Guest post by Sophie of Her Library Adventures!

Hi Oh So Lovely Vintage readers, it’s Sophie here from Her Library Adventures.  I’m so delighted that Stef and Erin have invited me over today to share with you a little vintage inspired DIY I put together to jazz up some plain coasters for your next dinner party! Here’s how I made them..

What You’ll Need:  2 to 4 round coasters (I found these at my local K-Mart) and an vintage image or icon you would like to trace onto your coaster.  I chose this lovely retro flower motif from a vintage placemat I recently thrifted.  You will also need, white acrylic paint, a paint brush, permanent markers in a variety of colours,  Mod Podge, a piece of tracing paper, a pencil and an eraser.

Step 1 & 2: Paint a thin layer of white paint on each coaster and then set them aside to dry.   Once they are dry, add one to two more layers so they are well covered. Again set aside to dry.

While the coasters are drying, you can set to work on creating a stencil for your image.  Feel free to draw something free hand but this works well if you would like a specific image. 

Step 3. Trace around the desired image onto the tracing paper.

Step 4. Once you have traced around the image, flip it over and gently rub the pencil on the back leaving a fine lead film (this will create the imprint for your drawing).

Step 5. Flip the drawing back over and place it gently onto your coaster (make sure the coaster is completely dry first). Trace around the outline of your image carefully, ensuring you don’t press down too hard.

Step 6. Take the tracing paper away and you will be left with a fine imprint of your desired image.

Steps 7 & 8.  Using the colours of the original image as inspiration, take a selection of permanent markers and colour in your image.  (Of course you can paint it if you like, however I found that permanent markers were much quicker and easier to use.)

Step 9. Set aside to dry for about five minutes and then add 1 to 2 thin coats of Mod Podge to seal the image. Use the mod podge sparingly and try to work in the coloured area and then the white area to avoid the marker running. Once dry, your vintage inspired coasters are ready to use.  

Make them in different colours or add names or initials for a personal touch.  Set your table with a vintage twist and you are ready for your next retro inspired dinner party.

Thanks so much to Stef and Erin for having me today! You can pop over to my blog, Her Library Adventures to check out more fun and simple DIYs for you and your home. 

Much Love

Sophie

xxx 


footnote: Thanks Sophie for sharing this cute DIY project with us! We can't wait to try it when we get back from holidays! Sophie is a great friend of ours, who lives on the other side of the world in Australia, who we met through the lovely blog world! She also has a really fantastic blog that you should definitely check out: www.herlibraryadventures.blogspot.ca
XO, Stef & Erin

If you like Mad Men...

Then you will love...

The Apartment (1960) stars Shirley MacLaine, Jack Lemmon, & Fred MacMurray and focuses around the interoffice politics and relationships that take place during (and after) work hours. The men are very Don Draper-esque and the women are secretaries that give us a Joan or Peggy vibe. You can seriously see where the makers of Mad Men got their inspiration from!

The film is set in 1959 and takes place in a massive office building with tons of mid-century furniture to drool over. Now if only it was in color so we could see what that couch and those chairs really looked like...

Both leading ladies are cute as buttons! We especially love Shirley  MacLaine 's adorable pixie cut!

The movie is packed full of drama, romance, and laughs, so if you haven't already seen it, we highly recommend it! The Mad Men fanatic inside of you will thank us.

all images were taken as screen shots from the film.

Shoes for Spring!

Clockwise from top left shoe:

Cream & brown with stripes

Blue espadrilles

Forest green strappy sandals

Navy Salt Water sandals

Brown with wooden heels

Red strappy wedges

Turquoise with thick straps

Coral flats

We love kitschy art!

When you think "retro kitsch decor" what is one of the first things that comes to mind?
Paint-by-number paintings of course! We've gotta admit, we are total suckers for these and have a few hanging on our brightly colored walls! What about you, which one is your favorite?

image sources:

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Chocolate milk.

A little collection of pretty brown photos for your Hues-day viewing pleasure! Enjoy!

The prettiest little brown dress. The fact that it has a peter pan collar makes it that much better.

 

Amazing mid-century sofa.

The biggest collection of fawns we've ever laid eyes on!

Cute brown peep-toe wedges.

Chocolate chip cookie peanut butter cup brownies. Need we say more?

Get the recipe here.

Dreamy blunt brown bangs.

Kitschy pineapple shaped salad bowls!

xo

...and we're OFF!

Yay!!! We are in the air as we speak flying from Winnipeg to Vancouver, Vancouver to Hong Kong, and finally from Hong Kong to Bangkok! Yes! Yes! Yes! Good bye North America, Hello Asia!!!

During our 3 week stay in Asia we will be traveling to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Bali! Erin and Derek have been to all of these places before, but this is all new territory for Emery and I (well, except Bangkok for me) and we can't WAIT! We are so so excited to shop in the street markets, eat delicious Thai food, explore new cities, enjoy the heat and lie on the beach! Over the next couple of weeks you can expect little updates of our travels, and there will definitely be plenty of photos taken!

To all of our friends and family - we will miss you guys and see you all in just over 3 weeks!!! Woo!

Lots of love,

Stef & Erin

XO

photo sources:

bali, bangkok 1, bangkok 2, kuala lumpur

Hotel room service.

Eek! We can't believe that we are getting on a plane tomorrow to fly half way across the world to Asia!!! Excited doesn't even begin to describe what we are feeling right now! Since all we can think about is travel travel travel, we decided to do today's post about vintage hotels from the 50's & 60's. These hotels are absolutely out of this world. So... when can we check-in?

Two words: Aluminum umbrellas. I think I'm in love.

This classic 1960's poolside scene is perfection.

Here are a few ads for Hawaiian hotels all from 1955: 

(and all images were found here.)

A 1960's Polynesian paradise in San Diego? We're there!

We can't get over this dreamy 60's hot tub! Like, are you kidding me?!

A room with a view.

What about you, are any of you traveling anywhere interesting in the future? 

Or have your recently gotten back from an exciting vacation?

If so, we hope these images inspired you and brightened up your day as much as they did for us!

Happy Sunday, friends!

xo

Stef & Erin

Packed to the rafters!

With our flights less than 48 hours away all we can think about is packing packing packing!  So, here are a few things that we are bringing or things that we wish we could pack in our suitcases!

Photo sources:

pretty pleated dress, mint polish, polka dot platform, Benefit's 'Tan About Town', baby blue polka dot dress, yellow & pink bikini, striped bag, coral lipstick, & the latest issue of Frankie magazine. 

What we're in for...

 Well well well...it's Friday and that means 2 more days of work, one day to finish packing and then we're off on Monday morning, bright and early! We just finished our taxes, so we are now officially in holiday mode! Derek is already in Malaysia, he left ahead of the rest of us to go and watch the Formula 1 race in Kuala Lumpur, and we can hardly wait to meet up with him in Bangkok!! We know that we're extremely lucky to be able to go back to Thailand so soon, but we've worked really really hard to be able to get away, and have chosen to travel rather than take home pay-cheques until we managed to pay off all of our debt, which we can proudly say that we did! Today! Even more reason to celebrate on our holidays!

 It's been such a tremendous year, and we can't wait to work our first Spring and Summer in the shop! Until then, here are a few photos we've come across that make us even more excited to get away...if that's possible!?

We plan on doing a LOT of lounging. On the beach, by the pool, wherever we sit or lie down, we will lounge!  photo found here.

Mojitos! Need we say more? Photo found here.

Spicy Thai food! We can hardly wait! Photo found here.

Mango and sticky rice! Drooling just looking at this photo! Photo found here.

Thai popsicles! We can hardly wait to shop the Chatuchak weekend market in Bangkok! We're going to shop till we drop and then cool off with at least 2 or 3 of these! You can buy 3 for 30 cents! Photo found here.

Obviously we can hardly wait to sit on the beach and power tan! photo found here.

Twenty-five.

This past weekend I celebrated my 25th birthday! It was seriously one of the greatest birthday's I've ever had, and I think that the weather played a big role in that! March in Winnipeg typically means that there is still quite a bit of snow on the ground and temperatures rarely reach above zero degrees Celsius. Seeing as how I'm not a huge fan of snow, I've always dreamed about how fun it would be to have a sunny warm summer birthday. However, this year I actually got my wish! My birthday was the warmest day in recorded history and I was able to wear a sundress with bare legs for the first time this season! Yay! 

Did I also mention the fact that my birthday fell on a Saturday and that I had the weekend off work? So because of that we decided to take advantage of my time off and the beautiful weather and celebrate all weekend long! Here are a few photos that I snapped... 

Bare legs on our back yard patio & the prettiest coral dress that Erin gave me! Isn't she the best?! 

On Friday night I wore my favorite turquoise peter pan collar dress and had a wine & cheese party with my friends! It was a pretty relaxed evening full of chatting, music, champagne drinking and fruit & cheese eating. Nights like this are my favorite!

On Saturday night I decided to do a retro-style fondue party, so I busted out my favorite 1960's fondue pots, added 2 extra leaves to my teak table, and set out 8 place settings! We decided to make 2 different fondues on the menu for the evening: first was a chicken broth fondue rather than an oil fondue (a healthier option) which was served with steak, chicken, and shrimp. The second fondue was a gruyere cheese fondue which was served with green apples, pears, broccoli, red pepper, mushrooms, baby potatoes, and even fresh bread (baked by lovely friend Sonya!) The cheese fondue was absolutely heavenly and if you are interested in making it you can find the recipe I used here. I highly recommend it!

The fondue in action & my favorite green floral pot!

Loving my birthday gifts: new coral dress & records from Emery!

After dinner we played some of my favorite games like Catchphrase and my new favorite -  The Game of Things, which I got from my in-laws! These games are seriously the best, we all have so much fun and laugh so hard every time we play them! After that we went to a watch The Ripperz play a St Patrick's day show at a local bar.It was a fantastic to end to an amazing weekend! To all my friend's and family: you guys seriously rule. I am so lucky to have you all in my life! I don't know what I would do without you all!

Lots and lots of love,

XO, Stef