Challenge Yourself To Accomplish Your Dreams - January

I am working with 2010. Sounds a bit funny, doesn't it? But I am. I am being particularly mindful of time of late and how goal setting can really set your dreams alight and living.

The first month of 2010 is almost up and I am just as motivated now as I was on New Years Day. I have accomplished so much this month - I am very proud of myself (I am a humble type o' person so that is particularly hard to write!) and I hope to continue on my path.

Without being too personal and getting nitty gritty, I have attained many goals I set myself for this month. Lots of self-loving with good, healthy food, lots of 'me' time, lots of 'family' time and lots of business time. All structured. All to a plan (apart from the family part - that is always wonderfully spontaneous!). I have worked at decluttering our home, we're clearing a large space for vegie patches and starting afresh with organic seeds. We're clearing the future, so to speak.

I wrote a list in early January of what I want from 'tomorrow'...here 'tis...

To be alive
To be happy
To be healthy
For my family and friends to be happy and healthy
To wake up excited
To find the beauty in things
To feel proud
To be free
To work for myself
To have abundant energy
Time to plan
Time to think and pause
A tidy and clean home
A decluttered mind
To smile a lot
To laugh a lot
To be optimistic and postive
Time to sit and appreciate my boys
Love given and received
Patience
Hugs, kisses and intimacy

I have many more hopes - especially for this wonderful world of ours - I am working on them as days go by...

Above all, the simple life is good for me :)

Thank you, Melinda!

Win $50 worth of gorgeous vintage fabric!

Would you like to win $50 worth of vintage fabric? I thought so!

We are offering $50 worth of credit on our website if you would like to leave a comment to this post. We would like to know the first and second ways you purchase fabric out of the following:

1. By colourway
2. By age (e.g. decade)
3. By design (e.g flowers, atomic, retro, dots)
4. By fiber (e.g cotton, polyester)
5. By collectability/uniqueness (e.g. Lucienne Day, Verner Panton designs)

This offer will close next Thursday 4 February, 2010 at 8pm. I'll draw the winner at random.org soon after. Good luck!

Retro Age Vintage Fabric 15% off sale - open to the public!

It's here! A big woot from us!

Yes, dear readers, we have a wonderful sale to start off 2010!

We are offering a massive 15% off your total order!

The sale is on until next Wednesday 3 February (8pm) and is now open to all everyone! Our subscribers have been enjoying this sale for a week (if you'd like to go on our sale list please email us at vintagefabricsatgmaildotcom with the word 'scubscribe' in the header') - the sale is now open to all!

The offer is 15% off your total order, no matter what the total price, and excludes postage. Enter coupon code Panton as you Checkout to activate the 15% off offer. One order per customer only. No other voucher offers apply.

Enjoy!

One Green Generation and lifestyle changes...

As you know I have many goals for 2010. Lots. Probably far too many. But I am determined to see them through and be the person I want to be, in a place I want to be and in a space I want to be.

One of our goals is to start afresh with a new herb garden and vegie patch. We want to be as self-sufficient as possible. That means also learning how to use basic household supplies like they did in decades past. Bicard for toothpaste. Vinegar for itchies. That type of thing.

One of my fave blogs is One Green Generation. Melinda's enthusiasm is so infectious and I greatly admire her drive to make this world a better place, one important step at a time. I am doing her '2010 dream challenge' (I am going to start writing each Friday) and I am finding her site an encyclopaedia of information for making a lifestyle change. Her latest website addition is Lifestyle Changes. There's lots of information there for us all to learn from!

Another great week - January, you have been fab!

I have had a wonderful start to 2010 - in fact, I couldn't have hoped for a better start. Perhaps winning Tattslotto would seal it...ahem...but, other than that, it's been a grand month.

I got a phone call today about sewing lessons and I think I am in! They start in early February, go for six weeks and the course comes with wonderful recommendations - one-on-one tuition to complete things you've always wanted to learn. I honestly can't wait! 'Tis not fair one's husband knows how to kick up a storm on a sewing machine and you don't...

I have got a goal list for January and, suprisingly. I have completed a lot of goals...and then there's a wad I haven't. I'm going to do as much as I can in this final week to ensure I give myself an 'end of January' pat on the back.

We have a big announcement on Thursday for all you vintage fabrics lovers out there - stay tuned and make sure you come back here then!

The Trip to Melbourne Zoo

Today we went to the Melbourne Zoo. It was Logan's choice. He had the Zoo, Melbourne Museum, Scienceworks, the Aquarium or Sovereign Hill to choose from. We thought he would hit on Sovereign Hill as he hasn't been before - but, no, the call of the animals took hold of him...so off to the Melbourne Zoo we went...



Every time I go it gets better and better. Now the seal and penguin enclosure is open - and it's absolutely fabulous. Quite like the dinosaur exhibit at the Museum - lots of great sound, lights and (almost) interaction with the seals.

However, the highlights of the Zoo are in direct contrast to the enclosures that still have not been updated. When you pass great cats prowling small enclosures or birds in small aviaries it does make ones heart sink. There is no place in this world for animals in small spaces - if humankind must have zoos we have to ensure the animals are kept as wild as possible, like they are in the Werribee Zoo.

I have to admit a part of my heart was at the Fryerstown Antique Fair in Fryerstown. I wonder if there were any vintage fabric there? But, then again, I wouldn't have seen the faces of two boys running around the zoo for four hours, laughing their heads off at apes itching in very funny places, hippo bottoms hanging off rocks or at chomping giraffes as high as the sky. Perfect.

Are you a retro age vintage fabric subscriber?

Don't forget to subscribe to our email mailing list! We don't overload you with Retro Age information, but you do get some fab offers from us every now and then! Our subscribers are enjoying a nice little offer at the moment - a thank you from us for supporting our business...

To subscribe simply email us at vintagefabricsatgmaildotcom (remove the silly parts) with the word subscribe in the header...and you'll get a lovely surprise in your inbox soon!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Oh dear - sorry Gmail

Dear Gmail

I love your service, I really do. I love my Gmail account. I adore it. I had no idea I had a sending limit. Oh dear. Now I can't send any more emails out and I don't like being in contact with our customers. I am sorry I sent so many out at once. Please, Gmail - let me send emails now - don't ban me for 24 hours....

Oh my!

Love
Ness

The afternoon nap...

I don't mind telling you I am having an afternoon nap every day of late. Just before I cook the evening meal I take a breather on our modular and slowly drift off for 20 minutes or so. This is only a new thing - only the last month or so - and I am wondering if:

a) I need the afternoon nap because I am 36 and the 'ol body needs more rest
b) I need the afternoon nap as life is busy and the ol' body needs more rest
c) I need the afternoon nap to rejuvenate my whirring brain as the ol' brain needs more rest
d) I need the afternoon nap as it's my excuse to take time out from a very loud household (when does school return???)

I love afternoon siestas. They should be law, I think - like in Spain! Work, eat, sleep, work. Sounds wonderful to me!

Inspiration...

This lovely lady is always an inspiration. I love reading her blog - she inspires me to be a better person and live life in the now. This week Nichola did the No Impact Week and she has had something wonderful to say about the project every day. You can't help but ponder how to improve your life after you read her daily posts...



She even made her own bread! I am currently hunting down things to 'replace' in the every day - like making your own shampoo, washing soap etc...and I am determined to try this bread recipe. Have a look at her photo - don't you just want to jump into your computer and eat that bread??



I had such a productive day today it's a little scary! I have always fallen off the 'plan for a month' bandwagon but this time it feels so real it's almost not me! Lots more organised around the house, we're ready for our eldest to start grade 1 and I am continuing to upload lots of yummy fabric onto the website. The one above is a divine 5th Avenue imported linen and the sweet pink carnations is a lovely light cotton blend. More to come tomorrow!

New vintage fabric arrivals

I popped these on to the website today. So much, much more to come! Aren't they lovely?

David Thorne and the Easter Bunny

Grateful for: All of this rain we're currently getting. We had to turn the heater on when we got up this morning. I miss Summer days but gee this rain is good. And I am a Winter kind of gal.



Vent about: The bloody Easter eggs are out at my local supermarket. I don't know whether our six-year-old believes in the Easter bunny anymore, let alone getting the message of Good Friday/Easter Sunday across. How on earth can I convince him that a giant rabbit drops off replica Easter eggs?



Laughing with: Have you seen this wonderful site by David Thorne? If I ever need a laugh I just go and read one of his articles - his humour never ceases to tickle my funny bone. The Simon Edhouse one is my current favourite.

Hope you're had a great day, everyone - for those of you decluttering and doing your Spring clean (in Winter or Summer) keep going! We can finish this!

Getting (even more) ready...organic herb seeds

We have a lot of personal and professional goals for 2010. It's a major wind change for us this year and it will take a lot of plotting, writing of lists and week by week planning to get there. We are still excited and working towards living the lifestyle we have always dreamt of...

One of our goals is to be as self-sufficient as possible. As you know we are lovers of all things old fashioned and vintage. We love the 'vintage lifestyle'. The slow days. The making of the bread. The churning of the butter. We are in a township with 8,000 people and kind of in suburbia. But kind of not. We see houses when we step outside but we know farms surround us...

So, one of my charges this year is to work out what we can replace things with and what we can provide ourselves with. This is very much a No Impact Man strategy but instead of following in his wonderful footsteps we are working our own way towards a simple lifestyle...

So - in readiness for a mid-year 'live simply lifestyle' we are now starting to prepare and think about where our food comes from. We have a large backyard and neither of us could care less about a pretty garden. We more err on the 'use the land to provide' European style of thinking so we have always had something growing and on the go...

Instead of going to Bunnings or our local nursery and buying more herbs we are starting afresh. We are buying organic seeds and sowing them ourselves. We have been saving our egg cartons for months, knowing that this was in our future. We have a little glass greenhouse and our compost heap to help us along - but starting from scratch with organic seeds is exciting. I just can't come past the 'buy one garlic bulb in a pot for $4' when I can order organic seeds for $3.50 for 50 bulbs.

Self sufficiency is a 2010 goal. If you're interested, keep in touch! Also, have a read of this wonderful article by Jackie French - it definitely inspires!

The days that define us...

It has been a hard couple of days for us...well, not hard per se...but different and defining. Logan's first pet fish died today. Not the usual 'fish floating on the top of tank' death, but a 'fish got sucked up filter and survived for 24 hours in a bowl' death. We took care of Spotty for a day, hoping he would regain the movement of his tail and back area, but unfortunately he passed away this morning. He is now buried below our beloved magnolia tree, wrapped in a fetching green polka dot fabric and 1940s lace, as chosen by Logan. He said a few kind words at the funeral and then wrote a song...translated, it reads...

My fish died
He got stuck
I got sad
On Saturday he died.

Is he a poet in the making? Hopefully more Tennyson than Sylvia Plath, though.

We thought it was an interesting sequel to "My DS is died". Hopefully nothing else dies or gets sucked up in this fish tank...stand by.

Lots of gorgeous vintage fabric coming your way...

I am naming this weekend the gorgeous fabric weekend. This is just part of what I have in store next :)

Have a great weekend!

Holiday creativity...."my DS is died"

The kids are filling their days up with lots of playing and creativity. Today, Logan wrote his 'first song' on his guitar. When I read the lyrics and laughed so hard I cried - he was most proud when I told him how memorable the song is. All together now..."my DS is died...my brother put the DS is the fish tank..." Follow those guitar notes, people!



There has been lots of playing outside when it hasn't been too hot. Lots of jumping on the trampoline, digging in the dirt and sandpit and looking for snails and worms (they love watching critters)...this is sunset a couple of nights ago, shot taken in our backyard...



We're a Lego household so the Lego is always out and about and being played with. This week there's been lots of cars, spaceships and general car designs. This particular piece is a boat. The Mach 3, to be precise.

I can't believe there's only three weeks left of school holidays - is it really mid-January already?

If you love goal setting you have to see this tool. This is the life circle I use - but this is 3D tool and it looks fabulous! Anyone use it?

A little help is sometimes needed...

I am a total planner. I have to, otherwise the day just dwindles away into nothingness. I have had people asking me how I plan. There really isn't a formula for me - I just write 'to do' lists and tick of tasks once they're completed. I find it gives my day - and our lives - structure.

If you'd like to know more about planning ahead and kicking some of your goals these are interesting sites...

www.joesgoals.com/
www.goal-setting-guide.com/
www.goalscape.com/

Have fun plotting some personal goals!

Things never cease to amaze me...old fashioned living

Due to the hot weather (and rain) we have mozzies harassing us at dusk. I am allergic to them and so is my eldest son. We thought we had put his armour on before going to bed but we hadn't, so an hour later he was up and scratching some 15 mozzie bites...and by that stage they were large, white tipped and quite nasty. I had some allergy medicine on hand but nothing to ease the itch bar some tea bags. But a quick search for natural remedies/mozzie bites brought up tonnes of home remedies.

Five minutes later and smelling of apple cider vinegar he got back into bed feeling much better. Yep -a dab of vinegar on the mozzie bite takes away the sting and itch (and the vinegar smell goes within minutes, too!)...

No need to buy those commercial products now :)

Pure romance

Some fabrics are just pure romance, don't you think? Like the rayon blend above. I love it. We have had it for some time but I have never put it up for sale...ahem...yes, it was part of my 'stash' (that doesn't really exist) - it's just where I put the fabrics I love to covet.

It is now 11 January and I am still continuing with my NY resolutions - a first for me. Apparently 88% of us give up the resolutions by mid-February - not me! I am so proud of myself - things are being donated to charities, thrown away in the bin for landfill (if absolutely necessary), recycled or found its own special place in our house. I have continued to plan for the year and am ploughing through January like a maniac...

Lots more change to come for us this year. 2010 is still as exciting as what it was 11 days ago!

600m of 1930s to 1970s vintage fabric

Sorry for the crude photos. I finished booking in our recent estate purchase today. Three hundred and five fabrics - 600m+ of vintage fabric.
I am going to be counting in my sleep (again!)...
Such a lovely collection, though - I'll take some better shots in the weeks ahead. There are wonderful atomic barkcloths, 1950s silk satins, 1930s and 1940s worsted woollens, Swiss embroidered cotton, 1940s-1960s velvets, retro knits...oh, the list goes on and on. I must say it was so refreshing to purchase a collection from a seamstress - she used everything and anything. Plain fabric, psychedelic fabric, embroidered pieces, Irish linen - nothing seemed to faze her and her collection changed with the decades. I love her fabric just as much as she did, I can tell you...

I love vintage fabric. I do!

Peaceful work

One of my favourite jobs here at Retro Age is booking in the new arrivals. If you run a business you'll know what I mean about booking in - if you don't, booking in is when you log your purchase into your financials as a 'debit' (purchase) and attribute it a product number for easy trackability. Our product numbers list the fabric's purchase, inventory listing and sale. Good for the accountant! Today I booked in 40 fabrics - some photographed above. It makes for such peaceful work. I love working in silence, sometimes. When you run a household with kiddies silent time is truly golden. One of my favourite past times is still sitting in silence with my eyes shut, just contemplating the world....

One of my favourite lines I often repeat to myself (usually when I am going to bed) is 'rest, rest, perturbed spirit'. It's a wonderful line from Shakespeare's Hamlet, said by Hamlet to the ghost who visits him.

For me now - rest, rest, perturbed spirit...

Planning ahead to look back

I spent this afternoon setting out a 2010 planner is Microsoft Word. I based it on a life wheel I have been working on. And then I read in a book you should really focus on one months worth of goals and then think only secondarily about the future. I can see the point with both ideas, but I am a 'plan for tomorrow' kind of person.

So my planner starts in Jan 2010 and ends in Dec 2010 and there are goals and actions throughout the year...

Someone also said to me "plan the year like you want to remember it". I think that is an amazing idea...planning forwards to look backwards...

'Tis hot here and it'll continue to be blistering hot all weekend - time for beach lazing, blueberry picking and seeing Alvin and The Chipmunks Squeaquel...oh dear.

Reverting back to simplicity & the beauty in the classic

I think I lived a lot of my younger days looking for something new. You know the excitement...you see something new, your heart stops and then you must have it.



I controlled my materialistic urges when I was in my late teens and early 20s but it's still like that sometimes with the vintage fabric. There is always a part of me after the most gorgeous print ever. Is there such a thing?



Now that I am striving to return to a simple life and the joy of living simply I found myself today uploading some of the most simplest fabric. Classic, really - not simple. I looked at them and realised there really is beauty in simplicity.



Polka dots are back, too! If you love them you'll find some of our collection here. If you'd like to see the classic fabric you can find them here.

Beauty in simplicity. I think I'll think more on this theme...

Vintage loving lady....Circa is looking for you, m'dear!

I have to admit I am still recovering from yesterday's haul. To get those 250 fabrics (and I got more bolts today - two are pictured in this post) I had to rifle through triple that amount. Heavy woollens, mostly - and I mean, heavy! I should get fit, I think. Maybe some exercise is called for in 2010??? Pfftt....



Have you seen the job of your dreams, yet? You should see Nicole's post about a part-time job at Circa. Seriously - if you love a vintage frock, want some part-time work and could easily work in the most amazing retail store...then this job is for you! Can you imagine working there??? A dream!!

Loving: The fact I have kept the NY resolution motivation going and I haven't disappointed myself - the dream is still there!
Need to vent about: Small minded people who think they are successful because they are higher up the corporate ladder than what you got to. Don't they get it, yet?
Grateful for: Time to play with play dough with my two-year old and having the best cuddle with the six-year old. These times won't be there forever - I realise that now more than ever. Also grateful to people who recommend Retro Age to people who are going through their family estate - thank you!

250 vintage fabrics in under two hours

I am totally exhausted and have a new resolve to get fit! It's hard yakka going through fabric!

We were contacted by a local family regarding their Mother's estate and her lifetime collection of vintage fabric. I spent the better part of two hours going through three rooms of fabric and have added 250 new arrivals to the Retro Age vintage fabric stash today. I can't wait to book them in and show you some better shots! Sorry about the photos - they were taken on the hop and are definitely happy snaps of around 1/4 of it :) The fabrics range from the 1930s through to the 1970s.