Fancy Friday: Silver Belle, Ginormous Pants and T-Strap Flashback, Plus the Big Tree - European Glass

Hello, my friends, and happy Friday! I'm pulling out all the stops for my finals outfits of the year, and that means this amazing vintage top gets worn immediately. I've paired it with Trousers of Unusual Size, and the most Classy t-strap shoe ever. Additionally, I have all of my European blown glass ornaments to share with you, so get settled and enjoy. 

Friday's outfit. I was up and down in the elevator all day, dealing with couriers, picking up things from coworkers, and walking around with the person testing all our smoke alarms. My shiny outfit was much appreciated. 

No stair picture - it was dark out. 

• Top - handmade, vintage 70s, thrifted; purchased here for $5.95
• Pants - Linda Lundstrom, swap from Caro; last seen here in December 2019 with a giant vest
• Shoes - Amante, thrifted; last worn here in March with a suede slip dress and ruffles
• Coat (below) - Danier Leather; last worn here in November

This top needs a name so that I can search for it (I'm an avid user of the search function for finding my "last worn"s and "last seen"s). I'm thinking the Silver Belle. 

She falls into my once-a-year category of clothes, like my Hallowe'en dress, and yesterday's frilly silver skirt. 

The pants are ginormous - they are high-waisted (zip up the front) and slim-fitting to the upper hip where they flare out to a deep curve mid-leg, and then taper back down to a narrow cuff. 

They have pockets, as you can see in the first picture, and they're a stretchy poly-cotton blend. 

Masked up - this is my black mask with silver glitter snowflakes, made by Mom. 

I had a "happy hour" Teams chat with some of my wonderful colleagues in the afternoon - it was so good to see them. They appreciated all my sparkle. 

Outerwear - 80% chance of rain but it's not cold. Leather weather! 

Better wear my hat for the rain! 

It poured on the way home - my hat and coat are drying out. 

• Hat - Edward Mann, vintage 60s, thrifted
• Fur boa - thrifted
• Gloves - Betsey Johnson, thrifted NWT here for $7.95

Flashback - Amante T-Strap Shoes

I bought these shoes here in October 2016, at the now-closed St. Vincent de Paul store downtown. It was an amazingly great store for finding vintage and gems - on this same shop, I found my vintage Etro dress for $6.00 AND my olive green "fin" skirt for $8.00. 

These are classic shoes in every sense. It's a very 1920s-30s vibe, but the little platform is more current. Love that snakeskin print on the leather. 

They are by Amante, and were made in Spain. Those wee buckles are fiddly, but they do the job of keeping these securely on my feet. 

They were barely worn when I got them - the soles do not look like that now! Yes, they really were $10.00. 

I wore them in October 2016 right away with these amazing vintage velvet trousers. I was heartbroken when they were irrevocably stained on the front from a jam spill. Note that I am way ahead of the current trend of wide-legged pants - four years early! 

I also miss my collection of vintage 80s pussy-bow blouses, but I do have an upgraded red blouse from this one. 

This was a pretty standard office look from February 2017. I wore that grey cowl-neck sweater to death. 

Skirt Flashback here. 

The shoes filled a grey shoe void in my closet, and I often wore greys and blacks plus a punch of colour, as here in April 2017.

That ruffled blouse was so fun, but it had a habit of bursting open. Skirt Flashback here. 

The shoes work well with vintage-y vibing outfits, as here in August 2017. 

I gave that tunic to Yvonne, who rocks it. Skirt Flashback here. 

This is the only time I paired them with snakeskin, in October 2018.

Belt Flashback here. 

This January 2019 outfit had challenging proportions. I ended up getting rid of the jacket, and the blouse is long-gone. 

I kept the ginormous pants, though! These are the same ones I'm wearing today.

I was sick here in March 2019. I gave that wacky leather/suede shirt to Caro - it's fabulous on her! 

Skirt Flashback here. 

I relied on the classy vibe of the shoes to help ground this outrageous Casual Friday work outfit from March 2019. I don't really do casual like other people!

We'll see that skirt again - I love my leather peplum. 

Another wearing with this grey pleated skirt in October 2019 for my birthday week. 

I love all the textures in this. 

I ended up giving up both this cardigan (to Yvonne) and skirt (to Vero, I think). They just weren't quite right for me. 

Still a cute outfit - this was in January 2020. 

And here's the last time I wore it - with my paisley blouse (Flashback here). 

Again, the shoes are keeping everything grounded. I need to wear that dress again.

Mathy stuff: Well, this should be good, and...yes, with 12 outfits to their credit, the shoes are at a mere 83 cents per wear. Good stuff. 

Cat Interlude

This morning, I was awakened at 5am by the skittering of claws and the sound of something small and glass being whacked down the hallway. Uh-oh. 

I had a quick look around while I was getting ready for work, and yup, I found this. 

"Someone" has pulled a glass bulb right out of its housing! 

When I got home from work, I found the empty socket, but no housing, so I dug in my box of spare bulbs and found the right one for these lights (always keep spares!). 

I fed the bulb's wires through those two holes, bent them over...

Voila! the bulb is good to go, and the string is relit (I tucked that particular tasty light behind a branch to make it less tempting). 

And then I went looking for Vizzini. 

Buddy, 5am is not food time! You have to wait till 6am. 

"It's okay, I had a snack off your tree."

I didn't find the housing for the bulb, so he probably ate it. He'll be fine - he seems to have a cast-iron stomach - he's been eating our possessions for 10 years. He goes looking for things to destroy when he feels we're late feeding him. Vizzini, you are a Grinch!

The Big Tree: European Blown Glass Ornaments

We carried a big selection of these at Christmas House, and had many customers who came to us specifically looking for European blown glass. We mostly had very traditional designs (you can get all kinds of weird and wonderful novelty ones), and I loved them and bought one of everything. They remind me of my childhood, even though we didn't have any this fancy.

These were all between $11.95 and 19.95 - they were not cheap! Again, my hand is in there for scale. 

I have fruit on my tree. Of course I do! 

Would you care for a slice of lemon? This one has a few seeds. 

It has a lovely rind. 

Zesty! 

If you have blown glass in your own collection, take a look at the metal hanger on the top - if it's made in Europe (most of them are from Germany, Poland and there is also quite a bit of Czech glass out there), it will be stamped on the metal. 

See? Made in...Germany. 

I love this shiny cluster of grapes. 

That is a luscious purple. 

I'm not a fan of big beefsteak tomatoes, but I have one on my tree! 

This is a big one! 

I like my bananas like this - lots of yellow, a bit of green. 

L likes them spotty (ugh, so gross), so it all works out. 

It's a sugar-plum! 

I like the frosted glittery "sugar" surface and the wired fabric leaf. 

I like spicy food! 

I put one of these in every batch of chili I make. 

I love strawberries. 

Yum! 

The colouring on this pear is sublime. 

The way it tones from yellow to the reddish peach is perfect. It also has a fabric leaf. 

European glass is blown by mouth into moulds, silvered inside, and then hand-painted on the outside. This one is a free-form design, not using a mould, so every one was slightly different. 

I love that satin finish. 

Oh, yes, I would like this golden pear. 

These both have holes (deliberately) in the bottom as part of the glass-blowing process. 

By the way, there's a cool reality competition show on Netflix about glass-blowing, called Blown Away, that is really amazing (link here, 'cause I love). The art they make is stunning and there is no overdone drama with the artists. I learned a lot!

Moving along! 

I've been known to be a Drama Queen. 

It's only appropriate I have crowns! 

Especially purple and blue GLITTER crowns, right? 

Wee Polish glass hearts. 

These are from the older side of my collecting range, from the late 80s. 

Such traditional seasonal colours. 

And now an acorn. 

We have Gary Oak trees here, so yes, I needed an acorn. 

And a frog. I actually have many frog ornaments.

I like his Kermit eyes. 

And he's spotted. 

Oh, there's that Celestial again. 

Astronomically speaking, you can't have stars clustered like that next to a crescent moon. The moon is always a full circle - the crescent is the part the sun is shining on, and the Earth is the shadow, as we're between the sun and the moon. SCIENCE, people! 

I don't have any of my original childhood glass ornaments - those are Mom's and she still puts them up. 

My brother and I broke a lot of them, sticking our fingers into the centers. 

It's like an optical illusion - how far deep it is? We must know...*poke poke poke*

These are so sparkly. 

And I bought them in every colour: red, blue, green and gold. 

A simple red heart. 

My tree is full of love. 

I have only one of these clip-on birds - a lot of you will recognize it, I bet. 

This one has a fishing line tail - really old ones are spun glass and very delicate (my mom had some like those), and many come with real feathers too. 

Do you know about the pickle on the Christmas tree? The version I came to know was that whoever finds the pickle gets to open the first present on Christmas morning, but apparently there are many theories about where this originated (Wiki link here).

Whoa, this is jaw-dropping:

a Victorian era tale of St. Nicholas saving two Spanish children who were trapped in a barrel of pickles by an innkeeper, which actually derives from a much more gruesome medieval legend involving a cannibalistic butcher butchering and storing a group of boys in a barrel and St. Nicholas miraculously restoring and resurrecting them

Cannibalistic butchers!? A pickle barrel full of pickles seems like an...odd place to trap children. Oh, those blood-thirsty Victorians! 

Wait, that's a Highland coo (cow)! Oh, hang on...what's hiding back there?

There it is! 

Pickle found. L likes to go hunting for this as soon as I finish decorating. You get to open the first present, my love! 

Well, that was fun! I hope those brought back some memories for you too - do you have any of these same decorations? Do you have a pickle??

I'll be back on Sunday with tales of adventure, my friends. Thank you so much for stopping by! Tidings of comfort and joy to you all.