Birthday Giveaway Winner!

This is my cat Nigel Bunster. He has a paper fixation. When he's upset or bored, he will shred paper and boxes. He has literally eaten my homework if I am silly enough to leave it out.

Here is a sample of his handiwork. He's very thorough, don't you think? The funny thing is, he's missing most of his teeth, yet he still manages a masterpiece like this.

So, it seemed like a natural choice to have Nigel help me choose a winner for my giveaway, since I was putting all the entries on paper and picking from a hat. Actually, what I did was put all of the entries into a hat to shuffle about and drop them on the floor in front of Nigel. True to form, he sniffed them over and picked one up to begin chomping on it. That chewed up, spit covered winner is:

HEY KIDS! The original winner for my giveaway never responded, so a new giveaway winner was picked:

MISS CHERRY BUBBLES!

Congrats Miss Cherry. I sent you an email and you have 48 hours to reply. If you don't get the email for some reason, contact me!

Thanks to everyone else. I will be having another awesome giveaway soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

Vintage Giveaway (closed)

The delightful Brittany at Va-Voom Vintage Blog is having her first giveaway to celebrate 100 followers. She is giving away the following:

Ends April 6th, so hurry on over and enter. I know I did!

Talking about giveaways, keep your eyes peeled for the winner of my birthday giveaway later today!

Blog Specials #5 (closed)

This batch is closed. Anything that wasn't SOLD is available in my etsy store, Tart Deco.

Here is the fifth set of items at a special blog price to my readers. These blog prices are 30-50% less than what they will be listed as on etsy later. Remember the rules I posted earlier, you have 3 days from posting to contact me to reserve the items at the blog price. After that they get added to my etsy shop at a higher, permanent price. As always, click on the pictures for a larger, more detailed view.

Vintage 30s Evening Gown
34 bust, 26 waist, 44" length from waist

Beautiful moire taffeta bias-cut evening gown from the 30s. Side closure with hooks and eyes. Ruched trim details the sweetheart neckline and around the hem. Metallic trim has been added to the dress, which is not original, but is easily removed if desired. The back is low and square (see picture).

The dress is in excellent condition and I have not been able to find any issues with it. View the detail for a better view of the color, which is a darker salmon.

Blog price- $30, plus shipping

Vintage Pink Gingham Apron

Cute as a button and ready for some spring cooking, this apron is in great shape and ready to go! Hand embroidered.

Blog price- $5, plus shipping

Vintage Brown Speckled Bib Apron

 Med/Lg

Handmade apron is in good shape (a few stray threads) with a full skirt and yellow ric rac trim.

Blog price- $5, plus shipping

Cheeky Sun Hair Flower Fascinator

Original Tart Deco creation with rust-colored mum nestled in the middle of a vibrant 6" yellow flower. Securely attached to a single salon clip and ready to paired with a fun Hawaiian dress.

Blog price- $12, plus shipping

So, that's group #5. You have until March 31st midnight, central time, to contact me to claim any of these goodies. First come, first serve and you may claim as many as you'd like (I will combine shipping for multiple items). Just remember that you have to pay within 3 days of your reserve listing or you lose the blog price, as per my posted instructions.

The Wayback Machine

I always assumed that if something was on the internet I could just bookmark the page and read it whenever I wanted. Now I know that is not true. Websites become defunct or migrate, or just plain disappear for whatever reason. Enter the Wayback Machine to save the day. An offshoot of the Internet Archive project, the Wayback Machine strives to archive the whole internet, starting from 1996 to a few months ago (it takes a couple months to archive the content). You can enter a url and the Wayback Machine will show you any archives it has of the page, including prior versions of the site.

While you are at it, make sure you take a moment to check out the Internet Archive too. What is the Internet Archive? Here's a quick blurb from their website:

Libraries exist to preserve society's cultural artifacts and to provide access to them. If libraries are to continue to foster education and scholarship in this era of digital technology, it's essential for them to extend those functions into the digital world. The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet - a new medium with major historical significance - and other "born-digital" materials from disappearing into the past. Collaborating with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, we are working to preserve a record for generations to come.

Open and free access to literature and other writings has long been considered essential to education and to the maintenance of an open society. Public and philanthropic enterprises have supported it through the ages. Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages in our collections, and is working to provide specialized services relating to training, education, or adaptive reading or information access needs of blind or other persons with disabilities.

I get a ton of 1920s/flapper music for research for my vocal group Bootless Betties on this site. It also has amazing videos chock full of vintage goodness from many eras. Make sure to leave yourself a few hours to peruse this awesome website.

Also, silently thank librarians for making this happen, because they are the gatekeepers of information and fight every day to keep knowledge available to all of us!

Outside Activities- Blog Swaps

Okay, I may be getting addicted to blog swaps. I am in 2 basket swaps right now and I had SO much fun putting together the baskets! Here are some sneak peeks of what I put together. Click on the pics for larger images.

Talking about giving and receiving- don't forget my birthday giveaway for a custom hair piece. Ends Tuesday night, so don't wait too long!