cute as a button.

My friend Patsy gave me an entire bag of vintage buttons as "payment" for listing some things online for her. There were hundreds of them all sorted out in colors in separate baby food jars. At first I thought I should keep them. ALL OF THEM. I love buttons and at first I really convinced myself that I needed every single one. But I talked some sense into my head and dumped out each baby food jar and took photos of them to list online. About twenty jars in all.

Until two nights ago when I decided I needed to go through each jar again and resort. I am so OCD. I am always reorganizing already organized things. each shelf in my room is designated for one single item. I have baskets with unimportant organizational duties. So buttons? I needed to resort and relabel them. I ended up with about forty different "lots". And I stole about fifteen that I could not bear to part with.



I'll slowly start listing them over the next few days. Since I got them for free and am only trying to make back what it cost me to list things lately, I'm selling them for really cheap. Buttons are wonderful things and can be used for anything your imagination can think up. Even can be used for keeping clothing closed and modest ;P

I've listed a few already but I'm so busy lately that I haven't had time to list them all. Also someone told me recently that it's not wise to post all of one thing in one day. To spread your listings out. So I'm trying that out for a while. I'll post some buttons one day. And then I'll post some skirts. Maybe a few more cardigans another. Eventually we'll get around to listing all forty lots of buttons. Hopefully this will get business back. It's been so slow this week. I've only sold one thing.

More buttons.

as usual. you can purchase these items at my etsy vintage store :)

cat tortures.

As I have mentioned before, my roommate and I have two very awful indoor cats. They are the loves of our lives as well as the bane of our existences. Probably more so the loves of our lives. But that is up for debate on a daily basis. Mine is six months old and has an obsession with straws and napkins right now. I can't seem to figure out where she finds the things she distributes throughout my usually clean downstairs, but the upstairs is a lost cause. I can't clean up after her. I will wait until she is older to worry about having a clean abode.

This post is dedicated to Sushi (who is possessed by the devil). She only likes Jenifer and will scratch and hiss at me if I come within a foot of her. I've started hissing at her when she comes near me too. I think this should go both ways. You agree? She's about three or four years old. Not really sure. I could ask Jenifer but she's not home now.

Also it's dedicated to Prudence. The love of my adult life. She is six months old and wonderful and hilarious and awful and annoying and cute as a button. I can't wait for her to get older and to learn that no means no and good cats don't bite when they want their way. She warbles like a turkey and flings herself at chairs and bookshelves and curtains. Daily I find new things she has shoved irretrievably under door frames. But she sleeps on a pillow on my bed at night. She sings to me in the morning. She plays with a felt strawberry. And she dines out of vintage sugar bowls. I truly love her. Even though she smells like gerbils. Flings litter all over my room. And SINGS TO ME IN THE MORNING!! SIX IN THE MORNING!! SOMETIMES FIVE!!

She is six months old now. But the pictures in this post are from when she was two months old.

enjoy!!

i've been featured in this treasury!!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=19087

i've got my love to keep me warm.

I can't really explain why but I've always had a love for sweaters and cardigans. Especially cardigans. Especially especially vintage cardigans. And especially especially especially old lady/grandpa style cardigans.

My roommate teases me because every time I go thrifting I come home with more cardigans. I leave all the tags on them and drool over them for days before deciding to part with them. My coworkers laugh at me because they don't understand why I always buy "old lady clothes" but seriously, old lady cardigans have the best buttons and pockets and patterns while Grandpa cardigans are so warm and cozy and have the best shape.

But lately my vintage clothing obsession has gotten out of hand. I created an excel spreadsheet to list all the things that I need to list in my store rather than horde in my two closets, one armoire, and two big tubs. The list got to 80 items and I became overwhelmed and shut the window. I spend more time organizing and taking pictures of my vintage finds than I do listing and making a profit. I really really love all my vintage clothing. It has become increasingly harder for me to part with things lately. I would wear everything in my shop in a heartbeat, but rent money is also good. I usually go thrifting with the intent to buy things I can resell and by the time I get home I've fallen in love and my roommate is throwing a fit that we can't keep everything.

The amount of vintage shoes we have yet to list is incredible. For now we are learning to part only with things that do not fit us. We will soon venture into the things we love but do not "need".

For now, here are pictures of the latest "loves of my life" that I have listed for resale.

All of these cardigans can be found and purchased at my etsy shop.

all hallow's eve

As promised, here are the pictures from Halloween.

My roommate Jenifer and I had so much fun Halloween night. I work at a museum that is the oldest home in Austin, Texas and Jenifer and I got to dress up as two of the dead spinster daughters that lived in the home in the 1800's. One of the daughters even was born and died in the canopy bed that is still in the master bedroom whereas the other daughter merely died in that bed. One of the other museum aids, Joann is convinced that the house is haunted and that she has witnessed paranormal activity on multiple occasions. You would have thought that this would have frightened me. And it did. I refused to be alone in the attic and I never once set foot in the cellar. I carried a fake candle in every room and made sure I said only good things about the dead family members. However I had so much fun rattling door knobs and slamming doors and creeping up and down the stairs with a blank, otherworldly expression and pretending to embroider on the landing surrounded by candles.

Also, this opportunity gave Jenifer and I a chance to wear the vintage wedding dresses that we purchased over the summer at a garage sale. Honestly, what other opportunity would two single females have to wear these dresses without seeming insane. The make up and hair was fun to recreate too. We spent hours researching victorian hair styles only to realize at the last minute we had neither the tools nor the proper amount of hair to carry them off and ended up just ratting and pinning our hair into place. Finished off with layer upon layer of green concealer and purple eyeshadow and we were brilliantly creepy.

I never celebrated Halloween growing up so this was quite the experience. The night also included a solo artist who played his guitar and sang on the front lawn and a showing of Young Frankenstein which reminded me of my love of Gene Wilder all over again.

And now, pictures :)

fyi. both of these wedding dresses plus two more and a veil are for sale in our etsy shop.

check out all the new vintage shoes i have listed at my etsy shop!!
mens and womens...vintage clothing, shoes, accessories, and more!!

for more items and full descriptions check out

www.halfmagic@etsy.com
www.halfmagic@etsy.com
www.halfmagic@etsy.com

Lesbianzzz

Many people have come to the conclusion lately that my roommate and I are lesbians. Not only do many of our friends and family believe that we are lesbians but we are in a lesbian relationship with each other. This theory is both humorous and offensive to the two of us.

Instead of being understanding and compassionate to the fact that we are unlucky in love and frustratingly single and lacking in social graces, we are merely written off as lesbians who will not openly admit to it. Believe you me, if I were a lesbian, I would be dating women rather than the loser men that I've been known to date in my not so distant past. I wouldn't be hiding it from my family and I wouldn't be living in a two bedroom two story town house. I'd be shacking up with my lesbian partner instead of doing all I can to get my own personal space.

Sure we spend a lot of time together. Sure we are very similar in personality and style. But being single in your mid twenties does not equal LESBIANZZZ. It more or less probably equals ugly loser. But that is a different topic.

For Halloween I am dressing up as a victorian ghost for my job. I work at the French Legation Museum in Austin, Texas and I am supposed to be one of the deceased Robertson daughters. My roommate and I bought four vintage wedding dresses over the summer. Our intention was to resell them but we haven't yet had the heart to list them. They are in perfect condition and we are probably going to ruin them Halloween night but Jenifer has volunteered to be a ghost with me, so we will take our chances. Jenifer being a history major and me (Emily) being an art history major, we have been taking this costume a little too far. We already had the dresses for the part but we have been researching the victorian hairstyles and are really excited about the hair more than anything. Which leads me to case one in which we appear to be lesbians.

Monday night I get home from work and start talking to Jenifer about hairstyles. This is about ten pm. We then spend about four more hours talking and researching hairstyles until about three am when we start playing beauty parlour. This does in fact break our "no touching" rule. We are both very anti-social and anti-touching and it was quite odd to "play with each others' hair". I assume most girls do this frequently but for us it was strange and we both had to document the occasion on our facebook profiles.

Case two came the next evening when I realized my ribcage was abnormally HUGE and I could not zip any of our vintage wedding dresses up over my beast of a ribcage. We then became pseudo lesbians as we spent the entire evening trying on different bras with each dress trying to figure out how to still breath and walk and move in these horrid vintage styles and if we could hide the gaping, unzipped hole in the back of my dress with shawls, tank tops, etc. Just picture two single women on a Tuesday night in vintage wedding dresses. Also picture the two cats that kept jumping on the dresses, mesmerized by the excess fabric, trains, tulle, and lace. Great, not only do we spend entire evenings braiding each other's hair, but we spend evenings prancing around in fluffy white gowns shooing our cats away.

Case three. Wednesday night, we decided to visit a local vintage/costume shop that has "everything". I tried on six victorian style white dresses while Jenifer waited patiently outside to tell me what she thought. Until I got stuck in one. I tried on the most beautiful gibson girl style white dress that I KNEW would not fit me. I pulled it over my head and proceeded to shove my arms into the TINY arm holes. It was a bad idea from the start but I was desperate and I wanted this dress to be the one even if I had to walk out in it, pay for it while wearing it, and sleep in it until Friday night. BAD IDEA. I had to tell my roommate quietly and secretly that I was stuck and she had to help me, dying of laughter for about ten minutes to get out of it. We had to quietly rip the zipper in order to do so, but the worst part was my roommate having to see me naked. I've never felt so fat and hideous and awkward in all my life.

So all you out there cracking jokes about what a lesbian I am, I guess you were right. For this week, I have spent naked with my roommate braiding each others' hair until we decided to wear white wedding gowns and play with our cat children. We may not be true lesbians but we are sad and creepy :(

That was my week. Pictures of me as a Victorian ghost to follow.



**Since this is a sensitive subject I'm including a disclaimer. I have nothing against lesbians and neither does my roommate. I have everything against the ignorance with which people label sexuality in our modern day. I honestly mean to poke fun at myself and my roommate when we put ourselves in the position to be labeled lesbians. Since we are not lesbians, it makes it even funnier (to us at least). Also it goes without saying that since we think it's funny, we often go out of our way to broadcast moments in our daily lives that we successfully come across as especially lesbian. We have pet names for each other and all. /disclaimer**