When will the collecting cease? (Never.)

I love having an apartment. It's great to have a kitchen and a bathroom of my own, especially after last year's dorm life, where I was awakened to the sad fact that girls can be just as gross as guys when it comes to maintaining bathrooms. The best part about an apartment, though, is decorating it. As you've seen from the first part of my "Antiques and Projects" series, I enjoy collecting furniture, decorations, and whatnot. My biggest weakness has to be covering my wall spaces. There's just so much room and my walls are white, so I need to liven things up. I thought I'd share with you all what movie craziness I have on my walls right now.

Recently I've become obsessed with lobby cards. It's weird since it always drives me nuts that they almost never get the colors correct (Jane Fonda and Rod Taylor's robes are blue!). Anyway, finding these were easier than I thought they would be. The ones for Lover Come Back and Sunday in New York are originals, but the Philadelphia Story ones are reproductions, albeit really good ones. Those also came in a pack of 8, but I chose the three I like the most to highlight.

I found these cool postcards on Etsy. The images I see of Breathless are always so romantic and cool, so I was really happy to find this postcard that reflected that. Those first two are like my Jean-Luc Godard double feature. I also enjoy that the card for Tiffany's is so different from everything else I've seen, probably because it's French. However, I don't get why the French changed the title to literally "Diamonds on the Couch". Oh well. Finding something for Tiffany's that doesn't have Audrey holding that cigarette holder on it is a win in my book. If I remember correctly, only the one for Une femme est une femme is a reproduction. And if you look at the Breakfast at Tiffany's one close enough, you can see my Minnie Mouse pajama pants. That's embarrassing.

This is in my movie viewing area, or the "living room". These adorable vintage metal signs were on sale at Hobby Lobby, who keep getting more and more awesome stuff like this. The smaller sign with the clapboard and popcorn is from a random trip my mom and I took to Garden Ridge. I love movie release posters (obviously), so when I saw this gorgeous poster for All that Heaven Allows on Amazon, I had to get it.

This really happened. I still can't believe it, but a few years ago I sent letters out to a couple different celebrities. I figured it was a long shot they would respond, but I hoped anyway. Well, after a while, I basically forgot about it...until my mom came into the house with the mail and goes "Uh, Michaela? Why is Dick Van Dyke sending you something?" We all freaked out. I had read in his autobiography that he actually spends time signing photos, and look at that personalization! The Leslie Caron one came about a month later, again to my surprise. This time it was from France! My dad was super puzzled when he handed the envelope to me, let me tell you. I didn't even send them these photos, they provided them themselves. It just shows you what class acts Leslie and Dick are (oh yeah, we're on a first-name basis now).

 

Are these not fantastic? I stumbled upon a great blog called Scathingly Brilliant two months ago, and the owner is such a great artist. Her name's Kate Gabrielle and she's self-employed through her artwork. I'm sad I just discovered her because she used to sell awesome portraits of classic film stars, but they all sold out and now she seems to focus more on her Etsy store, Flapper Doodle, which is where these babies came from (that's right, babies come from Etsy). I love each of these for different reasons. The top one is based off of a photo of Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire while they're rehearsing for Funny Face, and it has a Christmas theme, which is my favorite holiday. The three dancing flappers I thought would be cute to hang over my record player. Every time I see this third one, I get Glynis Johns in my head (it's a quote from "Sister Suffragette" in Mary Poppins). The last one reminds me of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, which may seem strange but there's been scenes in some of their films where they sit at a soda fountain and sometimes share a Coke or a milkshake. It's just cute, okay? Anyway, check out Kate Gabrielle's work sometime!

This is probably one of the more random things I've collected, seeing as how it's not movie-related. My mom works as a front desk clerk at a hotel that has the best antiques, and sometimes they let my mom buy stuff they've put in storage. She actually got this for free and instantly thought of me. It's originally from 1915, no joke. And the frame is beautiful. My pictures don't really do it justice because it's more gold and navy, but you get the idea.

With love,

Michaela