Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to anyone celebrating! 

You can see more of Tammy's halloween party here at Flickr.

And for anyone interested - 

☠ I made a list of my top 5 Halloween appropriate films for scaredy cats at my movie blog.

☠ I made and uploaded two Halloween mixes on 8tracks: 2011 mix and 2012 mix.

☠ And I've reblogged a few Halloween-y posts on Tumblr.

Love,

Andi B. Goode

x

It's Tammy - she's the Ideal teen!

You all well know by now my obsession with Barbie - well, doll collecting (or collecting of any kind) can be a slippery slope and I've found a new (well, vintage) doll to obsess over: Tammy. She's the Ideal teen! Tammy was made by Ideal Toys from 1962-1966 as an answer to Barbie. Tammy is described as more 'wholesome' than Barbie solely based on her less busty appearance and more 'realistic' teenage figure.

To be fair, Barbie is meant to be around 18 or 19 and Tammy is 15 or so and, hey, some teenagers are more developed than others! But apparently a lot of parents preferred dolls like Tammy. I love them both equally! And I like to think that Barbie and Tammy (despite their many differences including age and the size of their heads) would get along well instead of viewing each other as competition. You can read a little more about Tammy here. 

My first Tammy! She is wearing a handmade dress that she arrived in (I've since redressed her and will probably swap this dress at some point) and Monster High glasses.

Just like Barbie, Tammy also had family and friends...

Two Misty dolls. Misty was Tammy's best friend and a little more glam like Barbie. I've renamed the Misty on the left 'Honey'. They are both wearing vintage Barbie fashions.

This is Tammy's little sister, Pepper. I love her little freckled face. She's only 9" tall, so about the same size as Barbie's sister, Skipper. Pepper had her very own wardrobe of cute outfits.

I bought her with this adorable carrying case.

Since I started this post in my draft, I've bought a few other outfits for Tammy but haven't got around to taking photos of them. Maybe I can do a follow up post if anyone wants to see my small Tammy outfit collection? She had a lot of great clothes!

I've also started a tumblr for my dolly finds - there will be more on that subject than there will here but there won't be as much as on my flickr: Oh You Beautiful Doll.

And I'll leave you with some of the original ads for Tammy - but be warned, the jingle is very catchy! I find myself singing it around the house every now and then...

Love,

Andi B. Goode

x

I'm a little pumpkin

Halloween still isn't the biggest thing in Australia, I guess, but I love the idea and most of my friends love it, too, and tend to get into the spirit one way or another! And I'm determined that I will be dressing up for Halloween every year from now on.

I got the idea of dressing as a pumpkin from Mary Van Note (by no means the first person to ever dress as a pumpkin but she was the one to inspire me!) and decided it would be perfect for the Swing Sesh Halloween Ball.

Costume details: stem fascinator - made by me; dress - made by mum; belt - Valley Girl; stockings - unknown; shoes - Rubi Shoes; shoe clips - made by me.

I initially wanted to do a jack-o-lantern face on the dress but just couldn't find a placement I liked so I just made a little inverse jack-o-lantern out of felt instead. I decided against face paint like Mary did because I can't stand the feeling of too much paint on my face.

I got the pom-pon jack-o-lantern pack from a craft store and decided I'd make them into shoe clips.

Not pumpkin, but still Halloween, themed - bat earrings that I got from a friend's mum years ago.

In my usual style I forgot to take many pictures at the ball but here are a couple of shots from the jack and jill competition (pictured above and below) - my favourite part of these types of dances is seeing strange pairings of characters dancing together!

And I did get this great photo of my friend, Abi, dressed as Sugar Kane from Some Like it Hot. Oh and if anyone in Adelaide wants to learn how to sew check out Abi's sewing workshop, Seams Nostalgic. All the info is on the facebook page so do take a look!

Luna Eclipse's Monster Mash fan dance was a lot of fun! (And the only other decent shot I got all night. Oops. I'm still working up to taking photos of people I know more often, let alone the people I don't know as well! But I'll get there.)

A pumpkin and a Marilyn!

Who else has been celebrating and/or dressing up for Halloween? I feel like I've been missing out on a lot of great costumes getting distracted by my own!

Love,

Andi B. Goode

x

Sunny day record shopping

Yesterday I was going to take a break and go to the cinema but I decided, as it was a gorgeous day, to do a spot of record shopping instead. Now my feet are wishing I'd gone and sat in the cinema - the shoes I wore are super cute but no longer good for much walking it seems, as evidenced by the blisters on my feet.

Scarf - op-shop; glasses - op-shop; sweater clips - etsy; dress - op-shop; bangles - various; belt - gift; shoes - etsy.

Mum snapped this when I was hiding from a car driving past (I hate getting caught taking outfit photos) and you can see how long my hair has got (and how I haven't been styling it at all, lately.)

I liked this lady's dress and her loafers.

One of my favourite buildings - it's on the opposite corner from the other one pictured and I like the contrast between them. Adelaide is kind of...higgledy-piggledy when it comes to architecture style.

I got some photos done in the photobooth. I love photobooths but I might need to practice some poses or every single strip I take will look the same. Then again, some of my favourite photobooth photos are very samey.

Adam Ant finds - 2 Adam Ant 45s (Goody Two Shoes is one of my all-time favourite songs) and an Adam & the Ants LP!

And my bargain bin finds! Robert Palmer, Jim Reeves, Gloria Gaynor, Cilla Black and Donna Summer. Most of my favourite records are from bargain bins - I clearly have discerning taste in music. Ha.

Who else enjoys record shopping? I'm starting to run out of room for my collection...time to cull to just the essentials? Or just find more room, maybe. Ha.

Love,

Andi B. Goode

x

Adventures in Melbourne...

I went to Melbourne over the weekend (and into the beginning of the week) and, in true Andi fashion, don't have a whole lot of photos (aside from those I took at the NGV) to share. But I figured I may as well do a post with the photos that I do have and hope you enjoy them, anyway.

The obligatory hotel room photo. It was pretty basic but I don't really need much more than a room and somewhere to shower.

Outfit for my first night out (with a shot of Tomorrow Never Dies in the background) - wearing an ASOS dress.

Went to meet a friend and see her talk on a panel thing at Rue Bebelons and briefly attended the Melbourne Fringe closing party. I only got a very poor quality iPhone shot of my friend and I together unfortunately, which I've not included.

I wore one of the vintage dresses I took over on Sunday (it's one of my favourites, actually).

I arrived early, as usual, to Thousand Pound Bend - I loved the set-up. Overall it was pretty good but my company was better!

The very lovely Marianne and Hannah (who doesn't have a blog, yet) were my company for the morning. Luckily Marianne got a lot more photos than I did so you can see some more shots at her blog, if you haven't already!

And then I didn't get any other photos (except another iPhone shot that wasn't very good) of anyone else I met up with, which is a pity because I really have a whole lot of attractive/stylish friends! It's a bad habit of mine to forget to take photos of people and I'm slowly trying to break it. But I did get a lot of photos of art I like...

But first, my outfit for wandering around the NGV - clearly my most art gallery appropriate attire! Ha. My earrings are home-made (hot dogs!), my blouse is from ASOS and my pants are Miss Hussy (now defunct).

I very much enjoyed The Four Horsemen display (especially all of the Dürer prints) - these were from the series The miseries and misfortunes of war by Jacques Callot.

Boulevard Montmartre, morning, cloudy weather by Camille Pissarro - I love street scenes and Pissarro did some of my favourites.

Another of my favourites in the collection: a bronze casting of Francois Pompon's Ours blanc.

Two beautiful paintings: The reader by Wyndham Lewis, 1936 and Girl in black by Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, 1930s.

Two cats by Gerhard Marcks (forgot to write down the date.)

Chair designed by Gerrit Rietveld in 1917 (this one was manufactured in 1970) and a painting by Ben Nicholson titled 1938, painted in 1938. Ha.

Chair designed by Michele De Luchhi and room divider designed by Ettore Sottsass. I love love love the Memphis Group! The use of colour and all of the shapes and everything.

And I couldn't not include this self-portrait by Andy Warhol - we share both a name (close enough) and birthdate! (Though, obviously not the same year...)

I guess you can tell that Modern Art is my favourite period (followed by Postmodern)? As vast as Modern Art may be, so much of the art I love most was made during that period.

And I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate this amazing cake. It tasted as good as it looks, as well.

Apologies for the possibly sloppy post - I lost steam by the end!

Love,

Andi B. Goode

x

Two Vintage Suitcases

I had this post set up for when I was meant to be away and it's been sitting in my drafts since my plans changed. As I'm off on a short trip over the weekend and part of next week, I decided to publish this post and hopefully I'll have a lot more to post about when I get back!

I love vintage suitcases. There is something inherently charming about them, I think. Wondering who owned it before and where they went with it. Looking at the dents and scratches and so on. Solanah's guest post inspired me to post my own (much smaller) 'collection'.

These are my two vintage suitcases, one of which I was given as a gift, the other I happened upon in an op-shop whilst looking for books.

The first one was found in an op-shop - as I said, I went in looking for books and nearly didn't look around the whole shop. Luckily, I did and I found this lovely little thing sitting on the floor and promptly picked it up to buy. I'm currently using it to store some of my Barbie collection - it's the perfect size for all my childhood dolls.

I love the little witch silhouette on this one.

The bigger suitcase below was given to me as a gift from my dad's partner - she'd had it since she was using it in the 1950s. (The photos were also taken on my newest camera before I'd read the manual so I didn't yet know how to control all the settings properly.) This one is home to most of my coats.

I honestly can't imagine travelling with this, except maybe on a road trip, because it's so heavy. But gorgeous.

Who else loves and/or collects vintage suitcases? (Not sure I'd exactly call myself a collector, yet - I'll wait until I have a third or maybe a fourth.)

Love,

Andi B. Goode

x