I hope your holiday was happy!

I meant to share this Christmas post with some of my favorite retro holiday ads on Christmas Eve, but I couldn't find the wifi password at my parent's house (after looking for a good 2 minutes), so I put the laptop away and poured myself a glass of eggnog!

I love the Plan59 website! There is an entire section devoted to Christmas. Here are a few of my faves:

Check out that sweet record player/credenza! I'd be pretty happy if santa brought me one of those. The architecture of this place is pretty impressive, too. I think that's an indoor pond!

I'm glad I didn't get any of these in my stocking! Pretty box, though.

Graphic stack of gifts and bows.

Pretty illustration of a Lincoln Zephyr.

Hm...the chimney flue turns into a tree? Slightly strange.

Ooh, cozy! Hanes will help you have a "White Christmas" (their words)!

And my favorite, a travelin' Christmas in the Redwoods. You can purchase prints of anything you see on the Plan59 website. I'm thinking about ordering this last one...

Silver bells.

Wow, what a busy holiday season it's been! Thank you to everyone who made a purchase from my shop these past two months. I think it was my busiest season yet! I hope your friends and loved ones love their MINI gifts!

Now that the dust has settled a little bit, with the Christmas shipping deadline behind us, I have a chance to catch my breath and enjoy the season. I've been getting into the holiday spirit by listening to the new She and Him Holiday Album. I love its retro vibe. Silver Bells is on it and it is one of my favorite Christmas songs. It inspired me to do a little retro-inspired holiday collection.

Beautiful silver ombre glasses from TheFancyLamb. I'd feel like I was drinking at Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Price with these!

Vintage Christmas corsage from Birdsnestandpaper.

 Set of Shiny Brite Ornaments from efinegifts.

Mercury glass garland from junquedujour.

These sequin ornaments remind me of my Grandma. From jacklom3.

Set of Jewelbrite ornaments from BarkingSandsVintage.

Rhinestone brooch from AntiqueAddictions.

My New Etsy Shop!

I just realized that I never officially announced my newest project: a new Etsy shop! I mentioned it here on the blog when it was just an idea, but now it's real! So, consider this its formal introduction:

vitamodern: My handmade shop featuring retro gifts and stationery! I've been slowly making products to add to the shop, including these retro house zippy bags in bright coral and teal. The fabric design features my retro house sketches (straight from my sketchbook!) and cool boomerangs and stars!

And these screen printed cotton tea towels featuring my retro house papercut design project. I creating a whole series of retro house designs based on some of my papercut work.

I've also been working on these repurposed wood key hook boards, screen printed with my retro ranch designs.

And my current fave, atomic boomerang holiday cards!

 

I've actually already sold out of the white cards! I still have a few of the kraft brown ones left, so if you are interested head over to the vitamodern shop. I'm very tempted to mail them out myself... I've got tons of more projects in the works, so add my shop to your favorites so you can keep an eye out.

I hope you are all doing well crossing things off your holiday shopping list! There is still plenty of time to buy handmade in time for the holidays. Head over to Etsy and support small handmade businesses this holiday season!

Oh, Christmas tree.

Last year was the first year I got a real Christmas tree for my apartment. I always spend the holiday with my family, so the idea of a Christmas tree all by it’s lonesome in my place on Christmas day always seemed sad. But I was tired of not feeling the holiday cheer in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas, so I took the leap and got one last year and it was so nice to have! It reminded me of the holiday and was so much fun to decorate and just to look at.

I was sure I'd get a tree this year and was hoping I could get one from the family farm. My parents have a good amount of land and about 12 years ago decided to plant a little patch of Christmas trees so we could just cut our own tree down every year and carry it up to the house. So, this year, I decided to check out our own tree stash before I went out and bought one.

My cousin Michelle took this cool photo. The trees are to the right of the house.

 
I found one that was perfectly imperfect! About 6' tall, very skinny, and a little vintage looking. It even had real pinecones still attached! I wish I had taken photos of it “in the wild”, but it was getting dark really fast and my dad just happened to be driving by in the tractor (no kidding!) with the hand saw with him. After he re-lived last year’s tree cutting incident where I “cut it in the wrong place!” I kindly requested that he cut it down himself. It only took a good 5 seconds of sawing before it was down and I was carrying it up to the house. I trimmed a few of the lower branches and some of the dead stuff and put it in a bucket of water overnight. The next day I gave it a little spray-down to get most of the spiders off.   

After it dried, I wrapped it in a few plastic garbage bags and ever-so-carefully jammed it into the MINI! I had to move the passenger seat all the way forward and maneuver around it for the stick shift and ebrake, but it fit! Shoulda taken pictures of that, too!

So here's the tree all decorated. It came out really cute! I think it looks a little Seuss-ish. The size is actually perfect because I don't have that many ornaments. I did find a place for all of my favorites, though.

And apparently this is what happens when you live with a boy:

I've got hockey players on my Christmas tree.