It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like...

We never like to bust out the holiday decorations too early around these parts. Christmas doesn't feel very special if you start preparing the day after Halloween. I'd even like to hold out right until December 1st if I could, but since it falls mid-week this year, we took the opportunity of the weekend to gussy up the shop.

Lots of glass ornaments and greeting cards and stocking stuffers and thoughtful gifts are in the shop now. And we'll be getting packages of new inventory all month long! And we'll be filling up the place with lots more vintage finds. We've been lucky lately. Come on down to James Street and give handmade or vintage this holiday season!

Wish List

I went on an imaginary shopping spree for my bedroom this morning. I planned to check out everything the Internet has to offer, but after overloading on Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters, I decided to stop while I was ahead.

You'll have to excuse the poor collage job. The only editing tool I have at my disposal at my day job is MS Paint. Now that I said that, you're impressed with my skillz, aren't you?

When I put these things together, it kind of blew my mind how much my style has changed. Basically if I could have my way, I just want everything in my apartment to be old and thrifted and look like something my grandmother would have put there. But these pieces would really help achieve the look I'm going for.


From Anthropologie: The Doily Rug, Daisy Finials, and the Halo Chandelier.


From Urban Outfitters:Waterfall Ruffle Duvet in Pink, GiGi Nightstand in Grey, Velvet Tufted Headboard in Antique Gold, Estelle Ottoman in Robin's Egg, Tufted Velvet Storage Bench in Rose.

Sigh. Now if only I could afford everything on my wish list.

Glee Club

Friday night saw another Pickle Bee Society gathering. This time, Thea and I joined Kate at her place for some embroidering good timez. We were planning on attending the second installment of Yearbook parties at The Ship, thrown by Rachael and Gary. This time around the party was focusing on teams, groups, clubs, societies, squads, etc. So, some of the lady bees decided that it would be fun to embroider society badges to wear to the party.


The three of us went for a similar theme, a mason jar full of pickled goods. Thea added bee wings to her jar, and Kate embroidered adorable dill beans. And of course, we drank good wine and ate good cheese and had good conversation. Kates' cat, Sookie, would often chime in. I wish I had taken more photos of Kates' home because OHMYGOD it is lovely. Maybe she'll let me come back sometime soon to shoot a house tour.

The sad thing is, I didn't actually end up joining on Saturday night because I was too wiped from shooting a wedding all day, and was getting up early the next morning for another photo shoot. But I was still there in spirit. Team spirit! Pickle bee society spirit! Plus, I totally plan to wear my badge at all times from here on out.

Smooch

These adorable crocheted pets we just got at the store are pretty much made for kissin'. They're also made with love, by Granny Buttrum.

Babes in Arms

Ever since I discovered how easy it was to scan old photos directly to my camera's memory card, I have been going crazy scanning. These are some of my absolute favorite pictures of my grandma, her friends, and sisters. These ladies look like they know how to party.


That's my grandma on the far right of each of the pictures above. I'll have to get my mom to fill me in on who the other ladies are.







I think some of these were taken at the infamous Otty Lake. I know I promised a blog post about the Otty Lake family history wayyyy back in the summer, but it's taken me a long time to get too. Now that I finally have approximately eight kazillion pictures scanned, I will get to it shortly.

In the meantime, Hollie, why haven't we had one of these photo shoots??

Heart Is

I bought a new camera. Which makes me feel pukey and sick and actually kept me up at night with anxious knots in my stomach because of how extravagant of a purchase it was. But I dropped my last camera during store renovations and its been acting funny ever since, and that camera was bought second-hand initially, and I got a really good deal on my new one, and it shoots HD video which Mike is interested to create with, and blah, blah, blah. I could give a million good excuses, but I really bought it because I'm a fat cat consumerist, and you know, sometimes, I'm totally okay with that.

Anyways, point being is that I'm trying to get the feel of my new toy. I took some photos of our home. Mini house tour!


My table of curiosities in the front hall (landing?) includes a deer skull, a monarch butterfly under a bell jar, a birds nest, and mason jar full of seashells/rocks/fossils, all of which either Mike or I have collected ourselves. There is a beautiful wasps nest built on our eaves-trough that I hope to add once it becomes cold enough and I can remove it safely.

The gramophone painting in our dining room is by Amy Kenny and I hung it by our table radio to be tongue-in-cheek. GET IT? The beautiful crown coronation souvenir print is actually a paper placemat that they gave away at gas stations in 1953.



Because we have limited room for furniture in the living room I've taken a penchant to stacking our books on the floor. The conceal book shelf helps too, but I worry about its lifespan in our crumbly plaster walls. My mom recovered two armchairs for us for our wedding present, and I went with two different prints from Joel Dewberry. The upholstery was done by Jefferson's Upholstery on Dundurn, and dang, they did an exquisite job. The large painting above the chairs is by Christina Sealey. It depicts the view from the high level bridge on York Street, overlooking the 403 and Cootes Paradise and takes up most of the wall. You may remember that we profiled Christina here.



The English Setters painting in our upstairs hallway was hanging in Suzies' apartment above the diner when we were clearing it out. I found the portrait of the regal old woman in fur at a garage sale for $2, and below is a vintage print of the Three Sisters mountain range in Alberta, which I've always been fond of, being one of three sisters.

The picture rail is in my studio and is filled with lovely memories. A pink depression glass cup from Jane, a print from Sarah McNeil, a handpainted wooden Russian doll that my aunt brought me home from her travels when I was younger, a vintage tile, photos of my favourite ladies and a flyer to a friends' jewelry opening. The framed certificate hanging above is one I received in grade three for my "positive and cheerful attitude". I wish I could quote those credentials in my grown-up life. And, let's be honest. The photos that I've been taking the most of since getting my camera have been of my cats. I had to sneak in one. They make such handsome models.

Thanks for indulging me while I practice my craft. Gotta keep plugging away. The focus is a little more tricky on this camera/lens, I find. But I've always wondered if my glasses and poor eyesight contributes to my ability to focus cameras. Any fellow glasses-wearing photographers agree?

New School

I love the dresses section at Modcloth so much that I rarely ever visit anywhere else on their website. Today I checked out the sweaters section, and now I want one of everything. These three cardigans are kind of the cutest things ever, no?

Beauties

Have you been peaking at the Ainslie Wood Co. shop this week? It is full of beauties like these. We've added a couple of the pieces we picked up at the Vintage Clothing Show, but we have more seriously amazing (no really, amazinggggggggg) pieces to add next week. Stay tuned!

All of the above will be at the shop tonight for art crawl! Come in and say hi!

Wishing Well

This is crazy good. Blowing my mind good. "Wishery" is a track by Australian musician Pogo, and is entirely comprised of audio and video samples from Disney's 1937 version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I couldn't even tell you how many times I've listened to this song in the past three days. It's just so masterful.

He had a year long gag order from Disney just released, and all of his older work has been put back online for our auditory pleasure. "Alice", is the track that gained him recognition, and, along with "Wishery", is on back-to-back repeat with me right now. Stirring up all kinds of warm and magical and nostalgic feelings.

Via: BOOOOOOOM and Erica!

PS - Art crawl tonight at the shop! Come eat some candy and say hi!

Is It Me You're Looking For?

Photo: Brad Isaacs

We have a pretty big announcement to make over here at White Elephant.

WE NEED HELP.

It's true. We're not ashamed to admit it. Look at how stressed out we've become. White Elephant is growing and growing and growing, showing no signs of stopping just yet. To facilitate all the expanding needs of our little baby elephant, we are putting out a call for our very first intern.

So, here's the deal. We're looking for a saavy, stylish individual with an interest in retail to help us out for between 6-8 hours every week. The successful candidate will have a vibrant personality for customer service, knowledge of Excel worksheets, good time management skills, is able to multitask and can be trusted to work independently. The successful candidate will have an already flourishing interest in handmade/independent designers/vintage and know how to utilize social media.

We promise not to send you to pick us up coffee everyday, but we may need the occasional running around to the dry cleaners, office supply store or post office. There is one required Saturday shift per month.

In exchange, we'll share all the insider ups and downs of running ones' own business, and it's an amazing opportunity to become a part of the burgeoning James North arts community. We'll also throw you a little sumthin-sumthin at the end of each month, if you know what I mean. And we cross our hearts that we'll try to make everything as fun as possible.

Please send in your cover letters and resumes to whiteelephantvintage[AT]gmail.com with the subject line "INTERN" by December 6th, 2010 and let us know why you'd make the best choice. Feel free to ask us any questions you have about the position. This is as much a learning experience for us as it will be for you.

(Edit: I'm a little self-conscious about my photo choice since it makes Jane and I look a little scary with our death glares. I promise that ain't so in real life. I think this photo is hilarious for that reason, and looks like a scene out of My So Called Life or something. Working for us will be fun. We like to have a good time.)

Bird's Eye

I've been dying to show you the progress that is happening in my new apartment, but since I can't do it quite yet, I thought you might like to see the most amazing apartment in the world instead. I found these pictures of this amazing penthouse at the top of Seattle's Smith Tower on you are my fave a couple weeks ago, and I haven't stopped drooling since. I stole the pictures from her blog (which is great, by the way) because she did a lovely job putting them together.





Are you drooling so much? Are you dying? Amazing.

Heart Palpitations!

We're back from our road trip to Ottawa, and we are so inspired! It was amazing meeting the girls from Victoire, and the Ottawa Vintage Clothing show was a dream. Just look how happy Regine and Katie are with their purchases.

The drive took about 5.5 hours, which was just fine with Hollie and I who happen to enjoy road trips immensely. Admittedly, we did start to get a little tired about halfway there, but it was nothing some Swedish Berries and Peanut M&Ms couldn't fix!



One of our favorite things about the drive east on the 401 has always been the paint test strips! I promise you that I am serious. It's always a big event when we approach them. This time, Hollie thought she was posing for a picture and not recording a video, so her excitement was a little lackluster. I tried to make up for it.

Once we got to Ottawa we got to visit with Regine and Katie (and Luke!) It was so so amazing to talk shop with two girls who are so similar to Hollie and I, and who operate such similar businesses. It was also SUCH an inspiration to see how far they've come, and how well they're doing. We were totally in awe after hearing about their journey with Victoire. It was just such a treat to be able to talk about the business side of things with people who do the same thing we do, day in day out. It was unbelievably exciting to be able to talk about consignment vs. wholesale and business plans ad nauseum without watching someone fall asleep.
Going into the weekend, we always thought of Victoire as a sister store to White Elephant, and we knew the similarities we had with Regine and Katie were strong, but after this weekend we are now officially freaked out at just how similar we are. Plus, we may have even convinced them to give Hamilton a shot for Victoire's next location! Wouldn't that be amaaazzzing? I don't want to jinx it, so I think that's all I'll say.
We also went dancing! And had drinks! And got told that we were one dimensional sex objects from a creepy guy who wanted to tell us about "how porn affected him." We stayed out much too late considering that Sunday was the big day.




The Ottawa Vintage Clothing Show was incredible. Hollie and I were totally overwhelmed by how big it was, and how many beautiful things there were to take in. We did manage to get some great pieces for the shop though, and I'm sure you'll be seeing those soon. Regine and Katie cleaned up, as you can tell from the first picture.




There were so many people that at some points I didn't even know what to do. I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't appropriate to yell "EVERYBODY MOVE" (a la Andre the Giant).
When we were done at the show (and totally pooped!) it was time for the most exciting part of the whole weekend: seeing Victoire! We got to check out both of their stores, and Hollie and I were drooling the entire time. Everything was so beautiful, and we were so enlivened by how the girls displayed their pieces. We tried to take it all in, but there was something marvelous to look at every place you turned. Just look:



We left Victoire completely motivated to better White Elephant! It was hard not to just look around their store and want to copy everything, but we certainly did take in a lot of inspiration. The first hour of the drive home felt like my mind was racing a mile a minute and spinning in a million circles. We have so many great ideas that we want to put in place as soon as we get some time.





New friends! It was so nice to meet Regine and Katie (and Luke and Nick and Eloise, and all of the wonderful Victoire staff members too). We can't wait until you girls come to Hamilton.