Lamp-o-mania

My favourite lighting store is having a garage sale!


Ok it my not be a garage sale per se but it is a sale! The tablecloth here gives it an outdoorsy garage sale feel.

I waltzed into Consumers Lighting & Lamps on Friday and the owner Sidney escorted me to the back area, where a good many lamps were between $5-$10 each.

Needless to say, I was in lamp heaven. If you check out my 'lamps' and 'lighting' posts you'll see I have 20.

Now I have more than 20.

Consumers has been around since 1961 and believe me, there's still scads of lighting from retro times of yore.


And there's every kind of lamp and lighting fixture available: chandeliers, floor lamps, table lamps, shades, sconces, you name it.



The lamp on the right is from India and has been in the shop since the '70s. It's on my bedside table now.

The tag doesn't lie: 5 bucks.

Why oh why did I leave the one beside it behind? I need another similar one for my other bedside table.

I love accessorizing with lamps in my space. I liken it to a gal's love for bling and accessories - you can create a whole new look by changing up the smaller parts of an outfit. And I do truly believe that accessories can make an outfit - or a room - come together.

I also picked up this silver lamp and shade for $10!

The lamp base is actually glass. I'm guessing it's 1970s, maybe 80s.

Of course, a room and apartment reorg is in process.

Just so you know, Consumers also does lamp repairs and has an entire second floor (closed to the public) of fixtures and lamp baubles to repair ailing or broken lamps. Just ask Sid what you are looking for and he will go on a dig for ya!

This is how my new lamp looks, with the neat $5 shade I bought to go with it. This was the last shade of its kind and I think it is so cool.

I am so going back for more.

Consumers Lighting is at 2482 Dufferin St. at Castlefield. It's a funny part of town but you can get to it on TTC via the charming 29 bus, heading south from Yordale mall or north frm Dufferin subway station. It is north of Eglinton but south of Lawrence.

Phone: 416-781-3607. Call for hours as I don't think they open late and they closed at 4 on Friday.

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Pepe jeans, too short & big

Ok, so you're looking at my butt again today.

But I just had to show you the ab fab detail on the pocket of my 'new' thrifted Pepe Jeans.

Aren't they boho chic?

Pepe Jeans is a London-based company and I'm betting their wares aren't cheap - haven't researched yet but I remember buying a pair 20 years ago and they were $$$.

These were $7.99 at Stretch Thrift.

I almost didn't buy them for me because they were way too short in the leg and big around the waist.

But I couldn't leave 'em behind. A belt solved the waist prob and some high heeled booties funkify the short factor, don't you think?

I love Pepe's roots: the company was started in 1973 bytwo brothers who sold their denim along London roadsides before hitting the bigtime.

The denim is so sturdy, and the detailing so wonderful, that I can understand why peeps spend hundreds of bucks on designer denim.

But they may not know the secret of shopping thrift. I buy all my denim at thrift shops and have found some excellent jeans, including Paige denim. Bongo jeans, though they are on the lower end of the jean scale, fit me so well and I always pick 'em up for $4.99-$6.99 a pair.

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Boudoir shots & ripped jeans

I'm feeling cheeky today, hee hee.

In truth I have been going nuts buying jeans from the thrift store. Now is the perfect time to wear jeans and blazers and scarves and do the whole layering thing.

I picked up these Parasuco jeans for under $10 at my local thrift shop, Stretch Thrift. They have these splotches of dark denim that make 'em look tres rock n' roll.

The rip you see here just happened when I pulled them up one day - I was going to get it repaired but figured I would tap into the whole ripped jean trend that's so hot now. Hopefully my pants won't split the next time I sit down.

Alas, I didn't have any one in my 'boudoir' to take shots of me in my jeans so I had to do the 'ole shoot into the mirror shot - hope you get the idea.

I kinda like the whole slips hanging from the mirror thing - they help to create that boudoir look that was partly the inspiration for this post.

I have more jeans shots to show you and have enlisted my photographer pal Chris to take some decent ones of me.

Tomorrow: thrifted jeans that are too short and too big - they work!

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I'm in love: Rafael vintage jewellery

I'm pretty happy here. It's spring, it's green, and it's warm.

And I love my new piece of vintage costume jewellery.

This statement piece necklace was given to me by a friend under sad circumstances, so it deserves extra reverence.

It's quite collectible, I think: a 1970s necklace by Canadian jewellery designer Rafael.

I'm wearing it here with a thrifted outfit: a JCrew wool blazer (under $10 at Goodwill or Sally Ann), faux croc sassy shoes made in Spain ($6.99 at Stretch Thrift), and a sexy skirt I recently thrifted at Value Village ($9.99). The cashmere sweater was a gift and the saucy crochet tights are new, natch

The piece is signed, and a fellow collector at the Toronto Vintage Costume Jewellery Club I have recently joined guesses, sight unseen, that it may be worth around $100. Not bad for vintage costume. But I am keeping it.

I love how it just finishes off the outfit. Statement piece necklaces are all the rage now so I'm technically on trend, even though I don't care a whit if I am.

Don't forget: if you're a vintage costume jewellery nut like me and live in the city, the club is having its big spring show & sale this April 24 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m at the Leaside Memorial Community Gardens.

I may see you there! Look for the gal in the vintage bling and a Grunge Queen 'tude.

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Decor starbursts: old cards & paper

I haven't done many decor-related posts lately, mainly because I'm not feeling as restless in my abode and the need to do a massive 're-org' has been curtailed - a good sign, perhaps on the emotional front!

Speaking of Emotional Decorating, one of my fave topics, I thought I'd share a few little ideas that not only make me smile but also make my space reflect The Essential Me:

When I get bored of an old gilt mirror, the side edge of which is pictured here, I tuck old cards and momentos into the edges of it.

I created this card for my Mom and Dad when I was a wee one, recycled from an old Easter card (as the pastel edges indicate). We kids used to go through the Sears holiday catalogue and cut out our fave images, then affix them on old cards. I just love this card, which explains why I snagged it from the folks! So on my little faux display board it goes.

This card was given to me when I was a young child and very sick in the hospital. It was given to me by my fave nurses and orderlies in the 1970s, who I still remember to this day. I think they may still remember me as I was the only child in an adult ward - plus I was, as the card says, A Sweet Girl!

I've hung onto it years and years. I just get the warm fuzzies every time I look at this little piece of my past.






This is the business card (sideways) of a local stylist.

I love the non-standard size (it's fatter than most biz cards), and the image is so lush.

Way too pretty for my Rolodex.

The black and white slip below is a scanned image from my highschool yearbook.

I used to dance quite intensively and this was a beautiful ballet piece I was in that was a re-worked choreography for the now defunct Theatre Ballet of Canada.

We used upturned umbrellas and danced to Debussy. Boy those umbrellas hurt the arms after dancing for over 5 minutes!

Guess who I am? (far right).

My best friend sent this clipping from a fashion or decor magazine.

She loved it and so do I: the clutch purses between the bookends are so very glam Grunge Queen!

Hope these little ideas inspire you a wee bit.

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Who says you can't be trendy & thrifty?

As seasoned thrifters know, thrift shops don't just house rejects from the 1970s and granny pants with elastic waists. The sad/happy paradox is that, with our disposable fashion attitude these days, there's often heaps of on-trend pieces to be had.

The trench has been big for the past few seasons and is still going stoing this spring, especially in fun colours like pastels and electric lime greens.

This Kelly green shade may be a little last year but I still love the trench - I found it at Goodwill for under $10, if memory serves. It's a Nygard poly trench with adorable silver button detailing and stitching.

I'm wearing it here, on a rainy spring day, with a thrifted black hoodie, a Wear White 4 Windfall tee designed by Franco Mirabelli underneath (given to me in a press kit for last year's campaign), and thrifted ripped skinny jeans, the latter of which are still on trend this season.

The scarf was new, bought in a moment of weakness when Anthropologie opened last year at the new Shops at Don Mills.

You can't see it but I'm wearing the skinny jeans with white sneakers (found on Orfus Road for super cheap.). Shades of grade nine circa 1984!!

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What would you do?

I am still casting an eye backwards to my fab vacay at home with the folks ... and to some furniture I left behind when I moved to Toronto five years ago.

This isn't much to look at now, stored in my sis's garage and all and heaped with junk, but five years ago it sat on a snowy curb in January outside an Ottawa antique shop for $250 ... until I bought it, that is.

It's a mammoth and Art Deco? style mantle/faux fireplace that actually came with a plug-in 'fire.'

I never moved it to Toronto as it's SUPER heavy - made of plaster or some such material - and would cost me mega bucks to move it up.

But oh, I love it so.

I doubt I'd be able to sell it for much on Craigslist, even though I'm betting these type things are all that plentiful in the vintage world these days.

It may not be the most USEFUL of furniture pieces, and I bet you may be having trouble imaging it a la decorative Grunge-Queen splendor with that pylon on the top, but I know I could, if I want to lay out the cash to get it up here, make it totally work in space (even if it meant letting go of something to make it fit in here).

What would you do? Sell and make some extra cash, though not much I bet, or spend cash to get it here and keep it forever?

Right now it's making me a little weepy to think of it all alone and forgotten in that garage.

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