I just love this old picture of my grandma back in the early 50's, so I thought I'd share it. Behind her is a great old ad too. Unfortunately it's a bit hard to see with this scan.

I recently made her a scrapbook with this picture in it, along with many others of our family, including a great pic from the mid 30's where she and all her sisters and friends are together down at the local swimming hole. It was a hit with her, and it was finally something I could give her that she didn't feel compelled to give back somehow later on! While looking through the scrapbook, she begins to reminisce about the old days; she loves to tell me stories about her younger years no matter how many times I've heard them, of course. One of her favorites is from when she was 18 or so and some girl decided to confront her in the bathroom (where exactly I'm not sure) and talk a bit of sh**. So my grandma, being the feisty Sicilian that she is, took this gal's face and "smooshed it into the wall" and my grandma demonstrates by holding up her hand like she's palming a ball , twisting her wrist as if she were juicing a lemon. It gets a laugh out of me every time, which is probably why she always retells that one over and over. All I can think of is that I wished I'd had the nerve to do that to a couple girls back in my teenage years! And she's only 5' tall while I'm 5'9"!

Summer is almost over, but I figured what the heck - this bag is so cute and you might want something to remind you of the beach when it's raining and yucky outside a few months from now!

I found this vintage (1960's?) bag at our local Antique Market here in Sacramento that's held every second Sunday of the month. It's actually roomy enough (18" x 16") to use for antiquing if you like to buy smaller/lighter items but truly, if I were to keep it, I'd probably just use it as a fun focal piece in a beachy/Hawaiian room. (I have been holding on to it for some time now but finally decided I would sell it.)

It's in great condition. Just go to our Flea Market page on our site to find out more info and/or to purchase!

My first love of something vintage happened at the tender age of fifteen. I was a girl who was dying to get her drivers license and dreaming of having her own car. I couldn’t wait to drive. I used to dream (literally) of driving a manual transmission because I wanted to learn to drive a stick-shift car so badly and none of our family’s cars had one. As a young kid, I would go on the bumper cars at amusement parks over and over because it was the closest thing I could get to driving. Once I got my learners permit, my mom was lucky if she got to drive at all when I was around!

So when I became aware of classic cars, and in particular, classic Mustangs, I was an obsessed teenager…As if you didn’t already gather that from the first paragraph! I guess it could have been worse…I could have been hooked on drugs or something as equally unsavory. No, I dreamed and dreamed of driving a 1966 cherry red Mustang. As far as I’m concerned, that was Mustang’s best year for body style.

Finally, at the age of seventeen, my parents agreed to buy me a car after maintaining good grades in high school – talk about motivation! After a year and half of dreaming of that cherry red Mustang there was no convincing me that any other car in the world could possibly do. Well, maybe I would have been cool with a 1958 Corvette or some other incredible car, but then who wouldn’t if they could afford it.

When I think back to the day my parents took me to go look at a car, I feel a bit embarrassed remembering what a baby (some may say spoiled brat) I was being by all the sulking I did when my dad tried to take me to get a new Toyota Tercel. What ever happened to that car anyway? As the sales guy showed us around the lot (who I’m sure was acutely aware that he was not going to be making a sale to us that day), I pouted and stomped around until we finally left the lot to go look at the cherry red Mustang with a 289/V-8 that was for sale in the valley; a good 50 miles from our home. I know I should have been grateful to have parents that would or could buy me a car at all, but come on, a Toyota Tercel from the 80's?! Now, I’m not dogging Toyotas…I love my Toyota truck, but there’s no way a teenage girl with a Mustang obsession for a good two years (an eternity at that age) was going to settle for a Tercel; a car whose quickness (if you can even use that word in the same sentence) is highly impacted by one extra passenger. No, I wanted a car with a history. A car that would allow me to piss off the neighbors with a good peel out! Never mind that the car I wanted had a constant gas smell that no one could figure out where it was coming from. Never mind that it didn’t have power brakes or that it only had lap belts and the steering column had so much play that you could rock the wheel back and forth and still go straight. After reading that back now, it sounds like a regular death trap.

So after a day of looking at little tin cars (sorry Toyota), traveling all over Southern California, and a lot of sulking from me, my dad finally gave in and agreed to buy me the 1966 cherry red Mustang with a 289/V-8 engine for $3200.00. I was over the moon! Finally, after all that time, my love and I were together at last. And even though it wasn’t in perfect condition, it never failed to turn heads and get complements from folks who obviously appreciated a classic car. There’s just something magical about that car.

Twenty years later, I still have it and while it rarely gets driven anymore (the constant wonder of whether or not the car would get me where I needed to go once I started college gave way to me buying a “reliable” car), I cannot bear to part with it. I now dream of fixing it up to its beautiful, original condition some day when I’ve got a little cash to spare! Not sure when that day will be, but I know it will come and when it does my vintage love will once again shine!

I just love the cottage look and was so excited to find this vintage cake saver (a.k.a. keeper, holder, carrier). Whatever you want to call it, it's now for sale in our online store, OnTheCornerVintage.com! I've seen a lot of cake savers with a floral pattern, but I've not seen one like this so I snatched it up when I saw it.

We're going to be selling a lot more vintage items on our site within the next couple weeks. Between working a full-time job as a business consultant and raising a very active 7-year old, it's not always easy to find the time to take pictures of and describe all the vintage items I have. I think my husband is going to ban me from going to any more antique markets and estate sales if I don't get rid of some of the things taking up real estate in our office! Pretty soon there will only be enough room for me and the computer...I exaggerate, but we really do have a lot of great vintage items that will be in our store soon, so please stop in often!

Until next time...

~Jeannie

New at On The Corner - Vintage Inspirations!

We love technology just as much as the next person and know that electronic invites (evites) are the wave of the future, however nothing beats getting an invitation in the mail especially when they're as high-quality as these! Your guests will love them!

Perfect for a summer luau or beach-themed party are these fantastic vintage-style Hula Girl party invitations. Not only is the design of these invitations totally unique, but they are printed right here in the USA on the finest heavy stock! Each pack comes with 10 invitations and envelopes. When you go out of your way to throw a fantastic party, you've gotta have fantastic invitations to go along with it!

It goes without saying that most parties where gifts are involved are followed up with thank-you cards. In keeping with the theme of vintage and Hawaiian is this pack of 10 thank-you cards and envelopes also printed on the same high-quality stock as the invitations pictured above!

I just love the Hawaiianna look of these thank-you cards and hope to have a reason to use some myself!

Go to our Stationery page to get either one (or both) of these items.

Looking for unique invitations and thank-you cards for children's parties? We also just got in the most beautifully designed children's invites & thank-you sets; just go to our Lil' Ones page to see what's in stock!