A Day by the Bay

 On Wednesday, Doug and I made a trip down to San Francisco.  I had been scheduled to do some photos for an acquaintance, but my shoot was cancelled at the last minute!  We decided to make the best of a bad situation and head out anyway, and I sure am glad we did.  After braving the nasty Berkeley traffic, we arrived just in time for an early lunch at La Boulange.

Once we had fortified ourselves with sandwiches and coffee, we headed out to the ruins of Sutro Baths to kill some time before we met up with a friend in the city. We spent some time in a little visitor center that hadn't been there when we last visited and looked at photos of the baths in their heyday.  They must've really been something!  Unfortunately, demolition of the baths began in the 1960s, and a fire wiped out the rest.  Now, the ruins belong to the Golden Gate National Parks system.

 

 

 Our little beach jaunt let me properly test out my newest summer sewing project, too!  I'll write more about it when I get all the pieces finished, but here's a little preview.  I think it's perfect for enjoying the scenery and being blustered about by the coastal winds.

I didn't get any pictures of the rest of the day (I know, I'm a terrible blogger!  I think I've gotten out of practice...) but we went to Union Square and drooled over the fabric at Britex, and then, after much coordinating via Instagram, met up with the lovely Mary Van Note for coffee.  I'm sure I came across as a babbling idiot (as I often do after too many hours of driving and cups of coffee) but she was awfully nice about it.  As a relative newcomer to vintage, it's always fun for me to meet other vintage lovers in nature, as it were, instead of just online.

NOTD: Watermelon Ruffian

Why hello there!  It's me, Frances.  You know, the girl who used to run this blog...?  As I mentioned two weeks ago (yikes!) I've been up to my ears in housepainting... but I'll try to sneak in a few more updates in a regular basis.  

Today I have for you a nail art design that I actually did several weeks ago.  I was holding on to the pictures until the weather really got summer-like!  It's been well over 90 degrees here this past weekend, so I figured that it was about time to post them.

I was inspired to do some watermelon nail art after seeing this great watermelon manicure on Chalkboard Nails. Of course, I had to do my own twist on the design... I decided to do a ruffian design with watermelon rinds on three fingers and accent nails of watermelon skin on the other two.  I was really pleased with how this design ended up turning out, and it was easier than I was afraid it would be!

To accomplish this look, you'll need five nail polish colors:  a dark green (I used China Glaze Holly-Day), a lighter green (Color Club Twiggie), white (Sinful Colors Snow Me White), pink (Color Club Warhol, which is much more neon than these photos suggest), and black (I used a glitter, Wet 'n' Wild Tangled in My Web, but you could just make dots with a regular black polish).  You might also want to have a small paintbrush.

Start by painting all nails with the dark green.
For the accent nails, take the bright green and wipe almost all the polish off the brush.  Then, haphazardly brush back and forth in short strokes to make the watermelon stripes.
For the rest, make a ruffian design by painting each color in an arc matching the shape of the cuticle edge.  To reduce the layers of polish, avoid carrying the light green all the way down the nail.  You will need a good layer of white, though, to make a base for the pink layer.  Add black glitter or make black dots on the pink areas to represent watermelon seeds.  Seal everything over with a good quick-dry topcoat and wait patiently for all of your polish layers to dry, and, ta-dah!  You too can have watermelon nails.

Capital Decades '40s Fashion Show

On Tuesday afternoon, I joined a group of vintage-loving ladies at the Sacramento Public Library for a little '40s fashion show put on by the Art Deco Society of Sacramento.  One of the board members goes to the church I sing at, and recommended me to be a model.  Of course, I thought that sounded grand.  Wearing pretty clothes and being on stage... two of my favorite things!

Unfortunately, the organizer assured me that there would be people present to do our hair and makeup, so I didn't need to worry about it... What I didn't realize was that the hair and makeup would be done by a group of students from a local beauty school who could hardly tell a finger wave from a pincurl!  Some of the students were better than others, so I might have just been particularly unlucky... Some of the hairdressers managed something at least artful looking, but they seemed to be somewhat confused by the recent Gatsby movie (hey, anything that happened before you were born is interchangeable, right?) and it didn't occur to any of them until one of the models mentioned it that we might be wearing hats as part of our 40s outfits. The low-light of my experience was definitely the gal who did my makeup, though... she used overly dark colors, then tried to lighten them... spent ages trying to get symmetrical winged eyeliner on, and then couldn't get the eyeliner to dry, so it kept smudging everywhere... and painstakingly tried to paint on a very basic modern red lipstick with a brush, repeatedly going back with concealer to fix the lines.  I ended up sneaking off to a mirror to fix the lipstick, but I couldn't do much about the rest.  Hopefully it looked OK from the stage... I felt a little like a drag queen, and that's coming from someone who is used to stage makeup!

Anyway, back to the good parts!  We each got to model two outfits:  a daytime look and an evening ensemble.  I wore this simple blue linen dress for my day outfit, and was wildly jealous of the three girls after me who were wearing '40s beachwear!  At least I got to play with a little black lucite box purse?

My evening attire, on the other hand, was completely amazing.  After trying on several formal gowns that were too large (!) for me, I settled on this fantastic New York Creations gown in black crepe with gold embroidery.  The sleeves have zippers!  I'm sure that this is the mark of a really killer long-sleeved gown.  And as a bonus, I got to wear a fantastic chocolate mink coat.

I didn't get a good picture of all the ladies in their evening attire, so this snap from Doug's phone will have to do for now.  There were really quite a few amazing items on display.  Supposedly the event was documented for posterity, so if I figure out where they put the rest of the images, I'll be sure to share some better-quality pictures.

In spite of the minor, erm, cosmetic...? drawbacks, the event was huge fun, and it was neat to see so many stunning pieces live and in person.

Catch up for the week

I've got to figure out a more regular schedule for my blogging now that my year-long challenge is over.  Today's update brought to you by some sort of food poisoning... most of this week has been dedicated to house painting, but I was forced to take it easy today.

Other news of the week... coffee tastes better in silly mugs:

I've been doing some work for a family friend, too, which always comes with perks... this time, I got a box of buttons to go through, a pile of fabric (I have plans to use the forest green wool to make the long-sleeved view of Butterick 9428), a mink collar, and a western-style belt with engraved silver findings.

I also got this trio of hats from a random woman at church... she said that a friend was cleaning out her closet and she thought of me when she saw the hats and nabbed them.  I think the yellow one is the silliest, by far... I should figure out how to wear it to church next Sunday!

NOTD: Pastel Pink and Gaudy Sparkles

Today I have for you the nail art that I wore with the pink gown last Friday. I didn't have a good pink polish, so I snagged China Glaze Innocence at Sally Beauty Supply.  Innocence is a sheer, milky pink jelly.  Application was a little streaky, but it leveled out into a clean finish by the third coat.  I'm glad I picked it up all the same... it seems like a good "palate cleanser" color, and I didn't have anything like it in my collection yet.  I added a selection of rhinestones from Sally Beauty and Born Pretty Store to my ring fingernails to match the dress and our sparkle-heavy theme.