A fabulous antiquing day in St. Louis

Hello, friends! Goodness have I ever been busy. So busy that I can’t even seem to catch up with, well, about anything. We just got back from one road trip and here I am showing you photos from two road trips ago. Albeit, it was only last weekend. Like I said…busy!

The weekend before the 4th of July holiday weekend, we drove to St. Louis to visit Mel’s sister and our brother-in-law, niece, and nephew. We try to get down there at least once a year, and we were definitely overdue for a trip—they bought a new house last fall and we hadn’t even seen it yet!

Visiting them is always wonderful, and this time it also helped get our butts in gear about doing some things around the house we’ve been very lazy about (we are going for paint samples for our bedroom and the den this week, end of story!). That’s because my sister-in-law had already done so much around their house! Including recently painting their front door, and since I matched one day, of course I had to pose in front of it.

(ha ha, Pia photobombed!)

outfit details

shorts: Freddies of Pinewoods
top: Trashy Diva
shoes: Worishofer
lucite earrings: Leetie Lovendale
cherries brooch: Dolly Cool

We had a great weekend. There was naturally plenty of hanging out with the adults, but also horsing around with the kids!

One of the days, Leslie and CJ had the idea to take us to Cherokee Antique Row, a cute historic district chock full of antique shops. To say we did well would be an understatement!

First, we stopped in Retro 101 and I’m pretty sure we almost lost our minds. Lots of well-priced vintage clothes, I couldn’t even look through it all. True fact: I love looking at vintage clothes but I rarely shop for them in person, and I get easy overwhelmed. Since pretty much all of my vintage dresses and skirts are too big, and I’ve been sewing dresses like a storm, I mainly focused on the amazing huge rack of skirts. I picked up three beauties. (And still regret not purchasing one that was a smidge too small!)

First, there’s this aqua, gray and black number, a color palette that’s just perfect!

And then I got this purple, violet and yellow skirt. I felt like it was an unusual and vibrant color combination, and I couldn’t resist it!

Aren’t those prints amazing? In fact, I’ve already ordered some solid-colored Kona cottons to make matching summery tops. I’ll talk more about those plans soon!

And finally, the last skirt I purchased has a Hawaiian theme. It needs a little TLC (I have to fix one of the belt loops, spot treat a stain and give the skirt a good soak), but it was a great price for a phenomenal print!

I mean, look at that scene! Swoon.

Mel also did well and picked up two Hawaiian shirts. After working hard to lose weight over the last year or so, and it was exciting for Mel to find some smaller shirts that fit! (This is the reason that I ended up losing some weight too by the way, as a side effect of Mel’s weight loss, since we’ve been eating better!)

One of them was a Japanese rayon shirt with a great label!

Oh and did I mention I even bought a hat? I never wear vintage hats. Like, ever. Except for winter, I’m really just not a hat person. However as soon as I saw this straw hat it was like an instant attraction and I absolutely had to have it. Maybe I’ve finally found the one style of vintage hat I’ll wear!

Isn’t it fantastic?!

And last but not least, I also picked up this pretty silk scarf.

At first glance I thought the design was African, but on closer inspection I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s supposed to be Aztec. What do you think?

Now that was all from the same shop if you can believe it, but later on we had a few other good finds, too. I found an adorable small straw purse. The top slides up and down the strap!

And a couple of lovely sewing patterns. Doesn’t the dress on the right remind you of Cambie? I also think it would be a great pattern to try and hack into a blouse. And I love those scallops on View 1!

The last thing I picked up just for me is this amazing Miss America silk scarf that my sister-in-law spotted. Judging from the hairstyles and bathing suits, I’d guess it was from the 1940s. I had to lay it on the floor because it’s quite big!

Here’s Miss North and Miss South:

And Miss East and Miss West:

It’s not in perfect condition, but it’s such a unique scarf, it seems a shame to just use it in my hair since you can’t see it in its full glory that way. So I’m considering the idea of framing it and putting it on our guest bedroom wall.

The last item we picked up was for the house. And it’s a stunner!

All of our table lamps are vintage, and there was only one spot left where I wanted a new one, on top of a small Kent Coffey dresser in the guest bedroom that holds knitting needles in one drawer, and stockings and slips in the others. (What, you don’t multi-purpose your furniture?)

The tiers of the lamp are pink and gold and remind me of flying saucers. I love it! Quintessential mid-century goodness.

Our niece and nephew were awesomely behaved during the whole antiquing adventure, and everyone got to have frozen custard as a treat afterwards!

(P.S. no I didn’t get a silly dinky size frozen custard, I got a respectably bigger size! That was a cup of water I was holding.)

On the drive home we renewed our desire to get a few things in order in the house. We have several rooms left to paint and put up art (to date we’ve only painted the living room, hallway and the bathroom during the remodel), curtains and blinds to buy, and various other decorating things to attend to. So I hope to have some more house posts in the upcoming months for you. 🙂

All in all we had a fantastic visit, and came home with inspiration and an epic vintage haul. What a wonderful weekend!

outfit details

top and bolero: made by me (I’ll blog about them soon!)
jeans: Freddies of Pinewoods
same earrings & shoes as first outfit
purse: Coach
Bakelite bangles: misc.