Estate Sale Loot: Max Factor Make-up Kit for Students

I bought this two weeks ago at an estate sale near Skokie and forgot to take pictures of it with the rest of my loot. It is deserving of its own post because I think it is cool and interesting. I saw it on top of a dresser and decided to buy it after opening it up; it was unique and since I always read /r/makeupaddicts on Reddit, I thought I would buy it for the low, low price of three dollars.

 I did some lazy internet "research" and it seems that these date from the 30s to the 50/60s. There are male and female sets, and I have a male. It look like the main difference was that the female one had mascara and another blusher. Older versions of the male one included a fake mustache and nose putty! I guess this would be closer to the newer end, but nothing is dated.  A few have sold on etsy and I saw another incomplete one on ebay that sold for $95!

 It is supposed to have some eyeliner pencils and a big powder puff, as well, but those are missing.

The cold cream has been used up completely, but there is still a small, flat powder puff and a lot of face powder in a light skin tone.

 There are four cream liners in yellow, black, brown and blue. The brown and blue are very dried out, but the others are fine. There is also Moist Rouge, which is a cream blush. I swatched all of these using q-tips onto printer paper, as I was kind of skeeved out at the thought of putting 60+ year old, used make-up on my skin. Shocking, I know.

 There is a nearly untouched powder blush, which has its puff and you can even still read the Max Factor stamp on the top of the rouge. It has a nice black and gold metal tin.

 There are four grease paints in various skin tones, but it seems it was sold with five. It seems the box comes with directions (now missing) on how to make yourself up into various characters like "straight", elderly, "Hindoo", Chinese and Spanish, which seem a little random. Mine is missing the instructions, though.

 Here is it all laid out together.

 I repacked it incorrectly. All the liners go in the center rectangle. The top left would have been the pencils and the top right would have been a big powder puff, if it had them still.

I thought this was a cool find and wanted to share it with you! What do you think?

Simplicity 1810- Transition Dress

As I stared to gain weight, I looked through my patterns for something loose, or with an elastic waist. I found Simplicity 1810A, particularly view B with the knee-length skirt and no sleeves. I thought it had an elastic waist, until I looked over the instructions and realized it is basically a sack with a waist tie. Perfect!

Simplicity 1810A

I cut out my normal size, XS, since these patterns have a huge amount of ease. And I was correct. Even up 10+ lbs and with new, 2x as big boobs, it is pretty huge and nearly too low-cut to wear!

My fabric is from my spring trip to Mood, it is a cotton knit with a brown and off-white giraffe-ish print. It is thin, but not translucent. It has served me well for the last month or so, being perfect for the hot weather yet also cute with a little cardigan. 

Unfortunately, the fabric had these black marks on it. They were right in the center in two places, but I didn't notice that until I had cut out the dress. Of course they ended up about waist-high, dead center on both of the main body pieces. Luckily the print is busy and with the waist tied, the blend in for the most part. 

Mood fabric with marks

Here it is on my beautiful assistant, untied. It has little tucks on the shoulder below the yoke. Otherwise, potato sack.

Ties not tied

The only mildly interesting thing about the pattern is that the ties are sewn into the back darts. This is because the back is cut on the fold, and it is only one piece. It looks nice and then I can't lose the matching sash, like I am always doing with my Alma blouses.

I wore it to estate sales last Saturday, in hopes that we would happen upon a cool place to take pictures. We drove by this mosaic mural and I yelled STOP!! We took some pictures and then I looked across the street and saw the fox; I love foxes!

The ties give it some shape, although I am rapidly losing mine

I like how the dress' print kind of mimics the man to the right.

  Sorry for the bra straps, I know you are deeply offended! :) I am busting (hahaha pun) out of all of my bras and that is one of the few that fit.

Thanks for looking and I am happy with this dress on many levels. It will help me transition from summer to fall, from secretly pregnant to huge-belly pregnant and I can wear it causally or at work. Yay!

Today's Estate Sale Loot- Vintage Lingerie

Thank you for all your well-wishes and pregnancy pattern suggestions! We are very excited, as are all of our parents for the first grandbaby on both sides. I have lots of sewing plans, so hopefully that will motivate me to post more often!

~~~~~

Andrew came with me to four estate sales, and then was immediately filled with regret (I think). They were all fairly close-by in NW Chicago and the other neighborhoods that pretend to be small, independent towns. Then we ate hot dogs. It was fun!

All of my loot came from two of the four; the other two were just junk that did not interest me. It cost a grand total of 8 dollars, 4 of which were for a cast iron skillet that Andrew wanted. I forgot to take a picture, but you can use your imagination!

I bought this masterpiece of a dress for $1. Maybe I will be a fortune-teller for Halloween! The waist is ruched and the skirt has panels made of two different, bright prints. Plus the peasant-style bodice.

 Coral gloves, $1.

 White slip with blue embroidered flowers, to sell on Etsy. 50 cents.

 Nude slip with sheer ruffle and flowers. 50 cents. For Etsy.

 Sexy lingerie featuring ruffled panties and a dress. It was impossible o take a picture of very well, but the top has a double layer to the bust and the under layer has bows over the nips. $1 total, also for Etsy.

So that was fun! I think someone on etsy would like the vintage clothes. Hopefully I can sew around my brother and Andrew as they bottle their latest beer today!

Have a good weekend!

Exciting NEWS!!!!

Hey guess what?!?!? Andrew and I are expecting a baby, due to arrive at the beginning of March! 

We are so excited and now that I'm four months pregnant, I can share the news!

Look at that alien head!

I have not yet grown out of my clothes, but I have been looking at elastic waist-ed patterns that I already own. I made one tie-waist dress and am currently wearing it, but haven't taken any pictures yet! If anyone has any good pattern suggestions, I am all ears!

Estate Sale Loot featuring Vintage Clothes!

These are from last Saturday's estate sale-ing. I have been on summer break/laid off, so I do very little during the week. So on Saturday, I wanted to go to estate sales. Andrew, on the other hand, worked all week and wanted to chill. So with the help of my handy, talking Google maps app lady, I set off alone to three sales in N/NW Chicago. And I wasn't even murdered. Wow.

This is everything from all three and I think I spent 5/3/7 for a total of 15 dollars. I love estate sales because it combines many things I enjoy: snooping through people's stuff and homes, judging people, buying old crap I don't really need, and being very cheap. Yay!

I have been trying to drink more liquids, so I wanted some small glasses that actually show me what 8 oz is. And a tiny llama mom and baby wooden figurine, cause why not?

 I also bought a set of rainbow striped sheets, or as we call them, "dead people sheets." Also a nice drink shaker with a little screw off spout, for really violent shanking shaking.

 Now to follow are some very taken-with-a-potato quality pictures of me modeling my new 70s clothes. There was a trunk in the basement of one of the houses of a woman who was clearly my size in the 70s. The clothes all fit, even the pants are the right length. So nice. Andrew and my brother were drying some of their hops and said it was disgusting that I didn't wash them first. So prissy. I showered afterwards because they did have that old house stank, which transferred to my skin, but I couldn't wait to model them.

I plan on wearing this sexy muumuu all winter long!

 A scarf blouse that is also a bodysuit? Shazam!

 Like a diaper. So sexy. I actually really like the blouse, so I think I will just give it a new hem and take off the diaper part, which was very obvious under pants. Aren't you glad I shared this dumpy picture of my butt with you? Heh.

 The full ensemble with green polyester pants. They are a bit snug right now, as I have gained 9 lbs (ek) but I will save them and wear them in the future. No wrinkles! Don't need to hem them!

 Same pants, but in white. Oh la la! Je suis tres a la mode!

 I call this picture Ebony and Ivory. T-Rex really loves being picked up in the air, lol.

 My final polyester blouse. Andrew and Luke's groans and cringes could not phase me, look at my smile! It is really a conversation starter! I said I will wear i when we go bowling next time. It seems like a great bowling shirt!

 Wow, those cuffs!

Now that you are uncontrollably jealous of my awesome new clothes, have a great Labor Day weekend!

My Rae skirt goes to Rome

I was a pattern tester for the Sewaholic Rae skirt several months ago. I kept forgetting to take pictures, so I threw it in my suitcase to take some pictures of it in Europe. We drove from the Amalfi coast up to Rome and spent a day in Rome. This was due to flights: all the flights from Naples to Corsica were around 700 euros, and if we flew from Rome to Corsica, it was something like 77 euros total. Plus we already had a rental car, and Andrew loves driving, so that was an easy decision. 

Sewing the skirt is super easy, as it meant to be a very very beginner's pattern. It is just an easy skirt to make and took me an afternoon. My fabric is some random knit from JoAnn. Probably the worst part of pattern testing is due to the time constraints, I always end up using some less-than-ideal, shit fabric from Jo-Ann. I don't think the pattern suggested knits, but all of the other prints were hideous. 

My crappy knit fabric

From our hotel room balcony on the Amalfi coast. 

 Later that day at the Coliseum:

 If I had actually made it for vacation, I would have chosen a brighter and more fun print. And maybe hem it a little shorter too. It's kind of a frumpy length, I think. For me and my short legs.

While in Corsica, it rained and then we got to see a double rainbow!!

 I also surprised Andrew with a pig pastry from the patisserie! So cute and it was chocolate on the inside and cake.

Any suggestions for online photo albums? I think I had a flickr account many moons ago. I would be very happy to never put anything on facebook ever again, but my mom wants to see our vacation pictures. Ideas? :)

Casual sundress for Italy

I bought some random clothes at Target right before we left for our trip to France and Italy. I bought the blue/green print dress and really liked it. It is super simple, as it is strapless with an elastic waist and neckline. On a whim, I made a twin for it out of 1 1/2 yards of a black and white knit print I bought at Jo-Ann sometime last summer. 

It was very easy to make, I just measured the top, waist and hem with the elastic stretched out and then traced the shape onto my black fabric with chalk. I cut it out, put in the elastics, and hemmed it. The only difference is that I only had 1/4 elastic and the original has more like 1/2 in elastic. Also the original has a useless drawstring tie over the waist elastic, so I eliminated that to save some time.

Cost: I think the fabric was about $15. I already had thread and elastic on hand.

Time: Probably around 2-3 hours.

We went to France to visit Andrew's family. We flew from Chicago to Paris, stayed in Paris for 2-3 days, flew to Florence and visited Pompeii, then drove to the Amalfi Coast for 3 days. All of these pictures were taken in Positano and Amalfi.

Positano:

Original dress

 Near our hotel in Priano:

A very simple dress, but it still looks nice.

 In Amalfi at the church:

Black and white dress for the black and white stone. The wind was blowing it up a little on the right.

Simple, but very comfortable and perfect for vacation. 

This was a simple make, but I am very happy with it. It doesn't wrinkle, and it is lightweight and comfortable; it was perfect for vacation.


In other news, I finally found out that my former school decided to eliminate the French program, and a teacher with more seniority will finish up the last French II classes this year. That was sad to hear, but it is better to know for sure than to keep hoping. Tomorrow I'm going to school to pack up all of my stuff.

On a positive note, I am going to take the two classes for my middle school endorsement, and take two science classes to get both my Social Studies and Science middle school endorsements. I really loved teaching middle school and science is in fairly high demand. So hopefully next spring, I will be in a more successful place in the job market! It's nice to feel like I have some direction, too.

I have some other things I have made, and I will try to post more of them this week!