Guess who's (finally!) making YouTube videos again!

Around a year ago, for the first time in my life, I began making YouTube videos. Tony and I - he behind the lens, I in front of it, as per usual - filmed a few and then as we got busy with our awesome trip to Vancouver Island, another bracingly cold winter set in (we were filming our vids outdoors), and as life in general stole the show, YouTube got put on the backburner for me.

Well, no more...I hope! This week, for the first time ever, I filmed a little “I’m back” video myself using my Canon Rebel T5i camera. In it I expand on the points above, delves into some of my plans for my channel, and invites all of you to ask me anything you'd like to know or to suggest topics for future videos (which you are super welcome to do here in the comment section of this post, too).





I know myself, I know my health, I know the complexities of my life, and I know that promising you a new video on X, Y and Z days every month is a recipe for failure (to be able to do so) on my part and potential disappointment on yours, so I won't say anything that set in stone.

I will however give you my word that I have every intention to continue posting YouTube videos again on a considerably more frequent basis (in an ideal world, at least once a week - but again, we'll see, and I'm happy with pretty much any frequency that beats about 11 months since my last video, which was what this unplanned YouTube hiatus lasted for!).

Thank you so much to all those here who is already following me on YouTube and if you haven't done so already, please feel free to subscribe to my channel there.

Huge thanks, everyone - I'm massively excited to share lots of new videos there with you in the weeks and months to follow!

*PS* If you need more incentive to follow my channel, I will be wearing some outfits there - especially when Tony's away this summer - that will not be appearing (in the moment at least) in blog posts. So you can get more of my vintage style on YouTube - yippee! :)

Answering the Antique, Vintage, and Retro Nevers Q & A

So often with fun online tags or other types of Q&A posts that catch on and spread like wildfire, they've been passed from blog to blog for so long that one would be extremely hard pressed to find their original source. Not so with the Antique, Vintage, and Retro Nevers Q & A that my very dear friend (and immensely talented sewer) Inky from On Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax created a little earlier this year.

She was inspired to create this series of questions (and answers) based on things in the vintage (et al) world that she would likely never do. I thought this was such a fun, original spin on a set of questions that are designed to help your readers get to know you better. As such, I knew instantly that I wanted to try my hand at answering her original set of eight questons as well and am delighted to have a chance to do so today.

So without, further ado, may I present my answers to Inky's great Antique, Vintage, and Retro Nevers questions.









1. What is one antique/vintage/retro item you’d never want to receive as a gift or would never think of purchasing?

Anything directly tied to the Nazi regime of WW2. I believe that it's very important to preserve such items from a historical and cultural standpoint and do not take issue with those that collect them (assuming they're not neo-nazis or the like themselves), but it's something that I would absolutely not feel comfortable owning myself.





2. What are three movies made in pre-70's Hollywood you've never seen and want to see?

Ooohhh, there are so many! To the best of my memory, I don't believe that I've yet seen 1941's The Devil and Mrs. Jones, 1946's Gilda, or 1954's The Barefoot Contessa. Catching any or all of those three would be a blast!





3. What are three movies made in pre-70’s Hollywood you've seen and will never watch again?

This is genuinely hard, as there aren't many old movies that I didn't enjoy - if only for the fashions and hairstyles involved. Honestly, I'm not sure. Sorry!!! I guess I'm every director's dream critic! :D





4. What is one antique/vintage/retro item you own, but never imagined you would?

My complete and total dream 1940s style tilt hat, created for me by wildly talented Australian milliner, Tanith Rowan.





5. What is one thing you do relating to vintage you never pictured yourself doing?

Very good question, there are definitely a few things that fall into this camp, but believe it or not given the abundance of out outfit posts here in recent years, when I began blogging, I was still way too shy and self-conscious to put my picture online (very often at least).

It took about three years of solid blogging and feeling at home in the vintage community, as well as growing and maturing as a person, before I reached a place where I was able to stand in front of the lens and more over share the end results of doing so with all of you (assuming, at least, that Tony is the person behind the camera! Though I'd totally let a kitty take my photo, too! :D). I'm so thankful that I reached this point because I know that it's helped to enrich my blog and my life itself a great deal.





6. If you could never dress outside a specific decade of the past again, what decade would you choose?

I'm going to play fast and loose with the definition of a decade being a ten year period and say, as I have many a time before, that without a doubt, I would select the years spanning the launch of Dior's immensely famous New Look silhouette in 1947 to ten years later 1957. This period in time is such an incredibly rich, vibrant, elegant one for fashion and it has spoken to my sartorial soul since I was a small child.





7. What is one thing you could never bring yourself to do to an antique/vintage/retro item?

Knowingly do anything to damage a perfectly good (intact) vintage item. I usually won't even have my vintage garments altered in the slightest way because I just can't bring myself to "hurt" anything that has survived in its present shape for this long. I don't chide those that do, of course, and know that this is a hot button issue for many in the vintage world, but again, it's just not something that I'm personally down with when it comes to my own vintage items.




8. Is there an antique/vintage/retro item you own that you would never give up?

Any of the small number of true vintage items, such as the gorgeous c. early 1940s crepe dress that I chatted about not too long ago here, that belonged to my own family members. These pieces have been with us for generations now and I hope that I can pass them along to the next one, too. (Note: That photo is not of my own relatives, I just really liked it because it showed multiple generations of the same family all in one image).

{To learn more about a specific image, please click on it to be taken to its respective source.}

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Thank you very much for creating this delightful, creative set of questions, Inky. I hope that others will take both our leads and blog about their own answers, too. If you do, by all means feel free to share the link to your post here with me and over on Inky's blog with her as well.

Tell, my dears, what are some "vintage nevers" in your books? What questions might you ad to this list? And, conversely, what are some of your "vintage alwayses"?

Saturday Snapshots: July 18, 2015

{Heartwarming, timeless and very easy to relate to, this immensely sweet photo from c. 1918 shows three young sisters busily engaged in needlework on the verandah of their Toowong, Australia home as their matching trio of dolls watch on.}




{This photo from 1950, which has the accompanying note of "Irma at home" lands a place in today's post because Irma's red skirt suit and sophisticated bird wing adorned hat are the kind of early 50s fashions that make swoon and then go running to Etsy to try and duplicate those same styles! :) (PS: If you click though to this person's Flickr stream, you can see lots more photos of Irma over the years.)}




{A wonderful car, elegant mid-century attire, and a great getaway to the woods. Sounds like my idea of summertime heaven!}




{It was all I could do to keep my knees from buckling when I came across this delightful vintage photograph or two friends or relatives in their causal c. 1940s daywear attire. I mean, come on, just look at that A-MAH-ZING airplane novelty print sweet. Tres swoon!}




{A once common part of youth for many women that is now all but forgotten in most circles, these lovely ladies from 1954 were all debutants that year - and what a beautifully evening/party dress adorned group they were!}




{Tourists, and likely the occasional local or two as well, exploring Windsor Castle, 1949. I'm always drawn to vintage crowd shots like this - they give you such a good look a decent chunk of the population at one time and thus many outfits and hairstyles to study, learn from, and simply enjoy seeing.}




{The caption "traveling with friends" accompanies this 1920s photo of six fashionably attired ladies who all look marvelous from their elegant shoes right on up to their jaunty cloche hats. Talk about traveling (with friends) in style!}




{This photo stirs a sense of nostalgia in me. Though you need to bump things up about three decades, this photo could easily have been taken little me along with my mom and aunts or some of her girlfriends during my childhood. Not only that, but look at that crazy cool animal and cocktail print wallpaper - I had to post this 1950s photo if only for that!}




{Two young woman (very) hard at work on the war effort front, March 1943. I always seriously admire how well dressed and put together those who did these kind of demanding manual labour jobs still managed to look day in and day out.}




{The cross section of genuine facial expressions in this 1950s colour photo is more perfect than had it been staged. You're got the visibly concerned, serious faced lady on the right, the woman engaged in telling her story on the left, the sweet, excited little gal in the middle who looks like she just saw Santa Claus step into the room. }

{All images above are from Flickr. To learn more about a specific image, please click on it to be taken to its respective Flickr page.}

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Several months ago I was involved in a situation with someone for whom I went unbelievably above and beyond. I'm prone to doing this. It's in my nature not just to care, but to care incredibly deeply. I am an empath, a highly sensitive person, and INFJ, so you can likely image (or perhaps personally relate) to the fact that I quite literally feel other people's feelings and can sense a mile away when someone is in distress, is upset, was hurt - any negative or positive emotion, I'll read like a book, even if they don't say a word. In fact, it often between those proverbial lines that I pick up the very truest clues.

The details of what unfolded do not merit relaying, but the very in-a-nutshell version of things is that I did what I felt was an incredibly kind and generous thing and the person I was trying to help (who it should be noted, gave me permission to do so for beforehand) rebuked, complained about, and was mind-blowingly rude regarding what I had done.

I didn't see that coming in a million years and was floored by it (believe me, I say this without an ounce of bias, their response was incredibly uncouth, hurtful and selfish). I mean, to the point where I literally felt a powerfully crushing, gripping sensation in the center of my chest for days afterwards. I was nearly paralyzed from the trauma of their reaction and I was as good as useless to myself and the rest of the world for at least a week as I slowly began to recover from how incredibly ungrateful and hurtful they were to me.

I'm a sensitive person, there's no question about it, but I've been wronged, slighted, screwed over, used, you name it, over the years, and for all my tender emotions, I've grown quite a thick skin, so to have someone (who I barely knew) trouble me so deeply was unnerving unto itself.

Far from being bitter or even angry at that person. I felt sorry from them. Pity sprung the very core of my heart and I wondered how they could function in this world with the attitude that they possessed. I wept and in a way I grieved for them, but through it all, I never regretted the actions I had taken in my attempt to make their life better, their world happier.

During that rough patch in my life, I thought and meditated on the quote that launches today's edition (the first this year, believe it or not) of Saturday Snapshots, hailing from the mind of that wise philosopher (amongst other things) of ancient Rome, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, who said "It is another's fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so."

Each time I read it, my soul calmed. My nerves relaxed, my heartbeat slowly returned to normal and the invisible elephant sat up and wandered off from my chest. It would be easy to let an experience like that one jade or sour you. To turn your spirit harsh, your heart cold. To make you stop remembering that there is good in many and that there are some people who can never truly be pleased or who lack the ability to experience genuine gratitude.

I could have, but I didn't. For I did not do so each time (with other people) at earlier stages in my life, and I will not when something similar happens down the road in the future. It is bound to. There are too many human beings on this planet to not run into at least a handful more before my mortal time expires that will cause similar feelings, provoke such agonizing reactions, and who have as little clue about how to be grateful as that aforementioned elephant does about flying a spaceship to the moon.

Today, a relatively long time after this experience unfolded, I share it with you here to let you know that if you're currently facing, have dealt with, or will one day encounter something similar, that you're not alone. This problem predated even our good man Seneca (not to mention all the lovely folks in these vintage snapshots) and it will far outlast each and every one of us here.

When you encounter ungratefulness, and I promise you that you will, think not of that individual but of those for whom your actions, words and caring soul were appreciated - and of those who stirred in you those very same feelings.

The next time someone does something from a place of love and care for you, make sure your look them straight in the eyes (or write a heartfelt thank you letter/email) and make sure that they know just how very grateful you are. Believe me, Seneca, would approve, and so will the rest of the people in today's world that you will actually want to be around as you move forward with your life after having been dealt a painful reminder that it truly takes all kinds!