On brooch bouquets and starting my own collection...

My bouquet was one of the most sentimental details in my wedding, if not my absolute favorite detail overall. I had originally wanted an all brooch bouquet; I thought they were so beautiful, but gathering the number of brooches needed to make a bouquet big enough was more work than I was willing to put into it at the time , plus I decided that I really still wanted a flower bouquet for aestetic and size reasons. So instead, I borrowed some brooches from my grandmother, hand wired them (by myself!) into silk flowers, and handed them off to my florist (more on her in another post) to put into a bouquet. It hurts that I couldn't have kept my bouquet like that forever- but flowers die and the brooches weren't mine to keep- they were a gift from my grandfather to my grandmother and she's not yet ready to part with them, which I completely and totally understand. I'm so thankful she let me borrow them for the day, because without them I wouldn't have had this:

Gorgeous, right? The star was one I had to plead with her to let me borrow it, because it's so stunning and the most precious to my Nana, but it completely and totally made the bouquet. I played with all these when I was very young, and it was sentimental to have them be my “something borrowed” on my wedding day.

Ever since then, I've wanted to find some brooches of my own to put on three of the four jackets I wear on a regular basis. The fourth is a ski jacket that would look downright stupid with a brooch, and BTW I don't ski so the only reason I have a ski jacket is cause I tried skiing once and hated it. My first time was at Sundance, actually, but it was awful- skiing, not the resort. Resort was awesome. I've been looking around for one (or three) I like, and I've realized that my taste is a little all over the place. And there's a fine line between cute and... not so cute. I bought these two at Target on clearance after I stopped by the jewelry clearance department on a whim. Alan said they look very Harry Potter-esque, but I've never read the books or seen the movies, so I wouldn't know about that:

But we went to the flea market just so I could find some vintage ones, and the flea market delivered! This is the first one I bought after looking around the first half of the market. Seriously, look at it. Those materials are EXACTLY the same as one in my bouquet (that I don't have a picture of, unfortunately). There is NO way it's not made by the same manufacturer, especially since they're built the same way, too. How weird is that?! I snatched it up right away and it was so hard to not let the vendor see how excited I was about it.

Second one I bought because it was just pretty and... bubbly. I love it, though. it's such a cool shape, and the bubble dangle on the end is such a cute detail.

Third one was won only after a fight! He wanted more than I had left so I had to walk away, but then I realized that I had a 10 in my wallet. Win! Some of the tiny little diamonds are dirty, but it's not that noticeable and the fancy pilot wings were just too cool to pass up, plus the wheel actually spins. I love how the shadow makes the shape of a plane!

I seriously could not be any happier with the ones I ended up with. There were ALOT of brooches at alot of different booths and I knew that it was going to be hard to make a decision, but the ones I bought were definitely the ones that jumped out at me more than any others. In case you're interested in starting your own brooch collection, I really liked these when I searched online. If you want more, they're not hard to find! Go to your local flea market that specializes in antiques/ collectibles (highly recommend this), or look out in department stores over the holidays!

Poppy from Macy's, Peapod from HSN, Owl from Modcloth, Crystal Round from Kate Spade,Crystal Drop Pin from Nordstrom

Elephants Trunk Flea Market

A HATES Halloween. He's not scared or anything, he just thinks it's a horrible, macabre holiday. So we went to the flea market this morning to celebrate before he works tonight while I hand out play-doh. I wore bat earrings, best costume ever. The thing about the Elephant's Trunk flea market is that it's about an hour and 15 minutes away on Sunday morning, and if you go to flea markets, you know you have to get there way early. We usually leave at 7 even though that's when it opens because we're not hardcore. And A does NOT like to get up early, but I don't make him go. In fact, I'd like to go by myself one day so I don't feel bad about him being bored except there's a doughnut truck there that has amazing doughnuts, so he's always wants to tag along! There's also a funnel cake truck, but since I started eating better, I couldn't eat them in good conscience. Anyway, I had a specific purpose for going this morning, which I'll write about in another post. But I took a lot of pictures while we were there, so this is mainly a picture post with some commentary thrown in.

Still so early...


First stop:


This was weirdly tempting. A said no way:


Before the sun fully rose. Still kinda dark.






Coolest lamps ever.


I bought the medium format Argus! Excited to see if it works or if it's just shelf decoration.


These may or may not have been part of my mission:


For real! You always see the "I Like Ike" buttons in history textbooks but I saw a real one!


Glove forms?




It really is such a great flea market. So much completely random stuff and if you haggle, you can get the prices down to a reasonable level. I've bought alot of stuff here even though we've only been twice. I'll show three things in the next post...