Yard sale Saturday

Today is Friday...and we all know what that means...(no, not payday, although for most of us, yes) but what I mean is it's yard sale day! For me anyway. I always only take a set amount of money and I don't let myself spend over that amount. I start out early to find the best stuff because if you wait till 10am around here you'll miss out. We have a TON of flea markets in NW Arkansas and a lot of people are out shopping for their booths. 

My main goal today was to find great condition gently used clothes for my daughter for school and if I just happened upon any bargains or deals I would definitely snatch those up too. ;)

So, here is today's haul...

1. A handy dandy hanging organizer for my youngest daughter. Love this one because it's double sided which means tons of pockets for little toys! My youngest is completely in love with blind bag toys. Though she loves LPS blind bags she'll go for any blind bag as she is starting her own youtube channel soon. We really needed a place to store all those fun tiny toys and this is it. 

2. I'm always on the lookout for new toys and gifts during the summer's yard sale season to put away for Christmas. This one looks like lots of fun and will go to my teen son. Boys and men are so hard to shop for, especially when they aren't especially digitally inclined. I think this will be a hit.

3. A very pretty white table cloth. My best friend's daughter is getting married outside in Sept and they have been searching high and low for vintage white table cloths so I've been keeping my eye out as well and this one was a steal at only $2.

4. Cute little mason jar,

 5. Second Cute little mason jar, 

6. Third cute little mason jar, 

7. Too too funny vintage inspired new dish towel.

 8. Lovely vintage gold to red candy dish

Ya just gotta love cool vintage stuff, especially when it's cheap! Lol

9. I adore this beautiful antique tin. It's got all the right colors and is so girly! Just my style!

10. Last night I made breakfast for dinner complete with fresh hash browns. I have very poor knife skills in the kitchen and I had said something about wanting one of these for Christmas. A handy dandy kitchen slicer. I'll have to try this particular one out and let you know the results. :) review coming soon.

11. A green chippy paint, handmade, antique wood box. LOVE!

12. A super cute black kids vintage chalkboard. This one is quite small, about the size of a sheet of paper but it will go very nicely with another one I have that is very big.

13. I've been needing something like this for quite a while. I have an older vehicle that is not compatible with today's gadgets so I need a speaker for my phone to play my tunes in the car. It's a scull candy portable speaker for your iPhone or MP3 player. Now I don't own an iPhone but it does hook up to any android phone as well so I will be trying this out and again I will be writing a review on it. 

14. This is just the most adorable book I have seen in a long time. It is called Fix The Toys by Dorothy N. King. It was published in 1950. It has eight characters that you have to match their heads to, to "fix" the toys. I have never seen a hands on activity book like this that was this old and this one has all it's pieces! So neat and a quick search online shows this book to be worth about $29, after paying $1 for the book and $24 for everything else I bought today, this one item will give me a monitary return of $4. So I get paid $4 to take all this cool stuff home!

Onto the clothing that I initially went yard saling to find...

15. Cute pink top

16. Cute striped top

17. Cute brown floral top

18. Cute fabric, rhinestone, and pearl necklace.

19. Cute white top

20. Cute cotton skirt with shorts underneath

21. Cute black pleated skirt with shorts underneath

22. Beverly Hills t-shirt

23. Butterfly t-shirt

24. Gray sweatshirt

25. Navy blue camo t-shirt

26. True Hearts jeans

27. Vanity jeans

28. Miss Chick jeans, like new, maybe worn once. I paid $2, used price they are worth about $30

29. Miss Chick jeans, like new, worn once or twice. Paid $2, worth about $25

And a big lot of Mary Kay products...

30-41. This last yard sale was a score, the Mary Kay stuff was all 50cents per package (not per item) so I got some Microdermabrasion mini kits, some smooth hands mini kits, some Timewise travel kits, samples, and some full size products. Also a very cute red makeup envelope. Full size tubes of After Sun Replenishing Cream, which have a price of $12 each, so those two items paid for my shopping trip today too, if the antique book hadn't already done that, lol. Some of these will end up being gifts for the holidays, for teachers, friends etc. Some I will be using myself and writing some reviews of.

Don't you just love yard sales?!

A fun new flea...

This flea market just north of Conway AR was pretty cool. So many perfect treasures around every corner. Wish i lived closer to it so i could go tjere all the time!

Yard Sale Saturday!

Got some fun stuff at a yard sale today.

First up is this uber cuteness bag by Lilly Bloom!

I adore the super cute fruit pattern with every color under the rainbow, in reality it could go with nearly every outfit a gal could come up with.

And the inside just sealed the deal for me, check out that to die for little coin purse with the cherries on it. Love, love! And turquoise is my favorite color ever so every time I look inside this purse it will make me smile. :) all for the bargain price of $5 yay me!

And I also got some new makeup...

All new and sealed all by Kleancolor, a brand that I haven't yet tried but will be doing some reviews on shortly. For $1 each it will be fun to try. :) and I finally, finally found lip liner in the right shade of pink! I'm excited to try it out! :)

So those are my fun finds for the day. Hope you are having an awesome weekend!

Thrift Shop Thursday!

Just wanted to share a couple of my fave finds this week! Happy Thrift Store Thursday!

First of all I found these gorgeous red high heel shoes. I have to say I have never owned a pair of heels this high before and I was surprised at how well they fit and how easy it was to stand in them lol. So sexy and cute all at the same time. :) they were made by Rue 21 Etc.  I found these for only $4 at the Goodwill Store.

And I found this super cute 1950's half apron with tiny velvet hearts all over it. So adorable and a steel for only $2 at an estate sale. Happiness is cheap vintage goodies! :)

Love this swim dress...

So I got the swim dress I ordered in the mail yesterday from onestopplus.com and I have to say I am pleasantly surprised. I rarely order clothing online because I don't like the hassle of sending something back when it invariably doesn't fit. 

But for this swim dress I'll make an exception. It is fabulous!

It really fits nicely, the length is long and perfect, I have never found a swim dress that covered anything in the trunk area lol. Honestly I could probably get away with throwing a shrug on and wearing this as a summer dress. The only thing I need to change is adding a little more support up top, it's a bit loose, but a few darts in the liner will fix that no problem. 

I plan to get a second one in black because I know I'll never find another swimsuit that will fit so well and look so good on.

What's in a Name?....A Pin Up Name?

I suppose I should start out by introducing myself. Betty O'Belle is obviously not my name, my name is Thespa. 

I've recently, very recently, started working toward my vintage style, my "Pin Up Look". My hubby and I are planning a 20 year anniversary in Vegas to renew our vows and that is what started this whole obsession. Right at first everything seemed very overwhelming. 

I worried about what to wear, how to do make-up and hair, would I look rediculous? ect, ect.

So like many I went searching online, I made Pin Boards on Pinterest to keep anything that appealed to me. I've always been interested in vintage, retro, antique, etc so dressing the part isn't that far a stretch. As I searched high and low at Pin Up images and blogs, the idea that I wanted a "Pin Up" name started to stick.
So I thought, and thought, and the first thought was obviously Betty. Betty is just so sexy a name and of course images of Bettie Page spring to mind. So Betty it was for my first name.
I decided I wanted a middle name and Olive was it. Olive because I am Greek for the most part, North American Mutt truth be told, but Greek none-the-less. I got my Greek Name Thespoena from my grandmother. Also Olive because I do have the Olive skin tone. If I get even the tiniest bit of sun I tan instantly.
I shortened Olive to "O" partly inspired by the fancy advertising names given things long ago. Names like the Singer "Slant-O-Matic", of which I own one and love it, best sewing machine ever made in my opinion and the last Singer to be made with all metal parts inside and out.

And last I needed a last name, enter Belle. Because I live in the South, I've been a southern girl all my life, can't go a day without drinking good ole sweet tea. :) Southern Belle.

So there you have it...my Pin Up Name

Betty Olive Belle = Betty O'Belle

I'm just starting this blog, right here, today. It is now 2:21pm on a Tuesday and my children are scattered here and there in their various summer activities and job for the oldest one. My hubby of nearly 19 years is at work. It is unseasonably cool outside today, on a day that should have been like yesterday, 95 degrees and sweltering. Today I have all the doors and windows open and fans on to bring the air conditioned feeling of outside...in. I believe it is around 65 degrees. It is so nice I can't stand it and here I sit typing away. 

I should be out picking blackberries and chokecherries but I did that already...when it was 95* :(

 Anyway, I'm getting off track.

I've never really thought of myself as sexy, or beautiful. My husband always told me so but I never really believed him, lol. I've always been overweight my whole life. Two years ago I lost a bunch of weight, tried really hard, and have kept it off. Though when you have been overweight your whole life no one bothers to tell you that when you lose the weight you will have lots of extra skin that never goes away. :( That left me very discouraged and I plateaued afraid of even more bagginess. It's not terribly bad, just not what I had hoped for after working so hard to lose weight. But I am content with the knowledge that I am more healthy.

 Again I'm getting off track.

I've always been the type of person that cared what other people thought. Very critical of myself, and that left me in a bit of a lag for a long time. Meaning I never really tried to look better for fear of failing. Never really learned how to do makeup because I never wore it. Never really learned how to fix my hair because it was always up in a pony tail. Never had any fashion sense because I was always in a t-shirt and jeans. Are you starting to see a picture here? Yeah, not pretty. It's no wonder I never felt pretty, if you had to look at that in a mirror everyday you wouldn't feel pretty either, lol. 

My decision to go vintage was brought about by a very tough year last year in which I made it through things I never thought I could. I have started to look at my life and reevaluate what is important and what isn't. And I have come to the conclusion that I am important. I deserve to look pretty. I deserve to wear what I want just because I like it. I don't have to wonder or worry about what others are thinking because it doesn't matter, as long as I am happy with who I am and how I look. 

I've started dressing as myself. And who knew that myself was a vintage Pin Up?

I've felt happier, uplifted, and dare I say even Pretty? Yep.

Another fun thing that has happened is that while I'm in public in my retro style I have gotten compliments. Over the past two weeks of experimenting trying to find my style, I have gotten compliments, me, queen of frump girl land. I have never gotten compliments that weren't from family members before. I'm not sure if it's because I look better or because I feel so good or both. But this is definitely working for me. 

I hope to share my journey into vintage style. Make some new friends along the way and hopefully inspire others who are tired of being in that low point that it is so tough to get out of. 

I also want to share things I learn about hair, makeup, fashion, home making, and more.