Vintage this and that: November 7, 2012

Cheerful Wednesday morning greetings, my dears! While Wednesdays aren't exactly famous for being the most beloved of days (after all, we did bestow the title of "hump day" upon them), I've rarely had much of a bone to pick with the third day of the week and like that it's a great middle ground between the inherent stress of starting things anew on Monday and the whirlwind world that so often is the weekend.

On Wednesdays I generally find myself in both a creative and productive mood. I'll write blog posts, bake cakes, do crafts, send out a few handwritten letters, perhaps organize a spot in the house that's looking a touch dishevelled, and often in the midst of such days, I'll come up with ideas that I want to put into action here on the ol' blog.

One such idea which came to me on a random Wednesday last month was that I really need a catch-all kind of posts for those times when I have a few different topics to chat about briefly, without devoting a whole post unto itself to said subject matter.

To a certain extent, I've had posts that were somewhat like this over the years (especially back in 2009 when Chronically Vintage was just starting out), but it's been a good long while since then and I feel that it's high time I introduced just such a post.

I wanted a name that would be completely open to all manner of topics and which wasn't tied down to one specific day of the week, so I (after about a month of bating around various names in my head) I settled on "Vintage this and that".

As the name implies, such posts will be about an assortment of vintage related topics that have caught my eye lately, which I've been involved with, or that I otherwise feel are worth chatting about. There will be entries about my own personal life swirled in sometimes, too, but usually the spotlight will be on vintage related subject matter.

I don't expect this to become an overly frequent post, nor for them to be terribly long (I'm thinking somewhere between three and seven topics per post), but it will always aim to be enjoyable, inspiring, and filled with plenty of relevant images, too. (Please note, that while there will certainly be links to other blogs and stories on different sites included, this reoccurring post is not setting out with the intention of strictly being a link roundup type of affair.)

Without further ado, may I present the first ever instalment of Vintage this and that.

The third time might be a charm, but sometimes the first and second are just as awesome as the third - especially if the blog giveaway gods are on your side. Over the past few months I've had the great pleasure of winning not one, not two, but three different blog giveaways, all of which warrant mentioning (thank you again to all three blogs for bestowing these wonderful prizes upon me).

Last spring the ever lovely Bonita from Depict This! held a mystery prize giveaway, which I ended up being the lovely winner of. A short while later I received a package in the post from Australia (where Bonita lived) teaming with an assortment of cute and creative little gifts that any vintage fan would love, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed and was tickled pink to receive.




Next up, as we hit the toasty days of July, I won a copy of the thoroughly terrific book Style Me Vintage by Naomi Thompson from the fine folks over at Vintage Living Magazine. Since receiving my copy, I've read this sweet little gem of a book at least three times (the photos of gals - some of which are vintage bloggers that we all know and love - in yesteryear threads alone makes this title worth picking up) and I highly recommend it to one and all.

Most recently I was jumping with joy vintage blogger and gorgeous gal Bunny from The Musings and Adventures of a Pinup Mama wrote to let me know that I'd won her giveaway for a copy of Zelda: The Magazine of the Vintage Nouveau.

With a tagline like that you just know, Zelda is bound to be something special, and indeed it is. Aimed primarily at covering topics pertaining to the earliest decades of the twentieth century, each edition is teaming with a bevy of articles, reviews, and images about all manner of topics from the start of the last century. While I'm a 40s and 50s gal first and foremost, I do greatly love the earlier decades a great deal, too, and I had a blast pouring over my copy (issue six) of Zelda from start to finish.

Two Saturdays ago the splendidly sweet Porcelina of Porcelina's World wrote a post entitled My Top 5 Outfit Post Blogs, which I was thoroughly honoured and elated to be a part of. I'm in extremely venerable company on this list, let me tell you, and am still floating on cloud nine over the fact that Porcelina included me in this stellar post (thank you very much, dear gal!).

{A CTV video shared by Youtube user peaceandfreedom2011 about the recent earthquake that hit the Pacific Coast of British Columbia.}


Not since 1949 (that qualifies as making this vintage related in a roundabout way, don't you think?) has Canada experienced an earthquake as powerful as the one that hit the Queen Charlotte Islands along the coast of British Columbia as the one that struck there two weekends ago.

We live several hours (and a great many miles) inland from where the quake hit, so we didn't feel it at all, but knowing we're in B.C. and having heard about the earthquake (which had a magnitude of 7.7) several of you very, very thoughtfully zipped emails my way to make sure that we were ok. I can't begin to tell you how touched I was by that, and assure that we are 100% ok and were not affected by the quake at all.

{Image via Wikipedia.}

It's not terribly uncommon for Tony and I to start getting into TV series a few seasons after they started (or even in some cases, after they've wrapped up entirely), which often has the perk of meaning we can watch whole seasons in marathon sessions via Netflix, DVD or other simply the good old-fashioned way through television repeats. The most recent show that we *finally* started watching is Boardwalk Empire staring Steve Buscemi.

Set in Atlantic City, New Jersey during the early 1920s when Prohibition (and the illegal booze industry that went hand-in-hand with it) was in full swing, this show (each episode of which runs well over an hour if one watches it with commercials) is like a short movie unto itself.

The writing, casting, sets, and costumes are all truly top-notch (on par with the best of Mad Men, if you ask me), and make this show a definitive must for anyone with an interest into action packed, intelligently presented period programs (this year marked the third season for Boardwalk Empire, and it was just announced last month the that show was picked up for a forth season next year).

♥ ♥ ♥

And so wraps up today's selection of topics. I very often have a few seemingly random things that I want to share with you, so I'm sure that an edition of this post is bound to appear every so often.

I happily look forward to writing about the mixed bag of subjects and going-ons that have been affecting, informing, entertaining and inspiring me as of late - and which I hope will do the very same for you as well.