrings are Lucille's though!  They're actually a defective pair, so as per always with our screw ups, one of us gets to keep them!  We'll be putting regular, non defective ones up on Etsy soon though.  Also, check out our sign off in the background! and yes, if you can tell, that white blob below it is a piano.  Yes, we have a piano by the road.  If you're ever driving by in Westbrook you'll know it's us :D

stay cool,

Jess & Caiti

magazine gazing

We acquired a couple boxes of old magazines at a garage sale a few weeks ago, and have been slowly going through them since then... they are SO entertaining! I could spend hours flipping through each one... the photos and graphics are amazing.  The advertisements are ridiculous...  and all the stories inside are wondrous.  And also ridiculous. You'll find headlines like "Dan likes his vegetables dressed up", "how help-less are you?"and "Runaway Husbands".  Did I mention they're ridiculous? 

One of my favorite things is the INSANE eyes in half of the pictures.  What I'm gathering is that women in the late 40s were constantly terrified but forced to smile at all times.  Maybe that's why they were terrified?

"Is chastity outmoded?"

This might be my favorite image ever.  Way to stomp out the patriarchy, gurrrrrl!

I'd really love to own her tshirt, please.

Again, with the terrifying eyes... lady, seriously, you've been sniffing the washing soap for too long.

You'll never catch me reading a women's magazine nowadays, but if it's from 1947, I'm all in.

PS.  We'll have a whole boatload of these for sale at the shop in Westbrook if you're in the market for any...  

giveaway time!

*****

This giveaway is now closed!

We've drawn the winner for this giveaway!  We used the random number generator and came up with...

Lucky number 7! so...  Congratulations to Slađana Sušilović!

*****

We've been pumping out lots of handmade goods, and getting all sorts of new vintage for the shop lately.  We figured a fun way to celebrate the abundance of all this stuff is to have a little giveaway on the blog!  Share the love, ya know? 

 So we put together this little package of goodies....

It features a beautifully embroidered vintage hankie, a sweet photo from the Summer of '43, a pair of handmade mint green polka dot earrings, and a handmade necklace with a vintage botanical moth print.  (I felt like Rod Roddy while typing that.. I just pictured a Price is Right lady motioning to these items on a table)

There are a few ways to enter.  #1 and most important is to leave a comment on this entry! That counts as one entry.  You get an extra entry if you tweet about the giveaway (just be sure to tweet us @shoplucilles so we can see!), or if you mention the giveaway in a blog entry or facebook post (just link to it in your comment).

We'll tally up the entries and randomly select a winner on Friday, July 19th at 5:00pm (EST) ***EDIT*** we're keeping the contest open until Sunday at 5PM EST... just for some extra time to enter! ****  Then we'll mail this cute little package to the winner... who, by the way, can be anywhere in the world!  The more the merrier! 

Good luck!

xoxo,

Jess & Caiti

Weekly Wantsies

What Caiti's pining for:

1.) I love dresses, lately I've been all about the pastel floral sundress. So cute.

2.) My Dad's a biker so it may be rubbing off on me but I reallllly want a cropped leather jacket. 

3.) Also I need another skull in my collection and this ones lovely.

4.) Gold and seafoam and irrelevant to my life but these should be mine. Plus they're cheap!

5.) I've always liked the idea of monograms. I like these...

Things Jess is incredibly into:

1.  Lately I've been getting the urge to dress like Laura Petrie.  Which is sort of weird for me, since I'm consistently clad in dresses, but right now I want tanks and pedal pushers with flats, so.. This vintage tulip print tank top would be a perfect start to my Laura Petrie collection, no?

2.  I love insect jewelry, forever & always.  These bee earrings are (forgive the pun... yes... I'm going there...) the bee's knees.

3.  I LOVE messenger bags (I don't do well with normal purses), and I love vintage typography, so obviously this vintage typewriter messenger bag is a win/win.

4.  Perfect cropped jeans to go with my tank top.  PS.  I'm totally into Mod Cloth's new plus size collection. Pretty drool-worthy.

5.  Aaaaaaaaadorable red & black polka dot flats... to complete the ensemble!  Man, I would wear these with so many things.  

and, just in case you're wondering, Jess would definitely wear that whole collection together as one outfit.  for SURE.  And Caiti would wear everything in her collage as well... while carrying around the skull.  Because we're cool like that.

Wantingly yours,

Caiti & Jess

a bit of a truthful blurb by Jess

There's something kind of magical about having a store.  I always hoped, when I was pie-in-the-sky daydreaming about having one someday, that it would be this absolutely amazing place that I wanted to spend all my time in.  And luckily, I was right.  

I had a tough time this past week, and spent a couple days away from the shop at home because I was having crazy amounts of anxiety about a wild variety of things and just needed to chill the hell out.  Because... even though having a shop is a magical, beautiful thing, it's stressful in ways that I didn't even know were possible and never could have anticipated.  You know how when people start working out and they say that their muscles hurt in places they didn't even know they had muscles?  Both Caiti and I are emotionally exhausted in places that we didn't even know we had emotions.  I mean, EXHAUSTED.  We feel all sorts of things, all the time.  It's crazy.

But despite all my stress and anxiety, I really, really missed being at the store, and I was so so happy to be back.  Both of us spent yesterday at the shop doing various things... I was taking pictures for Etsy, and Caiti was outside painting furniture.  We both stayed late, not because we had to, but because we were caught up in projects that we were excited about and because we WANTED to finish them.  The furniture was coming out adorable, and the light in the shop was SO perfect for photos... I mean, why would you want to leave that? 

It was a great day.

So basically, what I'm saying is... things are tough, but amazing.  And I'm truly, really happy even when it seems like I'm sad... which is kind of the greatest thing I've ever felt.  Knowing that I'm pursuing my dream is such a huge accomplishment, that even when I feel like a big fat failure and like everything is going wrong, there's still at least a glimmer of happiness deep inside of me, because I'M DOING IT.  And I hope that you, whoever you are reading this, have something in your life that you love so much that you're in love with it no matter how much you hate it sometimes.. and I hope that it makes you all shimmery inside, even when you've got a big cloud of gloom over your head.  It's kind of a great feeling, isn't it? 

truthfully yours,

Jess

ain't no cure for the summertime blues

the shop seems to have a serious case of the blues goin' on lately... and I'm totally into it.

Vintage Silk Button Vest

Vintage Summertime Blues Plaid Tanktop 

Vintage High Waisted Denim Shorts

Vintage Baby Blue Polka Dot Dress - L/XL

Vintage Baby Blue Shirt Dress with Embroidery Detail

All these cool hues make me want to spend the day lounging around in a calm, blue body of water - lake, river, pool... doesn't matter to me!  Then again, I feel that way most days during the summer, don't you?

All those beauties are available in the shop, if you happen to be a bit more in the mood for online shopping than outdoor lounging.  Orrrr if you're in the mood for an adventure.. they're also available at our ACTUAL shop at 625 Bridgton Road in Westbrook.. if you're down for a road trip :)

Happy 4th of July!

We hope you all have a safe and happy 4th of July!  And we also hope that you have a bit more fun than it looks like this lady is having....

xoxo,

Jess & Caiti

far out: my surprising love of 1970s design

Having grown up in a house that was built in the 1970s, I was quite convinced that all design from that era was just downright awful.  Our house was a split level house, that featured a weird yellow siding on the outside, and brown shag carpet on the inside.  Oh, except for in a couple rooms the color varied to yellow (and maybe my parent's room was green? oh boy).  All the ceilings on the main floor were stucco/popcorn ceilings, but were done in such a way that the "popcorn" feature was kind of like tiny, white daggers dripping from the ceiling.  And in the center of the living room ceiling there was a groovy painted medallion that my mom never asked for but got anyway.  It was white, so it wasn't atrocious, but it really set off the stucco daggers of doom.  Overall, it was just not an example of something to swoon over design-wise.

So imagine my surprise when recently, I realized that I am actually quite in love with 70s style design! 

 I think it's happened gradually over the past few years, starting innocently enough with a chair here...

1970s Danish Modern chairs we reupholstered & sold a few months ago

and a table there....

1970s Heywood Wakefield cobbler's table we just sold recently.  I kind of miss it.

....but it's definitely been noticeable lately. Now, don't get me wrong... there's still PLENTY of offensive things that came from the 70s... 

I mean, hi:

Eep. So so bad.

But the good is so so good.  I love the modern designs that were just starting to become popular in the 60s and 70s, coupled with all the hippie dippy colors and patterns that were being used. I love all the super bold, strong lines that were used in construction of not just furniture, but whole houses.  Give me a weird A-Frame house or a big boxy house any day of the week!

via FastCoDesign

Also, can we talk about conversation pits?  SO. GOOD.

via Home-Designing.com

Basically, what it boils down to is that I just want to live in the Wary-Meyers' living room.  I've been obsessed with photos of this house for ages, and just recently realized they're from Maine.  MAINE! THAT'S WHERE I'M FROM!

I mean, look at that!  If I can't make my house look like that someday, our shop will inevitably end up looking like it.  

What do you think about 70s style?  Groovy in a good way? Or groovy in a "get your popcorn off my ceiling" kinda way?  

Hippily dippily,

Jess