Mendocino Vacation

(Left) Sunset from Mendocino Headlands (Right) Mendocino Masonic Hall, built 1866. Very quaint, tiny town located along the coast with strong roots as an artist community. No chain stores, lots of organic restaurants, groceries and artist galleries.

Atrium Bed and Breakfast, Fort Bragg. This was the cutest B&B, perfectly decorated Victorian cottages. Fort Bragg was definitely less "quaint" than Mendocino -- and by that I mean they had a CVS-- but it was also much more affordable and closer to MacKerricher State Park which had the best coastline. There's also a great art supply store with an amazing paper selection on North Franklin Street. The wooden pulp papers aren't available online but their printed papers are on their website.

Mendocino Botanical Gardens -- featured 47 acres of plants and coastline with great views of the ocean along the bluffs. We ended our trip with a visit to Cowlicks Handmade Ice Cream (so good!) at the cafe entrance to the gardens.

(Left) Botanical Garden Coastal Bluffs (Right) Succulent Gardens

Mendocino Botanical Gardens Branch Gates.

Succulent Gardens

Dahlias

Fort Bragg, Glass Beach -- This beach was used as a town dump until it was closed in the 1960's. Since then cleanup efforts were made to dispose of all trash, leaving behind tiny pieces of broken glass worn down by the tide.

(Left) Fox Glove (Right) Glass Beach

(Left) Dahlias, Mendocino Botanical Garden (Right) Russian Gulch State Park

Mendocino Headlands

(Left) Mendocino Headlands (Right) Van Damme State Park Fern Canyon-- We camped overnight at Van Damme State Park where it unfortunately rained the entire time but the scenery was beautiful.

Five under $5

Here are some finds from June:

1. 1950's Blue Suede Clutch with Green Alligator accent

2. 1960's White Metal Ice Bucket with Red lining / 3. 1970's Straw and Leather Purse

4. Rock collection from a 1959 Franklin Institute field Trip in Antique Frame

5. 1960's John Romain tweed and leather barrel purse / 6. 1960's Lux starburst clock ($15)

1962 House & Garden; Book of Interiors

Some images to inspire from 1962 copy of House & Garden; Book of Interiors.
I am loving that suspended boat.

Kentucky Derby Party

Here are some photos from a party I went to the first weekend in May. The gorgeous cake was hand-painted with food dye by one of the hosts!! (AMAZING!!) The hats we made -- the plaid dress is 1950's vintage from a local thrift store.

A little wednesday afternoon project

this, that and the other

Woke up early to a beautiful, sunny morning-- went to the weekly auction-- didn't find anything too exciting so I came home and decided to work on a few projects from last week.

Yay, the spring blossoms survived the torrential rain over the last few days.
Photos taken this morning. The weeds seems to be thriving too.

I bought a much-needed record cabinet for $7 from the local thrift store on Friday. The cabinet was just particle board with wood legs but it was really dinged up with that telltale crap-furniture 1950's "blonde" faux-finish. I figured I couldn't really go wrong even if I hated the end result so I decided to spray paint it white. Andrew liked the diagonal faux wood grain on the cabinet doors so those were left as is.





I got a cute little chair for $1 (shown below), unfortunately it came with complimentary rust stains from where the auctioneers decided to put rusty dumbbells on top of the white upholstery.

easy upholstery cleaning formula: 1/4 C liquid detergent + 2 C water
Use a short bristled clean scrub brush to work into a lather-- this sounds like an obvious formula but it worked like magic on stains I couldn't even get out with OxyClean. I thought the upholstery wasn't salvageable it was so dirty and it came out looking great, took the rust stains out too. Trying to decide whether I should leave the wood finish or paint the chair.

family album

photos of my grandmother whom I named my vintage store after.
They were taken in Los Angeles, mid-1940's.