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