freshvintage

Favorite Online Home Decorating & Design Magazines

The last few years have been pretty disheartening for those who work in the magazine publishing business. Not to mention those of us who read magazines (RIP, Country Home & Cottage Living). But with this downturn comes the rise of online magazines.  Sure, they are a little awkward to read, and they will never replace a big glossy magazine that you can take to the beach, but they are better than the alternative: no magazines at all! 

Digital magazines are less expensive to produce, so it is pretty clear why they are gaining in popularity. And I love that they enable small businesses to buy ads that they never would have been able to afford in traditional magazines. I seem to notice the ads in online magazines more than printed magazines, don't you? Also, I like that many of the ads and shopping resources are clickable, so I can visit a website immediately.

Here are a few of my favorite online magazines from all different genres: home decorating & design, crafts, weddings, children, and entertaining...

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Lonny
If you loved Domino, you will love Lonny. Read the story of Lonny in this recent New York Times article.
 

Nesting Newbies
Geared towards those "who are new to nesting and have no clue when it comes to cooking, entertaining, and decorating".
 

N.E.E.T
Lots of cool vintage & handmade stuff. "Grassroots creativity" at its best.
 

Sweet Paul
New magazine from Prop Stylist & Blogger Paul Lowe has articles on crafts, recipes, entertaining, wine and more.
 

By Fryd
Definitely a favorite of mine. DIY, home decor, shopping, and just all-around Scandinavian cuteness from the creator of the Fryd + Design blog.
 

Nonpareil
This is primarily a wedding magazine, but it has lovely ideas that you could use for any event. The latest issue has a wedding inspired by Pride and Prejudice, titled Happily Ever Austen. A must-read, for Austen-lovers and even for brides like me who were married nine years ago.
 

Utterly Engaged
Another beautiful, fresh wedding e-magazine.
 

Maeve
Yes! Maeve! The best name for a magazine ever! The premiere issue of this Australian magazine has a cute fashion spread featuring clothes bought at op shops (or thrift stores, as we call them in the US).

 
lmnop
I love the tag line of this Australian children's magazine:
laugh • make  •  nurture  •  organize  •  play
Get it? L M N O P?

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Do you read any of these? If I missed any good ones, let me know in the comments.

And, hey, while I am asking questions...what is missing from that list? Where are the vintage or antiques-related digital magazines? The ones along the lines of our favorite paper magazines: Country Living, Better Homes & Gardens, Flea Market Style. Does anything like that exist?

Alphabet Frenzy and Funny Google Keywords

I like letters. Anything with letters. Not just one or two letters. LOTS of letters. And numbers. Remember the metal stencils that I bought at Renninger's a few years ago?

And these Spanish flashcards?

And these flashcard letters?

Well, here are a few more recent additions to my alphabet frenzy:

This is a BIG box filled with letters that are used for display signs.

Each letter has pins on the back for attaching to a board.

They are very similar to the Mittens Professional Movie Titlers that I wrote about in my post on creating fabric-covered corkboards.

Well, I bought another set of those on eBay.

I couldn't resist!

Speaking of eBay...did you ever see a photo of something on eBay and you imagined that it was a certain size, but then you won the auction and got it in the mail and realized you were waaaay off?

That's what happened when I bought this set of rubber alphabet stamps, called "Aristocrat Sign Marker". I thought is was a small wooden box filled with tiny rubber stamps.

Nope. The stamps are huge. The box is over two feet wide. Even the wooden ink pads are six inches across. Don't get me wrong - I am glad that it is bigger than I imagined.

That's what she said.

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Every once in a while, I look at the keywords that people type into Google in order to reach my site. Most of the time, it is words like "fresh vintage" or "fabric-covered corkboards" or "yard sale blog". And then there are phrases like the ones below. The people who typed these definitely weren't looking for a yard sale blog...

shit smells like copper

my sister the family hooker

where to find hookers in warren, ohio be honest

i could see her maxi pad thru her white pants

using pee jar for bedwetting son

why is alexis stewart hateful to martha

sexy fun in lancaster, pa

vintage barn sex

boobes firnicher   [looks like something my 5-year-old would type]

where do i sell the collection of cock socks that i have designed

big tits and white aprons

rods like moses for sale

everyone's yelling at me because i'm super duper drunk

have you seen my sanitary napkin belt?  [No, but I am certain that Mr. Google can find it for you!]

What's keuken, good lookin'?

I am back to my old ways again. There were tons of yard sales last weekend. I brought the kids with me to a few of them. Maeve found a Barbie motor home that she couldn't live without and Finn bought a bin filled with Legos. I told him that he was VERY lucky that he was with me. Because his beautiful blue eyes never would have seen that bin if he hadn't come yard-saling with me that day. Straight to eBay!

I paid $55 for everything in this photo. I know - it seems high, doesn't it? It looks like the days of paying a buck for everything are waning.

The three vintage 1950's linens were the most expensive ($25 for all three). But they are hard to find in such nice condition. I also found a box of knitting needles and some old circular knitting pins.

This wire letter tray was a quarter! It will look nice on my desk.

I bought the Mohawk Minnow Pail because of the green graphics (which are tough to see in this photo). I think it would look great as a decoration in a man cave.  And how about that wooden Underwood Typewriter box? I have a few Underwoods lurking in my garage. I will probably bring this box to the shop and plop one of the typewriters on top.

The other side of the box has the original railway paper label:

I visited the Cottonwood House Spring Extravaganza last weekend. The organizer, Verna, has the most beautiful property on the edge of Chester County, PA. She has a great selection of antiques, and also brings in other vendors to sell their vintage finds. I get sick and tired (and jealous) of reading about all of the fabulous vintage sales in the Pacific Northwest and California - so I am glad that we have the Cottonwood sale in my neck of the woods.

Anyway, that's where I scored my Find of the Week: a big black enamel Keuken pail.

What the hell does keuken mean? I had no idea when I bought it. It could have meant "crap" in German for all I knew. Luckily, after some Googling, I learned that it was not, in fact, a crap bucket. Keuken is "kitchen" in Dutch. It is also used in a funny phrase, as defined in the Urban Dictionary.

And now, for the finale: The Intimate Side of a Woman's Life, published in 1940. I gave you a glimpse of it on my Facebook page. With sections titled "Constipation", "The Arm Pits", "Moulding the Breasts" and "Woman's Problems", I would say that this book is well worth the one dollar that I paid.

There is so much talk of douching in this book: techniques, equipment, diagrams of proper insertion, the recommendation that douching during pregnancy is perfectly safe because "marital relations are carried on during pregancy so what difference can there be". This is my favorite list of "Don'ts": 

It's like:

Douche. Douche. Douche. Don't lift heavy weights. Douche. Douche. Douche.

In this list of "things to remember", we find a stunning revelation: most divorces are caused by smelly crotches.

Hey, you French ladies with saggy boobs: ALL FRENCHMEN THINK YOU ARE UGLY:

I will leave you with this page in the chapter titled "Leucorrhea". I had never heard that term before, and neither did any of my neighbors (as we were drinking wine and reading from the book aloud on my deck). I don't even want to mention what Leucorrhea is, for fear of getting unwanted Google traffic from people searching for "vaginal discharge".

Oh, well. I guess you know what it is now.

I tried to choose a short excerpt from this page, but I just couldn't. The madness just kept going and going, so I took a picture of the entire page.

Read it at your leisure, preferably with some Chardonnay and a few friends. And for God's sake, keep your vagina clean and your feet dry!

Weekend Diversions and My Invisible Bird

I haven't been shopping for junk lately. I've been spending too much time here:

That's my deck. It usually has barbies, empty beer bottles and three-day-old banana peels on it. But I classed up my act a little bit for photographic purposes.

As my Facebook fans know, I planted some gerber daisies in a falling-apart tool caddy. (Read about all of the cool old stuff that they use for planters.)

We headed to New Jersey over Memorial Day weekend. My dad lives at the beach, near Atlantic City. (You may remember that fact from this heart-warming story).  My mom lives on the way to the beach. She decided to build an inground pool a few years ago as a sickening ploy to distract us on the way to my Dad's.

We always seem to fall for her trickery.

The regular pool was a little chilly, so the kids kept gravitating towards the hot tub. Here are 11 of the 15 grandchildren on my side of the family.

I don't think all the chlorine on earth could kill the poop and pee bacteria in there. I wonder how many times my mom has shocked the pool since Saturday.

The next day, we headed to my dad's. During the 40 minutes between my mom's house and my dad's house, I saw at least 15 yard sales, junk-filled antique stores and new-to-me flea markets. It took all of my strength not to tell Chris to STOP THE CAR! I would have sacrificed a few hours at the beach for a few hours of junking. My family doesn't share the same sentiment.

Look. Maeve's totally not even having any fun:

And Finn looks like he would much rather be following me through a dusty antiques store than playing on the beach with his cousins, Peter and Cade.

Whatever. Someday they will learn about real fun.

Oh - but I DID hit a pre-Memorial Day estate sale.  This might make up for a whole weekend without going to yard sales.  It is a four-feet-high wire birdcage with a detachable planter at the bottom.

Here is the planter part:

Can you see the sliding door? It gives me easy access to my bird. (That's what she said.)

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How about a behind-the-scenes look at how I rigged the birdcage? In order to take pictures of it, I used string to tie the birdcage to the railing on the second floor of my entryway.

It was kite string. Which was really stupid, since the birdcage is very heavy and the string is very weak. Lucky for me, the string didn't break and the birdcage didn't collapse. I would have hated to explain the scratches on the wood floor to Chris. "It was horrifying! I was taking pictures of my invisible bird for my blog and the kite string snapped and nearly crushed me." I don't think I would have gotten much sympathy.