A Peach of a Day: NotL Peach Festival and Classic Car Show

A couple weeks ago was the Niagara on the Lake Peach Festival! While the festival itself is unfortunately pretty lame, with $6 peach ice cream cones and tourist souvenirs sold on main street, it was also the day of the major classic car show in town.  Ephraim and I made a day of eating peach pie in a graveyard, and checking out some sweet rides!  Here were my favourite cars this year.

We even got a cool piece of local history, with an old firetruck of the town's being displayed.  Super neat!!

If you'd like to check out my favourite cars from last year, you can check those hot rods out here!

--Erin

O.O.T.D: Drive Your Chevy to the Levee

With the classic car show being in town, I couldn't resist dressing up a bit for the occasion.  Add into the mix the crinoline I scored from The Lover, and you have some real swing capability! I used the crinoline to dress up an old H&M dress I've had around for ages.  Ephraim couldn't believe how much the extra floof transformed the silhouette, and people who came up to me to comment on my outfit totally thought it was vintage.  Not bad for a cheap mall find from high school days! I had originally put together the outfit with my cropped denim jacket, but it had become quite warm and we'd been walking around for a while by this time, so I ditched it.  To make up for it, I posed next to a gorgeous car.  A gorgeous car I couldn't touch.  Turns out that makes for some awkward posing, haha! This was the first time I confidantly posed for pictures in public.  By this time I had spoken to a couple sweet old ladies about my dress, and been asked if I was returning from a dance, and had been stared at by so many menonite children that it just didn't seem to matter anymore. 

The Deets:

Dress: H&M, approximately 1,000,000 years old

Crinoline: Vintage

Sandals: Saltwater Sandals

Good boyfriend thinks to get a shot of the sweet button up back.  Less-good boyfriend doesn't tell me my tag is poking out...

Bonus Boyfriend Shots!! His shirt is covered in bear heads, and I think it's amazing (and really hilarious!!)

To the lady who asked me to "do a 50's dance", I'm really sorry that I don't have any sweet moves....yet.  Here's a twirl for your trouble.

--Erin

OOTD: His and Hers - Green Duds and Fancy Wheels

These photos were something of a spur of the moment type happy accident.  It was the first really warm and sunny day this year, and Ephraim and I spent the afternoon running errands in St. Kitts, with the plan of finishing up with going to see the new Evil Dead movie.  But wouldn't you know it, we ran out of things to do a good hour before the movie started, and so we hunted for a coffee shop to wait in.  In our search we ended up trying to turn around in this parking lot, and found this SUPER SWEET old car!! And well, when you come across a beaut like that, no matter how windy it is (and oh, was it ever!!) you take some photos! So here we are showing off how much green the two of us can wear.  This was unplanned, but dammit, neither of us was changing, that might be dumber than coordinating our clothes to begin with!

I can tell it's going to take some getting used to and maybe a bit of problem solving to deal with just how incredibly crazy the wind makes my hair now that it's so much shorter.  It looks like I'm going to need to invest in a few more hats! Which is a solution I can really get behind :). 

The skirt I'm wearing came from my grandmother.  At first I wasn't so sure about the skirt, as the style of pleating and the (albeit faux) front buttoned flap is very 1910's; which, when it's a time period you typically work in, can get a little too costumey for my taste.  Digging through my closet to find something to pair it with, I realized this 1960's top matches the colour perfectly, and happens to be just long enough to tuck into a high waisted skirt! it really was meant to be, I think!  And wouldn't you know it, the folks at work quite liked how Shavian I look in this outfit.

THE DEETS

(hers)

Striped Shirt: Vintage, free from work

Cropped Denim Jacket: Charlotte Russe

Green Pleated Skirt: Vintage, inherited from my grandmother

Scarf: Thrifted

Matryoshka Lapel Pin: Cry Wolf

Belt: Church Sale

Tights: ??

Brown Booties: Vintage, Toronto Clothing Show

(his)

Sweater: Gift

Jeans: Levi's

Shoes: Converse

I hope your week is off to a great start!
--Erin

My Weekend in Retro Specs v.8: Kensington Market

I know, I know, it's Wednesday.  But in my defense, I worked Saturday Sunday and had Monday Tuesday off, so today is kind of like Monday, right? Right.

This hot and sunny Saturday I headed down to the Kensington Market in Toronto for some shopping and hallowe'en costume scoping, as well as picture taking.  It was a gorgeous day to be outside, perhaps almost a little too clear skied and hot, but it poured all day the next day to make up for it.  Gotta enjoy it while it lasts!

Bungalow is one of my favourite stores I never buy anything from.  You know the kind? They have tons of stuff that's right up your alley but never anything that screams you and you don't need expensive furniture for your furnished apartment? The store is beautifully curated and sells both new and vintage clothing including menswear, and lots of Teak furniture. They also have another small location right across the street that stocks mostly vintage clothing.  

Kensington Market has scores of restaurants, fruit/cheese/fish shops, bakeries (My Market Bakery holds a place in my heart), bars, and most importantly, patios.  There's a lot packed into this small neighbourhood, which is best enjoyed on the monthly Pedestrian Sunday, when no cars are permitted in the market. 

Vintage reigns supreme here. The storefronts are all colourful and loud, the shops themselves cramped and dim and full of treasure.  I made an incredible score this weekend that I am excited to make some new buttons for and take pictures of! Some shops, including Courage My Love, have been in the neighbourhood for decades.

With a wide variety of stores, foods, and cultures to offer, Kensington Market has always been one of my favourite neighbourhoods in Toronto to wander for an afternoon.  Of course no trip to Kensington is complete without a stop by the Garden Car.  This is the second incarnation of the garden car, the original of which was created in 2006, and updated to a newer model this summer.

Director's Project is in only 2 weeks and things are crazy around here until then! I'm glad I could have a couple days in Toronto before work consumes my life! Plus now I have a new thing to keep me going: Hallowe'en! I saw lots of costume stuff in kensington and made the first step toward my costume for this year! Does anyone else start this early or is that just me??

--Erin

Fuzzy Peaches and Automocars

This past weekend, Niagara-on-the-Lake had its Peach Festival, and a Vintage Car Show! Now while I messed up the dates for the Town's peach festival (turns out that was on Saturday, whoops!), a church on the main street was having their own peach festival the day after.  I am not one to turn down the possibility of pie for breakfast, so we made a stop at the festival Sunday morning to enjoy some pie (with ice cream for some of us) and peach punch (basically just canned peaches with Sprite).  Breakfast of champions, clearly!

I had known about a car show down the street from me for a while now, but I had no idea how big it was going to be! They even charged admission, which is unusual for these parts.  I love old cars though, so it had to happen.  I had my camera charged up and ready to roll! Ephraim and I tend to gravitate toward some items for the same aesthetic reasons, and cars tend to highlight that.  Needless to say, we both enjoyed the eye candy, and passed the camera back and forth a lot!