Episode #101: (MINI) Elsie’s Recent Vintage Finds!

Elsie: You’re listening to the A Beautiful Mess podcast in this week’s mini-episode, I’m sharing my recent vintage finds, and when I’m shopping for. As you know, I have a lifelong love for flea markets and eBay. And lately I’ve been shifting back to vintage and trying to add a few special pieces to each room in our home.

Keely: Well, hello, everyone. It’s Keely. I’m back for another installment of mini-episode.

Elsie: Well, essentially, I love you guys. I miss Emma so much, and I know you all do, too. But give a little finger clap for Keely for coming in here and doing this with me because I know some people record podcasts alone, but I just can’t like after I’m going to do a few I guess. But like after doing it with Emma for so long, it just feels so much better to do with another person. So welcome, Keely. If you don’t know Keely, she works for A Beautiful Mess. She actually edits the podcast every single week and you can see her on our Instagram. So anyway, OK, we’re here to talk about eBay.

Keely: Okay Elsie. I am so excited to hear about what you’ve been shopping for because you are truly like the queen of finding good stuff on eBay.

Elsie: Thank you. I really, really love eBay. I love Etsy as well for shopping, vintage. Those are probably my two main places. And then a flea market in person can’t be beat. But I have not been to flea markets in person as much as I did, like kind of in my younger days, it was like my main hobby. But now that I’m in my busy mom phase of life, like once a month is probably like a good amount of flea marketing for me. So anyway, I’m going to share the things that I found recently. OK, so and I will put pictures of each of these in the show notes because I won’t leave you hanging. I know sometimes we need a visual.

Keely: Oh yeah. We need to see!

Elsie: All right. So the first find is a vintage lamp I got from eBay. So I have been seeing wicker and caning style lamps like crazy lately and they can be like seven hundred dollars. So I was like, you know what, I know that there are some vintage ones on eBay that for me are going to be just as cute. So I went on there and I found my dream lamp for my office. It was around a hundred dollars, which is a splurge for eBay. But like I’m happy to pay it because of the savings compared to a new one. Anyway, I had to clean up a little bit. I added a little bit of paint, but I still I feel like it is such a deal and also it’s like charming. So yeah. So mine has caning as the shade and then it has kind of diffused or a frosted glass globe in it so that the light, you know how sometimes in wicker lamps it can be like very harsh or basket lamps. If there’s just a light bulb in there you might not like how the light feels. So that extra like frosted element in there makes it a lot more of like a glowy warm light.

Keely: A little ambiance.

Elsie: Yeah. Oh yes.

Elsie: The next item that I found is a bunch of straw hats. OK, so in our new guest room, our guest room is right by the pool and I wanted to give it a little bit of a pool theme, so I gave it some pool art and like, it has like robes hanging in the closet. And I decided on top of the bed instead of putting art to put kind of like a big like what you call it, like almost like to make art out of straw hats.

Keely: It looks so good. I absolutely love how it turned out.

Elsie: I will show a picture. So I got a lot of these from eBay. A lot of them are vintage. I love that you can really just pull a hat off the wall and wear it out to the pool, because a lot of times when we’re hanging out there, I know especially Emma, she’s like always, always, always wants a hat. So that’s good. So it’s useful and it feels like art. I love like a functional art piece. The next thing is, like, really specific to our house. So at one point I know I shared this on Instagram, but I’m sharing it again now. I have this, like, little tradition that anyone can do when you buy a house. So look up the year your house was built and then Google that year and Google movies and just look at what movies came out that year and pick your favorite one and then in some way, like tie that into the decor of your home. So in our last home, it was from the year The Sound of Music came out. So I got this little print from The Sound of Music from Etsy, and it was so cute. And then for this home, it was in the nineties, so the movies were a little bit like… But the coolest one was the 90s version of Romeo and Juliet, which is one of my favorite 90s movies like. Unbeatable. So I wanted to give it like a little homage, so I purchased on Etsy this playbill from an opera program, and it just is like simply like a little playbill that says Romeo and Juliet. And it’s not from the 90s movie. I know that. But just like still brings it into the home. Yeah, I’m planning to hang it in the powder room, and I just think it’s like this cute little touch. So anyway, I don’t know if that’s like fun for anyone else but Google that year your home was built and what movies were from that year. And maybe you’ll find like some cool little inspiration to kind of like give your house a happy birthday.

Keely: I love that so much. And as soon as you…

Elsie: Did you Google yours?

Keely: Yes, I did. This is so funny. It’s Beetlejuice.

Elsie: Beetlejuice is a great movie!

Keely: Yes, I know. I was so excited. I love that idea, though, because it’s so weird. Like, I, I’m 31 and I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I am considered like vintage, like all the things that I wore a kid and a teenager are now being considered vintage and they’re coming back around like Y2K fashion, which I love honestly. But it’s so like crazy to me that things just cycle through like that. And as someone who also has I think our house is 89. So it’s also like around that era, same era, like 90s as your house. It’s just wild to me. (laughs)

Elsie: I have to watch Beetlejuice this year. Yeah. Nova and I did a Beetlejuice costume and she didn’t really know what it was. And I was kind of afraid to show it to her because it’s just like hard to tell. So maybe this next year will do it. If you’re listening, tell me what age is a good age for Beetlejuice. I want to hear. I love hearing that ages people think because everyone’s like opinion is so different. But yeah, I just recently learned the perfect age to start Harry Potter is ten years old and like I love little nuggets like that.

Keely: Oh yeah. Because they’re like ten whenever that movie happens. So that’s so cute. Yeah.

Elsie: And then like doesn’t get too scary too fast.

Keely: Yeah it doesn’t, it definitely builds. And I read this really interesting thing about the Harry Potter movies and books like the first four have a completely first four movies. First, you know, they’re different numbers of movies and there are books, but the first half of the books and movies are a completely different genre than the last four. So the first four are mystery and the last four, like almost like horror, suspense. And they grow with you, like you said, as you get older, like they really build in intensity. So like the first four are fun and like nostalgic that we watch around Halloween and it’s so cute and comforting and warm. And then I feel myself literally tensing up over the last movies because they’re so different. Yeah, they’re scary. (laughs)

Elsie: I basically haven’t started Harry Potter at all in life. Like I think I watched like one movie and I started watching or I started reading the first book when I was in college because it was banned from my Christian school. And I thought that that made it cool. But it was I was just like, not the right age for it.

Keely: Yeah. That’s understandable.

Elsie: Like, I thought I was too cool. So I’m excited to relive it with my kids for the first time, but not relive it, live it for the first time,

Keely: The first time, live vicariously through them because it is so, so magical, so wonderful. I also love like this is totally off topic, but I love how different kids grow up with different allowances of what they were allowed to watch at that age. Like Michael was allowed to watch whatever — my husband was allowed to watch, whatever he wanted and I could only watch PG 13 movies, when I turned like ten and my first one was Drive Me Crazy with Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier. (laughs)

Elsie: Oh my gosh. We all had like a friends house where we watch something that we couldn’t watch at home. Right. Because I watched Pretty Woman at my friend’s house and my parents freaked out.

Keely: I love it.

Elsie: All right. Let’s take a quick pause for sponsor break.

What was your last major DIY project? I think mine was working on my kid’s dollhouse, which is always such a delight to work on. Our friends at Spoonflower have made tackling your next major DIY project a breeze as the world’s largest digital marketplace for custom fabric, wallpaper and home decor they can connect you with thousands of independent artists so you find the exact design you want for your project. You can also upload your own designs to Spoonflower and they’ll print it for you on your choice of material or fabric. And now with services available, like AfterPay which is. Available to their U.S. and Australian customers, you get the product you need now without having to take up the entire cost of the project upfront. And as always, our listeners can take advantage of 15 percent off site-wide any time by using our exclusive code ABMINTRO15, go to spoonflower.com and use our code ABMINTRO15.

Keely: All right, back to our vintage finds.

Elsie: My next find is I got a vintage rug from my closet. So this is like a cool tip. I love rug shopping. There’s lots of new rugs. Sometimes there’s sales, there’s lots of affordable options. But here’s the thing about vintage rugs you can really get any size like. So if you ever have a space, like my closet was like a very strange size, it was not going to be available in like any traditional rugs like…

Keely: Almost like custom size.

Elsie: Yeah. So if you basically need a custom size and you are not going to pay like a custom price, then I would search vintage for that because there are like just random sizes out there. And a lot of times it’s like the most beautiful vintage rug. That’s a size that wouldn’t be used like usable for like 99 percent of people’s rooms. That’s kind of how I felt like our closet was, because it’s like it’s kind of just like a giant runner, you know.

Keely: Yeah.

Elsie: So anyway, I, I love vintage rug shopping all the time, but definitely when you have a nontraditional size, always look to that and I think always look anyway, rug shopping is one of the really, really fun things to shop for on Etsy. I prefer Etsy over eBay for rugs just because I think the pictures are a lot of times better. And like the pictures matter matters a lot more on a rug than on like a little brass trinket.

Keely: Yeah. Better descriptions.

Elsie: Yes. And then the last thing I bought recently, I don’t really like my purchase history just to like make this list is I got a vintage sign that says toilet for our powder room just because I think a powder room should always be easy to find. It’s like the one bathroom in your house that may be like, you know…

Keely: Guests use…sure.

Elsie: Guests use. So yeah, I put it there so that if there’s ever like a contractor or whatever, it’ll just be like really, really easy to find without having to open every single door to look for it.

Keely: I like that.

Elsie: Yeah. On the list of what I’m currently shopping for, I have to tell me if you have anything to Keely. I’m shopping for vases, especially white vases for this little art shelf that we’re working on, shopping for baskets. Always. I’ll always be shopping for baskets.

Keely: Can you ever have too many baskets? I think you honestly asked this question in another podcast. And as I was editing, I was like, no — baskets forever.

Elsie: I don’t think you can. I mean, maybe if you have a very small space, but I haven’t found my limit. Light fixtures and lamps. I think finding now that I bought my vintage lamp, I’m on a mission to add some more vintage lamps to our home. I just think it’s really, really special. And it’s a good place to buy vintage because vintage lamps totally work. We used to have a vintage store and people would always, you know, want to check the lamps and they like most of the time work. And a lot of the times they’re much cheaper than a new one and more special and books. I’m always gonna be shopping for books. I love a vintage book. I’m shopping for quilts right now, which is kind of fun and it’s really fun, very cozy and I don’t know. I think there’s something really nostalgic about it because we just recently sort of like demolished my last quilt that was leftover for my great-grandma. She left us a bunch. And, you know, they through the years, they got like more and more trashed and then recently had to actually let go in the garbage because it went past the line. So, yeah, I will want to add more quotes and I’d like to make one someday, but that’s another topic for another time. And the last thing I’m always going to be shopping for vintage is art, because you can find like any kind of art. It’s just it’s always a surprise. Like if you go to a flea market and you’re like, I’m going to look for art and mirrors, you will always find something.

Keely: Yes. That is so true.

Elsie: Is there anything you’re shopping for?

Keely: Well, I have a lot of bookshelves that I need to style. So I’m looking for like I think Jonathan Adler refers to them as objects like very just like little sculptural things and brass and books and anything that can add interest to an otherwise boring shelf like I, I truly feel like those little vintage items add so much personality. And so that’s kind of what I’m always on the lookout for, is just those little things, random things that people are like, what is this? (laughs) It’s kind of the best,

Elsie: Yes, something weird for every room, I think that’s like a Dorothy Draper quote. Yeah, I love that, too. We should go to a flea market soon. I’m just, like, very jazzed about this. I will put pictures to each of these things in the show notes. And we’d love to hear what you are shopping for. Like, I love like I will never not click on a blog post that’s like vintage things I’m shopping for because it’s like good ideas. Right? Thanks so much for listening to our mini-episode this week. We would love it if you wanted to call in and leave us a voicemail question. You can do that on our new hotline. It’s 417-893-0011. If you are not comfortable talking, you can also e-mail us your questions at a podcast@abeautifulmess.com.