Thursday Thoughts: Holiday Shopping & Shipping

Where did October and early November go? Wow. Amazing how the time between the start of Fall and the holiday season gets faster every year!

We're working our little camera to death trying to get all our holiday merchandise up. It's time to shop for hostess gifts, a special something for that special someone, and heirlooms your little ones will treasure from here to eternity.

Let's see what we have...for the special hostess in your life, a lovely seasonal brooch may be just the thing. We have a lovely gold, textured, leaf brooch from Trifari that would be perfect year 'round.

or this lovely, autumn Weiss brooch! The colors are exquisite, and the size is perfect for just about anything from a blouse to a scarf:


Give the gift of an heirloom this year! We have nice vintage pieces looking for a good home where they can participate in the celebration of life and family for years to come. We're particularly fond of this sterling silver crucifix and chain:


Or update the dinner table or living room with these stately, yet charming, silverplate Gorham candlestick holders:


Whatever you do, don't forget about that special someone in your life! Celebrate their importance to you and their appreciation of the finer things with one of our Coro pieces. This lovely leaf necklace exudes elegance with a little flair:


The epitomy of last but not least, these Coro rosebud earrings! The background on which the rosebuds are painted reminds me of a wedding cake's icing - delicious!


But wait, you say, what about shipping?! We'll be updating our policies, tweeting, and posting notices here on the blog as well as Facebook about when the last day to purchase via regular USPS for delivery by Christmas will be.

We highly recommend USPS Express to guarantee arrival; it's the only method USPS guarantees within a specified timeframe. With the USPS location closings, we think Express may be the only way to go after the first week of December!

We are also looking into Christmas wrap, gift certificates, and all the rest. If there's anything you want us to offer that we don't - JUST ASK :-) We'd love that.

Tuesday Travels: Upstate New York

My mother and I have always had a fond spot for vintage items, preservation, and reunification. We have long loved the hunt for "buried treasures" in different types of stores. But two years ago this past August, my mother's aunt passed away. And we realized that even between the two of us, we simply couldn't ingest all that Aunt Kate had in her home.

So, we embarked upon our first series of sales on eBay under the name Mom and Misha. You can still find us there. While we don't have an eBay store; we do have a few auctions going at almost all times. The more we sold on eBay, though, the more we realized we wanted a full-time store of the really precious items, which is how A Vague reCollection came to be.

This past weekend, we went back up to my mom's aunt's. We have lots of 'new' vintage items to list, and we'll be doing so in the coming weeks! We have lots of jewelry and some Christmas decorations to list before the holidays; and we will be listing Lenox figurines and Fiestaware after the holidays most likely. Oh, and do we have anything you could need in terms of vintage buttons and seashells! All coming soon...

We'll try to get some pictures up tonight to whet your appetite!

Monday Musings: Workin for a livin, livin and workin

Sing it with me folks:

Workin for a livin (workin)

Workin for a livin (workin)

Workin for a livin, livin and workin

Im taking what they giving cause Im working for a livin.

Yeah...Huey knew what he was talking about! If you have checked out A Vague reCollection recently, you know we've been working. Okay, so we haven't been working on the blog as much, but, man, have we got some great stuff listed, now!

Check this out, a petoskey pendant and earring set from Bijou Terner:

When I was a child, we would go to my grandparents' on Lake Michigan and look for petoskey stones. I guess that's why this set is so special to us: reminds us of summers on the lake with our family. We hope you love it, too.

I know I've been promising a Friday Finds on Mini Mosaics, but I'm finally ready to follow through. We've got our mini mosaic bracelet listed, the first mini mosaic brooch we listed has sold, but I've got another that's even more precious (if you can believe that)! You can click through here to the mini mosaic bracelet. I've photographed the latest brooch, and will get that image up tonight!

Speaking of charming! Have we got the cocktail forks for you ;-) Honest, though...take a look. They are sterling silver, from Denmark, and have the most gorgeous royal blue enamel handles. And the crowns! I just love the crowns, don't you?

Well, I hope this tease of our new listings encourages you to visit our Etsy shop! We'll be back shortly with more pictures to share, and this week we will have a Friday Finds.

Oh, and the best part is we're going treasure hunting this weekend, which means more goodies to share with you in the coming weeks!! Let us know if you are looking for something in particular, and we'll keep our eyes open for you!

Up and Coming Pieces - Should Be Listed by Week's End

Here are some items we have been working to get listed. The first one hasn't been listed mostly because we aren't sure what it is ;-) Do you have any ideas? We'd love to hear them.
We are in heart of this sewing etui from Austria. We'll be sorry to see it go, but we're sure it's going to find a good and loving home! Maybe yours?!
Slowly getting into the world of supplies, we found this vintage, hammered metal buckle and button set still in its original packaging! Check it out!
Had no idea how difficult it would be to photograph black rhinestones, but it is even trickier than other pieces and forms of jewelry. But we're trying! Here we have a lovely tulip shaped pin in a black metal/black rhinestone fashion. Two of the rhinestones are missing, which we're trying to capture in the other/detail pictures. It's still precious, and happily due to the black metal background the lost rhinestones aren't terribly noticeable!

The tulip brooch is now listed!!

What's What Wednesday: Latest Listings & Upcoming Friday Finds

Hoorah! Beaded necklaces and Christmas goodies are getting listed. You must find something you like, now. Being a vintage shop, most of what we have is one of a kind. Which means once it's gone...it's gone. So we're recommend that if you see something you like, to buy it right away! There aren't more where these came from ;-)

Oh, and we're working on Christmas shipping schedules, gift wrap options, and so on. We'd love to hear what you do, what you'd like, etc.

Finally, we've been wanting to do this for awhile, but haven't seemed to be able to motivate ourselves and find the time: this Friday's Finds will be on Micro Mosaic pieces from Italy. We have a lovely one just waiting for you!

Monday Musings: Christmas Is Coming

Yup. Time to start prepping for Christmas in the shop, and it's only September! We have a lovely selection of beaded necklaces to list as well as Christmas-related vintage pieces. They're really quite fabulous.

Once the VJSE Back to School Sale comes to a close tonight, I think we'll launch a BOGO 1/2 off item of lesser value sale on beaded necklaces, and most come with free shipping!

Enjoy the Back to School Sale while it lasts! Then check back to see when the next sale starts!

What's What Wednesday: Latest Listings or soon to be listed...

As I mentioned in yesterday's posts, we have new things to photograph, describe, and list! Here I'm going to highlight a few things we got up last night and those things we hope to get up today!

Here with the lovely Audrey Hepburn is our clear rhinestone, bow-tie brooch:

And lovely button covers perfect for adding a touch of elegance to any outfit!

And a couple of necklaces we will work to list tonight:

They're up! They're up! Plus an extra necklace!

• Find the gray, black, white, and copper necklace here.
• Find the autumnal, segmented necklace here.
• And for good measure a pearl and gold toned necklace here!