Halloween 2010

Well, today was the annual Halloween Trick or Treat day on Pakington St in Geelong. We go every year for a couple of hours worth of fun for the boys - some of the shops give lollies to the kids who walk up and down the street. This year Nanny bought their outfits and Dad did the...ahem....make up on. The shot above is before the actual trek up and down Pakington St - they're all abuzz with excitement and energy.

Logan won best dressed boy for his age group, so I am putting this close up shot up here for posterity. He said his Dad should be a professional make-up artist. Hmmm...he gets fabric and does good make-up? Oh dear.

And this is the after shot. Logan looks like...well....like death! And Gabriel is begging for more lollies. Such is Halloween for our family!

Thank you, Bloesem!

Oh - I am so proud! Today we have been featured on Bloesem - in their vintage gift giving section, with such other lovely peeps and sellers! There are such fantastic things to purchase - you can view the post here. I seriously want a Jane Foster cushion or Tilda or cat, I tell you! Now, if only I could decide...

What a wonderful thing to wake up to *even if it is Friday*...thank you, Bloesem!

Work and life balance

Inbetween a busy business and schedule we always make time for our family and married life. The reason we left the rat race was to ensure we had more quiet, family time than running-around-like-headless-stressed-parents all of the time. It just wasn't for us for this stage of our lives.

We are always trying to balance our lives with the business to ensure we're offering our kids a memorable and wonderful childhood. That is one of our main drives. And thinking about what makes us happy and making sure we're all happy and satisfied with our lives (at the moment) is another constant in our lives.

So there has been quiet dusk contemplation at the beach for us, plus dog watching shenanigans with blankets, drink and food...

Beautiful flowers from a beautiful man to celebrate our anniversary. Gerberas are my favourite flower - and, of course, Mr Vintage couldn't go wrong with orange, could he? I have to say I do love my man. I love the fact he thinks he's going to go down in history as the only man in the world who has so much vintage fabric sent and given to him. He thinks he may be the only man who knows the difference between a cretonne and barkcloth. Love.

And as we're now entering into lovely Spring weather we have lots of outdoors fun and play. Apologies for the quick snap, but I wanted to quickly capture the picnic lunch with Wall-E and some of the Toy Story gang...not to mention the odd rogue chook swooping in for some sandwich.

The look on Woody's face above says it all - as Justin says, he looks drunk. Drunk on life, I say?

Thank you for a wonderful couple of days, Mr Vintage. I'm so blessed to have found you.

Super graphic vintage fabric - a steal at this price!

We're down to the end of this bolt - so I have put the bolt end in our remnant section of the website. All of this retro goodness - 118cm wide x 50cm long for just $26.99! Kapow!

Our new look - a little preview...

We have been working on this for a while and have almost finished this page. We have teething problems, like with any website upgrade, but this will give you a good idea of what we're delving into. Quick links, a nice polished look...now we just have to get it all to work!

Cross your fingers!

Enjoy :)

Ness

And now back to normal vintage fabric programming...

I am spending the afternoon uploading fabric - my favourite time! I have a lot of lovely pieces coming your way, but these two fabrics keep on making me look at them. The one above is a cracker of a kitsch fabric - a 70s glazed seersucker with the coolest faux patchwork design! And the piece below is a 60s glazed cotton chintz with a sweet yellow floral trailing pattern...both have got a little bit of my vintage fabric heart!

Dear yoo-no-hoo...

Dearest yoo-no-hoo (yoo-no-hoo-yoo-r)

You are continuing to make me laugh - today especially - what a line! - and yet I find myself shaking my head, feeling so sorry for you. Can you do nothing original for yourself? Can you not live your own life and dream up your own ideas? Why must you copy everything and then try and pass it off as your own? So very, very sad.

Dearest yoo-no-hoo, I am up for it. Oh, yes I am. You have no idea, m'dear. It's on. And I know when you scale through this blog (yes, I know your ISP, your operating system and who you purchase your internet through) and our website and you hit on ideas you haven't thought of as yet, it is always only days before I see them copied. So blatently, too. Like you have no self-worth or no original thought it your head. Boo hoo.

I now realise just how much you must screen my words for ideas and directions. Sad. And how much you try to be like us. Sad. And what you fail to realise is how much I would have shared, had you not been so ruthless a long time ago.

So, dearest yoo-no-hoo, keep stalking if you must, but be sure that nothing goes unnoticed by us - and by others.

As you say to me - happy selling!

Love yoo-no-hoo

PS. I love it when people blow their own lying trumpets up peoples *....*

The ebay trials...

Well - I stayed back at Retro Age HQ last night to get some mass uploading completed, as I promised . But then started three hours of converations with ebay regarding the fees they have charged us for our store listings! Talk about frustrating! It didn't end until another 1.5 hours dealing with them this morning - and the cancellation of all of our listings so they could credit us for them all. Sheesh! So now I have to relist - but this is a good thing, I think - I can check each listing with stock as I go...just to make sure they are all accurate...

Will upload more today - I promise! For now, it's time for Mr Nick Cave and wrapping orders...have a good day!

Phew! What a day!

Today was just one of those days - right out of the blue. Not only did I have 25 orders to package with Justin (and another 11 to track), but we also had fabric stacked to take photos of and a lot of booking in to do. Then we get the call from the primary school to say our son had been the victim of bullying - bad bullying - and we needed to be at the school at the end of the day to discuss strategies to stop this type of horrid behaviour and to keep our son from losing his confidence. And the poor little man also fell on his knee for the third day in a row - blood over school socks and shoes, that type of thing. It was one of the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants days where I couldn't keep track of everything, have no idea what else we have to do (give me some time to catch up!) and there's a palpable phew! at the end...and it hasn't even ended yet. ***I am working back tonight to keep the new arrivals coming your way - there's lots of yardage going up tonight! I also want to get back into our ebay store - now that the silly company has adjusted our fees to the correct amount we can upload all we want! Hurrah!*** - rewrite that to working back to get into a two hour discussion with ebay Live Help - what a waste of time this is!!

Working back

I am working back at Retro Age HQ tonight. I have been doing a little of this working back business as we have been run off our feet, but I don't mind in the slightest. It means I can keep pace with the business and still get oodles of quality life and family time. I have been a little wired of late, too - but not soooo stressed that I am a monster, you know? Just wired enough that I am working as fast as I can to ensure we have happy, satisfied customers. I remember working back in my freelancing jobs and having a monster boss - phew, am I ever glad I left that place behind!

There are at least 20 new fabrics going up onto the site tomorrow - yes, we are busy here in Retro Age land! But oh so enjoying it, I have to say :) I popped around 10 pieces up today - the one above is my sentimental favourite. It is an early 1900s piece and just oozes romance to me...romance of times gone by...

High hopes for vintage fabric

All of these lovely prints will be going up onto the website today - I promise! There is some more but I can't get the pics up onto the server, for some reason - the prints above are remnants, but the others I am putting up are all bolts.

I had high hopes of putting a tonne of new arrivals onto the website over the weekend, but we've all got another virus and I hve sinusitis on top! What is it this year with all of these strong viruses? These major bugs are truly a worry. I don't remember them being around when I was a teen and that's just 20 years ago - where are these super bugs coming from and why?

New arrivals - Friday

I have done a little uploading today - Scanidnavian panels as well as cottons - hopefully there is more to come...some yardage as well as these lovely remnants we have. It's a beautiful day here - I think the weekend is coming!

ooooohhhhhhhhh errrrrrr - a new Retro Age brand!

Ta da! Here is a little preview of what we have been working on behind the scenes - actually, this is a small portion of it, but you'll see our cool font at least! This is our main header and avatar - you likeeee? We likeee! I love the colourway and the uber cool font.

The website will be updated slowly - and we'll be adding in some nice little features, I hope. And an all important tag line to go with this new brand. With more than 1000 individual fabrics on the website, I think it is now safe to say we have the largest online vintage fabric store in the world...so perhaps that's a little hint with our tag :)

Back to work for me - lots of orders to get out once again today - thank you to our lovely customers! I hope everyone has a lovely weekend, too...Happy Friday, all!

xNess

PS. New stock going up onto the website later today - I'll post here when I've got some on the go :)

Notice something a little different about our vintage fabric pics?

We have a lot we'll be changing or adding to the website in the coming weeks...ahem...perhaps a new look? We'll see :) We'll annouce each change as they go live...

One of the more obvious ones, if you've been looking at the new arrivals in the past day or two, is the addition of a photo with one of our steel rulers and the listed fabric. It gives an inch and centimeter indication of pattern size. We're not fans of using pens, lighters or matches to show pattern size - sorry, but all they remind me of is fabric + flame = fire (or smoking) - so the steel ruler is the way to go at the moment. We'll include this shot with each fabric as they go live on the site...

Pennsylvania Dutch vintage fabric remnant - look at the detail!

This is only a remnant, but I just had to show you the detail in this Pennsylvania Dutch cotton. The design really is a work of art - look at how each element integrates with each other in such a small space.

It is all systems go for us today - we have so many parcels to pack that we're cringing at that thought of not making postage time today...but we refuse to miss it, we say! So, it's a little break for me to update this blog and then it's back to cutting and wrapping. Our October Vintage Fabric Lovers Club subscriptions go out today, too - my, there are some special pieces this month, I have to say!

I'll also continue to upload new arrivals onto the website - I got a lot done yesterday and last night (yes - I worked back!), but there is still so much more to come! I have more 40s and 50s cottons to go up and some kitsch 80s pieces, too...

xNess