Christmas shopping time! While these are not gifts, I wanted to share with you some of the goodies I brought back from a recent shopping trip that was ostensibly to look for presents, but ended up…well…mostly adding to my own collection!

One antique store, though overall expensive, yielded up these delicate earrings and a 1930s hat to add to my very limited collection of 1930s hats.

The details even on a simple felt hat are just one reason why I love vintage millinery!

Also a whole stack of vintage patterns, for $1 and $2 each! This is the biggest find of vintage patterns I've found in person, and I got a bunch of them. Some I'll keep, and some I'm passing on via Ebay.

This one I'm keeping! I'm not sure about sleeping in a fitted nightgown, but I'll bet if I made a shorter version in the right fabric I could wear it as a dress and no one would know!

I rarely collect patterns later than the 1950s, but I loved this jacket pattern so much that I'm going to keep this one too.

Then at another store, at flea market prices, I scored some sewing notions (not pictured), and a few pieces of vintage jewelry for a few dollars each. I'm not good at dating vintage jewelry, but I'm going to use the rhinestone pin for 1940s and 1950s wear, and the wreath is perfect for holiday wear and had a unique color scheme. It seems to be quite old plastic – the kind that doesn't feel cheap! – so my guess is it's from no later than the 1940s. 

This balloon pin I don't think is vintage, though it's in the 1950s novelty brooch style, but it was too cute to let!

I hope to convert these gorgeous 1950s clip-ons to pierced earrings and wear them this holiday season! Not specifically Christmas as such, but the right color scheme. I hooooope they don't turn out too heavy as pierced, since they're too painful to wear as clip-ons and I really want to wear them!

Also I picked up there a pair of 1950s heels in my size, for $2.50! It can't get much better than that. I'd initially thought of selling them, since they are not my favorite style of shoe, but reconsidered since I'd like to have them to wear with my later 1950s costumes. Period correctness is important!

Altogether, it was a profitable shopping trip and I was tired but very happy afterwards!